GAZA/CAIRO (Reuters) -Heavy rain caused flooding in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, swamping the tents of thousands of homeless Palestinians facing the prospect of harsh winter storms without sturdy shelter.
The large majority of Gaza’s 2 million people were forced from their homes during Israel’s two-year ground and air war in the small, crowded enclave triggered by Hamas’ October 2023 attack, with many now living in tents and other basic shelters.
A ceasefire has broadly held since mid-October but the war demolished much of heavily built-up Gaza, including basic infrastructure, leaving grim living conditions for most people.
“This suffering, this rain – and the low-pressure weather systems haven’t even started yet. It’s only the beginning of winter, and we’re already flooded and humiliated,” Um Ahmed Aowdah said outside her tent as rain pelted down on Tuesday. “We haven’t received new tents or tarps. Our tarp is two years old and our tent is two years old – they’re completely worn out.”
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, said there was an urgent need for at least 300,000 new tents to house the roughly 1.5 million people still displaced from their homes.
The Palestinian Civil Defence Service said thousands of tents housing displaced families had been inundated by rainwater or damaged by torrential rainstorms over the past week.
Some tents completely washed away as floodwaters rose 40 to 50 centimeters above ground level in some areas of the coastal enclave, while a field hospital had to suspend operations due to flooding, medics and witnesses said.
The United Nations said on Monday that while it was working to bring winter supplies into Gaza, the number of trucks able to enter the enclave was limited by Israeli curbs on aid groups.
Hamas-led Gaza authorities say Israel is not letting in as much aid as was promised under the ceasefire deal. Aid agencies say Israel is preventing many essential items from entering.
Israel says it is complying fully with obligations under the truce deal and does not stop any aid entering Gaza, and that aid agencies have been inefficient in distributing it or failed to prevent theft by Hamas militants. Hamas has denied stealing aid.
(Reporting by Mahmoud Issa in Gaza City, Ramadan Abed in Khan Younis, Nidal Al Mughrabi in Cairo, and Pesha Magid in Jersualem; writing by Pesha Magid; editing by Mark Heinrich)
The UN human rights office said that at least 127 civilians had been killed in Lebanon in strikes by the Israeli military since the ceasefire’s implementation.
Following a series of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the UN and Lebanese Health Ministry on Tuesday reported casualty estimates for those wounded and killed in the country since the implementation of the ceasefire between Israel and the terror group nearly a year ago.
The UN human rights office said that at least 127 civilians had been killed in Lebanon in strikes by the Israeli military since the ceasefire’s implementation, and called for an investigation into the matter and for the truce to be respected.
“Almost a year since the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel was agreed, we continue to witness increasing attacks by the Israeli military, resulting in the killing of civilians and destruction of civilian objects in Lebanon, coupled with alarming threats of a wider, intensified offensive,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said at a Geneva press briefing.
He said the number included deaths the UN had verified using its own strict methodology, but that the actual level could be higher.
Women Hezbollah members mourning during the funeral procession on November 24, 2025 in Beirut, Lebanon. Hezbollah confirmed that its top military commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai was killed yesterday in an Israeli air strike on Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. (credit: Adri Salido/Getty Images)
Lebanese Health Ministry reports 331 ‘martyrs’ since ceasefire start
Earlier on Tuesday, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported that 331 “martyrs” had been killed since the start of the ceasefire and that another 945 had been wounded.
The ministry did not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday that at least 127 civilians had been killed in Lebanon in strikes by the Israel military since a ceasefire nearly a year ago, and called for an investigation and for the truce to be respected.
“Almost a year since the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel was agreed, we continue to witness increasing attacks by the Israeli military, resulting in the killing of civilians and destruction of civilian objects in Lebanon, coupled with alarming threats of a wider, intensified offensive,” said Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, at a Geneva press briefing.
He said the number included deaths it had verified based on its own strict methodology but that the real level could be higher.
(Reporting by Emma FargeEditing by Madeline Chambers)
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo will embark on his first trip outside Italy on Thursday, travelling to Turkey and Lebanon. Here is a history of papal foreign visits, which have become a major part of the agenda for the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
POPE PAUL VI (1963 to 1978)
Pope Paul VI was the first leader of the Church to leave Italy in 150 years. He made nine foreign visits, with the first a trip to Israel and Jordan in 1964. He travelled to the U.N. headquarters in New York in 1965, where he addressed the General Assembly in French, pleading: “No more war, never again war!”
POPE JOHN PAUL II (1978 to 2005)
Pope John Paul II, whose pontificate spanned nearly 27 years, made 104 foreign visits, logging well over one million km (600,000 miles) and visiting 129 countries. Elected pope at age 58, he was known for energetic, non-stop itineraries and for emphasizing international diplomacy. On a trip to Asia in 1984, he made a stopover in Alaska, where U.S. President Ronald Reagan travelled to welcome him and discuss world issues.
POPE BENEDICT XVI (2005 to 2013)
Pope Benedict XVI, from Germany, made 25 foreign visits, largely to European countries. On a trip to Germany in 2006 he caused widespread anger among Muslims by suggesting Islam was violent, quoting a passage by a 14th-century Byzantine emperor. Later that year, he made a trip to Turkey to foster reconciliation between Christians and Muslims. Benedict’s last visit was to Lebanon, in September 2012.
POPE FRANCIS (2013 to 2025)
Pope Francis made 47 foreign visits to 66 countries, often choosing places with non-Catholic populations to highlight people and problems in what he called the “peripheries” of the world. He was the first pope to visit Mongolia, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Iraq, among others. A visit to the Philippines in 2015 included the largest papal event to date, with crowds estimated as high as seven million for a Mass in Manila.
POPE LEO XIV (Elected in 2025)
Pope Leo, 70 and in good health, is widely expected to undertake many foreign visits. A trip to Peru, where he served as a missionary for decades, is all but certain during 2026. Leo said he would also like to visit Portugal, Mexico, Uruguay and Argentina, in comments on November 18.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo will embark on his first trip outside Italy as the leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, travelling to Turkey and Lebanon, where he is expected to make appeals for peace in the region and urge unity among long-divided Christian churches.
Leo, the first U.S. pope, will give his first speeches to foreign governments and visit some sensitive cultural sites as part of a crowded itinerary during the November 27 to December 2 trip.
