Yoseph Haddad, an Arab pro-Israel activist and the number-two candidate in Ofer Winter’s right-wing People of Israel party, disavows his earlier support for Palestinian statehood after an old video resurfaces in which he calls for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
In the video circulating on Saturday night, from an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya channel, Haddad said, “The ultimate solution is the State of Israel alongside a State of Palestine.”
But in a lengthy post on X, Haddad says the interview in question aired more than five years ago, and that he has since changed his mind. He writes that he now opposes Palestinian statehood, just like his party.
He traces his shift back to the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, dubbed Operation Guardian of the Walls by the IDF, which also saw Arab-Israeli riots in cities across the country.
“When it comes to a Palestinian state, I have already said in the past that during Guardian of the Walls, when I saw the unity between the Palestinians and Arabs within, who were igniting mixed cities, I changed my mind and understood that this is not the solution,” he writes. “On October 7, I believe that the last people who hadn’t yet understood this — now understood who the Palestinians really are.”
He continues, “A Palestinian state will not be established, and in our party’s principles we made sure to explain that in a clear way: “A Palestinian state will not be established on the territory of the State of Israel.”
He adds, “To the contrary, we will work to return lands to the Land of Israel.”
The White House has created a task force to examine AI’s risks and opportunities and recommend what role the federal government should play in overseeing the technology, with a report due within 120 days, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the head of the task force, Jay Clayton.
Clayton, who heads the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said he would lead the group, known as the “Super Intelligence Force,” effectively serving as US President Donald Trump’s AI czar, the report says, citing a senior White House official.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is “ironclad” and that US President Donald Trump has “all the options he needs on the table” if Iran continues to “play games” with the strait.
“Iran wants to play games with things like the Strait of Hormuz. They don’t control it, we do,” Hegseth tells reporters. “They have literally gotten nothing through. Our blockade has been ironclad and we’re running almost at prewar levels every single night through that, you see that as far as the throughput.”
He adds: “So we feel like we’re in a very strong position. Iran ought make the right choice. If they don’t, the president is going to have all the options he needs on the table. But he is not going to let these things extend unnecessarily. He understands what the mission is and we can get it done when called upon.”
Hegseth also says that Trump is “hellbent” on Iran not having a nuclear weapon.
“The message is very simple: Iran will never ever ever have a nuclear weapon. President Trump is hell-bent and determined to ensure that they do not; they will not,” Hegseth says.
Yemen’s Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reports an attack carried out by Saudi Arabia on the capital, Sanaa.
There is no immediate Saudi confirmation.
The United States has “kicked out” two members of the Iranian delegation who attended the recent UN General Assembly after they ignored an order to leave the country, the US State Department says.
“Two more members of the Iranian delegation were found still in [New York] long after the United Nations General Assembly had passed. They have now been kicked out of the US,” a US official tells AFP, adding that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “means business.”
US media reports the State Department had told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his delegation to leave the country Monday, and resorted to expelling the two members after learning from the Iranian mission to the UN that they remained in the country on Friday.
One member of the delegation left Friday night, while the second departed Saturday morning, according to Axios.
US and Iranian officials had met the week prior in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
US President Donald Trump had rejected a proposal from Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but told US media he expected talks to resume in the coming days.
Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that Tehran had no more direct talks scheduled with Washington.
As questions mount over what the Israeli government could have done to prevent the near-disaster on flydubai Flight 1073, the Transportation Ministry says it does not perform background checks on pilots who fly into Israel, adding that it can’t promise those flights will be “100 percent” safe.
The statements, made in a briefing to reporters on Saturday night, come after multiple reports that pilots from hostile states have repeatedly flown planes into Israel despite regulations meant to prohibit them from doing so. The perpetrator of the terror attack on the flydubai flight, Hamam al-Hammami, was a citizen of Oman, which does not have relations with Israel.
In the briefing, according to reports in Hebrew media, the Transportation Ministry’s security division denies that it got the names of pilots and crew in advance, or that it has the ability to perform background checks on foreign pilots flying into Israel.
“We are not an intelligence body that checks the intelligence background of foreigners,” a representative of the division says in a statement, according to Ynet. “We have no forces abroad. We have no staff that checks every person there.”
The division also says it cannot specify how many pilots from hostile states have landed in Israel, and that it cannot promise that flights on foreign airlines will be completely secure. The division says it outsources background checks to the airlines themselves.
“Nothing is 100% when it comes to security,” the division’s representative says, according to Ynet.
Channel 12 quotes the representative as saying that the ministry can’t promise “100% that this won’t happen again,” and that the only foolproof way to stop such threats is to bar foreign airlines from landing in Israel entirely.
Speaking to the Kan public broadcaster, Transportation Minister Miri Regev says determining the security of air travel is the responsibility of Israel’s security establishment.
“Those who are supposed to say what the threat level is, and whether you can travel to a given destination, are security officials,” she says.
Police say they detained a drunken man who shoved officers in the Haredi West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit, as dozens of locals tried to thwart the arrest because they were under the false impression that the man was being booked for draft-dodging.
The suspect, 20, attacked officers as they were responding to a report about another drunk man who was disrupting public order and assaulting passersby, police say.
The man who allegedly attacked police has been taken to a police station for investigation and officers were able to disperse the crowd, police say, adding that they will later determine whether to seek an extension of the suspect’s detention.
Haredi media says the arrest took place at the Min HaHar yeshiva in Beitar Illit, and that the person arrested is a student in the yeshiva. Ynet reports that the detainee has, in fact, evaded the draft, though that isn’t why he was arrested.
The JDN news site reports protesters set fire to a trash can and slashed a police vehicle’s tires. Footage from the scene shows Haredi men jeering and crowding around a police vehicle. A police officer can be seen in the footage shoving a protester.
הערינג: הבאלגן כעת בישיבת מן ההר בביתר עילית בעקבות מעצר השיכור pic.twitter.com/Vvwfv4axxr
— הערינג (@NewsHerring) October 3, 2026
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