‘Dad, thank you for saving my life’: Terror victim Netanel Shukrun laid to rest
Shukrun hailed for warning son Yoav, 16, of shooter moments before Sunday's attack; settler leader urges major IDF op in West Bank in response * Suspect in Ontario synagogue shooting identified as Sean Ward, injured cop as Jeff Smith
After cordial meeting with Trump, Mamdani renews attack on ‘architect of genocide’ Netanyahu
After holding a surprisingly cordial meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani repeats his verbal attacks on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that in his view, the premier should be arrested during his upcoming visit to the UN General Assembly in the city.
“When it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, I have described him as I believe him to be — a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people,” Mamdani tells CNN in an interview, adding that the issue was discussed during the meeting with Trump.
The far-left mayor, who vowed for months to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York City even though he lacks the authority to do so, recently acknowledged he is powerless to prevent the visit, and added that he will not be attending planned protests against the premier’s presence.
Citing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes during the war in Gaza against Palestinian terror group Hamas, Mamdani says: “I do believe that that is something that should be honored, because what we want to see, and we’ve been talking about this today, is a faith in our politics, a faith in accountability.”
“If the International Criminal Court deems someone worthy of an arrest because of a violation of those laws, then who are we to say that anyone should be above that? And I think very clearly that everyone should be held accountable to it,” he says.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday.
During their meeting, Trump heaped praise on Mamdani as the pair set aside their political differences to discuss immigration enforcement and a multi-billion dollar housing project.
“Hopefully, you’re going to be a great [mayor]. I’ll be able to say you’re going to be a great one, and you’re off to a start,” Trump tells Mamdani at a news conference.
“We appreciate the president’s commitment to the city,” Mamdani says of Trump. “We’ve both spoken about very different approaches, very different beliefs, and I will continue to have conversations with the president, and frankly with anyone who can deliver relief to the people of this city.”
Israeli man falls to death during hike in Slovenia, while rushing to help son who fell into river
An Israeli man fell to his death on Saturday during a family hike in Slovenia after rushing to help his 7-year-old son who had fallen into a river, his family says.
Gil Hilel, 44, from Kibbutz Yizre’el, saw the boy fall into the water and get hit by rocks during a hike in a canyon, and while rushing to help, lost his grip and fell from a height, according to a Facebook post by his brother Ben Alon Hurvitz.
The kid has been hospitalized with a broken leg, Hurvitz says.
He says Hilel was “an athletic, handsome, funny, serious and smart guy,” adding that he “was always willing to physically jump in and save others from any distress” and sometimes “was the first to charge ahead, even before others understood there was a problem.”
Gil’s widow, Rotem Hilel, posts what she says was their final photo together, saying she is not yet ready to speak of him in past tense: “You are my home. What home am I supposed to come back to? I cannot imagine my life without you. For 20 years, you were my anchor.”
The couple has three children.
Iran threatens to use new weapons, hit new targets if US escalates war
A spokesperson for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Mohebbi, says that “the war is not over” and warns that Iran will change its weapons, military tactics and targets if the conflict with the US escalates.
“We will certainly change the geography of the war,” Mohebbi says in a statement carried by Iranian state media. “We will certainly bring new weapons with new capabilities into the battle.” He says the Guard has prepared for a long-term war.
“Our targets will no longer necessarily be the same as before,” he says, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, adding that Iran has targets that have not yet been struck.
The more than six-month war began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. The conflict has included repeated attacks and efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting, with no agreement reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or revive talks over Iran’s nuclear program.
UK to offer Saudi Arabia aerial refueling to counter Houthi attacks
Prime Minister Andy Burnham says Britain has agreed to provide limited military support to Saudi Arabia to repel attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Burnham tells reporters as he flies to the United Nations General Assembly in New York that he has agreed that the Royal Air Force will provide air-to-air refueling of Saudi planes. The agreement is for a matter of weeks, but Burnham says it will be kept under review.
The conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has reignited, with Houthis aiming missile and drone strikes at Saudi Arabia, including one that targeted Riyadh on Saturday before being intercepted.
‘Dad, thank you for saving my life’: Terror victim Netanel Shukrun laid to rest
Hundreds of people attend the funeral of Netanel Shukrun, who was killed in a terror shooting Sunday at a natural spring near the West Bank settlement of Neve Tzuf, with officials and family crediting him for saving his teenage son by warning him of the gunman seconds before he was killed.
Many children and teenagers, as well as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, take part in the late-night funeral in Shukrun’s home community of Alei Zahav, a settlement in the northern West Bank.
Shukrun, a father of six, went to the natural spring with his eldest son to immerse in the water before Yom Kippur in accordance with Jewish tradition. While he was there, the shooter opened fire toward the spring from a vehicle, hitting Shukrun, who was inside his own car at the time.
“At the last second, he warned Yoav,” the son, who was also inside the car, says Shukrun’s widow, Merav. “Thank you, Nati, for your bravery.”
She says they had planned to fly abroad next week, hailing him as “the most involved father in the world” and saying that for 18 years “everything was perfect.”
The son, 16-year-old Yoav, says: “Dad, I want to say thank you for 16 years together. Thank you for shouting to me when the terrorist came in. I don’t remember what you said, and I escaped. Thank you for saving my life, thank God I survived, and I want to tell the family that we will carry on together and it will be okay.
