The Times of Israel liveblogged Saturday’s events as they happened.
WASHINGTON, DC — The United States is poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days, four US officials tell Reuters, as the Trump administration escalates pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
Reuters is not able to establish the exact timing or scope of the new operations, nor whether US President Donald Trump had made a final decision to act. Reports of looming action have proliferated in recent weeks as the US military has deployed forces to the Caribbean amid worsening relations with Venezuela.
Two of the US officials say covert operations would likely be the first part of the new action against Maduro. All four officials quoted in this article speak on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the impending action by the United States.
The Pentagon refers questions to the White House. The CIA declines to comment.
A senior administration official does not rule anything out regarding Venezuela.
“President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” says the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration has been weighing Venezuela-related options to combat what it has portrayed as Maduro’s role in supplying illegal drugs that have killed Americans. He has denied having any links to the illegal drug trade.
Two US officials tell Reuters the options under consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro.
Maduro, in power since 2013, has contended that Trump seeks to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt.
Police are launching a far-reaching operation to crack down on arms trafficking and violent crime in Bedouin communities in the Negev, law enforcement announces.
The so-called New Order operation commences in the wake of a deadly shooting in Rahat on Thursday that left two dead, among them a teenage boy.
Police say the initiative is focused on “restoring governance in the region, locating stolen military weapons and ammunition, identifying suspects involved in shooting incidents within the Bedouin community, and intensifying traffic enforcement along major routes.”
Officers have arrested nine suspects so far as part of the operation, police add.
Violent crime in the Negev, driven by weapons smuggling and theft from nearby army bases, has spiralled in recent years.
Rahat mayor Talal al-Kernawi has bemoaned the rise of shootings in the city, calling weapons a “cancer.”
“We must do everything to remove weapons from the city so the people will have security,” he told Ynet in the wake of Thursday’s shooting.
Former hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal reveals details of the more than two years he spent in Hamas captivity, including the sexual abuse he says he endured by one of his captors, in a lengthy interview aired by Channel 12 this evening.
Gilboa-Dalal, 23, who was freed last month under the current ceasefire deal in Gaza, says he was assaulted on two occasions by the same captor during captivity, while being held along with captives Evyatar David, Tal Shoham, and Omer Wenkert.
Describing the first account, he says: “On one of the days, he took me to [the terrorists’] room, and I was on a chair with my eyes covered. He covered my eyes and said to me, ‘Oh, it’s been a long time since you saw girls, right? Do you watch porn? Want to watch porn? Want you and me to make a porn film?’ He came up behind me. He started touching me all over my body, and I froze in that moment.”
“He started really touching me and kissing the back of my neck, kissing my back, and it was very, very frightening. I froze, and after a few minutes of him doing that — really touching me — my whole body was burning here, in the back of my neck and my throat.”
“He told me he loves me, and it was extremely disturbing. At some point, his hand stopped on my chest, and my heart was beating really, really, really fast. And he asked me, ‘What, are you scared?’ So I said yes. He took me, pressed a rifle to my head and a knife to my throat, and told me that if I told anyone inside — Evyatar, Tal, or Omer — or any of the other guards, he would kill me.”
“Not only did I go through that horrifying experience, but I also couldn’t tell anyone. I had to carry it on my own, inside myself,” he adds.
The former hostage then describes a second, more severe incident of assault, excerpts of which were shared by the Hebrew network earlier this week. Guy-Gilboa says his captor allowed him to shower, waited for him to finish, and then “grabbed [him] by force.”
“He pulled me to their room, and wouldn’t let me get dressed. He also took off his own pants. I said to him, ‘You’re joking, right? This is forbidden in Islam. You’re a Muslim — these things are forbidden.’ I couldn’t see him; my face was turned away, and he was behind me. He rubbed his genitals against my anus for several minutes. I just froze, and I didn’t know what to do with myself in that moment. Then he took me back inside,” he says.
Guy-Gilboa says after that point, he feared that he would be separated from the other hostages with him, leading to more assaults: “If I end up alone, maybe this will become something regular. Maybe slowly it will get worse – more beatings, more violence, more invasive. And that terrified me because in my situation, I had nowhere to run.”
However, he says that the incident was the last time, as “there wasn’t another incident where he was alone without the supervision of the other terrorists, the guards from that group. But it was always, always in my mind every time I saw him — just hoping that situation wouldn’t happen again.”
Speaking at the Habima Square rally, former minister Yizhar Shai, whose son Yaron was killed fending off the Hamas-led invasion on October 7, 2023, calls on Zionist opposition leaders to vow not to serve in any government that doesn’t commit to establishing a state commission of inquiry into failure surrounding the attack, and urges potential investigstors and witnesses to refuse to cooperate with the probe that the government intends to establish in the commission’s stead.
“I call on the leaders of the opposition parties to officially commit not to join after the election any government that does not promise in its basic guidelines to establish a state commission of inquiry immediately upon taking office. I call on anyone who might be called up to serve as investigators in the governmental whitewashing committee to preemptively announce they won’t serve on it. I call on anyone who is called to testify to the whitewashing committee to refuse to appear before it — don’t appear before a committee that has a mark of shame hanging over it and the blood of the fallen and murdered smeared on the hands of its creators,” says Shay.
