The vote dominates the news, but what changes the ground happens far from the ballot boxes: demolitions, detentions, strikes in Lebanon and 255 buildings condemned in Gaza. Europe has found the sentence — it has not yet found the instrument.
Officials at Israel’s finance ministry were surprised by Trump’s announcement ending US military aid, according to the Times of Israel, in a report carried by Middle East Eye. An official said no formal document from the prime minister’s office was submitted about the move: “The ministry was aware of the intention to end it, but was surprised by the intention to do so immediately.” Defense ministry officials and the military were also surprised by the announcement, according to the same report.
Israel's siege of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, reached its tenth day on Sunday, with Israeli forces threatening to expand their military offensive in the city, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, cited by Al Jazeera. The offensive has displaced more than 3,300 Palestinians, particularly in the al-Jalda and Ain Deir Bahha areas, and resulted in the demolition of 15 homes.
The Catholic priest Samir Daou was murdered in his home and stabbed more than 20 times, and robbed of his personal possessions, including his wallet, car and clothes, according to the Jerusalem Post. Daou's family found his body inside a house he owned in Ain Jrain, in the Jbeil district, with visible traces of blood, L'Orient Today reported. The killing sparked sectarian outrage and calls for the deportation of Syrians, according to Lebanese media reports.
Three suspects were arrested on Saturday following a clash between Israelis and Palestinians near the village of Duma in the occupied West Bank, amid the ongoing olive harvest, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he hopes the period after the formation of a new Israeli government will create an opportunity to resume serious political dialogue, according to Xinhua, which cited the Palestinian news agency.
Qatar denied interference in Israel’s elections and called the accusations ridiculous and dangerous in equal measure. “Qatar should not be used as a scapegoat for the political failures of certain Israeli politicians,” the country’s statement said, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Israeli aircraft flew at low altitude and dropped thermal balloons over southern Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanon's National News Agency reported. The Lebanese army had previously warned that the balloons pose a threat to citizens because of their explosive and incendiary contents, urging residents not to approach or touch them since they are prone to exploding.
Exit polls from Channels 11, 12 and 13 project 11 or 12 seats for the Joint List and seven for Ra’am, which would give the so-called “Arab bloc” 18 or 19 seats, according to The Times of Israel. The result would surpass the previous record of 15 seats for Arab-majority parties, set in 2020. Turnout in Arab towns surged: 72.2% in Nazareth, against 48.29% in 2022, and 82% in Rahat, against 60.61%.
Jordan declared three days of national mourning for the victims of the shooting at a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, about 180km (110 miles) south of Amman, according to the kingdom's Petra news agency. Gunmen opened fire during the funeral on Friday, killing seven people and wounding 40 others, according to authorities cited by the Guardian.
Jordan's director of public security, Major General Abdullah Al-Maaytah, said the toll from the shooting at a church in the south of the country had risen to seven dead and 34 wounded, 27 of whom were still receiving treatment, according to The Times of Israel. King Abdullah II said the “terrorist attack against Karak” would be met with “the harshest retaliation”, in an English-language post on X. The gunmen killed at least seven people and wounded dozens in the attack on Friday.
Israeli military forces began on Friday, October 23, an operation to evacuate and demolish homes in the cities of Hebron and Halhul in the West Bank, according to Opera Mundi. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military would go house to house and demolish homes in an operation on a scale unseen in the occupied West Bank for decades, according to The Guardian. According to RT, he said he had instructed the security forces to immediately blockade the city of Hebron and prepare to completely blockade the entire area of Judea and Samaria, the Israeli government's designation, from today. The shooting that prompted the response left five Israelis wounded and two suspected Palestinian attackers killed by Israeli security forces, according to Israeli officials cited by the BBC.
Israeli forces killed a man with a disability during a raid into southern Syria on Thursday, Syrian authorities said, according to the Middle East Eye.
