Sept. 22: Asked about UK decision to sanction Israeli settlements, Trump claims he doesn’t know about it

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.

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.

Charges to be dropped against pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied Stanford building

Students walk by graffiti near university president Richard Saller's office at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, June 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)

Charges against five former and current Stanford University students will be dismissed in relation to a 2024 pro-Palestinian demonstration in which protesters barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office says it will dismiss the charges if the five defendants complete 100 hours of community service each and pay about $52,000 combined in restitution to the university.

Santa Clara County Deputy Public Defender Avi Singh, who represented one of the defendants, said all had “made full restitution and agreed to complete substantial community service so they can move forward with their lives,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

A judge declared a mistrial in February after jurors could not reach a verdict. Twelve protesters were initially charged with felony vandalism. Seven of them previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.

Prosecutors said at the time the charges were filed that at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building sustained “extensive” damage.

The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israeli strikes on Gaza and to Washington’s support for its ally, along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.

G7 urges Iran to stop arming Houthis after attacks on Saudi Arabia

Supporters of Yemen’s Houthi rebels raise their machine guns during a rally in support of the group and to protest Saudi Arabia’s accusation that the Houthis targeted Islam’s holiest site of Mecca, in Sanaa, Yemen, September 18, 2026. (AP/Osamah Abdulrahman)

A statement from G7 foreign ministers calls on Iran to end its “to end its arming of and support for the Houthis” in Yemen, saying it constitutes a dangerous pattern of escalation that risks undermining international trade and creating global instability.

They also speak out against Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure, which has ramped up in recent weeks.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the unacceptable continued strikes carried out by the Houthis in Yemen and against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States say in a statement after a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We call on the Houthis to immediately cease all military actions, all threats and attacks against civilian shipping, and to return to the political process in good faith.”

The rebel group staged a lightning offensive in recent weeks to take over Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast, including Mokha, threatening global trade and pushing up energy prices up.

Gains made by Yemen’s Houthis have cemented Iran’s hold over two key waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz, that the wider Gulf and top crude exporter Saudi Arabia rely on to ship out its oil.

Saudi strikes on Yemen’s strategic Red Sea port Mokha killed at least six people and wounded eight others, the Houthi-affiliated news agency Saba reported Tuesday.

The strikes come off the back of a Houthi attack on Riyadh on Saturday which marked the first to target the Saudi capital in years and a major escalation by the pro-Iranian fighters.

Grenade damages cars in Or Akiva; no injuries

Police say a grenade thrown at a home in Or Akiva in the early morning hours caused damage to several cars but no injuries.

The attack is being investigated as a domestic criminal incident rather than terror, a police statement says.

There have been a rash of grenade attacks in recent months thought related to underworld feuding between powerful criminal gangs.

Iran president leaves for UN meet in New York, vows to ‘defend positions’

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian vows to “firmly defend” his country’s positions before departing for New York to attend the UN General Assembly.

“We emerged with our heads held high, and this is a source of dignity and pride for all of us. Therefore, we will firmly defend our positions in international forums,” he says before flying out of Iran, according to footage broadcast by state television.

Pezeshkian will be the highest-ranking Tehran official to enter the United States since the Middle East war began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived ahead of Pezeshkian on Monday,  and spoke by phone with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, exchanging views on the agenda of the UN General Assembly, Iranian state television reports.

“Our most important objective is to use a major international platform to defend the legitimacy, rights, and interests of the Iranian people,” Araghchi is quoted as telling Iranian journalists.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi walks with confidence as he arrives in New York for the 81st UN General Assembly.

President Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected to join him today and address the UN on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/YOh8tYw9bS

— Sonam Mahajan (@AsYouNotWish) September 22, 2026

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says Araghchi “will hold talks and consultations with numerous officials and foreign ministers attending the session.”

Baghaei described Araghchi as the “head of a diplomatic delegation” in a post on X after his arrival.

Palestinians report settler attack on cars in West Bank village

Palestinian media outlets report that settlers entered the village of Al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya, north of Ramallah, this morning and smashed the windows of several vehicles.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA claims that more than 200 Israelis entered the village under the protection of the Israel Defense Forces, leaving only after being confronted by locals. There is no immediate comment from the IDF.

No injuries are reported in the incident.

آثار التخريب عقب هجوم المستوطنين على منزل وتكسير عدد من المركبات في قرية المزرعة الشرقية، شمال شرق رام الله pic.twitter.com/ZIt8L1oXFO

— قناة عودة الفضائية (@AwdehTV) September 22, 2026

Over 150 killed in Yemen fighting since Sunday, sides say

Fighting in Yemen between the Iran-backed Houthis and government forces supported by Saudi Arabia has killed 154 people in the past two days, according to separate tallies from military sources on both sides.

“The death toll from Saudi airstrikes, clashes and artillery fire in the governorates of Taiz, Al-Jawf, Marib and Saada stands at 118,” Houthi military sources say, while government sources report 36 killed in their ranks.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabian civil defense says a potential threat in the Najran region has passed, after an earlier alert was issued amid ongoing hostilities between the kingdom and Houthis.

The province is adjacent to the Saudi-Yemeni border.

Motorcyclist killed at dangerous West Bank junction

A motorcycle rider in his 60s is declared dead by the Magen David Adom ambulance service after being hit by a truck in the West Bank near the Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem.

The victim is described as a man in his 60s.

The collision took place on Route 398, a West Bank road used by both Palestinians and settlers, at an intersection where nearly all Palestinian traffic from the outskirts of Bethlehem has been funneled due to all other eastward access points being blocked after October 7, 2023, creating chaotic congestion and dangerous conditions at the unregulated junction.

In January, Israeli authorities retroactively okayed the illegal settler outpost of Shdema next to the junction, putting further pressure on the intersection.

Secure passage built for Netanyahu’s Yom Kippur walk to Jerusalem synagogue went unused — reports

Israeli taxpayers footed the bill for a secure, climate-controlled passageway between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home and a nearby synagogue to allow him to walk to Yom Kippur services without being exposed to the street, though the tunnel was only partially erected and went unused during the Jewish fast day yesterday, according to Hebrew media reports.

The Shin Bet and the Prime Minister’s Office security division erected part of a covered, air-conditioned passage between Netanyahu’s home on Gaza Street and the nearby Yad Tamar synagogue, according to Ynet, which says a roughly 15- to-20-meter (50- to 65-foot) section had been built before work was halted several hours before Yom Kippur.

♦️ מנהרה ממוזגת הוקמה לכבוד ביבי על מנת שיילך מביתו ברחוב עזה לבית הכנסת. pic.twitter.com/2l5jTB9GCY

— Asslan Khalil (@KhalilAsslan) September 20, 2026

The preparations reportedly required road closures and the removal of cars from public parking spaces, while generators, fencing, barriers, tents and metal detectors were brought to the area, dozens of workers and police officers were involved, and security personnel used courtyards of neighboring homes.