Adi Zakuto, whose father Avi was murdered in the southern city of Ofakim during the onslaught, says what “burns me today, more than the pain, is the thing my dad hated more than anything — evading accountability.”
The ministerial panel established this week to determine the scope of the governmental probe is “a political commission of the investigated trying to decide who will investigate them,” she says.
“My father was murdered because of a debacle. There are people who are responsible for that debacle. It is the same debacle that developed over the course of the years, that specific people are responsible for, that someone has to pay the price for,” she says. “Whoever was part of the failures can’t write the rulebook of the investigation. Whoever took Israel back to the age when citizens were prey cannot determine what can be asked and what can’t be probed.”
“In the name of my father, in the name of everyone who is no longer, who was kidnapped, rescued, wounded… don’t let them get away,” says Zakuto. “Don’t let them rewrite history. Don’t let them turn October 7 into another campaign.”
“Truth will come out; I won’t let anyone bury it,” she says.
Tali Biner, who survived the massacre at the Reim-area Nova music festival, stresses what she says is the non-partisan nature of the demand for a state commission of inquiry — which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects because it is established by the judiciary, which his government has sought to weaken.
Addressing the government, Biner says: “We are not the enemy, and this is not politics.”
“Whoever tries to portray this as political is a person who despises truth,” she says.
“We are the citizens whose security you were responsible for,” she says. “Now is the time to check where, when, and how the disaster could have been averted.”
A fire that broke out at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood has forced patients and medical staff to evacuate parts of the building.
The fire, which broke out in a laundry room, is now under control, the Fire and Rescue Service says.
The third and fourth floors of the building were evacuated for fear of smoke inhalation. No injuries are reported in the incident.
Firefighters are continuing to search and ventilate smoke from the building.
Prosecutors plan to indict a teenager suspected of partaking in a large-scale settler attack on Palestinian factories and farmland in the West Bank, law enforcement announces.
It marks the first charges filed against one of the suspected assailants in the raid earlier this month, which saw dozens of Jewish extremists set fire to a factory and surrounding farmlands near the villages of Bayt Lid and Dayr Sharaf, in the northern West Bank.
The defendant, a minor who was nabbed at the scene by security forces, is one of four people who were arrested during the attack. A prosecutor’s statement has been filed against him today, police say, and he will be charged tomorrow by Central District prosecutors.
Four Palestinians were injured in the attack, and settlers later set their sights on the troops, attacking soldiers who were dispatched to the scene, the IDF said at the time.
According to the police’s statement, “more than 50 indictments have been filed against individuals involved in severe violent incidents in Judea and Samaria” since the start of the year.
However, enforcement against settler violence under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has declined on the whole over the past three years, according to a recent Channel 12 report, with a 73% drop in the number of investigations into settler violence opened since 2023.
Police say that the suspect was arrested as part of security forces’ intensifying efforts to fight Jewish nationalist violence in the West Bank, as attacks against Palestinians have surged in recent months. The officers who detained the suspect were said to be operating within “the special investigative task force established to address recent extreme violent incidents.”
The task force is part of a larger plan, overseen jointly by the IDF, Shin Bet, and police, to probe severe cases of “Jewish terrorism.” It is expected to expand the deployment of military and police in Palestinian villages targeted frequently in settler attacks.
Bar Godard, the body of whose father Meny was returned from Hamas captivity last week as part of the Gaza ceasefire, calls on the hundreds gathered at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to keep reminding the government that the remains of three deceased hostages — Ran Gvili, Dror Or and Sudthisak Rinthalak — are still in Gaza.
“The return of the deceased is not a favor to the families. It’s the most basic duty the State of Israel has to its citizens — a duty we should not have needed to remind [anybody of]. A duty our leadership has forgotten again and again, and that we’ve reminded them of again and again,” she tells the hundreds-strong crowd.
She adds that “the sad thing is that our enemy understands us better than our own leadership.”
“The terrorists who snatched my father are not the ones who murdered him. He was murdered in the morning and abducted hours later. Why? Because they knew the citizens of Israel don’t give up on their dead,” she says. “They knew our mutual accountability is deeper than our leaders’ cynicism.”
Or’s brother Elad demands at the rally that the government “honor our basic, moral and civil right, after our security was violated and trampled again and again in these long years of abandonment,” and bring home the bodies of the three remaining deceased hostages.
“There will be no Israeli rehabilitation without Sudthisak, Dror, and Ran at home,” he says. “We’re tired and we’ve been through so much — but we believe. The fragile ceasefire must not break down.”
“There’s a real readiness on the part of Israel, the US, the countries that are party to the ceasefire, and even the Hamas scoundrels, to keep working,” says Or.
The government is considering a compromise that would clear the way for completing legislation on a contentious bill enacting the death penalty for convicted terrorists, Channel 12 reports, without citing sources.
The bill — sponsored by MK Limor Son Har-Melech of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party — passed its first reading in the Knesset last week and is now under discussion in the National Security Committee ahead of its final two votes.
According to the report, the government has been divided over whether the death penalty should become the default, mandatory sentence for certain terror offenses, or whether there should be some degree of judicial and prosecutorial discretion.
