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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Friday, December 20, 2024

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Palestinians inspect the damage done to a mosque, after a reported arson attack in the town of Marda near the West Bank city of Salfit on December 20, 2024. (Jaafar ASHTIYEH/AFP)

West Bank mosque set alight, vandalized in apparent settler assault

By ToI Staff and AFP

Muslim house of worship in town of Marda burned overnight, spray-painted with ‘revenge’ graffiti; police and Shin bet say they opened investigations, though no arrests yet

Israeli security forces raid Balata refugee camp east of Nablus in the West Bank. December 19, 2024. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Six Palestinians said killed in IDF drone strike, raid in West Bank

By Emanuel Fabian, ToI Staff and Agencies

A Palestinian Authority security officer clutches his gun amid a major raid against members of terror groups in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, December 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

IDF says it supports bolstering PA forces to combat West Bank terror

By Emanuel Fabian

Live updates (closed)

Dec. 20: New Syrian leaders say they want to contribute to ‘regional peace’

By Jacob Magid and Michael Bachner

Syria TV shows Hezbollah ‘warehouses and weapons stores’ captured in Al-Qusayr * Hamas rescuers claim IDF strike in Jabalia killed 7 children from one family

1:35 am

Syria TV shows Hezbollah 'warehouses and weapons stores' captured in Al-Qusayr
10:42 pm

New Syrian leaders say they want to contribute to 'regional peace'
9:50 pm

Amid probe into aide's alleged doctoring of minutes, PM says he was awoken the minute Hamas attack began

Interview

An Israeli tech founder’s journey from a near fatal injury in Gaza to a $100m exit

Rivery co-founder Itamar Ben Hemo, who was nearly killed a year ago while serving with the IDF reserves, hopes buyout will help restore investor confidence in Startup Nation

Rivery co-founder Itamar Ben Hemo (right) with employee and slain reservist officer Maj. (res.) Itay Galea. Galea was killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack in northern Israel in July 2024. Ben Hemo sustained critical injuries when shot by a Hamas sniper in Gaza in January 2024. (Courtesy)

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George Mason University bars suspect from campus

FBI arrests college student for plotting mass casualty attack on Israeli consulate in NYC

Egyptian national attending university in Virginia accused of encouraging informant to carry out attack, instructing him how to make a bomb, surveil the consulate and later escape

NYPD officers stand guard during an anti-Israel rally at the Israeli consulate on October 9, 2023 in New York City, two days after the Hamas attack on southern Israel. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP)

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrators rally on the Columbia University campus in New York City to mark a year since the Hamas terror group's onslaught on southern Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, October 7, 2024 (Alex Kent/Getty Images/AFP)

GOP-led congressional report backs fundings cuts for universities that boycott Israel

Sara Netanyahu said to have ordered protest against neighbors whose pilot son died in war

Texts quoted in TV report also show PM’s wife, son ordering late secretary to dig up dirt on premier’s rivals, intimidate key actors in his graft cases, sic police on protesters

Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attends a plenary session of the opening day of the Knesset's winter session, in Jerusalem, October 28, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)

Then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, during his visit with Lebanese General Antoine Lahat (right), leader of the South Lebanese Army, on January 26, 1989 in Marjayoun, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Max Nash)

ToI podcast

Daily Briefing Dec. 20: Day 441 – Is it time for Israel to stage a proxy war?

By Amanda Borschel-Dan and Lazar Berman

Diplomatic reporter Lazar Berman suggests a radical long-term solution for Israel’s security concerns and gives background into how attempts at proxies worked out in the past

Rachel Sharansky Danziger

A letter to our 100 – and to ourselves

We cannot undo Joseph’s captivity at his brothers’ hands, but we must do all we can for our captives in Gaza, for we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers (Vayeshev)

When we are estranged: The Jewish covenant

In times of suffering, the Jewish people circle the wagons. What’s harder is keeping hold of our fractious family when times are good (Vayeshev)