His predecessor Pope Francis had planned to visit both countries but was unable to because of his worsening health. Francis died on April 21 and Leo, originally from Chicago, was elected pope on May 8 by the world’s cardinals.
“A pope’s first foreign trip is an opportunity to capture and hold the world’s attention,” said John Thavis, a retired Vatican correspondent who covered three papacies.
“What’s at stake for Pope Leo is his ability to connect with a wider audience, in a region where war and peace, humanitarian needs and interfaith dialogue are crucial issues,” said Thavis.
PAPAL VISITS DRAW WORLD ATTENTION
Leo goes first to Turkey, from November 27 to 30, where he has several joint events with Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians, who is based in Istanbul.
Peace is expected to be a key theme of Leo’s visit to Lebanon, which has the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East.
On Sunday, Israel killed the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah’s top military official in an airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut, despite a U.S.-brokered truce a year ago.
Leaders in Lebanon, which is also host to one million Syrian and Palestinian refugees and is struggling to recover after years of economic crisis, hope the papal visit might bring global attention to the country.
An off-the-cuff moment in October raised possible security concerns about Leo’s visit in Lebanon. Queen Rania of Jordan, visiting Leo at the Vatican, asked the pope if he thought it was safe to go to the country. “Well, we’re going,” Leo responded.
Travelling abroad has become a major part of the modern papacy, with popes attracting international attention as they lead events with crowds sometimes in the millions, give foreign policy speeches and conduct international diplomacy.
Francis, who made 47 foreign visits over his 12-year tenure, often grabbed headlines during his trips with surprise comments.
The late pope was also known for giving unusually frank answers during traditional in-flight press conferences with his travelling press corps, one of the few times the leader of the Church interacts at length with journalists.
Leo has a more reserved style and tends to speak from prepared texts. He has only given one exclusive interview in his six months as pope.
“What we’ve seen so far is a pope who’s very careful when he speaks,” Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and commentator, said. “But every trip is a risk. There can always be mistakes or fumbles.”
In Turkey, Leo and Bartholomew will celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of a major early Church council, which took place in Nicaea, now Iznik, and created a creed that most of the world’s 2.6 billion Christians still pray today.
Orthodox and Catholic Christians split in the East-West Schism of 1054, but have generally strengthened their ties in recent decades.
Rev. John Chryssavgis, an adviser to Bartholomew, said the event is “especially meaningful as a sign and pledge of unity in an otherwise fragmented and conflicted world”.
Several other Orthodox Christian leaders are expected to attend the anniversary, but the Vatican has not said which.
The Moscow Patriarchate, an Orthodox community closely allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin that severed ties with Bartholomew in 2018, is not expected to take part.
POPE TO COMMEMORATE BEIRUT PORT EXPLOSION
Leo will also visit Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, his first visit as pope to a Muslim place of worship, and will celebrate a Catholic Mass at Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena.
Rev. Nicola Masedu, pastor of Istanbul’s Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, said interest in the new pope’s visit led organizers to move the Mass from the cathedral to the arena, which can hold around 5,000 people.
Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation, has about 36,000 Catholics out of a population of around 85 million, according to Vatican statistics.
Leo’s schedule in Lebanon includes a prayer at the site of the 2020 chemical explosion at the Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage.
The pope will also host an inter-religious meeting and lead an outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront. But Leo, visiting five towns and cities in the country, will not travel to the south, the target of Israeli strikes.
Rev. Michel Abboud, who leads the Catholic Church’s charity network in Lebanon, told the Vatican’s media outlet the pope’s visit was one of “solidarity.”
“The people will know that, despite all the difficult situations they have gone through, they must not feel abandoned,” he said.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Dr. Qanta Ahmed of Independent Women’s Forum joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss an ISGAP report that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated multiple American agencies and Gov. Greg Abbotts’ R-Texas., designation of CAIR as a terrorist organization.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to begin designating certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
The order, invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, cites the group’s involvement in violence across the Middle East, including rocket attacks on Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, assault.
The move begins a 30-day review led by the State and Treasury Departments to identify Brotherhood chapters in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon for possible designation, which could freeze assets, restrict travel, and criminalize material support for affiliated entities.
“The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond,” Trump’s executive order reads. “Relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests.
Supporters of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood take part in a protest in the village of Sweimeh, near the Jordanian border with the occupied West Bank, on May 21, 2021.(Khalil Mazraawi/AFP via Getty Images)
“For example, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel,” the order continues. “A senior leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas.
“Such activities threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East, as well as the safety and stability of our regional partners,” the order noted.
Trump signaled over the weekend that he was planning to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization after several groups stepped up warnings in recent months that the Islamic group was gaining a foothold in the U.S.
“It will be done in the strongest and most powerful terms,” Trump told Just the News over the weekend. “Final documents are being drawn.”
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on Nov. 24, 2025, to begin the process of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.( Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The president’s comment came shortly after Texas declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and just days after the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), a prominent global research center, released a comprehensive 200-page study warning of the Muslim Brotherhood’s growing influence in the U.S.
The Islamist organization founded in Egypt, has gained access to government agencies, been involved in advising American civil rights policy, infiltrated educational institutions, and created a vast social media footprint, the report states, while outlining the belief that the group has allegedly targeted U.S. government agencies for infiltration, including the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Justice, through career appointments and advisory roles.
“We welcome President Trump’s statements and the growing recognition that the Muslim Brotherhood, its ideology and network pose a serious challenge to the United States and democratic societies,” Charles Asher Small, executive director of ISGAP, said in a press release after Trump’s interview with Just the News.
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital.
Story tips and ideas can be sent to Greg.Wehner@Fox.com and on Twitter @GregWehner.
JENIN, West Bank — After 15 months in an Israeli jail, Mustafa Sheta drove home with his brothers to Jenin. A lot changed while he was in prison, they said.
The fighters that once had daily run-and-gun battles with Israeli soldiers? Gone. The bustling population of the refugee camp that gave Jenin its reputation as the martyrs’ capital? Gone. The theater Sheta ran in the camp, which he nurtured into an internationally known lodestar of Palestinian cultural resistance? Gone.
It appeared that Jenin, known as the city that never surrendered, had surrendered.