At Thursday night’s cabinet meeting, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has long pushed for a mandatory version of the law, argued that leaving discretion to the Attorney General and state prosecutor would render the bill meaningless, according to the report.
Channel 12 now says a compromise is on the table — that Ben Gvir is not rejecting — under which judges, rather than prosecutors, would hold the discretion.
Under the proposal, even if state prosecutors choose not to request a death sentence in a given case, judges would still be able to impose it on their own. As a result, if the majority of a judicial panel — two judges out of three — supports the penalty in severe cases, the likelihood of it being applied would increase, the network says.
Released hostage Segev Kalfon passed along a letter to US President Donald Trump during his visit to the White House earlier this week, Channel 12 news reports.
“In the most difficult moments, when hope faded away, the thought of big America and of your leadership helped me believe that one day, I will be able to leave Hamas captivity. You, Mr. President, were the light for me in the darkest moments in the dark tunnels,” Channel 12 quotes the letter as reading.
“As an Israeli patriot, I had accepted the possibility that I would bury myself for my country. Also now, after I have been released, the things I saw will stay with me forever and won’t allow me to ever feel safe in my country,” he wrote.
Channel 12 reports that Kalfon asked a special request from Trump, that he asked to keep private from the media.
Some 2,000 protesters pack into Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to demand a state commission of inquiry into failures surrounding the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, after the government on Sunday voted to establish its own inquiry instead of a statutory state commission that would have been led by the judiciary.
The Habima protest is organized for the second straight week by the October Council, which brings together families who lost loved ones in the October 7 attack and are demanding a state probe.
A large screen on the Square’s eastern side, on which speeches will be broadcast, shows the names and pictures of some of the October Council’s slain loved ones, with questions about the circumstances of their death. On either side of the screen are large banners demanding “a state commission of inquiry now,” emblazoned with the October Council’s name and slogan, “truth and security.”
In attendance at the protest are representatives of disparate organizations, including The Democrats and Yesh Atid parties, the anti-corruption watchdog Movement for Quality Government, anti-government reservist and veteran groups and left-wing activists who stand in silence along the square’s western side holding candles and clutching placards with pictures and names of children killed by Israel in Gaza since the October 7 attack.
The protest seeks to unite Zionist opposition parties behind the demand for a state commission. A column of protesters marching in from Kaplan Road carries a large banner reading, “Wanted: a strong, united opposition.”
Referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they chant: “It’s time to topple the tyrant.”
Five leaders of the Zionist opposition are at the rally: right-wing former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is mounting a run for Netanyahu’s seat; ex-IDF chief Benny Gantz, head of the centrist Blue and White party; former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, who broke away from Blue and White to establish a new party called Yashar!; Yesh Atid head and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid; and The Democrats chief, former IDF deputy chief Yair Golan. Avigdor Liberman, head of the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu faction, is absent.
The crowd cheers for each of the opposition leaders in attendance as the MC, bereaved father and former Beit Shean mayor Rafi Ben Shitrit of the October Council, reads their names. Gantz, who joined Netanyahu’s government after the October 7 attack, also draws some jeers.
Right-wing youth start yelling at attendees and getting into shoving matches with some of them as the rally kicks off. They are pushed slightly back by the police and continue jeering and whistling.
The IDF confirms killing two Hezbollah operatives in drone strikes in southern Lebanon today.
The first strike in the town of Maifadoun killed Kamel Reza Qarnabash, who the IDF says was involved in restoring Hezbollah infrastructure in the area.
The second strike, in Houla, killed an unnamed operative who the IDF says served as Hezbollah’s local representative in the village, and as part of his role, he was responsible for liaising between the terror group and the residents “on economic and military matters.”
The IDF says the operative also “acted to seize private property for terror purposes.”
צה״ל חיסל שני מחבלים מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בדרום לבנון
צה״ל תקף וחיסל מוקדם יותר היום, באמצעות חיל האוויר, את המחבל כאמל רצ׳א קרנבש מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב מיפדון שבדרום לבנון.
המחבל עסק בנסיונות שיקום של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב.
בתקיפה נוספת, צה״ל בהובלת אוגדה 91… pic.twitter.com/EoCObfs4cA
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) November 22, 2025
Hamas spokesman Izzat al-Rishq says there is no truth to earlier media reports claiming Hamas informed the US that the ceasefire has ended.
Al-Rishq also says in a statement issued on his behalf that they are demanding the mediators pressure Israel to publish the identity of an alleged Hamas gunman.
This apparently refers to the assailant whom the IDF said yesterday had opened fire at IDF forces while driving along a humanitarian route in the southern Gaza Strip, and was killed.
He adds that Hamas has asked the mediators to intervene and compel Israel to uphold the ceasefire agreement.
After a 24-hour pursuit, the military says it killed or captured all 17 Palestinian terror operatives who attempted to flee from a Hamas tunnel in an IDF-held area in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday.
On Friday, 17 operatives emerged from a tunnel in eastern Rafah — an area where dozens of Hamas members are thought to be holed up underground — and attempted to flee back to Hamas-held areas of the Strip.
According to the IDF, on Friday, six were killed in airstrikes shortly after coming out of the tunnel, and five were captured by troops of the Nahal Brigade.