Israel carried out a series of air strikes and explosions in several areas of southern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s state National News Agency (NNA), cited by Middle East Eye.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is most likely to begin withdrawing from the UN-patrolled so-called Blue Line zone on December 31, 2026. The mission has 7,565 peacekeepers from 46 countries, according to DW. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned of the need to “avert the vacuum that UNIFIL's withdrawal could create, were it to take place without agreement on a new international force to replace it”.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly held a secret meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday, according to the Axios news outlet, cited by The Times of Israel, which spoke to two sources with knowledge of the meeting. The meeting took place at the Ovda airbase in southern Israel, where US fighter jets and refuelers are stationed, the sources said.
At least four Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, health officials said. Medics said an Israeli air strike killed Akram Yassin and his wife Dina Abu Baker in an apartment in Gaza City, while in Khan Yunis a 17-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire near the Qizan Al-Najar neighbourhood, according to the Middle East Eye.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Monday, eight days before Israeli elections. The visit was not announced and was reported by Axios, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The Pentagon and the Israeli embassy in Washington declined to comment, while the Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to Middle East Eye.
A high-ranking Syrian government official told the Jerusalem Post that Damascus fears Druze armed groups will launch an offensive against government forces in the southern province of Sweida in the coming days, with Israel encouraging and supporting the operation. The official said Israeli aerial reconnaissance over Sweida and surrounding areas had intensified, along with more reconnaissance flights over Damascus and southern Syria.
The United States issued security alerts dated October 18 covering 12 locations in the Middle East, among them Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Iran, Qatar, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Israel/Jerusalem, urging Americans in the region to exercise heightened vigilance, monitor airline operations and prepare for flight cancellations, airspace closures and sudden changes to travel plans. The notices cite the potential for hostilities to escalate beyond their immediate area and warn that Iran and groups supportive of Tehran may target US interests overseas. The US Embassy in the United Arab Emirates urged citizens in the Middle East to exercise heightened vigilance amid escalations in the region, Middle East Eye reported. The alerts do not by themselves confirm that airports have closed or that flights have been canceled.
Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, told French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot that, if extending the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) proves impossible, the country welcomes any arrangement that ensures an international presence in the south, prevents a vacuum and avoids placing the Lebanese army in direct contact with the Israeli army, according to The Times of Israel. Barrot’s two-day visit to Beirut was aimed at discussing mechanisms for an international presence in the south, the scene of repeated conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah.
Iran’s foreign minister voiced support for Lebanon’s right to defend its sovereignty and national security against Israeli aggression during a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart in Baghdad, according to the Iranian Mehr News Agency.
Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine is one of two people injured and taken to hospitals in the Ramallah area during the attack by Israeli settlers on the annual olive harvest in the village of Abu Falah, in the West Bank, on Friday, according to Palestinian medics cited by Reuters, in a text republished by Al-Monitor. Dozens of masked settlers dressed in black burned olive trees and threw rocks at Palestinians in a coordinated attack on the village’s harvest. Le Monde reports that the Washington Post journalist was beaten by settlers.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday about the seizure of hundreds of kilograms of explosives from Hezbollah, according to the Jerusalem Post. Rubio urged Aoun to hold accountable those who ordered, financed and directed the shipment and said that returning the explosives to Hezbollah “is out of the question.” Aoun asked Rubio to press Israel to halt attacks on southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Presidency in a statement on X cited by Middle East Eye.
Iran instructed Hezbollah to raise its level of military readiness for a possible confrontation, according to Lebanese security and military sources cited by the Emirati site Erem News, in a report by The Jerusalem Post. All full-time Hezbollah members who receive monthly salaries were summoned, with the caveat that the directions were only preparations for a near-term scenario, with no final decision to go to war. Over the past two weeks, Hezbollah launched at least three drones and intelligence-gathering devices toward the security zone in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli Army Radio. Israel tried to intercept all three items and managed to bring down only one, according to the report in Hebrew media reproduced by The Cradle.
