Trump says US envoys met Iranian delegation for 3 hours today, ‘it went very well’

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

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.

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

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.”

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Trump claims Iran is ‘talking to us even today’

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.”