Despite the preparations, Netanyahu ultimately did not attend services at the synagogue, and the passage went unused, Ynet reports, citing nearby residents, adding that the aborted plans incurred costs to the state and disrupted those in the area.

אורי משגב:
אשכרה עשו מאזור עזה 35 שטח צבאי סגור, עקב "אירוע ביטחוני".
האירוע הביטחוני הוא רצונו של נתניהו להעמיד פנים שהוא מתפלל בכיפור (נתניהו לא מאמין באלוהים).
כדי לממש את רצונו, מעבר לבידוקים ולביצורים, נבנתה מנהרה סטרילית עם מזגנים שתאפשר לו לצעוד 2 דקות ממעונו לבית הכנסת.. pic.twitter.com/Oy2jnZOreC

— eyal (@eyalranavni) September 20, 2026

According to Haredi news site Bhadrei Haredim, Netanyahu and his sons attended services at the home of businessman Moti Zonnenfeld, who has a residence in the area.

The Prime Minister’s Office does not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports.

Election panel to hear cases for disqualifying parties, candidates

Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben-Gvir tours Hatikva market in Tel Aviv on September 18, 2026. (Flash90)

The Central Elections Committee will convene Wednesday for the first of two days of hearings on petitions to bar parties and candidates from running in the October 27 election, with most of the challenges targeting Arab parties and candidates by right-wing parties.

Any bans approved by the committee, however, are unlikely to survive Supreme Court scrutiny, given the high bar the court has historically set for disqualification.

Three separate petitions seek to disqualify Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party, filed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit and the Choose Life Forum, an organization representing victims of terror.

Likud is also seeking to disqualify Hadash MK Ofer Cassif and the Joint List, the alliance of Arab-majority Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Otzma Yehudit is seeking to bar Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh and the small Orot HaShachar party has filed a separate petition against the hardline Balad. Petitioners accuse the parties of supporting terrorist groups and of rejecting Israel as a Jewish state.

The petitions come as Netanyahu’s bloc remains without a clear path to a 61-seat majority in current polls, while Ra’am could potentially provide the anti-Netanyahu bloc with the seats needed for a majority. Likud has attacked its rivals over the prospect that they may rely on Ra’am, while simultaneously seeking to prevent the party from running.

Separately, Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats and the Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights are seeking to disqualify Otzma Yehudit, accusing it of racist incitement and undermining Israel’s democratic character. Otzma Yehudit is seeking to disqualify the Democrats, while Zulat is also seeking to ban Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism joint slate with Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut.

The hearings will be chaired by Deputy Chief Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, who heads the election committee. Coalition parties hold 18 of its 31 seats, giving the governing bloc control of the committee’s voting majority.

A committee decision to disqualify individual candidates requires Supreme Court approval, while decisions on party slates can be brought to the court on appeal. The court has historically struck down most disqualifications.

Man caught spying for Iran near Gallant’s house given 4.5 years behind bars

The Haifa District Court sentences a man to 55 months in prison for spying on behalf of Iran, including making a recording near the home of former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Fares Abu al-Hija, 32, from the small Arab town of Kaukab in northern Israel, was convicted of contact with a foreign agent as part of a plea deal.

He was accused of carrying out several tasks for Iran between October 2025 and January 2026, ending with the mission outside Gallant’s home in northern Israel’s Amikam, where Abu al-Hija was arrested.

Other tasks included recording a Tel Aviv cafe and hiding cellphones, money and a password for a cryptocurrency wallet. The tasks earned Abu al-Hija a total of some $3,600, prosecutors say.

Abu al-Hija received the tasks and the payments from an account he corresponded with on Telegram. He suspected the contact was an Iranian agent, but neglected to investigate the matter, the court says.

The court says he has no criminal record and expressed regret for his actions. He is given two years’ probation in addition to his jail time.

Hormuz traffic down, two more ships attacked, tracking firms say

Two commodity vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, down from 10 a day earlier, preliminary shipping data from Kpler shows.

A mineral-laden Panama-flagged Supramax and a Liberia-flagged bulk carrier entered the waterway via an unknown route, Kpler data shows.

Two others, a crude oil tanker and a liquefied petroleum gas carrier, were attacked while crossing the Strait of Hormuz in separate incidents, shipping intelligence and tracking firm Marisks Intelligence says.

Marisks says The Isle of Man-flagged crude oil tanker LR Stephanie was struck by an unidentified projectile while entering the waterway on Monday, resulting in minor injuries to two crew members. A day earlier, the Liberia-flagged LPG tanker Al Maryah was struck while outbound.

Both vessels were able to continue without towing assistance, the report says.

“Responsibility for both incidents remains unconfirmed, and neither vessel has been identified on publicly reported Iranian Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) ‘non-compliant’ lists,” Marisks says.

Kpler’s figures on vessels that made it through the strait exclude any vessels that might have crossed with their Automatic Identification System transponders turned off to avoid detection.

Before the Iran conflict started on February 28, the strait typically handled about 125 large, commercial vessels per day, including tankers, gas carriers, bulkers and container vessels, accounting for some 20 percent of the world’s daily crude oil and liquefied natural gas supply.

At the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, 26 vessels crossed on Monday, unchanged from a day earlier.

Saudi Arabia restarts drone-damaged east-west pipeline

This satellite image provided by Vantor on September 13, 2026 shows the aftermath of the recent drone attack on the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia. (Satellite image ©2026 Vantor via AP)

Saudi Arabia has restarted operations at its East-West Pipeline and could resume exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu later on Tuesday, three sources briefed on the matter say.

The pipeline was pumping at a low rate, two of them said.

State energy firm Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Drone attacks forced Saudi Arabia to shut its East-West Pipeline on September 13, halting crude loadings at the kingdom’s Yanbu port.

Miracle, 9, becomes 9,000th patient helped by Save a Child’s Heart

Miracle Nkanda recovers after her surgery at the Sylvan Adams Children's Hospital at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, in an undated photo. (Courtesy/Save a Child's Heart)

Nine-year-old Miracle Nkanda from Malawi has become the 9,000th child to receive life-saving heart surgery through the Israeli charity Save A Child’s Heart, the organization says.

Nkanda was born with a complex congenital heart condition that could only be corrected through an operation not available in the southeastern African country. She came to Israel with a nurse but without her family for surgery at the Sylvan Adams Children’s Hospital at Wolfson Medical Center.

“I am happy that the surgery was a success,” says Dr. Lior Sasson, SACH’s lead surgeon. “Being able to treat so many children from 75 different countries is a wonderful accomplishment for Save a Child’s Heart.”

Nkanda’s journey also highlights SACH’s growing partnership with Malawi, which began in 2019. To date, 22 children from Malawi have been brought to Israel for life-saving care.

The Israeli humanitarian organization was founded in 1995 to treat children where access to pediatric cardiac care is limited or nonexistent, largely in Africa. Some children fly to Israel for surgeries; Israeli medical teams also travel to Africa to perform heart surgeries and assist local doctors.

Save A Child’s Heart also runs a fellowship training program for medical professionals, primarily from Africa, who then return to their home countries to provide advanced medical services.