“I was shocked. The concept of resilience in Jenin, it’s really important to people. Where are the fighters, the Palestinian Authority, grassroots organization, the local leaders?” Sheta said.
“It felt like we lost the war, like we are losing this battle.”
A view in May of Palestinian houses destroyed by the Israeli army in Nour Shams, one of three refugee camps in the northern West Bank targeted by Israel’s military.
(Wahaj Bani Moufleh / AFP / Getty)
Jenin has become the quintessential model of how Israel — in a long-running campaign dubbed Operation Iron Wall — has largely subdued the northern West Bank.
Over more than 300 days, Israel has deployed soldiers, tanks, helicopter gunships and even airstrikes in Jenin and other cities, leaving a trail of destruction that has triggered what aid groups call the most severe bout of Palestinian displacement in the West Bank — more than 40,000 people initially, now down to about 32,000 — since Israel occupied the region in 1967. In a report released Nov. 20, Human Rights Watch alleged Israeli forces’ actions amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Coming under particular Israeli ire are the refugee camps in the area, set up as tent encampments for Palestinians displaced by Israel’s creation in 1948 but which hardened over the decades into slum neighborhoods Israel considers nodes of militancy.
Three of them — Jenin, Tulkarm and Nour Shams camps — have been depopulated and all but occupied by the Israeli military for roughly nine months, with soldiers systemically demolishing homes.
Of those, the Jenin camp, which holds legendary status among Palestinians for a 10-day battle between militants and Israeli forces in 2002, has fared the worst, incurring destruction many people here compare to Gaza.
For Palestinians who saw the camp and surrounding city of Jenin as a symbol for resistance against occupation, it has come to exemplify a sense of despair, and weariness with a fight that has never seemed so fruitless in bringing about a Palestinian state.
Sheta, the theater general manager, had staged works with political themes until he was detained — without charge, he says — from December 2023 to March this year. The Freedom Theater became famous staging adaptations of works such as George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani’s “Men in the Sun,” a tragic novel about three men fleeing refugee camps.
Though the theater has regrouped elsewhere, it’s not the same. “We consider the theater arrested by the Israel army, because we can’t be in the camp,” he said. “Our soul is there.”
Using satellite data from October, the United Nations estimates that more than half of the camp’s buildings — almost 700 structures — are destroyed or damaged, with entire residential blocks razed or blown up. Several streets have been ripped apart or blocked by the 29 berms erected by Israeli forces; many other streets were widened with bulldozers to create corridors aimed at facilitating future military operations.
A Palestinian woman walks past a wall pockmarked with bullet holes in the Jenin camp in February. The camp has been depopulated in the months since.
(John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images)
The Israeli military says its operation in the camps is meant to dismantle militant infrastructure, including explosives factories, weapons caches and tunnels. It also aims to root out groups such as the Jenin Battalion, a loose alliance of fighters from different factions, including Fatah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The Jenin Battalion primarily fought Israeli forces but also clashed with the Palestinian Authority, which oversees the West Bank and collaborates with Israel on security matters; many Palestinians view the authority as corrupt and impotent.
But whatever resistance existed in the camp was crushed shortly after the operation launched in January, residents and Palestinian officials say, leaving Israel’s continued occupation a mystery for the roughly 14,000 people who were expelled and who have no idea when, or if, they’ll be permitted to return.
“There’s no Jenin Battalion anymore. Not a single one is alive. They picked them off one by one,” said Shadi Dabaya, 54, who was sitting among a group of men by the main entrance of the Jenin camp. They fell silent as an Israeli armored vehicle rumbled past, its antenna swinging above the berm blocking the street.
Israeli soldiers walk behind a tank in the Jenin camp for Palestinian refugees in February. In the months since, the Israeli military has cut off entry to the camp.
(John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images)
“We just hear them shooting all the time,” Dabaya said, nodding toward the Israelis. “They’ve turned the camp into a training ground.”
No residents have been allowed to visit, Dabaya added. In September, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two 14-year-old boys trying to enter the camp to retrieve some of their belongings. The Israeli military told the media that the boys had approached soldiers — “posed a threat to them” — and did not obey commands to stay away; it said the shooting was under review.
“With all the destruction, even if the Israelis withdrew from the camp tonight, we would need months to be able to live there — all the infrastructure is destroyed,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, who heads the camp’s Popular Services Committee.
For now, he said, families are crowded into a block of 20 buildings with one-room student dormitories roughly six miles away from the camp. But months after they moved there, the Palestinian Authority — from which Israel has withheld tax revenue, along with taking other measures that strangled its finances — is unable to pay the $63,000 monthly rent.
“Those who accepted these awful conditions — crammed with their families in a tiny room meant for one student — even they will find themselves on the street,” Al-Sabbagh said.
The worst part, he added, was having no idea whether his home was still standing.
“If we knew what the Israelis are doing, we could at least figure out what to do ourselves.”
The operation in Jenin has spread its footprint well beyond the camp. Israeli soldiers who once traveled the surrounding city streets in armored vehicles for fear of attacks now conduct near-daily patrols unhindered, raiding shops and homes at will, residents charged.
Areas adjacent to the camp have been emptied, too. So far, said one Palestinian Authority official who refused to be named for safety reasons, 1,500 residents from those areas have been forced to leave.
“These people have nothing to do with the camp, but they’ve been forced out,” he said.
One of the affected neighborhoods is Jabriyat, a wealthy area overlooking the camp that has the feel of a ghost town, where villas bear the dusty patina of abandonment.
“All of us living around the camp are paying the price,” said Hiba Jarrar, one of the last remaining residents on her street in Jabriyat. From her balcony, she pointed to a building Israeli soldiers recently commandeered.
“There’s no resistance, zero. Not a single bullet is being fired by Palestinians. A soldier can raid any home on his own because he feels safe,” she said, adding that when she heard shooting in the past, she assumed Palestinians and Israelis were fighting; now she knows it comes from only the Israeli soldiers.
“You know what’s sad?” she said. “If anyone fought the Israelis now, people here would tell them to stop. They just want to live. They’re desperate.”
A Palestinian man carries a child down a road destroyed by Israeli forces during a large-scale military operation in east Jenin city, which lies near the Jenin refugee camp.