Today, Nahal soldiers opened fire and killed five of the operatives in two separate incidents, and a short while ago, detained the final suspect, the IDF says.
The six detained operatives were handed over to the Shin Bet for further questioning, the military adds.
A Yemenite synagogue in a central town was broken into and vandalized yesterday ahead of Shabbat, footage shows.
Members of the Mishkan Shalom Synagogue in Kadima-Zoran turned up for Shabbat prayers yesterday evening to find torn-up prayer books and Torahs, one of the worshipers tells the Ynet news site.
“There’s never been a pogrom like this,” the synagogue says in a statement, according to Ynet. “After we saw the horrors, we closed the place, and because of the holy sabbath, we submitted a complaint to the police after Shabbat.”
תיעוד מזעזע מפוגרום בבית כנסת בישוב קדימה צורן בית הכנסת של העדה התימנית, שנמצא במקלט.
בערב שבת הגיעו המתפללים לבית הכנסת ולתדהמתם נתקלו בפריצה בתוך בית הכנסת, נקרעו הסידורים נזרקו ספרי תורה על הריצפה, שברו והרסו את כל תכולת בית הכנסת. pic.twitter.com/eI9H61b2PE
— מה חדש. What's new❓ (@Gloz111) November 22, 2025
Two people are injured in a shooting near Jaffa’s Clock Tower, police say.
The injured are taken to the hospital, according to police.
Police say that the incident is likely criminal and not terrorism.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of legitimizing what he calls the “antisemitic and anti-Israel” Jacobin magazine after the premier shared an article from the site yesterday.
Netanyahu shared the article from Jacobin magazine shortly before the start of Shabbat, titled “Jeffrey Epstein Claimed to Have Meddled in Israel’s Elections,” without comment.
He appeared to have done so due to the fact that the article reported on recently revealed text messages from Epstein, in which the late sex offender claimed to be consulting former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak during the 2019 parliamentary election in Israel.
“The specific article serves Netanyahu politically” because it attacks someone he hates, Bennett writes on X. “But when the head of the Israeli government shares from there, it gives a huge boost and legitimacy to a magazine full of accusations against Israel of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes.”
“Israel’s enemies, including the magazine itself, are already celebrating this as evidence of the truth of false conspiracies against Israel,” he says.
“This act indicates a complete loss of national judgment, and the promotion of personal gain while trampling on the good of the country,” he adds.
Israel eliminated five senior Hamas officials in airstrikes on Gaza today in response to the terror group’s violations of the ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says in a post on X.
“Today, Hamas violated the ceasefire again, sending a terrorist into Israel held territory to attack IDF soldiers. In response, Israel eliminated five senior Hamas terrorists,” the post reads.
“Israel has fully honored the ceasefire, Hamas has not,” the post continues, accusing “dozens” of Hamas terrorists of crossing into the IDF-controlled side of the withdrawal line in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.
“We again call on the mediators to insist that Hamas fulfill its side of the Ceasefire and [US] President[Donald] Trump’s 20-point plan: Hamas must immediately return the three deceased hostages it is still holding and complete its disarmament and enable the total demilitarization of Gaza,” the post concludes.
Prime Minister's Office:
Today, Hamas violated the ceasefire again, sending a terrorist into Israel held territory to attack IDF soldiers. In response, Israel eliminated five senior Hamas terrorists.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 22, 2025
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency says 21 people were killed and dozens more wounded in multiple Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian territory today.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency which operates under Hamas authority, tells AFP there were “21 martyrs this evening in five separate Israeli airstrikes, in a clear violation of the ceasefire in Gaza.”
The figures cannot be verified and do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announces the lineup of speakers scheduled to speak tonight at a weekly rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.
Speakers include Bar Godard, the daughter of the slain hostage Meny Godard, whose body was returned earlier this month; Sylvia Cunio, mother of released hostages David and Ariel Cunio; Elad Or, brother of slain hostage Dror Or, whose body is still held in Gaza; Gania Erlich Zohar, aunt of the slain hostage Cpt. Omer Neutra, whose body was returned earlier this month; freed hostages Raz and Ohad Ben Ami, and Ziv Tsioni, the uncle of slain hostage Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, whose body is still held in Gaza.
Vocalist Dalit Kahana will sing the national anthem, “Hatikva,” at the end of the rally.
Two more terror operatives who fled from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah yesterday were located and killed by troops a short while ago, the military says.
Yesterday, more than 15 operatives emerged from tunnels at two locations in eastern Rafah, an area where dozens of Hamas members are thought to be holed up underground.
The IDF said Friday that six were killed in airstrikes and five were captured by troops.
Earlier today, the IDF said troops of the Nahal Brigade located and killed three more operatives.
Less than three hours later, the military says the Nahal soldiers identified two more of the operatives who were trying to hide after fleeing the tunnel.
The troops opened fire and killed them, the IDF says, bringing the total number of operatives killed today in the area to five.
The Trump administration backs Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza in response to what Washington asserts was an earlier Hamas violation of the ceasefire this afternoon, a US official tells The Times of Israel.
The US official says that a Hamas operative opened fire on Israeli troops stationed near a recently opened humanitarian route.
Notably, the US official argues that Hamas’s leaders abroad are in favor of maintaining the ceasefire but are unable to rein in operatives on the ground.