IAF pilots and staff prepare to take off for an attack on Houthi sites in Yemen early on December 19, 2024, in a photo cleared by the military for publication a day later. (Israel Defense Forces)

Fighter pilots laud precision of operation to strike Yemen: ‘An incredible feeling’

Pilots say they trained intensively for two weeks before attacking Houthi targets over rebels’ repeated attacks, were unaware of missile fired at central Israel during the sortie

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a power station in the Houthi-run Yemeni capital Sanaa on December 19, 2024. (Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)

After Yemen strikes, Netanyahu says Israel hitting Houthis on behalf of ‘entire world’

By Lazar Berman and Emanuel Fabian

A worker sets up a Syrian "revolutionary" flag at the entrance of the Umayyad Mosque ahead of Friday prayers in Damascus, Syria, Friday December 20, 2024. 2024.(AP Photo/Leo Correa)

US diplomats arrive in Syria to talk to Islamist rulers about country’s future

American envoys to meet with HTS leaders to gauge commitment to democratic transition; US weighs removing terror designation from group, supporting new Syrian government

A Syrian man, left, waves a white flag as he approaches Israeli soldiers to speak to them at a position at an abandoned Syrian military base, in Maariyah village near the border with Israel, in southern Syria, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP/Hussein Malla)

Villagers in Syria border town claim IDF preventing them from accessing their fields

By AP and ToI Staff

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)

Putin says Israel ‘main beneficiary’ of Syrian rebels’ ousting of Assad

By Reuters and ToI Staff

Protesters outside the IDF's Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv call for the release of the hostages on December 17, 2024. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

Arab diplomat says hostage talks progressing but deal still likely to be weeks away

By Jacob Magid and ToI Staff

Hebrew media reports are slightly more optimistic, citing Israeli officials who speculate an agreement is possible before the year ends and credit CIA chief for recent advances

US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 20, 2017. (AP/Evan Vucci)

Blinken acknowledges Israel-Saudi normalization unlikely before Biden leaves office

By AFP and ToI Staff

In this handout picture released by the Iranian presidential office, heads of state and delegates pose for a group picture during the D-8 summit in Cairo, on December 19, 2024. (IRANIAN PRESIDENCY / AFP)

At Cairo summit, Muslim leaders envision Syria free of ethnic tensions, and of Israel

By AFP and ToI Staff

Sri Lankan street hawkers sell national flags ahead of the country's 73rd independence anniversary in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. (AP/Eranga Jayawardena)

IDF soldier told to flee Sri Lanka after anti-Israel group seeks his arrest

By Lazar Berman and ToI Staff

Hind Rajab Foundation files complaint against Gal Ferenbook to Sri Lankan government, ICC and Interpol alleging he killed Gazan after he posted video online showing dead body

Noga Erez poses for a portrait on November 11, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Gary Gerard Hamilton)

Singer Noga Erez says she’s lost international bookings because she is Israeli

By Jessica Steinberg

The IDF operates in the southern Gaza Strip's Rafah in this hand out image from December 16, 2024. (IDF)

ToI podcast

What Matters Now to Andrew Fox: Cynical use of inflated death figures from Gaza

By Amanda Borschel-Dan

Research fellow at the UK-based Henry Jackson Society assesses the IDF operations in the Strip and dissects a new report that questions media acceptance of Hamas casualty lists

Presiding Judge Nawaf Salam reads a non-binding advisory opinion regarding Israel and disputed territories, in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, July 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Phil Nijhuis)

UN votes to ask The Hague if Israel upholding aid obligations to Palestinians

By Agencies, ToI Staff and Lazar Berman

A woman sits on a bed in a room of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, August 25, 2024. (AP/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

Doctors Without Borders accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza; Israel: Fabrication

By Agencies and ToI Staff

President Isaac Herzog, right, receives the credentials of Alexandra Rydmark, Ambassador of Sweden, October 1, 2024. (Ma'ayan Toaf/GPO)