More than 160 doctors and nurses have participated in the program over the years.

Netanyahu says he’ll use UN speech to attack NYC mayor Mamdani

Accusing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of supporting Hamas and encouraging violence against the city’s Jews, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is coming to the United Nations to tell the truth about the new hizzoner.

“Shame on you, Mr. Mamdani,” Netanyahu says in a video, one day before he takes off for the UN General Assembly in the city now run by Mamdani.

The mayor had said he would seek Netanyahu’s arrest as a suspected war criminal if he showed up, but later admitted that he lacked the authority to do so.

“Shame on you for supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people,” Netanyahu says. “Shame on you for inciting riots against New York Jews.”

“I am coming to the UN,” he continues. “I’m going to tell the truth about our heroic soldiers. And I’m going to tell the truth about you.”

Trump set to regale UN assembly with address on Iran, Gaza plan

US President Donald Trump will address the conflict with Iran, progress on his 20-point Gaza plan, and peace deals he has been working on worldwide during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly later today, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz tells reporters.

Trump will touch on the “importance of ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon,” Waltz says, according to an NBC report.

The president is slated to speak at the UN headquarters in New York around 9:45 a.m. local time (4:45 p.m. in Israel). It will be live-streamed by the UN.

Last year, Trump’s speech lasted nearly an hour and saw him deride the global body, condemn international migration and climate policies, hail his efforts to reach a hostage-ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, and condemn the wave of recognitions of Palestinian statehood at the time as a submission to the terror group’s “ransom demands.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Qatari leader Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and French President Emmanuel Macron are also among the world leaders set to address the assembly today, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to deliver his speech on Thursday.

Bedouin teen charged over alleged online posts praising Hamas

A 19-year-old from the southern Bedouin town of Segev Shalom is charged with incitement to terrorism and expressing support for a terrorist organization, police and the Shin Bet say.

Daifallah Abu Regailah was arrested in Segev Shalom about a month ago on suspicion of posting online content this year “that incites to terrorism and expresses support for Hamas,” the security agencies say in a joint statement.

Abu Regailah allegedly posted “pictures and videos of terrorist operatives, footage from the murderous terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, praise for terrorists and senior Hamas figures, content associated with [Hamas armed wing] al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, glorification of terrorist attacks carried out in Israel and explicit calls for violence and terrorism,” the statement says.

Abu Regailah is indicted at the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court, the statement says.

Police and prosecutors have in recent years stepped up arrests over online content allegedly supporting terror.

Eisenkot backs bid to disqualify Balad chief Abu Shehadeh from election

Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot backs far-right Otzma Yehudit’s petition to the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh from running in the October 27 election, arguing that comments he made immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks amount to support for terrorism against Israel.

The party cites an article Abu Shehadeh published on October 8, 2023, describing the Hamas assault as “an important historic event militarily, politically and strategically,” and saying that “if small, besieged Gaza managed to do this, and on this scale, others can do so more effectively and easily.”

Abu Shehadeh has since denied supporting the October 7 attacks, and says he would not have published the post had he known “the scale of the atrocities” committed at the time.

“I never called for violence, did not support the events of October 7 and do not justify them,” he says, in a post on X last week, insisting that his support for Palestinian rights and opposition to the occupation “were never support for violence or armed struggle.”

Yashar says Abu Shehadeh’s subsequent clarification reiterating that he did not support the attacks “does not erase what he wrote at the time.”

“Support for the armed struggle of a terrorist organization against Israel is grounds for disqualifying a candidate. In our view, Abu Shehadeh crossed that line,” the statement says.

Yashar’s backing comes as Attorney General Gali Baharav-Meira and State Attorney Amit Aisman call for the CEC to “seriously consider” banning Abu Shehadeh, who has survived previous disqualification attempts.

Basic Law: The Knesset explicitly prohibits anyone expressing support for armed struggle against the State of Israel from running for Knesset.

Separately, Eisenkot petitions the election committee to order the removal of a widely criticized AI-generated campaign video published by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party last week depicting Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, Justice Daphne Barak-Erez and Baharav-Miara being forcibly dragged from a protest.

The video was released last week to promote Religious Zionism’s new judicial overhaul platform, which proposes measures going beyond those pursued by the current coalition, including allowing the Knesset to reinstate legislation struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Boy George to perform in Israel in November

British musician Boy George performs with Senhit (not pictured) representing San Marino with the song ‘Superstar’ during the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 at Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria, May 12, 2026. (Tobias Schwarz/AFP)

British pop star Boy George is set to perform on November 4 at Tel Aviv’s Menora Mivtachim arena.

George is one of the few international artists to perform in Israel in recent years, during the ongoing cultural boycott.

The singer publicly expressed support for Israel and the Jewish community, releasing the song “We Will Dance Again” in July, dedicated to those killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, at the Nova desert rave.

In the song, Boy George rejects accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and criticizes other artists who speak out against Israel.

The singer was criticized for the song, and parted ways with the head of his record label, who refused to release it.

As a guest artist with San Marino’s delegation at Eurovision 2026, he refused to join calls to boycott the competition over Israel’s participation, saying that he would not turn his back on his Jewish friends.

George rose to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer of Culture Club, known for hits including “Karma Chameleon” and “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.” He performed in Israel in 2017, hosting Dana International as a guest performer.

The tickets, ranging in price from NIS 280 ($93) to NIS 799 ($265), go on sale September 23 at noon.

Pop star Boy George sends a message about his upcoming November 2026 performance in Tel Aviv (Live Nation Israel via Facebook)

Poland arrests teen neo-Nazi for plotting attack on mosque

Poland’s intelligence services have arrested a 17-year-old Nazi sympathizer suspected of plotting an attack against a school and a mosque, say anti-terror prosecutors in the eastern European country.

Named only as Pawel G., the suspect is charged with plotting a terrorist attack, promoting Nazi and fascist ideology, inciting racial hatred and attempting to purchase weapons.

A search of his computer and telephone revealed “correspondence related, among others things, to the planning of mass attacks, including an assault on a school and a mosque… the acquisition of weapons, ammunition and military equipment, as well as the use of grenades and Molotov cocktails,” the prosecutors’ statement says.

Investigators also seized explosives, knives, a bayonet and items bearing Nazi and fascist symbols at his home, according to the authorities.

In a separate statement, the ABW domestic security agency says that two other minors had been recently detained in connection with Pawel G.’s arrest.

All three were in contact with far-right activists, including a minor of German nationality whom Polish investigators reported to Berlin’s intelligence services, on the Telegram and Discord platforms.

The suspect, who faces up to 15 years in prison, has denied the charges against him.

Putin and Saudi crown prince discuss safe passage via Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk before a working session of leaders at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019. (AP/Susan Walsh)

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in which they highlighted the need for safe passage via the Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz straits, key global maritime trade routes, the Kremlin says.

It also says the two leaders held a detailed exchange of views on the situation in the Middle East and emphasized that a political and diplomatic settlement remains the only viable path forward.

