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Melanie Lidman

Melanie Lidman

Melanie Lidman is an AP reporter and former Times of Israel reporter
Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesman, stands beside weapons the army says were seized from Hezbollah in Lebanon, at an army base in northern Israel, December 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
June 9, 2026, 6:48 pm
IDF’s viral Arabic-language spokesman sparks fear, fascination in Gaza and Lebanon
Avichay Adraee has become one of the region’s most recognizable influencers through his evacuation orders and social media presence, though some view him as Israel’s ‘face of evil’
By Melanie Lidman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and MKs attend a plenum session and a vote on reviving the ultra-Orthodox draft exemption bill at the assembly hall of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on June 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
May 20, 2026, 8:33 pm
Netanyahu’s union with Haredi parties pushing draft evasion risks his reelection
Bill legalizing exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students faces pushback from within the coalition, while Haredi factions desert PM over failure to pass law
By Melanie Lidman
A man sits beside a locked door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and shuttered shops in Jerusalem’s Old City, which remains off limits to visitors amid the war with Iran, on March 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
March 29, 2026, 3:02 pm
Under shadow of war with Iran, Jerusalem heads into subdued Passover and Easter
Celebrations canceled and shops shuttered after missile fragments fell in Old City; Home Front Command limits religious gatherings to 50 people
By Melanie Lidman
A bride and her family sit in a bomb shelter after an alert warning of missiles fired from Iran at central Israel interrupted their wedding photo shoot in a nearby park in Ramat Gan, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
March 24, 2026, 12:13 pm
Weddings, yoga, medical care: Life goes on, somehow, in Israel’s underground shelters during war
Surreal images show country’s resilience; Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station has become an impromptu home for a migrant community, while other shelters host kids’ play zones, prayer groups
By Oded Balilty and Melanie Lidman
Ali Larijani (waving) participates in a Quds Day anti-Israel march in Tehran on March 13, 2026, the last time he was seen alive in public. (X, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
March 17, 2026, 11:49 pm
Ali Larijani was hardline voice in Iran’s regime for decades, with supreme leader’s ear
A heavy-handed culture minister, then parliament speaker and top security official, the close adviser to Ali Khamenei was widely believed to be running Iran after US-Israeli attack
By Melanie Lidman, Jon Gambrell and Justin Spike
Jewish men and children, some dressed in costumes, read the Scroll of Esther as they celebrate the holiday of Purim in an underground parking garage as a precaution against Iranian missile attacks, in Tel Aviv, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
March 3, 2026, 9:55 am
The Purim story ‘with a different cast’: Mid-war, festival readings and parties move to bomb shelters
As Book of Esther is read aloud in Tel Aviv parking garage, sheltering father says conflict with Persia’s modern-day successor feels like the modern iteration of the 2,500-year-old saga
By Melanie Lidman
Holocaust survivor Ilana Shalem-Kantorowics, born in the Nazi Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, holds a photo of her with her mother Lola taken in the Bergen-Belsen refugee camp in 1946, in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 26, 2026. (Ariel Schalit/AP)
January 27, 2026, 10:52 am
Born in a concentration camp, a Holocaust survivor tells her story for the first time
Ilana Kantorowicz Shalem, one of the youngest living survivors, opens up about the romance her parents shared in captivity, and her miraculous birth and survival
By Melanie Lidman
In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, January 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
January 14, 2026, 1:34 am
Iran has aired some 100 forced confessions by anti-regime protesters, activists say
Tehran ups pace of notorious broadcasts amid unrest, with regular references to Israel and US as supposed proof of foreign plots; activists report that confessions follow torture
By Melanie Lidman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts the headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Jerusalem, December 7, 2025. (AP/Ariel Schalit, Pool, File)
January 12, 2026, 4:11 am
As Iran protests grow, Israel watches closely but prefers to remain on sidelines
Ex-intel official says Jerusalem unlikely to strike unprovoked, as it would risk weakening demonstrations; Hebrew U expert says Iranian instigation would be ‘suicide for regime’
By Melanie Lidman
Segev Kalfon, an Israeli hostage who spent two years in captivity in a Hamas tunnel and was released from the Gaza Strip in a ceasefire deal on October 13, 2025, at home in Dimona, southern Israel, December 23, 2025. (AP/Ariel Schalit)
January 2, 2026, 9:41 am
‘I don’t feel like a hero’: Ex-hostage Segev Kalfon tells of long path to recovery
Former Hamas captive describes dire conditions and torture experienced in Gaza, says Jewish faith and hearing mother’s voice on radio helped him survive
By Melanie Lidman
Israeli-Russian doctoral researcher from Princeton University, Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was kidnapped in Iraq, in 2023 and released last September, speaks during an interview in Ramat Gan, Israel, on November 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
November 11, 2025, 1:25 pm
Elizabeth Tsurkov recovering from captivity and torture at hands of Iraqi terrorists
Kataeb Hezbollah originally kidnapped the researcher hoping to get ransom for her as a foreigner, she says, but started torturing her when they discovered she was Israeli
By Melanie Lidman
Holocaust survivors Walter Bingham, 101, center, George Shefi, 94, right, and Paul Alexander, 87, talk as they pose for a photo after an interview at Jerusalem Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 2025, ahead the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
November 9, 2025, 9:18 am
Israeli Kristallnacht survivors mark 87th anniversary amid rising global antisemitism
Survivors see parallels between today and period ahead of Holocaust: ‘We live in an era equivalent to 1938, where synagogues are burned, and people in the street are attacked’
By Melanie Lidman
Michael Smuss in his home. (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)
October 23, 2025, 10:15 pm
Michael Smuss, last surviving Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fighter, dies at 99
While working to repair Nazi helmets, Smuss stole material for Jewish resistance needed to make Molotov cocktails; he survived the war and moved to US, then to Israel
By CLAUDIA CIOBANU, Melanie Lidman and Kirsten Grieshaber
Eli Sharabi, who was abducted during the Hamas cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and held hostage by Hamas for 16 months, poses with his new book "Hostage" for a photo in Herzliya, on September 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
October 6, 2025, 10:44 am
Eli Sharabi’s memoir, the first by a freed Hamas hostage, is coming out in English
‘Hostage,’ already out in Hebrew, instantly became a bestseller in Israel; Sharabi isn’t yet ready to go inside the Kibbutz Be’eri home from where he was kidnapped 2 years ago
By Melanie Lidman
In this July 17, 2019 photo, young Palestinians sit among ancient artifacts displayed inside Shahwan private museum in a basement of a building in town of Khan Younis, Southern Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
September 17, 2025, 8:20 am
Thousands of archaeological relics rescued in Gaza ahead of IDF strike
Army says Hamas was using warehouse that contained artifacts from over 25 years of excavations, including some of the oldest known evidence of Christianity in Gaza
By Melanie Lidman
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