Join our Community

Support ToI and remove all ads

Learn more

English
Français
עברית

Get The Daily Edition
Account
Sign In
- Sign in
- Join our Community

Open Search form

Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
Podcasts
Video
Newsletters
Partners

Input search

English
Français
עברית

Latest Articles
Latest Alerts
Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
Podcasts
Video
Newsletters
Partners
Community
- Join our community
- Sign in
- About The Times of Israel
- Advertise on The Times of Israel
- Contact us
- Download our App
  - For IOS users
  - For Android users
- Get the Daily Edition
- Follow us
- © 2026 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved
  
  Terms and conditions Privacy policy

Input search

The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Friday, May 16, 2025

Facebook
Twitter

View previous edition

View next edition

Displaced Palestinians flee Beit Lahiya amid ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip arrive in Jabalia, northern Gaza, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Dozens said killed in heavy Israeli strikes across Gaza; Trump: ‘People are starving’

By Agencies, Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff

IDF says it hit over 150 ‘terror targets’; reports of Israeli tanks advancing ahead of expected major offensive after US president leaves region; Trump: ‘Lot of bad things going on’ in Gaza

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff arrives for a signing ceremony at the Royal Palace in Doha on May 14, 2025. (Karim Jaafar/AFP)

Inside storyWitkoff told mediators US not planning to force Israel to end Gaza war, officials say

Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes on a medical center in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Gazans say over 100 killed since morning; IDF reports hitting dozens of terror targets

By Emanuel Fabian, Agencies and ToI Staff

Houthi supporters chant slogans and hold pictures of Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi movement, during an anti-US and anti-Israel rally in Sanaa, Yemen, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

Live updates (closed)

May 16: Katz threatens to eliminate Houthi leader ‘as we did with the Sinwars’

By Jacob Magid and ToI Staff

Source: Israeli negotiating team trying to derail hostage talks in order to justify expanding Gaza war * 7 European governments call on Israel to reverse Gaza aid blockade

8:53 pm

US reportedly developing plan to move 1 million Palestinians to Libya
8:49 pm

US considering reality TV competition for citizenship
8:43 pm

7 European governments call on Israel to reverse aid blockade responsible for Gaza 'humanitarian catastrophe'

Report: Israel holding talks with Syria on Sharaa regime joining Abraham Accords

Meeting said held recently in Azerbaijan between IDF Operations Directorate chief, Syrian and Turkish officials; Jerusalem reportedly open to border deal, normalized relations

Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa listens during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 7, 2025. (Stephanie Lecocq/Pool via AP)

Left: US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris, France, April 17, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP); Right: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. (Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool Photo via AP)

Witkoff said to give Iranians written US proposal for nuclear deal; Tehran denies it

By ToI Staff and Agencies

feed soldiers

Promoted CampaignFeed Our Soldiers

Send food for Shavuot to soldiers in Gaza

Send them home-cooked meals. Raya and Dina are now sending food to soldiers on all fronts. The soldiers will greatly appreciate your support at a time of uncertainty.

Matan Zangauker was taken captive by Hamas terrorists to Gaza on October 7, 2023 (Courtesy)

Matan Zangauker’s mother says Edan Alexander provided sign of life from son

Hostages and Missing Families Forum decries ‘missed opportunity of the century’ with hostage deal not advanced during Trump’s Mideast tour

Leah Goldin, the mother of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose body has been held in Gaza since 2014, delivers a statement to the press at the UN Security Council, accompanied by Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, on May 15, 2025. (Screenshot, UN Web TV)

Slain hostages’ parents, Israeli envoy urge UNSC to act on missing persons mandate

By Nava Freiberg

‘I don’t want politics’: Sister of terror victim cuts off settler leader’s eulogy

Manhunt continues for terrorist who killed 30-year-old pregnant woman Tzeela Gez; child delivered in emergency C-section still in serious condition

Shaked Gez (second from right) addresses Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan (third from left) at her sister Tzeela's funeral in Jerusalem, May 15, 2025. (Screenshot used in accordance with article 27a of the Copyright Law)

Palestinians examine a burned vehicle set on fire by unknown attackers overnight, in the Masoudiya area, north of the West Bank city of Nablus, May 16, 2025. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Settlers set fire to 15 Palestinian vehicles in West Bank, Palestinian media reports

By Nurit Yohanan and ToI Staff

Yuval Raphael from Israel performs 'New Day Will Rise' at the second semifinal of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest, in Basel, Switzerland, May 15, 2025. (AP/Martin Meissner)

Eurovision 2025

Israel’s Yuval Raphael advances to Eurovision grand final after soaring performance

Singer, a survivor of the Nova festival massacre, says she managed to spot in the crowd the friends she made in the roadside bomb shelter, and ‘it gave me so much strength’