They also “underscored the need for a swift cessation of hostilities” in Yemen amid the deteriorating military and political situation there.

“The importance of ensuring the safe and unimpeded passage of vessels through the region’s international waterways, including the Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz, was emphasized,” the Kremlin says.

WATCH: UN General Assembly kicks off in New York

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, talks with others during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Heather Khalifa)

The United Nations General Assembly is beginning now in New York City.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is speaking first, and later in the proceedings US President Donald Trump will be addressing the gathered national representatives.

The leaders of Jordan, Qatar and Turkey are also expected to speak today.

Joint List attacks Eisenkot; Gantz joins bid to disqualify Balad chief Abu Shehadeh

Balad party chief MK Sami Abu Shehadeh arrives to cast his vote on November 1, 2022 in Jaffa. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen attacks Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot for backing far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party’s effort to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh from the October 27 election.

“You cannot talk about replacing the right-wing government while at the same time taking part in the campaign to delegitimize representatives of the Arab public,” says Jabareen, who leads the alliance of the three Arab-majority parties Hadash, Ta’al and Balad.

“Anyone who supports democracy cannot lend a hand to Otzma Yehudit’s fascist move and its attempt to disqualify a candidate from the Joint List,” he continues, adding that Eisenkot is “legitimizing” Ben Gvir’s “racist and anti-democratic policies” rather than fighting them.

Eisenkot is also now joined by Benny Gantz’s Blue and White in backing Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification, with the party saying its representatives on the Central Elections Committee will vote in favor of Otzma Yehudit’s petition.

Blue and White, which has polled below the electoral threshold for months and has not categorically ruled out again serving in a government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says it will also support a separate petition to disqualify Abu Shehadeh’s Balad, as well as Likud’s bid to disqualify Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, alleging their “support for terrorist activity and opposition to the State of Israel as a Jewish state.”

The petition against Abu Shehadeh centers on an Arabic-language article he published on October 8, 2023, in which he described the Hamas assault a day earlier as “an important historic event militarily, politically and strategically” and wrote that others could learn from Gaza’s success in surprising Israel.

The Balad leader has since denied supporting the Hamas attack or political violence, and said that he would not have published the article had he known the scale of the atrocities at the time.

UN chief: Settlement expansion in West Bank raising ‘specter of ethnic cleansing’; onslaught on Gaza ‘unlike anything I’ve witnessed’

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Seth Wenig)

The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is damaging the prospect of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians while raising the “specter of ethnic cleansing,” warns UN chief Antonio Guterres.

“Violence, displacement and settlement expansion by Israel in the occupied West Bank are bulldozing the path to peace and raising the specter of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes,” he says while opening the UN’s signature diplomatic gathering in New York.

“It is nearly three years since the abhorrent terror attacks by Hamas on seventh of October,” he also says. “But what followed was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my years as secretary-general.”

German Chancellor Merz: Jewish life in Germany ‘is no longer safe’

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz talks to the media during a press conference at the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) headquarters in Berlin, Germany, after the previous day's two state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, September 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

In remarks at his press conference in Berlin yesterday, following his CDU party’s heavy defeats in two state elections, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz lamented that Jewish life in Germany “is no longer safe,” Germany’s dpa news agency reports.

“The CDU, and I personally, are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that Jewish life in Germany, and here in the capital, Berlin, is safe,” Merz is reported to have said. “And wherever that is threatened, we will oppose it with everything at our disposal,” the news agency quotes Merz saying.

Addressing Jewish communities in Berlin and around the world, he said that what has become possible in Berlin’s streets and squares, and in the media, “is a disgrace for Germany, and I will do everything in my power to bring it under control and push it back.”

He cited a rise in radical and openly expressed antisemitism in recent months, which he said was even being applauded, dpa reports. “And I very much hope that the SPD in particular, but also the Greens, will give a very clear response here, especially here in Berlin.”

“The fact that Jewish life is no longer safe in Germany is the heaviest burden of recent years,” Merz reportedly stressed, noting that this should deeply concern all democratic parties in Germany.

In rare statement, Saudi king condemns Houthis as ‘terrorist militia’

Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud chairs a virtual Cabinet session in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 28, 2024. (SPA / AFP)

The king of Saudi Arabia denounces Yemen’s Houthis as a “terrorist militia” in a rare statement today reacting to an attack that authorities said targeted the holy city of Mecca last week.

King Salman, 90, praises the armed forces and security services for defending the country, and condemns the recent Houthi attempt “to target Mecca,” calling it “a provocation to Muslims around the world,” according to the official Saudi news agency.

Opposition leaders to hold election strategy talks without Ra’am

Left to right: Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Avigdor Liberman. (Composite photo; credits: Flash90)

The leaders of the main Zionist opposition parties will meet Saturday night to coordinate their moves ahead of the October 27 election, without Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas, whose Islamist party could prove crucial to their chances of forming a government.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid will host Naftali Bennett, who leads the B’Yachad joint slate established with Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot, Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman and Democrats leader Yair Golan at his Tel Aviv home, according to a statement from B’Yachad.

While the four main Zionist opposition parties have been polling slightly ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition bloc in recent surveys, with around 55 seats to the coalition’s 51, they remain short of the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority without support from Ra’am or another party outside the bloc.

The prospect of an opposition government relying on Ra’am has become a central theme of the coalition’s campaign, with Netanyahu and his allies accusing Eisenkot and the other opposition leaders of intending to form a left-wing government dependent on Arab parties. Likud is also seeking to disqualify Ra’am from next month’s election.

Netanyahu himself courted Abbas while trying to form a government after the 2021 election, before Abbas ultimately joined Bennett and Lapid’s short-lived coalition.

Police: Settler minor evading arrest warrant over Qusra attack turns himself in

Settlers who raided a Palestinian village gather on the balcony of a building under construction in the West Bank's Qusra, August 29, 2026. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)

Police say a settler minor turned himself in this morning following a warrant for his arrest over alleged involvement in an attack on Palestinians in Qusra on August 29, weeks into a settler siege on a number of homes in the northern West Bank village.

The suspect, who lives in the northern West Bank, was interrogated and will be brought before a court tomorrow to have his detention extended, police say.

He had been on the run since arrest warrants were issued for suspects soon after the attack in Qusra, according to police.

He is the seventh suspect to be arrested in connection with the attack, in which settlers took over a Palestinian home with a family inside, police say.

Nobody was arrested during or immediately after the attack, despite the presence of Israeli security forces in the area.

WATCH: Trump addresses opening of UN General Assembly

United States President Donald Trump arrives for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Stefan Jeremiah)

US President Donald Trump is about to address the United Nations General Assembly, and is expected  to touch on tensions with Iran as well as his peace plan for Gaza.

Trump at UN: Iran was ‘the bully of the Middle East,’ but is not anymore

US President Donald Trump speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, on September 22, 2026. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS — US President Donald Trump touts his decision to confront Iran in the beginning of his speech before the United Nations General Assembly.

“As president of the most extraordinary nation in history, I have no interest in leaving dangers to grow for another day. I do not believe in letting problems fester; they only become harder to solve. While others have talked, I have acted,” Trump says.