(John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images)
Palestinian officials say despite repeated requests, Israeli authorities have given no indication when they will leave the camp, and all attempts at facilitating visits there have been rejected.
“What’s happening in the camp is not a necessary security prerogative. There’s nothing requiring the Israelis to do what they’re doing,” said Palestinian Authority Security Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, adding that his forces could handle security and that Israel was undermining their authority with its actions.
Rajab echoed the thoughts of residents, analysts and aid workers who see in Israel’s assault a larger plan to recast the camps as ordinary city neighborhoods, not refugee havens. Such rebranding would essentially erase the notion of Palestinians as refugees.
“It’s targeting a community by changing the topography on the ground,” said Roland Friedrich, director of affairs in the West Bank for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. He added that Israeli officials in local media have said that once Operation Iron Wall is complete, there will be “no more geographic expression of the refugee issue.”
Another measure in the same vein, according to a Palestinian Authority official who requested anonymity for safety reasons, is Israel’s refusal to allow UNRWA back in the camp.
Among those hoping to return someday is Sheta, who after his release from custody went to the berm at the camp’s entrance — the closest he could get to his theater, which was founded in 2006 by a former Palestinian fighter from Jenin named Zakaria Zubeidi, along with a leftist Israeli actor and a Swedish activist.
His imprisonment, he said, was a time of routine beatings and humiliations, with soldiers strip-searching detainees, recording them with their phones and mocking them. The Israelis viewed Palestinians as “not even human. Or animals. Less than nothing,” he said.
He has since “returned to use the same tools” he had used before his arrest to resist Israel’s occupation, but he acknowledged people in Jenin had changed. “Their priorities are different. Some have lost trust in the Palestinian cause,” he said.
Some in the community thought he was “crazy” for bothering with nonviolent methods. But “if you lose your cultural front, you lose your identity, your heritage, your roots with this land,” he said. Besides, he added with a tired smile, if his methods weren’t effective, why did the Israelis arrest him?
“That at least proves to me my work annoys them, no?”
BEIRUT (Reuters) -The Israeli military on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s top military official, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, in a strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital that came despite a year-long ceasefire.
His killing was announced by Israel’s military. Hezbollah has not commented on his fate, although Lebanese security sources confirmed he was the target of Israel’s strike.
Israel had already eliminated most of Iran-backed Hezbollah’s leadership during a war that raged between October 2023 and November 2024, when a U.S.-brokered truce was agreed.
But Tabtabai, who was appointed as the group’s chief of staff after its recent war with Israel, was killed in a rare post-ceasefire operation against a senior Hezbollah figure.
MILITARY LEADER ROSE THROUGH HEZBOLLAH’S RANKS
Tabtabai was born in Lebanon to a father with Iranian roots and a Lebanese mother, according to a senior Lebanese security source. He was not a founding member of Hezbollah but was part of its “second generation,” deploying with the group to fight alongside its allies in Syria and Yemen, the source said.
Israel’s military said Tabtabai joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and held several senior posts, including in its Radwan Force, an elite fighting unit. Israel killed most Radwan figures last year ahead of its ground invasion into Lebanon.
During last year’s war, Tabtabai led Hezbollah’s operations division and rose in rank as other top commanders were eliminated, the Israeli military’s statement said.
Once the ceasefire came into force, Tabtabai was appointed chief of staff and “worked extensively to restore their readiness for war with Israel,” according to the statement.
The Lebanese security source confirmed Tabtabai was swiftly promoted as other top Hezbollah officials were killed, and had been appointed chief of staff over the last year.
The Alma Center, a security research and teaching organisation in Israel, said Tabtabai had survived other Israeli attacks both in Syria and during the war in Lebanon.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily; Writing by Maya Gebeily; Editing by David Holmes)
“The people of Israel deserve answers about how the terrible failure happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” former prime minister Naftali Bennett published on X/Twitter.
The protest was organized by the October Council, an activist group made up of hundreds of families affected by the massacre.
“The people of Israel deserve answers about how the terrible failure happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who was present at the protest, published on X/Twitter.
Other opposition leaders were present alongside Bennett, including Yair Lapid, Avigdor Liberman, Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and Yair Golan.
“Tonight in the square, we gathered with one clear call – the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. In our government, this will happen in the first days,” Lapid wrote on X.
In a separate event at Hostage Square, families of the hostages gathered to demand the return of the three missing hostages whose remains are still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Strong message against Netanyahu
“Nine ministers and officials in the government of default and disaster were called this week for the despicable task of training the creep called the ‘Special Investigation Committee.’ Their mission is to ensure that the truth is not investigated and never comes to light,” former MK Yizhar Shai, father of the late Yaron Shai, a Nahal Brigade soldier who fell on October 7, said.
Shai served as an MK for Gantz’s Blue and White party, and was Innovation, Science, and Technology minister.
Lior Akerman, a former brigadier-general who served as a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) division head, said he used to identify with the right-wing policies in Israel, but the current events have made him understand that “the problems are no longer between right and left.”
“For three years now, the government has been attacking and harming the state’s institutions, its security organizations, the legal system, and the law,” Akerman said. He also claimed that the current administration is trampling on the values of statehood, morality, and unity in an effort to create a dictatorship.
All of the incidents reportedly had criminal, rather than nationalistic or terroristic, motivations.
One person was killed and a total of six people were wounded in various shooting incidents in Israel over the weekend.
According to Israeli media, all of the incidents had criminal, rather than nationalistic or terroristic, motivations.
In one of the incidents, two people were wounded on Saturday evening in a shooting in the Clock Tower area of Jaffa.
Magen David Adom (MDA) announced that its paramedics subsequently arrived at the scene to provide treatment to the two victims. One of the victims was a 25-year-old man who was in serious condition. The other victim was lightly wounded. Both were evacuated to Wolfson Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
The attacker reportedly fled the scene.
A Magen David Adom ambulance, pictured in March 28, 2024; illustrative. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Sole death over the weekend was in Nazareth
The incident in Jaffa comes hours after 20-year-old Bassel Ashraf Faraoni was shot and killed in Nazareth, Israeli media reported. Another victim in the area, also about 20, was wounded in the incident and evacuated to a nearby hospital. MDA paramedics determined Faraoni’s death immediately upon their arrival at the scene.