Sweden says it will stop funding UNRWA, will increase Gaza aid to other agencies

Minister Chikli hails decision as ‘courageous and critical,’ says UNRWA ‘lost its legitimacy’ due to Oct. 7 connections; Sweden says Knesset ban on UNRWA led to decision

A tent camp sheltering Palestinians displaced from north of Gaza City in an empty plot of government-owned land in the city center on December 11, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP)

Palestinians sue US over failure to evacuate American citizens from Gaza

By Reuters and ToI Staff

Blindfolded Palestinians captured in the Gaza Strip in a detention facility on the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel. (Breaking The Silence via AP)

High Court scraps with Ben Gvir as state ordered to answer prisoner starvation claim

By Jeremy Sharon and ToI Staff

Hillel Kornwasser in his room in Teaneck, New Jersey, filming an opening scene for his documentary, 'Forces of Resilience.' (Courtesy)

Interview'We still have the scars, but we keep getting back up'

A 14-year-old flew to Israel to film a documentary about Oct. 7. It premieres on Sunday

By Cathryn J. Prince

Teaneck, NJ, teen Hillel Kornwasser found magnitude of Hamas atrocities so incomprehensible that he created the film ‘Forces of Resilience’ to process them

Tuval Haim, left, and Yotam Haim, before the tragedies of October 7 (Courtesy)

'It's my way to tell my story, my pain'

After 6-month music hiatus, Tuval Haim releases ode to younger brother killed in Gaza

By Jessica Steinberg

Brother and fellow drummer stopped playing after Yotam Haim was accidentally shot by IDF while trying to escape Hamas captivity; album features his first vocals and compositions

Inside story

AP and ToI Staff

For thousands of Jews, Israel doesn’t feel safe after Oct. 7 — so they’re leaving

Leading demographer says 2024 may be rare year where more people leave Israel than move there; some still grapple with stigma: ‘My God, are we really doing this?’

Michal Harel, left, and her husband show the website they set up to help Israelis navigate a move to Canada, in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, December 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rob Gillies)

Tzvika Iskais, left, and Yael Simon in 'Stolen Dance,' performed for the Hullegeb Israeli-Ethiopian Arts Festival on December 22, 2024 (Courtesy)

'Her story met my story'

A play tells the Ethiopian Israeli experience through the trauma of a Nova survivor

By Jessica Steinberg

‘Stolen Dance’ brings together theater and dance in an original production for the Hullageb Israeli-Ethiopian Arts Festival

More Headlines

View of Nazareth, in northern Israel, March 25, 2024. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Nazareth resident, 19, charged with spying for Hezbollah during war

Defense Minister Israel Katz (center) during a visit to Northern Command with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi (2R) on November 13, 2024. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry)

Defense minister halts promotions of IDF brass until all Oct. 7 probes handed over

By Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor in Moscow, Russia, December 19, 2024. (AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Reviving antisemitic trope, Putin says Jews are tearing apart Russian Orthodox Church

By Zev Stub and JTA

Sasson Gabbay and Hadas Yaron as father and daughter in 'Kugel,' the prequel to TV series 'Shtisel,' being screened at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival, December 31, 2024 (Courtesy)

Jerusalem Jewish Film Fest marks Hanukkah with movies on identity, humor, resilience

By Jessica Steinberg

Yaniv Bazini celebrates after the 2024 Division I semifinals, December 13, 2024, in Cary, North Carolina. (Anthony Sorbellini/NCAA Photos via Getty Images via JTA)

University of Vermont’s Israeli soccer star sets hopes on US professional league

By jacob gurvis

Ultra-Orthodox men make their way to Rav Ashi's tomb, which straddles the Israel-Lebanon border. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90, undated)

Four Israelis detained after entering Lebanon, reportedly to visit rabbi’s tomb

By Emanuel Fabian

Illustrative: Anti-government protesters and police stand next to the Jerusalem Rabbinate and Religious Council, May 4, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Critics charge new regulations will hand Shas control over municipal rabbinates

Solar panels on a single family home. (Smileus at iStock, Getty Images)

Biggest cities continue to lag behind on solar panel installation

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