“There is no better example of a danger that is allowed to gather strength at the world’s peril than the number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he asserts. “They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.”

He recalls having long pledged to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while highlighting that he still offered to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the problem upon taking office last year.

“They absolutely refused. That was a big mistake,” he says, noting that it led to his decision to strike three of Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025.

Trump again claims the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, even though Tehran still has others enrichment sites, including Pickaxe, which Trump has threatened to bomb in recent weeks. Iran also has stockpiles of highly enriched uranium that can be quickly converted into a nuclear weapon.

Trump laments that Iran refused to make a deal after the US strikes in June 2025 and instead began building a “vast missile and drone stockpile that threatened the security of every American service member in the region and everyone else in the region.”

“They also made a missile that was capable of hitting Europe, and they were very proud of it. I hope the Europeans realized that,” he says, in an apparent knock at what he believes has been Europe’s insufficient response to Iranian aggression.

“Iran’s goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this conventional ballistic missile shield. If they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death forever, knowing that any attempt to stop it would face an arsenal of nuclear annihilation,” Trump says.

Trump tells UN he gave Iran ‘every chance for a deal’ before launching strikes

US President Donald Trump speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Seth Wenig)

UNITED NATIONS — In making his case against Iran during his address to the United Nations General Assembly, US President Donald Trump recalls that its slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei called Hamas’s October 7 onslaught against Israel a “service to humanity.”

“In America, we just marked the 25th anniversary of the worst terror attack in history, September 11, which killed 3,000 people, just a few miles from here. It’s an unbelievably terrible time. In two weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the October 7 attack in Israel, [where] terrorists funded by Iran tortured, mutilated and killed 1,200 very innocent civilians, including dozens of Americans and many babies — tiny, beautiful babies,” Trump laments.

“Iran’s supreme leader celebrated that massacre and called it a service to humanity,” he continues. “The same regime slaughtered over 72,000 citizens this year. Recently, 10,000 were killed for protesting. Just imagine such a vile regime were ever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield.”

“After giving Iran every chance for a deal, I took action to ensure that neither the United States nor any nation [represented] in this hall would ever have to face such a nightmare,” Trump says, referring to the launch of Operation Epic Fury against Iran in February.

He makes no mention of Israel’s role in the war.

Trump repeats that the US succeeded in destroying Iran’s navy, its air force, its radar, its anti-aircraft equipment and says that Tehran’s “missiles and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone” — an acknowledgment that Washington has fallen short of what many of its officials claimed was a key war aim.

Still, Trump touts the devastation to Iran’s economy, which is plagued by ever-rising inflation.

He also laments Tehran’s decision to continue targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz after a ceasefire was briefly reached in June and thanks the UN Security Council for passing a resolution condemning those actions.

Despite Iran’s efforts to hamper commercial shipping, the US is still managing to escort ships out of the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis, Trump says.

Addressing UN, Trump lauds his Gaza ceasefire for saving ‘thousands of lives’

US President Donald Trump speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, on September 22, 2026. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS — US President Donald Trump touts the ceasefire-hostage release deal he secured last year in Gaza as well as his establishment of the Board of Peace, which is tasked with overseeing the postwar rebuild of the Strip.

“One year ago, when I addressed the great leaders in this hall, the war in Gaza was still raging brutally. The hostages were still deep in Hamas tunnels, and there was no end in sight,” he says in his remarks before the UN General Assembly.

“But here on the sidelines of the General Assembly, we took the first steps. It changed everything,” Trump says, referring to a meeting he held with the leaders of Arab and Muslim-majority countries where he secured their support for his plan to end the Gaza war.

“A few weeks later, we ended the war in Gaza, saving untold thousands of lives. We also brought home all remaining hostages — both living and dead, every single one of them,” he continues, thanking the UN Security Council for subsequently endorsing his 20-point plan for rehabilitating the Gaza Strip and granting a mandate to his newly formed Board of Peace to oversee the Gaza rebuild.

That plan has struggled to get off the ground — first amid Hamas’s refusal to accept the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan. Hamas accepted the proposal on July 30, but it has since stalled amid Israeli insistence that the initiative isn’t sufficient.

Trump touts the 30 countries that have agreed to join the board, giving specific shout-outs to Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Uzbekistan, which have agreed to contribute billions of dollars toward Gaza’s reconstruction. The vast majority of those funds, however, have not actually been transferred.

“That money goes right to the source — right where they need it, and they desperately need it,” Trump insists. Board of Peace supporters “want to see the humanitarian thing happen properly.”

He then thanks Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo and Kazakhstan for agreeing to contribute troops to the Board of Peace’s International Stabilization Force, which will be tasked with phasing out the IDF from Gaza and securing the Strip’s borders.

Indonesia had frozen its plans to join the ISF, though a Board of Peace official told The Times of Israel earlier this month that engagement with Jakarta on the matter has picked back up.

No foreign troops are currently stationed in Gaza, though, with Israel also blocking such deployment. There is also no timeline for when the ISF will even begin to train.

Trump goes on to thank Egypt and Jordan, which will be helping train members of the new Palestinian police force for Gaza. That training has been held up, however, as Israel has refused to allow recruits to leave the Strip to train in Egypt.

UK police: 2 arrested over suspected terrorism plot to target Jewish community

British counter-terrorism police say they have arrested two people as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist plot to target the Jewish community in northern England.

Police say two men in their 30s were arrested in Manchester on Sunday and remain in custody.

Last Yom Kippur, two worshipers were killed when an attacker targeted a synagogue in Manchester on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Balad chief Abu Shehadeh denounces those seeking to bar him from election

Head of the Balad party MK Sami Abu Shehadeh addresses the Central Election Committee at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, September 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh denounces National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and opposition leaders backing an effort to disqualify him from the October 27 election over allegations that he expressed support for terrorism following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.

“No one convicted of incitement to terrorism, nor any other racist, will deter me from the path I am pursuing toward a better reality,” Abu Shehadeh says, referring to Ben Gvir, whose Otzma Yehudit party filed the petition, and who was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization.

“Unfortunately, some of the leaders of the ‘opposition’ have decided to cooperate with the illegitimate attempt to silence the Arab voice at the ballot box,” Abu Shehadeh continues, after Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White announced their support for his disqualification.

“Trying to be a pale imitation of the right did not help you before, and it will not help you now,” he says. “Those who claim to be fighting for democracy cannot support the disqualification of the Arab minority’s voice.”

The petition to disqualify Abu Shehadeh centers on an article he published the day after the October 7 attacks, in which he described the Hamas assault as “an important historic event militarily, politically and strategically.” Abu Shehadeh has since denied supporting the attack or political violence, saying he would not have published the article had he known the scale of the atrocities at the time.

At UN, Jordan’s Abdullah says Israeli policies in Gaza, West Bank aim to make Palestinian state ‘impossible’

Jordan’s King Abdullah II speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)

Jordan’s King Abdullah II berates Israeli military action in Gaza and recent West Bank policies during his address at the UN General Assembly in New York, calling on the international community to take greater action against them.