Only minutes after the incident in Nazareth, another three people were wounded in a shooting in Ramle. According to MDA, the victims’ conditions varied from light to moderate after the incident. The three were evacuated to Shamir Medical Center in Be’er Ya’akov.
Police have opened an investigation into both incidents.
Faraoni’s death raises the number of Arabs killed in 2025 from criminal incidents to 231, according to the Abraham Initiatives, which tracks violent incidents in Israel’s Arab sector.
According to the group, 21 of the victims killed were women, 115 were 30 years old or younger, seven were below the age of 18, and 12 of the victims were shot by police officers.
Exactly one year ago, the number of Arab deaths was 215, which the Abraham Initiatives noted is “an increase of more than 7% compared to last year.”
Israel’s military on Saturday said it launched airstrikes against Hamas terrorists in Gaza in the latest test of the ceasefire that began on Oct. 10. Health officials in Gaza reported at least 14 people killed and another 45 wounded, including children.
Similar waves of strikes have occurred during the ceasefire after reported attacks against Israeli forces.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that an “armed terrorist” used a road through which aid enters the territory to cross the yellow line that was established in last month’s ceasefire. The boundary leaves Gaza’s border zone under the control of Israel’s military, while the area beyond it is meant to serve as a safe zone. The person fired at soldiers and was killed by the IDF, the Israeli military said. No IDF injuries were reported.
The IDF called the incursion a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement” and said that in response, it had begun striking “Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip.”
In a separate statement, Israel’s military said its soldiers killed three “terrorists” in the Rafah area, and killed two others after firing at four people who crossed into Israeli-held areas in northern Gaza and advanced toward soldiers in two separate incidents.
In a statement, Hamas accused Israel of “blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement. The terror group accused Israel of altering the terms of the deal and asked that the United States “fulfill its commitments, compel the occupation to implement its obligations, and confront its attempts to undermine the path toward a ceasefire in Gaza.”
An injured Palestinian man is wheeled into Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah following Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025.
Abdel Kareem Hana / AP
One strike targeted a vehicle, killing seven and wounding 18 Palestinians in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, said Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The majority of those wounded were children, director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.
Another strike targeting a house near Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza killed at least three people and wounded 11 others, according to the hospital. It said a strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed one child and wounded 16 others.
And a strike targeting a house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed three people, including a woman, according to Al-Aqsa Hospital.
The IDF said that its Southern Command troops remain deployed in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, and said they “will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat.”
BEIRUT — Seven years ago, he was virtually persona non grata, any link to him considered kryptonite among U.S. political and business elite for his alleged role in the killing of a Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic.
But when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to Washington this week, he cemented a remarkable comeback, positioning himself as the linchpin of a new regional order in the Middle East, and his country as an essential partner in America’s AI-driven future.
During what amounted to a state visit, the crown prince — Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader — was given the literal red carpet treatment: A Marine band, flag-bearing horsemen and a squadron of F-35s in the skies above; a black-tie dinner attended by a raft of business leaders in the prince’s honor; a U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center the next day.
Throughout, Bin Salman (or MBS, as many call him) proved himself a keen practitioner of the brand of transactional politics favored by President Trump.
President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman walk down the Colonnade on the way to the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
He fulfilled Trump’s ask, first floated back in May during the Riyadh edition of the U.S.-Saudi Forum, to raise the kingdom’s U.S. investment commitments from $600 million to almost $1 trillion.
And the prince managed to mollify Trump in his oft-repeated call for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, the normalization pacts with Israel brokered during the president’s first term, even while changing nothing of his long-stated position: That establishing ties with Israel be accompanied by steps toward Palestinian statehood — an outcome many in Israel’s political class reject.
“We believe having a good relation with all Middle Eastern countries is a good thing, and we want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path [to a] two-state solution,” Bin Salman said.
“We want peace with the Israelis. We want peace with the Palestinians, we want them to coexist peacefully,” he added.
President Trump greets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, at the White House on Tuesday.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
At home in Saudi Arabia, the trip was touted as an unequivocal triumph for the prince. Saudi state media boasted the country’s emergence as a major non-NATO ally for the U.S., and the signing of a so-called Strategic Defense Agreement as demonstrating Riyadh’s centrality to American strategic thinking.
This touting came despite little clarity on what that agreement actually entails: Its text wasn’t published, and it was mentioned only in passing in a White House “fact sheet,” which emphasized Saudi Arabia would “buy American” with significant purchases of tanks, missiles and F-35s; the latter would be the first time the U.S.’ most advanced jet is sold to an Arab country.
Saudi Arabia will also be given access to top-line AI chips, enabling it to leverage plentiful land and energy resources to build data centers while “protecting U.S. technology from foreign influence,” according to the White House.
Talks over Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program, stalled for a decade over concerns from previous administrations, yielded a framework that in theory allows Saudi Arabia to build a nuclear plant. Uranium enrichment, which in theory would allow weaponization, isn’t part of the agreement, U.S. officials say.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Trump watch a flyover of F-15 and F-35 fighters before meeting at the White House.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
On the regional politics front, Bin Salman got a pledge from Trump to help broker an end to the war in Sudan.
The visit capped Bin Salman’s stunning redemption arc from the nadir of his reputation seven years ago.
Back then, his image as a dauntless reformer — reversing bans on women driving, neutering the country’s notorious religious police — was already crumbling after he sought to silence not only foreign opponents, but anyone domestically who questioned Vision 2030, his far-reaching (and hugely expensive) plan for transforming Saudi Arabia.
Then came the 2018 strangulation and dismemberment in Turkey of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-mild-critic and Washington Post columnist.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen inside a vehicle while leaving the White House after a meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump appeared more inclined to side with the prince, who denied any involvement in the killing, but the CIA said in a leaked report it had high confidence the prince ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.
Association with Bin Salman, once Washington’s Middle East darling, became toxic. International companies rushed to pull out of the kingdom. Politicians made it clear he was unwelcome. Then-candidate Joe Biden vowed to make the Saudi government “a pariah.”
In time, the prince stepped back from his more pugilistic policies, while geopolitics, energy concerns and a turbulent Middle East forced Biden to moderate his rejectionist stance.