An Israeli drone strike targeting a group of Palestinians in Gaza City killed one man and wounded dozens, Wafa reported, according to the Middle East Eye. The strike hit the group of civilians near the Ibad al-Rahman School on al-Jalaa Street, in the city’s northwest.
Israel has still not allowed the contract for the first Board of Peace base in Gaza to move forward, two months after it was issued, the Guardian reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The organization, authorized by the UN in 2025 and chaired by US President Donald Trump, issued its first construction contract for Gaza in early August: Louisiana-based Arkel International would build a military outpost for 150 international troops, the vanguard of an international stabilization force. Contractors and trucks are not being allowed to cross into Gaza and begin the work. “Israel won’t open the border,” they said.
Four Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said, in an AFP text republished by Arab News, days after the anniversary of the declaration of a US-mediated ceasefire. Two young men died when Israeli forces struck a vehicle near Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, according to civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal and Nasser Hospital. The Israeli military did not immediately give details on the strikes.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories and head of the Supreme Fatwa Council, Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, issued a fatwa on Tuesday banning the purchase of olive products from settlers, in response to escalating settler violence, especially against olive trees this harvest season, his office said. Under the ruling, it is forbidden to buy olive products “stolen from Palestinian trees and sold by [settlers], due to the great evils involved.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to seize more territory in southern Lebanon, in the areas of Nabatieh and the Litani River, if Hezbollah joins an Iranian attack, during a visit to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)’s buffer zone. “If Hezbollah joins Iran in an attack on Israel, it will be dealt a heavy blow and lose additional territory in southern Lebanon, in the areas of Nabatieh and the Litani [River], which will become part of a permanent Israeli security zone — the IDF is prepared to launch a [new expanded] invasion,” he said. Katz also said that “more than 1 million Shiites will become displaced in Lebanon.”
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he does not believe China and Russia are helping Iran at all, contradicting US intelligence reports from recent months. According to two people briefed on the matter, US intelligence assessments show that Russia and China provide military support to Tehran in the form of satellite imagery for targeting purposes and components for weapons.
An Israeli military vehicle ran over and injured three Palestinians during an incursion into Ya’bad, west of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, according to Middle East Eye.
The US claimed on Tuesday that “real progress” is being made toward a demilitarized Gaza Strip, on the one-year anniversary of the ceasefire, according to The Times of Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Donald Trump last week to discuss the possibility of a renewed military campaign against Iran before Knesset elections at the end of October, according to an Axios report cited by The Jerusalem Post. Senior US officials told Axios that Netanyahu cited alleged Iranian efforts to rebuild nuclear capacity as the reason for launching new strikes.
The Israeli army has arrested more than 200 people in southern Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, according to the Sijil Centre, which tracks Israeli activity in Syria, in a France 24 Observers report. Witnesses have denounced the arbitrary arrests, and former detainees and their loved ones have raised concerns over detention conditions.
A Palestinian family was attacked at home in the early hours of this Tuesday by masked men posing as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, near Kusra in the West Bank, according to a KAN News report published by the Jerusalem Post. The father, the mother and two teenage daughters were beaten and taken to a hospital in Nablus. According to the same report, the mother and the two daughters tried to help the father and were also beaten.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will control the territory from the Jordan River to the sea, during a visit to the separation line in the West Bank: “We are safeguarding the area from the Jordan River to the sea. Our country, our control,” he declared, according to the Jerusalem Post. During the same visit, he called the Tulkarm camp a terrorist stronghold and rejected the Supreme Court order on the return of displaced Palestinians: “I heard that someone at the High Court of Justice says the residents should be brought back here. These are not residents; they are terrorists.”
US President Donald Trump stopped short of committing to support any candidate in Israel’s October 27 election, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Jerusalem Post. Trump had already thrice dodged a direct endorsement of Netanyahu in a recent Time magazine interview, according to Al Jazeera.