Arab mediators maintain that while Hamas fighters have carried out a number of ceasefire violations in recent weeks, Israel’s responses have been disproportionate and have led to too many civilian deaths, an Arab diplomat says.
Hamas has passed along messages to the US through Arab mediators that it is prepared to end the Gaza ceasefire over what it says are Israeli violations, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel.
Israel says that its latest round of deadly airstrikes in Gaza came in response to gunmen opening fire on Israeli troops in southern Gaza earlier today.
A group of Iranian hackers has leaked the details of 10 senior Israeli defense industry workers online, offering a $10,000 reward for information on their location, the Ynet news site reports.
“This is not just a declaration — this is a warning that will echo in every hallway you walk down, every home you feel safe, every secret you keep, a statement by the group says.
“You built your empire on fear and force; now you will feel the weight of terror descending upon you,” the group threatens.
The list comes a day after a website calling itself The Punishment For Justice Movement posted a list of “special targets,” including a reward of $100,000 for the murder of Israeli academics.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s biggest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, has asked its chief to resign for inviting a US scholar known for his support of Israel during the Gaza war to an internal event in August, according to meeting minutes reviewed by Reuters.
The leadership of NU, which is also the world’s biggest Islamic organization with around 100 million members and affiliates, has given Chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf three days to offer his resignation or be removed from his post, according to the minutes from a meeting on Thursday.
NU cited Staquf’s invitation to a person “affiliated with an International Zionism network” for an internal event and alleged financial mismanagement as reasons for his ouster.
Staquf, who has been NU’s chairman since 2021, does not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NU official Najib Azca tells Reuters the decision was linked to Staquf’s invitation to former US official and scholar Peter Berkowitz for an August training event.
Staquf has apologised for the invitation and called it an oversight as he had not carefully checked Berkowitz’s background, adding that he condemned Israel’s “brutal genocidal acts in Gaza.”
Berkowitz often writes in support of Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza, according to his website, including a piece in September aiming to refute allegations of genocide against Israel.
Berkowitz spoke at NU seminars about the history of Western political thought in August, his website showed.
Berkowitz does not immediately respond to an email requesting comment that reached him outside of office hours.
Three more terror operatives who fled from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah yesterday were located and killed today by troops, the military says.
Yesterday, some 15 operatives emerged from tunnels at two locations in eastern Rafah. The IDF said that six were killed in airstrikes and five were captured by troops.
Soldiers of the Nahal Brigade conducted scans in the area today and identified three of the operatives who were trying to hide after fleeing the tunnel. The troops opened fire and killed them, the military says.
In two additional separate incidents in northern Gaza today, the IDF says troops identified four terror operatives who crossed the Yellow Line and approached forces, “in a way that posed an immediate threat.”
The IDF says two of the operatives were killed in strikes carried out by the Israeli Air Force, following information provided by the ground troops.
The IDF publishes footage showing a Palestinian terror operative opening fire on Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip earlier today, before being eliminated.
According to the military, the operative crossed the Yellow Line — demarcating the military’s withdrawal — in a vehicle while “exploiting the humanitarian route through which humanitarian aid enters” the Strip’s south.
The IDF says the gunman opened fire on troops stationed in the area, without causing any injuries. Troops of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade returned fire and killed the operative.
The incident is a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement,” the IDF says, adding that in response, it launched airstrikes against Hamas across the Strip.
A 20-year-old man was killed in a shooting in the northern city of Nazareth, medics say, as a violent crime wave continues to plague the Arab community.
Paramedics who were called to the scene found the man unconscious, without signs of life, and declared him dead at the scene, the Magen David Adom ambulance service says.
The IDF confirms carrying out a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa Valley a short while ago.
The strikes in southern Lebanon hit several rocket launchers that were recently identified as being placed at Hezbollah military sites, the IDF says.
In the Beqaa Valley, the military says the Israeli Air Force bombed two Hezbollah military sites where it had identified activities by terror operatives, as well as weapon depots.
The IDF says the “presence of the launchers and the military activity at these sites constitutes a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
צה״ל תקף משגרים ואתרים צבאיים של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב הבקעא ובדרום לבנון
צה״ל תקף לפני זמן קצר, בהובלת פיקוד הצפון ובאמצעות חיל האוויר, מספר משגרים של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה אשר זוהו לאחרונה ומוקמו באתרים צבאיים בדרום לבנון.
בתקיפה נוספת במרחב הבקעא, צה״ל תקף בהובלת חיל… pic.twitter.com/51TXWAB1Ol
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) November 22, 2025
Palestinian media reports a fresh Israeli airstrike in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
The strike apparently comes as part of Israel’s response to gunfire toward troops in the Strip earlier today.
عاجل | طيران الاحتلال يشن غارة على مدينة دير البلح، وسط قطاع غزة. pic.twitter.com/dDRSxoAjLD
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) November 22, 2025
The target of the Israeli airstrike in western Gaza City is Alaa Hadidi, chief of supply in Hamas’s weapons manufacturing headquarters, according to an Israeli official.
Palestinian media reports that five were killed in the strike.
The IDF has not yet commented on the strike, but a defense official says that it comes in response to a violation of the ceasefire earlier today, after a Palestinian gunman opened fire on troops in the Strip.