A few minutes into his speech, Abdullah enters into a lengthy series of accusations against the Israeli government, saying it is prolonging the war in Gaza and undermining efforts by US President Donald Trump to bring it to an end, as well as allowing a “fundamental shift” to take place in the West Bank through “de facto annexation” and rising settler violence.

“President Trump has pushed hard for peace and a path to end this war,” Abdullah tells the assembly. “But this Israeli government keeps moving the goalposts, continuing its attacks and destruction of civilian infrastructure, refusing to withdraw, and squeezing Palestinians into barely a third of Gaza,” he says, asserting that 300 Palestinian children were killed in the first 300 days since the US-brokered hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas last October, and that Jordanian field hospitals in Gaza have been targeted.

Abdullah says the Gaza war, which Israel launched in response to the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in October 2023, is the result of decades in which the international community chose to “manage” rather than resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that repeated Israeli actions once treated as “temporary” have gradually “become policy.”

Turning to the West Bank, Abdullah says “what was once a creeping process has exploded into something far more aggressive,” pointing to “settler violence,” “land seizures,” settlement expansion and the “forcible transfer” of Palestinians.

In both Gaza and the West Bank, Abdullah charges, “the reality on the ground is being remade — Gaza through destruction, the West Bank through de facto annexation… The objective is the same: to make a viable Palestinian state impossible.”

Man shot, seriously wounded in Umm al-Fahm, first responders say

A man was shot and seriously wounded in the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm a short while ago, according to first responders.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service says the man is about 30 years old. He was brought to a local clinic and rushed from there to Haemek Hospital in Afula in serious and unstable condition, MDA says.

Officers are gathering evidence on the scene and scanning the area for suspects, police say.

Most of Iran’s delegation walks out of Trump’s UN speech in protest

Empty seats in the Iran delegation are seen as US President Donald Trump speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly at UN Headquarters on September 22, 2026 in New York City. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS — Senior members of Iran’s delegation at the UN General Assembly walked out of US President Donald Trump’s speech as he began a section of his remarks in which he again threatened to annihilate the Islamic Republic.

A single lower-level diplomat remained in the plenum for the entirety of Trump’s remarks.

The US agreed to grant entry visas to Iran’s president and foreign minister for the UNGA meeting, while denying them to the Palestinian Authority president and his delegation.

????Iranian delegation began to walk out as Trump started the Iran portion of his speech, saying that he has a choice to make about whether to annihilate the country or make a deal with them.

One lower level staff member remains. pic.twitter.com/iFtL9ntfkv

— Farnoush Amiri (@FarnoushAmiri) September 22, 2026

Reports: Two killed in drone strike in Gaza

Hamas-affiliated media outlets in Gaza report that two people were killed and three others injured in a drone strike in the Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City.

The IDF has yet to comment.

#شاهد | المقهى الذي يتم استهـ ـدافه و بالقرب من مدرسة مسقط بحي التفاح شمال شرق مدينة غزة.#غزة #فلسطين #حي_التفاح pic.twitter.com/U0trFHXeag

— الرسالة (@net_resalah) September 22, 2026

French Holocaust denier handed eight-month jail sentence

Vincent Reynouard, prosecuted for contesting crimes against humanity, poses during his appearance before the Saverne criminal court, September 27, 2007. (Frederick FLORIN / AFP)

A Paris court jails a prominent French Holocaust denier for eight months for claiming that Nazi gas chambers did not exist during World War II.

Holocaust denial has been a criminal offense in France since 1990.

Vincent Reynouard, already convicted 10 times since 2006, mainly for denying crimes against humanity, was charged over articles that appeared in a far-right magazine in 2024 and 2025.

Writing for Rivarol, Reynouard, 57, described the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps as “Soviet propaganda” and “made-up stories.”

He also argued that “large gas chambers for a thousand people” were a “technical impossibility.”

“By denying the existence of the gas chambers, a symbol of the extermination of the Jews regardless of their size or capacity, the defendant is denying the existence of the Holocaust through the questioning of one of its principal methods,” the court says in its ruling, which was seen by AFP.

Reynouard was also convicted of antisemitic insult for describing Jewish people as “pathogenic.”

“He thus reduces Jewish people to a germ that is a source of infection,” the judges say.

At UN, Erdogan accuses Israel of ‘genocidal mindset,’ calls on world to help rebuild Gaza

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly at UN Headquarters on September 22, 2026 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP)

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launches a blistering attack on Israel over the war in Gaza and other policies affecting Palestinians, accusing it of “acts of state terror” and saying the enclave has become “the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time.”

The leader opens his Turkish-language address by calling on countries that have not recognized a Palestinian state to do so, while denouncing the denial of a visa to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Turning to the situation in Gaza, Erdogan says that “in Gaza alone, over the past three years, we have lost 74,000 of our brothers and sisters, most of them women and children, mind you,” saying, “we lost them to what we regard as acts of state terror by Israel,” and saying the enclave has become “the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time.”

“We are faced with a genocidal mindset that can never get enough of killing,” he says of Israel, saying no one with “moral consciousness” can ignore the issue, to which parts of the assembly respond with several seconds of applause.

Erdogan also accuses Israel of refusing to advance the second stage of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire agreement, while lamenting that the West Bank is experiencing severe settler “violence and terror” and that Muslims and Christians are being denied access to holy sites in Jerusalem.

The president calls for world leaders to “exert greater pressure” on Israel to advance the reconstruction of Gaza, which he says must begin “as soon as possible” amid stalled efforts by Trump’s Board of Peace to advance Washington’s peace plan for the Strip.

Israel’s delegation at the UN left during Erdogan’s speech.

Israel’s relations with Turkey, once a close security ally, have drastically deteriorated following Erdogan’s rise to power, and have largely collapsed since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Erdogan has likened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, while the premier has called his Turkish counterpart an “antisemitic dictator” and condemned him for “committing genocide against the Kurds” while supporting the Hamas terror group.

Ben Gvir demands role of defense minister in next government, Gotliv as justice minister

National Security Minister and Otzma Yehudit party chairman Itamar Ben Gvir and fellow party member Tali Gotliv hold a press conference in Jerusalem, September 22, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir declares that his far-right party will demand the Defense Ministry for himself and the Justice Ministry for No. 2 Tally Gotliv in the next government, unveiling plans to “encourage” Palestinians to leave Gaza and the West Bank, immediately fire the attorney general, loosen constraints on the military and radically constrain judicial power and independence.

The sweeping platforms would hand the two prospective ministers direct authority over institutions they have spent years seeking to radically reshape: Ben Gvir through his advocacy for the removal of Palestinians and fewer constraints on the use of military force, and Gotliv through her campaign to weaken the judiciary and attorney general, two of the sole checks on executive power in Israel.

Ben Gvir’s security platform includes “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Palestinians, “disarming” the Palestinian Authority, while changing the IDF’s rules of engagement and ethics code, authored by philosopher Asa Kasher, which Otzma Yehudit criticizes as “progressive.”

