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Palestinian arrested in West Bank for saying he intended to commit terror attack — police
A Palestinian man in his 50s was arrested by police officers in the southern West Bank last night for allegedly expressing intent to carry out a terror attack.
Police say officers and IDF troops raided the town of Yatta and apprehended the man after receiving a report that he “stated that he intended to carry out an attack against Israeli civilians.”
The man is suspected of “threats to carry out an attack and endangering regional security,” and is currently being questioned by law enforcement, police add.
Reports: Four Palestinians killed in strike in southern Gaza
Hamas-affiliated media outlets in Gaza report that four people were killed in a drone strike in the al-Mawasi area of the southern Gaza Strip. Several others were reported injured.
The IDF has yet to comment.
مجمع ناصر الطبي يعلن استشهاد 4 فلسطينيين وإصابة آخرين في قصف بمسيرات إسرائيلية على منطقتي المواصي في رفح وخان يونس جنوبي قطاع غزة pic.twitter.com/JImNi2u3RZ
— الجزيرة مباشر (@ajmubasher) October 28, 2026
NY announces commission to establish first state-sponsored Holocaust memorial
New York Governor Kathy Hochul at a press conference in New York, March 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Jewish community leaders will head a commission to establish New York state’s first state-sponsored Holocaust memorial, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announces.
The 19-member advisory commission will help guide the memorial’s design and development, Hochul’s office says.
The commission includes Ariel Behrman, vice president of education at the Anti-Defamation League; Tali Farhadian, CEO of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage; Masha Pearl, the head of the Holocaust survivors aid group the Blue Card; and Daniel Rosenthal from the UJA-Federation of New York.
“At a time when antisemitism and intolerance continue to threaten communities across our state, nation and around the world, this memorial will ensure that the stories of victims, survivors and their families remain visible,” Hochul says.
Other commission members are from the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, the Boro Park Y, the American Jewish Committee and the Center for Jewish History.
Hochul signed legislation to establish the memorial late last year.
The memorial will be built at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, the state capital.
There are Holocaust memorials in New York State, but none are funded and supported by the state government.
Some Jewish researchers have questioned whether Holocaust education is an effective means of fighting antisemitism.
Likud claims election ‘stolen’ by Arab parties, demands investigation into alleged fraud
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, is surrounded by security personnel during a campaign appearance at a market in Tel Aviv, October 22, 2026, ahead of the Knesset election. (AP Photo/ Ariel Schalit)
Claiming yesterday’s election was “stolen” by Arab parties, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party demands an investigation by police and the Shin Bet into allegations of widespread voter fraud and intimidation.
“The elections in Israel were stolen by Arab parties that support terror and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries and the use of illegal software to mobilize voters,” insists the Likud party in a statement.
The Arab-led political parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, which run in every election and hold seats in the Knesset, received a record number of votes yesterday, and are projected to win a historic high of 19 seats. That number means that both Netanyahu’s bloc and the Jewish-led parties opposing him will be far from achieving a Knesset majority.
Throughout the campaign, Netanyahu’s party said cooperation with Arab parties was illegitimate. In its statement today, Likud says it is giving the police, the Shin Bet, and the Central Elections Committee “hundreds of testimonies” and other evidence, including “thousands of envelopes with cash and Ra’am slips, threats and violence towards ballot committee members, multiple voters behind the voting screen, double voting, discrepancies between the number of envelopes and the number of voters, use of illegal voter mobilization software, and more.”
Likud demands a “thorough investigation” and an immediate response from the CEC regarding an investigation.
Earlier today, in an interview with Channel 12, an official from the CEC dismissed claims of fraud in the election.
Key Update
Balad chief, barred from running, blames Israeli ‘racism’ for political deadlock
Sami Abou Shehadeh attends a hearing at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify him from running in the upcoming Knesset elections, October 1, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Balad faction chief Sami Abou Shahadeh says the only reason yesterday’s election isn’t seen as a loss for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is that Israeli society is too racist to view Arab-led parties as part of the opposition.
The bloc of Netanyahu’s supporters is projected to have won 53 seats in the Knesset, while his opponents are projected to have won 67. But that opposition number is split between Jewish-led parties, which won 48 seats, and Arab-led parties that won a historic high of 19 seats, up from 10 in the outgoing Knesset. Most of the Jewish-led parties have ruled out a coalition with the Arab parties, presaging political deadlock.
“If we lived in a normal, democratic, non-racist country, Netanyahu would have lost the election,” Abou Shahadeh says in an interview with the Qatari channel Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Abou Shahadeh’s Balad faction is part of the Joint List, which is projected to have won around 12 seats, in addition to seven seats going to the Arab-led Ra’am party. Abou Shahadeh himself left the Joint List slate after the High Court was poised to disqualify him over an article he wrote indicating support for the Hamas-led October 7 attack. He later walked the article back.
“In reality, Netanyahu’s camp did lose the election — dropping from 68 seats to 54 — and the contest should have ended there,” Abou Shahadeh tells Al-Araby, using an earlier projected tally.
“But because of the racism within Israeli society, we are still debating whether or not this was a decisive outcome,” he continues. “The fundamental issue in Israeli society has always been, and remains, its racism directed against anything Arab or Palestinian.”
