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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.
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.
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.
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.
Key Update
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.”
Key Update
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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