That same year, Riyadh helped broker a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. Later, a China-brokered agreement saw the prince calm his country’s stormy diplomatic relations with Iran. Just last month, he reportedly worked behind the scenes to push through a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
His White House visit seemed to cement his comeback, but little of what was promised is a done deal.
For one, whether Saudi Arabia can pony up $1 trillion — a figure amounting to 80% of its annual GDP and more than twice its foreign exchange reserves — is an open question.
Crucially, the prince didn’t specify when the money would be invested.
Though the investment pledge is big, “how much and over what period of time is completely unclear,” said Tim Callen, an economist and former International Monetary Fund mission chief to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is also pulling back on its government spending, with deflated oil prices forcing it to downsize many of its gigaprojects, Callen added.
“The pot of money available to push out all these projects and investments has shrunk, relative to 2022 and 2023,” he said.
“My take on it is that things are going to advance both on the investment and trade side [between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia] because there are mutual economic interests between the two countries,” he said. But in the short term, he added, $1 trillion “is too big a number for the economy of Saudi Arabia.”
As for F-35s, seeing them on Saudi runways is likely to take years. Congress has to approve F-35 sales, and some opposition could arise if they’re seen to jeopardize Israel’s qualitative military edge.
Israel, the only nation in the F-35 program allowed to use certain specialized technology, would expect Saudi Arabia to receive “planes of reduced caliber,” Trump said on Tuesday, with the prince on his side.
“I don’t think that makes you too happy,” he said to the prince.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Trump added, “I think [Israel and Saudi Arabia] are both at a level where they should get top of the line.”
But the bigger obstacle may be Saudi Arabia’s links to China, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory and an aviation analyst.
Saudi security forces stand at attention beneath a portrait of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, during a military parade as pilgrims arrive for the annual pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca on May 31.
(AFP via Getty Images)
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has run military exercises with the Chinese navy and fielded Chinese-made weapons in its armed forces. Ensuring it doesn’t get a look at the aircraft’s capabilities presents “a different set of challenges,” Aboulafia said. Similar concerns scuttled the United Arab Emirates’ attempts to acquire the jet, he added.
Another issue is that a backlog in aircraft delivery means another recipient would need to give up their production slots in Saudi Arabia’s favor.
Also key to Bin Salman’s return to the U.S.’ full embrace was his treatment by Trump at the White House.
When a reporter asked the prince about the Khashoggi killing, it was Trump who put up a vociferous defense, and called Khashoggi “extremely controversial.”
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it,” Trump said, pointing to the crown prince.
President Trump, right, and Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, shake hands during their meeting in the Oval Office.
(Nathan Howard / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump also took a swing at Biden’s fist bump, engaging in an awkward hand-grabbing game with Bin Salman.
“I grabbed that hand,” Trump said. “I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been.”
Aoun added that talks would also involve the IDF withdrawing from the five outposts in Lebanese territory, where the military said in they would each be manned by a company of troops.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that Lebanon is ready to negotiate with Israel to end strikes on his country from the Jewish state, The Associated Press reported.
The US outlet also said that Aoun, who announced in a televised speech that Lebanon was ready for negotiations, added that talks would also involve the IDF withdrawing from the five outposts in Lebanese territory, where the military said in February of this year they would each be manned by a company of troops for an indefinite period.
The Lebanese leader added that the country’s soldiers would be prepared to be dispatched to the areas the IDF withdraws from, including the five aforementioned outposts from which the IDF would pull out in the supposed negotiations.
IDF struck Hamas in Lebanon earlier this week
Hours before his speech, the IDF announced that its strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 Hamas terrorists who were operating in a training compound in the area. Among the Hamas terrorists was Jawad Sidawi, who the IDF stated was involved in training terrorists to carry out terror attacks from Israel’s northern neighbor against the Jewish state. The Israeli military said that Lebanon has yet to successfully disarm Palestinian factions in the country, despite their pledge to do so.
The AP report noted that it hasn’t been made clear whether Israel would agree to engage in negotiations, nor did the Lebanese president mention whether the US or international community would be sponsoring talks.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman during his visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 3, 2025. (credit: SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
Aoun’s speech also comes a day after the country’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said Lebanon is open to engaging with Israel in a partnership for disempowering Hezbollah, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Salam was cited in the report as saying that Lebanon would be willing to seek American support for negotiations.
GENEVA (AP) — Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest announced plans to change the voting system of the popular musical extravaganza to ensure fairness, a move that follows allegations of “interference” by Israel’s government.
The European Broadcasting Union, a Geneva-based union of public broadcasters that runs the event, said Friday that the changes were “designed to strengthen trust, transparency and audience engagement.”
Israel has competed in Eurovision for more than 50 years and won four times. But calls for Israel to be kicked out swelled over the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.
The allegations of Israeli government interference have added a new twist to the debate.
In September, Dutch public broadcaster AVROTROS — citing human suffering in the Gaza war — said that it could no longer justify Israel’s participation in the contest. Several other countries took a similar stance.
The Dutch broadcaster went on to say there had been “proven interference by the Israeli government during the last edition of the Song Contest, with the event being used as a political instrument.” The statement didn’t elaborate.
That same month, the CEO of Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Golan Yochpaz, said that there was “no reason why we should not continue to be a significant part of this cultural event, which must not become political.”
Kan also said then that it was “convinced” that the EBU “will continue to maintain the apolitical, professional and cultural character of the competition, especially on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Eurovision” next year.
As part of the new Eurovision measures, in next year’s contest — scheduled to take place in May in Vienna — the number of votes per payment method will be reduced by half to 10, the EBU said.
In addition, “professional juries” will return to the semifinals for the first time since 2022 — a move that will give roughly 50-50 percentage weight between audience and jury votes, it said.
Organizers will also enhance safeguards to thwart “suspicious or coordinated voting activity” and strengthen security systems that “monitor, detect and prevent fraudulent patterns,” EBU said.
Contest director Martin Green said that the neutrality and integrity of the competition is of “paramount importance” to the EBU, its members, and audiences, adding that the event “should remain a neutral space and must not be instrumentalized.”
The EBU’s general assembly on Dec. 4-5 is poised to consider whether Israel can participate next year. A vote on that participation will only take place if member broadcasters decide the new steps are “not sufficient,” Green said.
“They punished ordinary people. This is collective punishment.”