Sacred time in a world gone mad

Rome didn’t own the Jewish story, nor will Hamas or Qatar. Rather, we transform our mourning, and grow our continuity out of catastrophe (Emor/ Lag B’Omer)

Elchanan Poupko

My country for a chocolate babka

With boutique activism, Zionists are boxing themselves into too-private spaces and forfeiting the public square. It’s endangering Israel

Four rare Bar Kochba Revolt-era coins found in the Judean Desert, in an undated photo. (Oriya Amichai/Israel Antiquities Authority)

'Something caused Jewish settlements to switch sides'

Who really led the Bar Kochba revolt? New research sheds light on rebellion’s enigmas

By Rossella Tercatin

Recent paper suggests Jewish veterans from the Roman army may have initially led the 2nd-century Jewish war against the Romans, one of the events connected with Lag B’Omer

Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Rubio ‘troubled’ by Gaza humanitarian crisis, urges solutions to avoid Hamas aid theft

Secretary says he spoke to Netanyahu but avoids specifying whether he pushed PM to lift blockade; recognizes criticism of new initiative, asserts he’s open to alternatives

Illustrative: Journalists film while standing before destroyed buildings in the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP)

Watchdog: Gazan reporters ‘intimidated, threatened, assaulted by Hamas’

By Michael Horovitz

Mix-gender Caracal battalion troops at the end of their basic training. (IDF)

ToI podcast

Friday Focus with Tal Schneider: The IDF’s women warriors

By Amanda Borschel-Dan and Tal Schneider

Even as some 70,000 ultra-Orthodox young men attempt to evade the draft, new IDF figures show that women now make up over 20% of troops in fighting units

US President Donald Trump speaks at the Saudi-US Investment Forum at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025. (AP/Alex Brandon)

Analysis

Ellen Knickmeyer

Trump’s Middle East trip goes big on deals and diplomacy, but small on human rights

President told Saudi investment forum US will no longer give Arab states ‘lectures on how to live’; human-rights activists fear implications of that new approach

President Donald Trump speaks at the Saudi-US Investment Forum at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

TranscriptFull text of Trump’s speech in Riyadh: ‘Dawn of the bright new day for the great people of the Middle East’

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (right) welcomes his US counterpart Donald Trump upon arrival at the presidential terminal in Abu Dhabi on May 15, 2025. (Giuseppe Cacae/AFP)

Trump lands in UAE for last leg of Middle East tour as Emiratis seek AI cooperation

By Reuters and ToI Staff

'In a region with wars and closed borders, the seals are free'

Israeli and Cypriot researchers team up on extreme cave makeover for rare monk seals

By Diana Bletter

A rehabilitation project in northern Israel aims to provide safe and dry breeding places for the endangered marine mammals, of which only 600-700 remain in the world

Inside Story

As new Syria emerges, nightclub attacks awaken fears of return to sectarian repression

Despite official condemnation, deadly assaults on Damascus nightlife by regime loyalists add to mounting concern that Islamist rulers will not make good on promises of tolerance

People walk past the closed entrance of al-Karawan nightclub after it was attacked by gunmen on May 5, 2025. (Omar Haj Kadour / AFP)

The redone bar area at Jerusalem's Jacko Street, one of the participating restaurants in the Israeli Culinary Festival, beginning March 27, 2024 (Courtesy)

Restaurants struggle as reservations plummet amid grueling war mood, rising cost of living

By Sharon Wrobel

Online restaurant bookings have dropped by 30% this year, while high-end chef restaurants grapple with a steeper decline of more than 50%, according to online booking site

Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok Grand Rabbi and his followers light a bonfire during Lag Baomer celebrations, in Meron, on May 15, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Reporter's notebookMinister holds memorial for the 45 killed in 2021 crush

Tens of thousands celebrate Lag B’Omer at Meron, year after site closed amid rocket fire

By Charlie Summers

Revelers defy firefighters trying to extinguish unlawful bonfires as festivities bounce back after wartime closure; sex offender rabbi lights bonfire; some passageways overcrowded

Anti-Zionist Haredi extremists clash with Ben Gvir in Beit Shemesh

Shabbos Kestenbaum speaks during the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Harvard settles with Jewish student who sued school for ignoring campus antisemitism

By Reuters and ToI Staff

Alexander Kestenbaum agrees to end case with Ivy League institution for undisclosed terms; lawsuit among many accusing US universities of encouraging antisemitism after October 7

NYU student Logan Rozos delivering a speech at a graduation ceremony in New York City, May 14, 2025. (X screenshot used in accordance with article 27a of the Copyright Law)

NYU says student denied diploma after he ‘lied’ about graduation speech condemning Israel