Israel updated the US-led oversight mechanism before the strike against the Hamas commander was carried out, The Times of Israel has learned.
Ukraine and the US will soon meet in Switzerland to discuss Washington’s plan for ending the war with Russia, which currently heeds to some of Russia’s hardline demands, Kyiv says.
US President Donald Trump gave Ukraine less than a week to approve the 28-point plan to end the nearly four-year conflict, which would see the invaded country ceding territory, cutting its army, and pledging to never join NATO.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European allies, who were not included in drafting the agreement, were scrambling at the G20 summit in South Africa to come up with a counteroffer to Trump’s plan to beef up Kyiv’s positions.
“In the coming days in Switzerland, we are launching consultations between senior officials of Ukraine and the United States on the possible parameters of a future peace agreement,” Rustem Umerov, who is on Ukraine’s negotiating team, writes on social media.
“This is another stage of the dialogue that has been ongoing in recent days and is primarily aimed at aligning our vision for the next steps,” adds Umerov, a former defense minister, who is now the Secretary of the Security Council.
The target of the Israeli airstrike in Gaza City was a commander in Hamas’s military wing, the Saudi Al-Hadath channel reports.
According to Palestinian media, at least four people were killed in the strike targeting a vehicle in the city’s west, which is outside of IDF control amid the ceasefire.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
Palestinian media reports two dead in an Israeli strike against a vehicle in western Gaza City.
The IDF has not yet commented.
#تحديث| 4 أقمار جراء استهداف مركبة مدنية قرب مفترق العباس، غرب مدينة غـ'زة pic.twitter.com/AY96Lzv4cc
— فلسطين بوست (@PalpostN) November 22, 2025
G20 leaders call for a “just, comprehensive, and lasting peace” in Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” in a joint declaration.
“Guided by the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety, we will work for a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ukraine,” says the G20 South Africa Summit Leaders’ Declaration, adopted at a summit in Johannesburg.
Lebanese media reports Israeli airstrikes in the eastern Beqaa Valley.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
https://twitter.com/bintjbeilnews/status/1992208003269816421a
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group has been conducting searches for the body of a hostage in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, Arab media reports.
Footage shows Islamic Jihad gunmen standing alongside excavators with Egyptian flags on them during the digging operations in the area.
The searches began yesterday, according to Al Jazeera.
Separately, the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reports that Hamas is carrying out searches for a body in the Zeitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding the bodies of three hostages: Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, Dror Or, and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak.
They are obliged to return them under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal. However, the groups claim they have trouble locating the remaining bodies.
Settler extremists poisoned a flock of sheep in the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir north of Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian media reports.
At least three of the sheep died and several others were sickened, the reports say.
Al-Mughayyir has been the scene of frequent attacks in recent weeks by the extremists, who have stepped up assaults during the Olive harvest season.
A flock of sheep was poisoned by Israeli settlers this morning near the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, resulting in the death of three animals, according to local sources. pic.twitter.com/6db3mI6JQG
— Daniella Modos – Cutter -SEN (@DmodosCutter) November 22, 2025
Military prosecutors filed indictments yesterday against four soldiers on suspicion of trafficking weapons from Syria into Israel, and another two are set to be charged early next week, the IDF confirms.
Earlier this week, the Shin Bet security agency, IDF, and police announced that they had uncovered a weapons smuggling ring in northern Israel, arresting 12 suspects — five IDF soldiers in the standing army and reserves, four Israeli civilians, and three Syrian nationals. The suspects were detained in the past month following an investigation into a network smuggling various weapons from Syria into Israel.
On Thursday, indictments were filed against the three Syrian and four Israeli civilians — all members of the Druze community — at the Nazareth District Court.
In response to a query by The Times of Israel, the IDF confirms that four of the five detained soldiers were charged on Friday by the Military Prosecution at a military court.
Early next week, the IDF says two more soldiers are set to be charged — one of whom is held, while the other is under house arrest and was not among the 12 initially arrested in the case.
The investigation into the smuggling ring was carried out jointly by the Shin Bet, the police’s International Crime Investigations Unit, and the IDF’s Military Police Investigatory Unit, in coordination with the State Attorney’s Office and Military Prosecution.
According to the Shin Bet, the soldiers crossed the border into Syria near the Druze town of Hader on several occasions and brought back weapons that were then handed over to criminal elements in northern Israel. Before they were arrested, the security agency said they “worked to bring in an unusually large and exceptional cache of weapons, including explosives, RPGs, assault rifles, and a large quantity of additional ammunition.”
Brazil’s federal police arrest former President Jair Bolsonaro preemptively, days before he was set to begin his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt, officials say.
A close aide says the embattled former leader was taken to the police force headquarters in the capital, Brasilia.
The force says in a short statement, which did not name Bolsonaro, that it acted on the request of Brazil’s Supreme Court.
Neither Brazil’s federal police nor the Supreme Court provide more details.
Bolsonaro’s aide Andriely Cirino confirms to The Associated Press that the arrest took place around 6 a.m. this morning.
The 70-year-old former president was taken from his house in a gated community in the upscale Jardim Botanico neighborhood to the federal police headquarters, Cirino says.