It’s been more than nine months since 54-year-old Nehaya al-Jundi last saw her home in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nur Shams, in the occupied West Bank, after being forced to evacuate by the Israeli military.
“They punished the infrastructure, the institutions and people of the camp.”
In a café in nearby Tulkarm, Nehaya speaks to the BBC about her family’s panicked flight, as Israeli troops stormed into the camp in early February.
For two days Nehaya watched and listened in terror as military bulldozers razed the area around her house.
“We were besieged inside our house and couldn’t leave,” she recalls, describing how power, water and internet connections were all severed.
Eventually, on 9 February, Nehaya escaped with her 75-year-old husband, Zaydan, and their teenage daughter Salma.
“When we got out, I was shocked by the damage in the area,” she says.
Nehaya al-Jundi was forced out of her house in Nur Shams in February [BBC]
The Israeli military launched “Operation Iron Wall” in late January, sending troops and armour into Nur Shams and two other refugee camps in the northern West Bank, to tackle Palestinian armed groups it said were responsible for attacks on Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers.
The operation followed a largely unsuccessful attempt by the Palestinian Authority to quell the activities of local gunmen, many of them affiliated with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in the parts of the West Bank where it governs and controls security.
By the end of February, the three camps had been all but emptied in the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel occupied the territory in the 1967 Six Day War.
The Israeli military says it needed to demolish buildings in Nur Shams and two other camps to “open new access routes” [EPA]
In Jenin, where the largest of the three camps dominates the western side of the city, we hear similar stories of terrified flight and long months of dislocation.
“We stayed three days in the house without power or water,” says 54-year-old Nidal Abu Nase, a development consultant and freelance book editor.
“The shooting never stopped.”
When the chance to escape finally arrived, Nidal’s family left with little more than their clothes, thinking they would soon be back.
“I never managed to get home to collect my stuff,” he says.
Nidal Abu Nase has been living all his life in the Jenin refugee camp [BBC]
Ten months on, Nidal and at least 32,000 residents of the three camps still don’t know when they will be allowed to return to their homes.
When that moment finally comes, many will find they no longer have homes to go back to.
Human Rights Watch says Israel has demolished 850 homes and other buildings across all three camps.
Other estimates rate the extent of the damage much higher.
In a report published earlier this week, HRW said Israel’s forced, prolonged evacuations and the associated destruction “amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
“The Geneva Conventions prohibit displacement of civilians from occupied territory except temporarily for imperative military reasons or the population’s security,” HRW said.
The group said Israel’s actions “may also be considered ‘ethnic cleansing’”.
In February, Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said he had instructed the army “to prepare form a prolonged stay in the camps that have been cleared for the coming year”.
As the year’s end approaches, there’s still no end in sight.
Israeli forces continue to be deployed inside Nur Shams, Tulkarm and Jenin camps [BBC]
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told the BBC that “in order to locate and uproot the terrorist infrastructure at its source, the IDF has had to operate for an extended period of time.”
But already in August, Katz called the operation a success, saying “there is no terror in the camps and the scope of terror alerts in [the West Bank] has dropped by 80%.”
The IDF says it has dismantled bomb-making and other weapons facilities hidden inside all three camps.
It is not clear why Operation Iron Wall continues, although demolitions are still happening in the camps.
It seems clear from the pattern of destruction and the Israeli military’s own explanations, that the operation has longer term goals.
In a statement to the BBC, the IDF said armed groups had been able to exploit the densely built environment of the camps, making it hard for the army to move freely.
“The IDF is acting to reshape and stabilise the area,” the IDF spokesperson said. “An inseparable part of this effort is the opening of new access routes inside the camps, which requires the demolition of rows of buildings.”
Satellite images from all three camps show the extent of the damage, with narrow, barely visible streets now wide enough for military vehicles, including tanks, to pass through.
The demolitions, the IDF spokesperson said, were “based on operational necessity”, with residents able to submit objections and petitions to Israel’s Supreme Court.
All such petitions – some of which argued that Israel’s actions violated international humanitarian law – have been rejected.
According to HRW, Israel’s military has been given “wide discretion to invoke the grounds of urgent military necessity”.
HRW has called on the Israeli military to halt the forcible displacement of Palestinian civilians throughout occupied Palestinian territory, and allow all the residents of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams to return to their homes.
The UN estimates that around 52% of the total structures in Jenin camp have been damaged [Reuters]
For tens of thousands of displaced people, the future remains uncertain.
Nehaya al-Jundi’s family eventually found refuge in a nearby village. But with their lives turned upside down and most of their possessions now out of reach, back in the camp, it’s been a hard year.
“Everything has been difficult since we left,” she says.
Nur Shams’ tight-knit community has been scattered across the Tulkarm area. Some are living with relatives, others in rented accommodation.
Many are out of work, dependent on modest handouts from the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority and various NGOs.
With schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) also out of action in the camps, education has also been severely impacted.
“My kids were enrolled in UNRWA schools,” says Nidal Abu Nase, whose family has been living with relatives since January.
“They went for months without school.”
Despite recent protests, such as this one near Nur Shams, very few residents have been allowed back into the camps [BBC]
Crucially, the camps’ strong communal bonds have been fractured.
The residents of West Bank refugee camps are mostly descended from Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948-49.
“For me, the camp is identity and culture,” Nidal says.
“There was love and affection in the camp,” Nehaya says, “but not anymore because we are far from each other.”
Nehaya has not seen her house since February. Despite recent protests, very few residents have been allowed back into the camps.
The community centre where she ran rehabilitation services for the disabled has been turned into an Israeli military barracks.
And reports from young men who have managed to sneak into Nur Shams suggest that Nehaya’s house is no longer habitable.
“They told me the house is wide open – and fully destroyed.”
NICOSIA (Reuters) -A court in Cyprus on Friday sentenced an Azeri man to 6-1/2 years in jail on charges of conspiracy, his lawyer said, after prosecutors earlier dropped charges he planned terrorist attacks against Israelis living on the island.
Cyprus’s Criminal Court imposed the sentence on Orkan Asadov, an Azeri, who has been in custody since late 2021. At the time of his arrest Israel accused Iran of recruiting Asadov as a “hit man” to target Israeli businesspeople on the island.