Earlier this month, Ben Gvir unveiled a detailed plan aimed at removing 1.86 million Palestinians — the vast majority of Gaza’s population — from the Strip within seven years through what he terms “voluntary emigration” and what is decried by critics as ethnic cleansing.

Gotliv’s justice platform calls for immediately firing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara upon formation of the next government and requiring Supreme Court nominees to undergo Knesset hearings and win approval from two-thirds of the Constitution Committee.

The government voted last year to fire Baharav-Miara but the move was annulled by the High Court.

Gotliv also proposes restricting the High Court’s powers, and abolishing the judicial candidate evaluation course, which Otzma Yehudit calls a tool of the “judicial junta.”

14 settler activists cross into Syria before being retrieved by the IDF

Fourteen Israeli settlement activists illegally crossed the border into Syria a short while ago, before being returned to Israel by the IDF, the latest in a series of such incidents.

The military says the 14 Israelis arrived near the border community of Alonei Habashan and crossed into Syria.

IDF troops who were dispatched to the scene located the activists, returned them to Israeli territory, and detained them, the military says, adding that they were handed over to the police for further handling.

Fourteen Israeli settlement activists illegally crossed the border into Syria a short while ago, before being returned to Israel by the IDF, the latest in a series of such incidents.

The military says the 14 Israelis arrived near the border community of Alonei Habashan and… pic.twitter.com/GoaChE5vAE

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 22, 2026

The activists are members of the Bashan Pioneers group, which calls for establishing settlements in southern Syria. There has been an increase in attempts by the activists to cross the border into Syria in recent months.

“The IDF strongly condemns the incident, which constitutes another serious disruption of operational activity and poses a danger to the safety of IDF troops operating in the area,” the military says.

The IDF adds that “law enforcement authorities are required to bring those involved to justice and to prevent those individuals from repeatedly engaging in this incident, which constitutes a criminal offense.”

No charges have been filed against the Bashan Pioneers members, and despite their illegal actions, they have also received support from some coalition lawmakers.

The group, in a statement this evening, says that “after we realized that there is support for the idea of legal Israeli settlement in Bashan, both from the political side and from actors on the ground, but that they are not enough to bring things to implementation, the activists decided to return and push from below, in the hope that we will soon reach actual settlement.”

Qatari emir tells UN situation in Gaza ‘is genocide in every sense of the word’

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)

UNITED NATIONS — Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani says that restraining Israeli “aggression” across the Middle East poses “the true test of the international community’s seriousness” in upholding the rule of law.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Sheikh Tamim tears into Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.

“There can be no talk of a just international order as long as Palestine remains a blind spot within it,” the Qatari emir says.

“What has transpired in Gaza is genocide in every sense of the word, and a stain of shame on the conscience of humanity as a whole,” he argues. Israel flatly rejects such allegations, insisting that its military abides by the international laws of war, while Hamas hides among civilians.

“Future generations will be astonished by the enormous gap between the scale of the catastrophe and the level of the international response to stop it,” Tamim says, calling out Israeli political leaders from across the political spectrum who are advocating for the “encouraged emigration” of Gazans — a euphemism that the Qatari emir says actually amounts to forced displacement.

“Instead of looking in the mirror, they resort to hurling accusations indiscriminately in all directions — at times, invoking accusations of antisemitism, and at others resorting to conspiracy theories and accusing other powers and states of being responsible for creating their negative image,” he says, apparently referencing Israeli accusations that Qatar is funding incitement against Israel in various arenas.

“It’s as though… Israeli soldiers had not boasted through both sound and visuals of their crimes, and as though images of the crimes against humanity committed in Gaza had not been circulated by an entire generation of young people across the world,” Tamim says.

He highlights Qatar’s efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas throughout the Gaza war in order to secure ceasefires and hostage release deals.

Doha has been regularly criticized in Israel for hosting Hamas and sending funds to Gaza that allowed the terror group to build up its arsenal, but Qatar argues that it was asked by Israel to perform those functions.

Tamim laments the stalled Board of Peace plan for Hamas to disarm, blasting Israel for failing to honor its commitments under the agreement to halt its strikes, pull back its troops from Gaza and expand the entry of humanitarian aid.

“We fear that those who regard displacement as the solution will obstruct anything that could ease the lives of the population, because this would strengthen their resilience on their land,” Tamim says.

The Qatari emir also highlights “persecution, apartheid, and settler terrorism in the occupied West Bank, the desecration of Islamic and Christian holy sites” and the denial of Palestinian self-determination.

He hits out at Israeli buffer zones in Lebanon and Syria, saying the only justification that Jerusalem has used to defend the former is its distrust of the new regime in Damascus.

“Its destruction of entire villages in southern Lebanon in broad daylight is reminiscent of its history in Palestine,” the emir laments.

Asked about UK decision to sanction Israeli settlements, Trump says he doesn’t know about it

Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham, left, meets with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, September 22, 2026. (Toby Melville/Pool Photo via AP)

NEW YORK — Asked for his thoughts on the UK’s decision to outlaw trade with Israeli settlements, US President Donald Trump claims that he is unfamiliar with the decision.

“I don’t know about the [decision]. Do you know about the [decision]?” Trump asks UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham during a bilateral meeting on the UN General Assembly sidelines.

Trump was actually briefed by Burnham before London’s announcement of the sanctions regime targeting Israeli settlements but refrained from pushing back on the initiative, a Western official told The Times of Israel earlier this month.

Asked about the ban two weeks ago, Trump said he planned to speak to Israel and other countries to understand why it was made “all of a sudden.”

Tapped by Trump to explain the decision, Burnham tells reporters that London felt compelled to act after Israel advanced the controversial E1 settlement construction project, which supporters and opponents say will mark the death-knell of a two-state solution.

“If we do nothing, then it further erodes people’s trust in politics,” Burnham says.

The UK premier goes on to stress the UK’s condemnation of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, leading Trump to pipe in to say that it was a “very strong condemnation.”

While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has separately clarified that the US will not be joining other Western countries in sanctioning Israeli settlements, Washington has quite notably avoided condemning the move, which infuriated Jerusalem.

Trump claims Iran is ‘talking to us even today’

US President Donald Trump meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, September 22, 2026. (Toby Melville/Pool Photo via AP)

NEW YORK — US President Donald Trump claims that the US has been talking to Iran today, again insisting that a deal is going to be made to end the ongoing conflict.

“I think that a settlement is going to be reached. They want to talk to us. They have been talking to us even today… The relationship is developing,” Trump tells reporters during his meeting on the sidelines of the UN with UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Gunman who opened fire outside Canada synagogue on Yom Kippur dies of wounds

Police officers talk near the scene of a shooting where a police officer was shot outside a Yom Kippur gathering at Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, September 21, 2026. (Patrick Doyle/Reuters)

A gunman who was shot by Canadian police after firing on officers outside a synagogue on Yom Kippur has died of his wounds, an official says.