Local media report that Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, was expected to begin serving his sentence sometime next week after the far-right leader exhausted all appeals of his conviction for leading a coup attempt.
The owner of the UK tabloid Daily Mail struck a £500 million ($654 million) with US-Emirati consortium RedBird IMI for the purchase of The Telegraph newspaper, The Daily Mail and General Trust said Saturday.
“DMGT has signed an agreement with Redbird IMI over the acquisition of the Telegraph Media Group at a valuation of £500 million”, DGMT said in a press release sent to AFP.
The DGMT’s potential purchase of its rival 170-year-old newspaper could make it one of the biggest right-leaning media groups in the UK.
Iran has requested foreign assistance in extinguishing a large fire that has ravaged UNESCO World Heritage-listed forests in the north of the country for several days, local media report.
The Hyrcanian forests stretch for about 1,000 kilometers along the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea and into neighboring Azerbaijan.
UNESCO recognized the forests as a World Heritage Site in 2019, deeming them unique for both their age — between 25 and 50 million years old — and their varied biodiversity, as home to more than 3,200 species of plants.
A fire that broke out in the area in early November and was initially quelled reignited on November 15, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reports.
Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, deputy to Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, wrote yesterday on X that “faced with the impossibility of containing the fire,” Iran had “requested urgent assistance from friendly countries.”
Heartbreaking scenes from Elit, Iran, where wildfire is damaging parts of the ancient Hyrcanian forests — a UNESCO World Heritage treasure and one of Earth’s last temperate rainforests.
Iranians are losing a natural heritage older than Persian civilization. pic.twitter.com/XKaVOXuqkl
— Kaveh Madani (@KavehMadani) November 21, 2025
“Two specialized water bomber planes, a helicopter, and eight people will be dispatched from Turkey,” Shina Ansari, head of the Iranian Environmental Protection Organization, says on Saturday.
“If necessary, we will also seek assistance from Russia,” she adds on state television.
The country is currently facing one of its most severe droughts since records began six decades ago.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa opens a G20 summit in Johannesburg by emphasizing the need for “multilateralism” to confront “the threats facing humanity today.”
His call was made to a room full of leaders from major economies around the world — with the notable exception of US President Donald Trump, who boycotted the summit.
“The G20 underscores the value of the relevance of multilateralism,” Ramaphosa says in an opening address.
A Christian group says the number of students and teachers taken in Nigeria’s second school abduction in a week was 315, revising upwards an earlier figure of 227.
The Christian Association of Nigeria says the new number came “after a verification exercise” following the early Friday mass kidnapping and added that “The total number of victims abducted … is now 303 students and 12 teachers.”
The kidnapping from St. Mary’s school in Niger state in central Nigeria came after gunmen on Monday stormed a secondary school in Kebbi state in northwestern Nigeria, abducting 25 girls.
Lebanese media reports one dead in an Israeli drone strike targeting a car in the southern town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah this morning.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
ارتقاء الشهيـ.د كامل قرنبش امام انظار والديه???? في غارة استهدفته في زوطر الشرقية pic.twitter.com/22gWAWQeDm
— مصدر مسؤول (@fouadkhreiss) November 22, 2025
Marking Lebanon’s 82nd independence day, UNIFIL’s Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Diodato Abagnara says the Lebanese army’s redeployment is key to the country’s stability.
“On Lebanon’s 82nd Independence Day, UNIFIL remains committed to supporting the Lebanon Army — our close partner in strengthening stability in the south. Their full redeployment across south Lebanon is essential for extending state authority,” he writes on X.
UNIFIL has been deployed since 1978 to separate Israel and Lebanon, and numbers some 10,000 personnel from almost 50 countries. In August, the UN Security Council voted to end UNIFIL’s mission in 2027.
Israel has long argued that the observer force has failed in its mission, doing little to block Hezbollah from building up its forces near the Israeli border over decades.
Under the US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire — which halted a conflict sparked when Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks on northern Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel — Hezbollah and Israel were both required to withdraw from south Lebanon, while UNIFIL deployed there alongside the Lebanese military, in part to help dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.
Israel has maintained its troops in five locations it deems strategic, and has kept up regular strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets violating the truce.
A Hezbollah operative was killed in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon yesterday, the IDF announces.
The unnamed operative, who was targeted while driving in the town of Froun, was involved in advancing attacks against Israel and troops, the military says.
The IDF adds that the operative’s actions were a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.
צה״ל חיסל מחבל מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בדרום לבנון
צה"ל תקף וחיסל אתמול, בהובלת אוגדה 91 ובאמצעות חיל האוויר, מחבל מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב פרון שבדרום לבנון.
לאורך המלחמה, המחבל קידם מתווי טרור לעבר מדינת ישראל וכוחות צה"ל.
פעולותיו של המחבל היוו הפרה של ההבנות בין ישראל… pic.twitter.com/LX3bw03IXS
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) November 22, 2025
US President Donald Trump announces he will end the temporary status protecting Somali immigrants in Minnesota from deportation, claiming that his latest cut to refugee programs is a crime prevention measure.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump says he is “hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota,” while accusing “Somali gangs” of harming locals.
“Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!” he adds.
TPS protects its holders from deportation and allows them to work. It is granted to people deemed to be in danger if they return to their home countries because of war, natural disaster, or other extraordinary circumstances.