Iran had rejected those charges at the time as baseless. The charge sheet against the defendant has never mentioned an Iranian link.
The defendant was found guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime and weapons possession, his lawyer Kostis Efstathiou told Reuters, confirming a report which first appeared in the Phileleftheros newspaper.
During a lengthy trial held behind closed doors and after a plea bargain negotiations, prosecutors dropped terrorism-related charges against the defendant, as well as charges specifying Israelis were his alleged targets.
“We convinced the court that ethnicity had absolutely nothing to do with this case,” Efstathiou said. “It had nothing to do with terrorism.”
Friday’s sentencing takes into account time already served in detention. “Its a severe penalty, within the scope of the law,” the lawyer said.
(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Israel’s haredi draft crisis intensifies as court ruling forces action, while political divisions and protests make it difficult to see a path forward.
For months, the coalition’s showdown over haredi (ultra-Orthodox) enlistment unfolded like a drama with no final act – all buildup, no climax, and plenty of stalling.
Then came Wednesday, when two developments, one from within the haredi world and one from the High Court of Justice, collided to signal that the era of delay is ending and the crisis is hitting zero hour yet again.
The day began with the Lithuanian rabbinic leadership finally breaking its silence about the controversial haredi conscription bill that has stalled in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
After weeks of internal debate and growing pressure, Rabbis Dov Lando and Moshe Hillel Hirsch issued what can best be described as “a pale green light.”
They authorized Degel Hatorah’s MKs to resume discussions in the committee on what has become known as “the Bismuth draft law,” but they withheld approval of the law itself.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews clash with police outside the IDF Recruitment Center at Tel Hashomer, central Israel, April 28, 2025 (credit: Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
They did not endorse any of its provisions. They did not instruct the faction to support it in the plenum. They simply permitted “discussion.”
The timing and phrasing were intentional. This was a gesture toward the coalition, not a commitment.
It was a signal that negotiations could continue, not that haredi leadership was ready to climb down from its long-held insistence that full-time yeshiva students must remain exempt.
It was a way of keeping the door open while ensuring the final decision remained in the rabbis’ hands.
But that cautious gesture – the first sign of movement on the bill in weeks – triggered an immediate response within the coalition itself.
Within minutes of the announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Boaz Bismuth, the committee chair, not to advance the bill.
The reason was obvious: Netanyahu feared walking into a political trap.
Prime Minister Netanyahu risked pushing forward a law without UTJ backing
Without explicit backing from the United Torah Judaism leadership, the prime minister risked pushing forward a law that the haredim themselves might abandon at the last moment, leaving him exposed to anger over a bill that much of the public opposes as not going nearly far enough.
Worse yet, the haredim could still vote against the final version if they decided the sanctions were too harsh, meaning Netanyahu could be left holding a law that offered the public only minimal change and still cost him the coalition.
Netanyahu has made clear that he will not move the legislation forward without a firm commitment of political support. He wants a guarantee, not a rabbinic signal of “permission to discuss.”
And such a commitment is far from assured, given the internal divisions inside Agudat Yisrael and within parts of the haredi world, the eruption of haredi street protests, and the radicalized atmosphere, including intermittent acts of violence against haredi politicians.
If Netanyahu hoped that the rabbis’ statement would buy him some time, he soon found out that time on this issue was no longer on his side.
Because only a few hours after the rabbinic announcement,the High Court of Justice issued what could prove to be one of the most consequential decisions in years in the never-ending legal battle over haredi conscription.
In a sharply worded, unanimous ruling by Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Noam Sohlberg and four other justices, the High Court demanded that the government do what it has resisted for decades: enforce the law on haredi draft evasion.
The ruling declared that the state must pursue real criminal proceedings against haredi draft evaders, end all benefits linked to draft evasion, and, within 45 days, produce a concrete, effective, and professionally grounded enforcement policy.
Since the exemption law expired in June 2023, there is no longer any legal basis for blanket yeshiva deferments.
In principle, haredi men who are not in service or are individually exempted are now in violation of existing law.
The judges emphasized that the state must quickly reach a point where its criminal enforcement rate against haredi evaders is no lower than the rate applied to all other groups – a seismic shift given the near-nonexistent enforcement of recent years.
This decision leaves no practical room to recreate the elaborate bypass channels that previous governments used to maintain the yeshiva funding system. If a policy enables circumvention – whether through indirect stipends, creative budget transfers, or administrative “filters” – it fails the High Court’s test.
Taken together, the message was unmistakable: The era of symbolic laws, loopholes, and non-enforcement is over. The state must act – not someday, not in theory, but now.
This puts the coalition in an impossible position. On the one hand, advancing a law that meets the High Court’s standard would require sanctions and enforcement measures that the haredi parties have rejected for years.
On the other hand, advancing a law that meets the ultra-Orthodox parties’ demands would almost certainly be struck down again, thrusting Israel back into a constitutional crisis at a time when public patience – and reservists’ stamina – is nearing its limits.
Pressure is also mounting inside the haredi community itself, and not only from the political leadership.
In recent weeks, the crisis has spilled into the streets in the form of angry demonstrations by extremist factions who oppose any compromise on enlistment.
That tension boiled over when Shas MK Yoav Ben-Tzur’s car was attacked on Saturday night by haredi protesters, enraged that Shas was considering agreeing to advance the proposed law.
Windows were smashed; trash was thrown; the scene captured the growing radicalism among groups convinced that even discussing enlistment is a betrayal of principles.
This radicalism matters because it limits the rabbis’ freedom to maneuver.
Leaders not prone in any event to show great flexibility cannot strike compromises if they fear that their own constituents – not secular Israelis, not the High Court, not the opposition, but their own community – will turn on them.
All of this unfolds even as the Bismuth draft itself faces deep structural problems.
The bill’s enlistment targets are minimal, its sanctions weak and riddled with loopholes, and its definition of “haredi” far too liberal.
Facing a shortfall of 10,000-20,000 combat soldiers, the IDF has already testified that the bill does not meet operational needs and relies mainly on recruits who will not serve in combat roles.
In short, Israel faces a draft bill that cannot meet the High Court’s standard nor the army’s needs, and will satisfy neither the haredi leadership nor the general public.
One way or another, it now seems, the era of forever kicking this issue down the road is coming to an end.