Abou Shahadeh specifically criticized the leading opposition candidate, Gadi Eisenkot, who has said that neither of the Arab-led parties meets the conditions he has set for joining a coalition.
“Eisenkot has a majority to form a government, yet what prevents him from doing so is his own racism,” Abou Shahadeh charges. Referencing Eisenkot’s background, he adds, “Eisenkot, a leader of Arab — specifically Moroccan — descent, says he refuses to sit with Arabs. This is a racist society.”
Two of Eisenkot’s other coalition partners — B’Yachad chief Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman — have more explicitly ruled out partnership with Arab-led parties, claiming that such a move would be illegitimate after Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which Arab Israelis were killed and taken captive along with Jewish Israelis.
Yair Golan, chair of the left-wing Democrats, is the lone opposition party chief calling for political partnership with the two Arab-majority parties.
Katz calls Eisenkot’s warning to security chiefs to resist pressure ‘undemocratic’
Defense Minister Israel Katz (left) and opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90, Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Defense Minister Israel Katz slams Gadi Eisenkot’s warning to security chiefs to “stand firm against any attempt to pressure you,” calling it “an undemocratic and detached statement.”
In his election night speech, Eisenkot, a former IDF chief and the leading opposition candidate, addressed the heads of the security forces and urged them to resist attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “use Israel’s security for [his] own political ends.”
“Netanyahu is a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate and without the public’s confidence,” he said in the speech, addressing the security brass. “Remember that you serve the state and the interests of Israel’s citizens alone. Stand firm against any attempt to pressure you. You have my full backing.”
The statement came against the backdrop of reports that IDF chief Eyal Zamir had resisted a push by Netanyahu to strike Iran before yesterday’s election. Speculation has continued that Netanyahu may order an attack on Iran during the period following the vote.
In a post on X, Katz, a close Netanyahu ally, slams Eisenkot’s statement.
“His appeal to senior IDF officials not to obey directives from the prime minister, me, and the established security forums ‘because they have backing from him’ is an undemocratic and detached statement,” Katz writes.
He calls the remark “a continuation of the campaign of lies that [Eisenkot] and his friends have run in the election on the topic of purported clashes between the political and military leadership regarding Iran.”
He adds, “The IDF is a full partner in the significant achievements versus Iran, and is a partner currently in all of the discussions — and will carry out any decision that is necessary.”
CEC estimates up to 480,000 ballots from troops, police, diplomats yet to be counted, worth some 12 Knesset seats
IDF troops vote in Israel's national elections at a military base in the Gaza Strip, in a handout photo published on October 26, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)
The Central Elections Committee says between 430,000 and 480,000 “double-envelope” ballots have been cast in this year’s election, significantly fewer than the roughly 600,000 previously reported.
The ballots, cast primarily by soldiers, prisoners, diplomats stationed abroad and others unable to vote at their designated polling stations, are counted separately and have yet to be tallied, after officials verify that each voter has not already voted elsewhere.
The full vote count is due to be released tomorrow afternoon. The final, official election results are expected to be published on November 4.
The CEC stresses that the estimated number of double envelopes remains preliminary, as officials are still receiving and processing the ballots, and say it could change as the process continues.
With each Knesset seat thought to be worth around 40,000 votes, these votes would be worth some 12 seats in total, and could theoretically have a significant impact on the final political landscape.
Currently neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, with 53 seats, nor the Jewish-led opposition parties, with 48, is able to secure the 61-seat majority in the Knesset needed to form a government.
Key Update
Spanish train collision kills at least 64; Sa’ar offers condolences to victims
Emergency services work at the scene of a collision between two trains in Urda, Spain, on October 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
At least 64 people have died after two high-speed trains collided in Spain today, with rescue workers scouring the wreckage for more bodies in the country’s second deadly rail accident this year.
Commenting on the incident in a Spanish-language post on X, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says Israel continues to “follow with deep concern the news about the tragic railway accident,” and that Israel offers its “most sincere condolences to the victims and their families in such difficult moments” and “join[s] the pain of the Spanish people.”
The collision in the Toledo municipality comes nine months after an accident between high-speed trains, belonging to the same operators and on the same line, killed 46 people.
Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentences acclaimed director Panahi to 5 years
Iranian director Jafar Panahi poses with the trophy during a photocall after winning the Palme d'Or for the film, 'Un simple accident' (A Simple Accident) during the closing ceremony at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 24, 2025. (Miguel Medina/AFP)
Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced award-winning film director Jafar Panahi to five years in prison and the seizure of all his assets, Iran’s semi-official Nournews reports, citing his lawyer but without mentioning the charges he faced.
The court also banned Panahi from leaving the country for two years and from any social media activity, the report says.
Panahi’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Panahi, whose film “It Was Just an Accident” won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes film festival, has been arrested several times in the past for his filmmaking.
Despite having been sentenced to a one-year prison sentence in absentia in 2025 for propaganda activities against the system, Panahi returned to the country in March.
Houthi media says Saudi strike on petrol station in Yemen killed 12
Iran-backed Houthi media say a Saudi strike on a petrol station today killed at least 12 people, the latest casualties since Yemen’s conflict reignited this summer.
Broadcaster Al-Masirah TV reports 12 dead and 10 wounded, “including women and children,” in a strike blamed on Saudi Arabia that was said to hit a petrol station in the city of Hazm, in the northwestern Jawf province.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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