By AP and ToI Staff

South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein speaks at an Israeli Memorial Day ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, April 30, 2025. (Screenshot/ Facebook)

'The refugees' problems are not unique to the white community'

South Africa’s chief rabbi lauds Trump but calls his Afrikaner refugee policy a ‘mistake’

By Shira Li Bartov

As the US turns away all refugees aside from white South Africans, calling their persecution at home a ‘genocide,’ Warren Goldstein says the portrayal is a mischaracterization

More Headlines

File: Grammy Award-winning American singer Art Garfunkel performs on stage at the Bloomfield Stadium in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, on June 10, 2015. (Gil Cohen Magen/AFP)

Sound of SilenceArt Garfunkel to join Aviv Geffen on stage in Israel at end of month

Rescue efforts in Bat Yam after a light plane crashed off the beach, May 16, 2025 (Video screenshot)

Light plane crashes near Bat Yam shore; teen passenger in critical condition

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett speaks during a tech conference in Ness Ziona, May 5, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

To prevent a repeat of defections, Bennett said seeking unprecedented control over new party

A large chunk of debris from an intercepted Houthi ballistic missile lands in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, May 15, 2025. (X, used in accordance of clause 27a of the copyright law)

IDF intercepts missile from Yemen; debris lands in West Bank settlement

By Emanuel Fabian

Vehicles begin arriving outside a gate prior to expected talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the Dolmabache palace, in Istanbul, Turkey, May 16, 2025. (AP/Dilara Acikgoz)

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine gather in Turkey for 1st peace talks in 3 years

By HANNA ARHIROVA and andrew wilks

Azealia Banks walks the runway during New York Fashion Week, September 12, 2021 in New York City. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP)

Gefilte freshAzealia Banks goes on social media rant defending Jewish cuisine

By Grace Gilson

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi attends a National Security Committee meeting at the Knesset, January 8, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Government to weigh contentious bill giving it power over regulation of broadcast media

By Jeremy Sharon

Relatives rally in Paris in support of French nationals being held by Iran Cecile Kohler, Jacques Paris and Olivier Grondeau on February 1, 2025. (Sébastien Dupuy/AFP)

France issues complaint against Iran at ICJ over detained citizens

By AFP and ToI Staff

Jamil Srour, who was granted a retrial after serving 15 years in prison for murder, in an undated picture. (Hebrew University Innocence Project Facebook page, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

After 15 years in jail, East Jerusalem man convicted of murder granted retrial

Composer Charles Strouse is interviewed in his apartment, June 3, 2008, in New York. (AP/Richard Drew)

ObituaryCharles Strouse, Broadway composer of ‘Annie’ and ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’ dies at 96

By Mark Kennedy

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's, is detained by US Capitol Police for disrupting proceedings during a hearing with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Capitol Hill on May 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images/AFP)

Ben of Ben & Jerry’s arrested for interrupting US Senate hearing to protest Israel

Nofar Yacobi, a soloist with the Israeli Opera who will perform at New York's Carnegie Hall on May 30, 2025 (Credit Haim Kimchi)

Scaling new heightsIsraeli opera star who sings about chocolate heads to Carnegie Hall

By Jessica Steinberg

View Edition by Date

April	May 2025					June
Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

The Times of Israel

Daily Edition

Free to Your Inbox

The email is either missing or invalid.

By signing up, you agree to our terms You hereby accept The Times of Israel Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and you agree to receive the latest news & offers from The Times of Israel and its partners or ad sponsors.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
podcasts
video

terms and conditions
privacy policy
about us
advertise with us
Jobs at The Times of Israel
contact us

Community

Join our community
Sign in

Get the Daily Edition

Enter your email address

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on X Follow us on Youtube Follow us on Telegram Follow us on Threads Follow us on Bluesky

© 2026 The Times of Israel, all rights reserved

Concept, design & development by

Developed by

Powered by

Never miss breaking news on Israel

Get notifications to stay updated

You're subscribed

Register for free
and continue reading

Registering allows you to manage your newsletters and alerts and helps us improve your experience. It takes just a few seconds.
Already registered? Enter your email to sign in.

Email address

Please use the following structure: example@domain.com

Or Continue with

By registering you agree to the terms and conditions. Once registered, you’ll receive our Daily Edition email for free.

Send me The Times of Israel Daily Edition

Register to continue

Email address

Or Continue with

Log in to continue

Email address

Something went wrong.
Please try again in a few minutes..

Sign in or Register

Email address * Password *

Incorrect password. Please try again or choose an option below.

I forgot my password / Send me a sign in link

Or Continue with

check your email

Check your email

We sent an email to you at .

It has a link that will sign you in.

Click the link in that email to complete your registration.