Shukrun is mourned by multiple speakers as a modest, kind man who cared deeply about his family.
Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, speaks at the funeral and calls on the government to launch “a significant military operation” to seize weapons and reinstall checkpoints in the West Bank in response to the attack.
“The nation of Israel expects the government to change its approach after this heinous murder,” he says. “To deal with the entire infrastructure, the village, the imam who incites every Friday. We expect the government to also exact a price in the form of land.”
After the shooting, the terrorist got out of his car and fled on foot, still armed.
Shortly after the attack, the combat tracker for the military’s Binyamin Regional Brigade opened fire on the gunman as he fled, injuring him, according to the IDF.
Shukrun was taken in serious condition to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
The terrorist was later captured at a hospital near Ramallah.
Vermont man convicted of attempted murder in Nov. 2023 shooting of three Palestinian students
A jury has convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad.
Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison in the November 2023 attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, which left Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the waist down and his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, wounded.
The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a weeklong trial that saw testimony from the three wounded men and psychiatric experts called by the defense and prosecution.
Eaton was ordered jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. He stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read. Awartani and Aliahmad, sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiled and hugged people around them.
Eaton had pleaded not guilty but did not dispute that he was the shooter. His lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, pointing to his claims that the US and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted orders to shoot the men to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.
Had he been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could have been ordered to undergo mental health treatment.
The shooting, a few days after Thanksgiving, shook Burlington, Vermont, and reverberated in the West Bank, where the three wounded men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the US for college.
Eaton’s lawyers argued he was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder after losing his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.
While listening to a local NPR affiliate, Eaton believed he was hearing messages he attributed to the CIA, defense lawyer Joshua O’Hara said. At first, the messages were encouraging and validating, the lawyer said, but subsequent messages turned dark, insisting that Eaton “has to go out and shoot somebody.”
Authorities found three shotguns in Eaton’s apartment and a Ruger .380-caliber handgun that crime lab testing concluded was the gun used in the shooting, prosecutor Sally Adams said. Eaton had purchased the gun seven months earlier from a Vermont gun store.
Trump administration said to propose investing $5 billion in rebuilding Gulf energy sites after Iran war
The Trump administration has proposed investing $5 billion in a new fund that would help Middle East countries rebuild energy infrastructure battered in the Iran war and reduce their reliance on the Strait of Hormuz to transport oil and gas, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing US and Middle Eastern officials and documents.
Reuters cannot immediately verify the report.
IDF says striking Hamas targets in Gaza after unmanned engineering vehicle hit by bomb
The IDF confirms carrying out strikes against Hamas infrastructure sites in the Gaza Strip this evening in response to a bomb that struck an engineering vehicle earlier today.
During routine operations on the Israeli side of the “Yellow Line” in northern Gaza, an unmanned engineering vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the army says.
No injuries were caused in the incident, which the IDF says is a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement by the Hamas terror group.”
In response, several Hamas sites used by the terror group to advance attacks on troops and Israeli civilians were struck this evening, the military says.
Former PA minister who said he mediated between Israel and Hamas before Oct. 7 reveals new details of talks
A former Palestinian Authority minister who revealed on Friday that he had served as a mediator between Israel and Hamas for roughly a year and a half before the October 7, 2023, attack, says in a new Facebook post that he mediated the talks at the request of senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad.
According to Abu Zaida, a Fatah member who served as the PA’s minister for prisoner affairs from 2005 to 2006, Hamad approached him in March 2022 to ask him if he would consider intervening in Hamas’s negotiations with Israel, saying that they had been stalled for years.
Specifically, Abu Zaida says Hamad wanted him to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in exchange for the two Israeli civilians that Hamas held at the time — Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed — and the bodies of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.
He says that Hamad confirmed that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had approved his plan to approach Abu Zaida about mediating talks.
Abu Zaida, a proponent of the two-state solution who was involved in the Oslo Accords process, defends his decision to accept Hamad’s request and serve as an intermediary with Israel, saying he did it “neither for the sake of Hamas nor for specific individuals,” but “for the sake of Gaza and its people.”
He says he hoped that the negotiations would “secure the release of prisoners, resolve the electricity crisis, facilitate reconstruction, allow workers to enter, address infrastructure destroyed years ago, and lift the Israeli ban on the entry of hundreds of essential items needed by the population.”
It is unclear from Abu Zaida’s post whether the negotiations were still ongoing when Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the two-year war in the Gaza Strip and thereby drastically worsening the conditions of the enclave for its roughly 2.3 million residents.
The former PA minister said on Friday that he will soon reveal details of those talks, including a message that he passed to Israel from Sinwar.
Palestinian worker found dead in Umm al-Fahm reportedly fell from height, avoided medical treatment for fear of prosecution
The Palestinian worker whose body was found today in the northern Arab city of Umm al-Fahm is identified in Arabic media as Omar sl-Sadda, from the village of Jit in the northern West Bank.
Sadda, who was in Israel without a permit, reportedly fell from an elevated surface several days ago but avoided seeking treatment out of fear he would be prosecuted for his status and would lose his source of income.
Israel has severely restricted the entry of Palestinian laborers from the West Bank since the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.
The unemployment rate in the West Bank in the second quarter of 2026 was nearly 28%, about double the rate before the onslaught, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Central Bureau of Statistics.