US Vice President JD Vance says that any plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine should preserve Ukrainian sovereignty and be acceptable to both countries, but that it is a “fantasy” to think Ukraine could win if the US were to give Kyiv more money or weapons or impose more sanctions on Moscow.
“There is a fantasy that if we just give more money, more weapons, or more sanctions, victory is at hand,” Vance writes on X.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied in Bologna and clashed with police there this evening to protest against a EuroLeague basketball game between Virtus Bologna and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The game was held under heavy security.
Protesters chanted against Israel, waved Palestinian flags and fired fireworks and hurled stones. Police fired water cannons at demonstrators.
Guerriglia urbana a Bologna perché un branco di violenti vorrebbe impedire una partita di basket. La colpa? In campo c’è il Maccabi Tel Aviv, una squadra israeliana. Vergognoso: questo non ha nulla a che vedere con lo sport. Solidarietà alle Forze dell’Ordine. pic.twitter.com/25uYsg49Gw
— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) November 21, 2025
The Italian team won the match 99 to 89.
Ahead of the match, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi had ruled out a schedule change, saying: “It’s not the usual troublemakers who can dictate the agenda of events in Italy.”
“It’s a dangerous game, but it will be played,” Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore toold local media. He called on protesters “not to come and destroy the city, because it’s not good for the Palestinian cause or for peace.”
Anti-Israel protesters have disrupted numerous sports competitions in recent months, including a soccer World Cup qualifier in Udine, Italy, last month and the Vuelta a España cycling race in Spain in September.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha says he has discussed a proposed US plan to end the war in Ukraine with European counterparts and outlined the next steps, during a joint telephone call.
Sybiha says on X that the call with the foreign ministers of France, Britain, Poland, Finland, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, as well as representatives of Italy and Germany, was “timely and meaningful.”
He says he shared the results of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “recent contacts and outlined the logic of our further steps.
“We discussed in detail the elements of peace proposals presented by the United States and our joint work to pave a doable path to a just peace,” he adds.
Zelensky on Friday pushed back against Washington’s 28-point plan, which would force Ukraine to give up land, cut its army and pledge never to join NATO. The Ukrainian foreign minister also says he stressed the importance of continued transatlantic pressure to force Russia to end the war.
He says he had thanked Ukraine’s partners “for their willingness to increase support for Ukraine during this decisive time.”
US President Donald Trump says that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s announcement that she is resigning from the House of Representatives is “great news for the country,” ABC News reports.
“I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great,” ABC News quotes Trump as saying in an interview.
Asked if Greene had given him a heads up, Trump says, “Nah, it doesn’t matter, you know but I think it’s great. I think she should be happy.”
US Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime ally of Donald Trump who recently had a dramatic falling out with the president, says she is resigning from the House of Representatives effective January 5.
“Loyalty should be a two way street” while Congress “has mostly been sidelined” under the Trump administration, Greene posts in a lengthy resignation statement on social media.
My official statement. pic.twitter.com/x48zEugmPV
— Marjorie Taylor Greene ???????? (@mtgreenee) November 22, 2025
In a video posted online, the 51-year-old Republican congresswoman from Georgia elected in 2020 says she has “always been despised in Washington DC and never fit in.”
Greene says she does not want her supporters and family to endure “a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms.
“I will be resigning from office with my last day being January 5, 2026,” she says.
Greene had previously been a standard-bearer of Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, but the president announced he was withdrawing all support for “‘Wacky’ Marjorie” on November 7.
He followed up again the next morning with multiple posts on his Truth Social platform attacking Greene as a “lightweight” and even a “traitor” to the Republican Party.
The former key political ally to Trump subsequently said she was being targeted by a wave of threats.
The shock move by Greene is the clearest sign yet of a growing split in MAGA world, in churn over strong Democratic victories in this month’s off-year elections, and Trump’s chummy White House meeting earlier Friday with leftist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
The movement has been particularly riven over Trump’s flip-flop on the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose web of contacts allegedly included several American elites.
“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for,” Greene says.
Amid her feud with Trump, Greene suggested on Sunday that Israel was pressuring the White House not to release the full files on Epstein.
In an interview on CNN, Greene was asked about a post on X a day earlier in which she wrote: “It really makes you wonder what is in those files and who and what country is putting so much pressure on him?” alongside a graphic boasting that she had received zero campaign funds from the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby.
“I think it’s the question that many Americans are asking, especially when we saw information recently come out in these e-mails that the Oversight Committee that I serve on has released,” Greene responded during the interview, about the growing focus on the alleged sex trafficker, who died of suicide in prison in 2019.
“And we saw Jeffrey Epstein with ties to Ehud Barak. We saw him making business deals with them, also business deals that involved the Israeli government, and seems to have led into their intel agencies. And I think the right question to ask is, was Jeffrey Epstein working for Israel?” the congresswoman continued.
There is no substantial evidence of any ties between Epstein and Israeli intelligence. Allegations that Epstein has ties to the Mossad have circulated for years based on an array of disparate connections: The fact that he was Jewish; his visits to Israel, among many other countries; and his friendship with former prime minister Ehud Barak, one of many high-profile figures he associated with, including Trump himself.