A 29-year-old man, carrying a shotgun, approached a synagogue in Belleville, a city in southeastern Ontario, on Sunday evening as worshipers gathered to mark Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

The man, named as Sean Ward, shot at police, prompting officers guarding the Sons of Jacob congregation to return fire.

Ward was hospitalized after the shooting and died last night, says Kristy Dennette, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which probes shootings involving police.

Dennette tells AFP an injured officer remains in stable condition in hospital.

Police have not confirmed that Belleville’s Jewish community was the target of the attack, but Dennette told reporters that “common sense” would suggest Ward was trying to attack the synagogue.

At UN, Macron says Gaza is a ‘spectacle that shames us all’

France’s President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)

French President Emmanuel Macron says the situation in conflict-devastated Gaza is a “spectacle that shames us all,” as he gave his last speech as France’s leader to the UN’s showpiece diplomatic week.

“What is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza? Some claim that peace has been achieved, but this has not opened up humanitarian deliveries. It is a spectacle that shames us all,” he says.

In an impassioned moment during his speech, Macron also takes a swipe at increased settler violence in the West Bank, saying it is removing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to exist.

First Iran flights canceled as US sanctions set to come into force

Flights from Iran to the capitals of Iraq and Oman will be canceled as of midnight, local media reports, hours before expanded US sanctions are due to come into force.

The Tasnim news agency cites a civil aviation spokesman as saying that “Baghdad and Muscat airports will no longer accept Iranian flights.”

“Other international flights, including Istanbul, will operate as scheduled and as usual, and at present there are no problems with these flights,” Tasnim reports.

According to Tasnim, Iran’s aviation authorities are in talks to reroute Baghdad flights to Najaf, a major destination for Iranian pilgrims.

The agency ISNA says negotiations with Oman are also ongoing.

In Iraq, the government has not yet announced plans to enforce the ban, but several sources, including a senior government official, tell AFP that Baghdad will comply.

Earlier this month the US blacklisted the Iranian aviation sector and threatened sanctions against any foreign organization working with Iran’s airlines.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that Iranian airlines would face difficulties operating as of tomorrow under the weight of American sanctions.

“All the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world,” Bessent told CNBC in an interview.

Report: UAE intel warned Shin Bet of Hamas action before Oct 7, prompting purported MBZ-Netanyahu call

Benjamin Netanyahu, left, Yahya Sinwar, center and Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash90/ File, AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

The United Arab Emirates’ intelligence service warned the Shin Bet in September 2023 that Hamas could carry out a violent action by the end of the month — days before the October 7 massacre took place — Channel 12 reports, saying the intelligence warning was what prompted UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed’s purported phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the matter.

According to the network, which cites three senior Emirati sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the UAE warning was essentially identical to information the Shin Bet had received through a separate channel from then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar warning of an impending “earthquake” over negotiations for the release of Palestinian security prisoners.

Channel 12 originally reported on Sinwar’s warning in 2024, but reports of the phone call between Bin Zayed and Netanyahu only emerged in recent weeks. Netanyahu has vehemently denied that any such conversation took place.

Bin Zayed called Netanyahu to ensure that the intelligence passed by the Emiratis to the Shin Bet had reached him, and was assured by the premier that the matter was “being handled,” the network reports.

Channel 12 also reports new details on why the Shin Bet misinterpreted Sinwar’s warning.

At the time it was received, Israeli intelligence was separately seeing indications that a senior Iranian official, which Channel 12 says it cannot name, had asked Hamas to take responsibility for negotiations to free Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov from the pro-Iranian Iraqi group holding her, which had reportedly agreed to the proposal.

Officials who participated in a Shin Bet-convened assessment at the time tell Channel 12 that Sinwar’s warning fit the emerging intelligence picture “like a glove,” and that nobody in the discussion proposed an alternative interpretation of any impending attack.

A senior security official tells Channel 12 that the alleged subsequent warning from bin Zayed could have altered that assessment.

“If a subsequent message did indeed reach the prime minister himself from MBZ, it could have been the final piece that would have sent us toward additional, deeper investigative steps,” the official says. “Something was needed to outweigh the reassuring indicators we had accumulated for ourselves. It is possible that this could have been that sign.”

Iran’s FM gave Witkoff Tehran’s conditions to reopen Strait of Hormuz – state media

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrives ahead of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Stefan Jeremiah)

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff today, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in a meeting during which Iran’s conditions to reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz were conveyed to the US, according to Iran’s state media.

Conditions for reopening the strait include immediate lifting of the naval blockade, immediate release of frozen Iranian assets, and an end to the war across all “resistance” fronts, state media adds.

Macron claims at UN: Hamas ‘has never been active in the West Bank’

France’s President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, September 22, 2026. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)

Speaking at the UN General Assembly, French President Emanuel Macron claims that “Hamas has never been active in the West Bank,” prompting pushback in Israel.

“Look at what’s happening in the West Bank, where day in and day out we are seeing violations, and in the name of what?” he says. “Hamas has never been active in the West Bank.”

Hamas does not rule the West Bank like it does Gaza, but has long had a presence there and has carried out attacks in the area against Israelis.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says in response that “President Macron is lying.”

“This week, on Sunday, a vile terrorist from the Hamas terror organization murdered Netanel Shukrun, who was bathing with his sons in a spring ahead of Yom Kippur,” Smotrich writes. “This is just one attack out of hundreds of attacks carried out by the Hamas terror organization. The terror organization fuels Arab terrorism in Judea and Samaria, and it is a significant part of it and its operations.”

Meeting Arab leaders at UN, Trump says there’s ‘a lot of momentum’ for Iran deal

US President Donald Trump (C) attends a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) multilateral meeting alongside (L/R) Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaid, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 22, 2026. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP)

NEW YORK — US President Donald Trump hosts a meeting with senior representatives of 12 Middle Eastern countries on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

While the White House says the meeting is with the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is made up of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, top officials from Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria are also in attendance at the roundtable.

Israel and Iran appear to be among the only Middle Eastern countries not represented in the meeting.

Trump makes remarks to reporters at the beginning of the meeting, which are largely a regurgitation of his remarks from earlier in the day, regarding how well the US is doing against Iran.

He again says that the US may bomb Iran’s Pickaxe mountain nuclear site, while clarifying that “we’re not seeing a lot of activities there.”

Trump reiterates his belief that the US will reach a deal with Iran to end their ongoing conflict by the upcoming midterm elections, if not before.

The US president also repeats that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a “very productive” meeting earlier Tuesday with Iranian counterparts.

“We will see what happens with that. I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal. That’s what we are hearing from everybody,” Trump claims.

He thanks the leaders around the table for their partnership, including in securing a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas last year, even though progress on the agreement has since largely stalled.

Trump reiterates his administration’s support for the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor. He doesn’t note this, but that corridor incorporates Israel. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been advancing an initiative to have the corridor link Syria and Lebanon instead of Israel.

Trump also makes no mention of the Abraham Accords, which countries have been increasingly reluctant to join amid what they view as Israel’s expansionist policies in the region.