Lebanese forces seized 500 kilograms of explosives with metal balls and nails from a vehicle at a checkpoint in Dahr al-Baidar in the Bekaa Valley and arrested two individuals connected to Hezbollah, according to the Jerusalem Post. Lebanon's justice minister questioned whether the explosives were for internal use or to create new pretexts to plunge Lebanon into new wars, according to MTV Lebanon, cited by the Jerusalem Post. Hezbollah announced on Tuesday $14,000 in compensation for displaced people, and Lebanese lawmakers began questioning where the funds are coming from.
Sources told the Lebanese outlet Al-Modon that Hezbollah took advantage of the extended ceasefire to rebuild its military capabilities in southern Lebanon, both south and north of the Litani River, according to The Jerusalem Post. The same sources linked the rebuild to the seizure of a truck carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosives, including TNT and C4, and said the group uses the material for first-person view (FPV) drones, whose payload has grown from 2.5 kg to between 4 and 6 kg.
Israeli forces wounded a child with live ammunition during attacks in Ramallah and Al-Bireh, in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry says. Troops entered several Palestinian nongovernmental organizations’ (NGOs) offices and the courtyard of the Palestine Medical Complex, according to Middle East Eye. Wafa identified two injured journalists: Palestine TV’s Khaled Mattawa, who sustained a hand injury from a sound bomb, and Sky News Arabia’s Firas Lotfi, who suffered a shrapnel wound to his foot.
Israeli forces have raided multiple locations across the occupied West Bank since late Monday, storming homes and detaining at least three Palestinian men, according to local sources cited by Middle East Eye. The raids targeted the city of Qalqilyah; the town of Idhna, west of Hebron; the al-Jalajel area in Hebron; the village of Tal, southwest of Nablus; the town of Madama, south of Nablus; and the town of al-Yamun, west of Jenin, among others, according to the outlet.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited on Monday victims of the explosion of a Hezbollah cluster munition in northern Israel, among them 14-year-old student Eitan Masouri, who told the prime minister he realised he was injured, saw a friend wounded and tried to help him, according to The Jerusalem Post. Upper Galilee Regional Council head Asaf Langleben demanded that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) search areas open to hikers after an unexploded Hezbollah munition killed one person and injured 24, according to The Jerusalem Post, and said hiking in the region would continue.
A blast caused by unexploded ordnance in northern Israel, near the Lebanese border, injured approximately 20 people, according to Al Jazeera. Israel’s Magen David Adom said paramedics were treating eight casualties in serious and moderate condition, as well as several additional casualties in mild condition, after the explosion, which police said occurred near the community of Neot Mordechai. The Jerusalem Post reported 12 people wounded, including two in serious condition, according to initial reports.
EU foreign ministers adopted on Monday a decision establishing a new support mission in Lebanon aimed at advising the country’s military and internal security forces, according to Reuters, in a text republished by The Jerusalem Post. According to the Council of the EU, the mission will have an initial mandate of three years. The mission will advise and assist the Lebanese armed forces and internal security forces to strengthen territorial control, border security and also internal security, Kaja Kallas said, in remarks cited by Anadolu and carried by the Middle East Monitor. Kallas said the mission would not serve as a replacement for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and that there cannot be a security vacuum when UNIFIL leaves Lebanon.
Iraqi F-16 fighter jets carried out two airstrikes targeting a hideout belonging to remnants of Daesh elements in the Nareen area, in eastern Diyala province, resulting in its complete destruction, according to the Security Media Cell. The strikes came less than two weeks after the US-led coalition’s mission against ISIS in Iraq officially ended on Sept. 30, according to operativmm.az, citing the Security Media Cell.
A drone struck an Iranian Kurdish opposition camp in Koya, east of Erbil in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, on Monday, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Iran International. There were no immediate reports of casualties, per two security sources cited by the agency. The Kurdistan-based website Rudaw released a video showing a drone over Koya.
A retired Lebanese soldier was killed on Sunday by Israeli artillery fire while tending his land during the annual olive harvest in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army identified him as Ali Abdul Hassan Sweidan and said he was directly targeted while inspecting his property in Yater, in Bint Jbeil district.
Syria’s central bank said on Sunday that it issued its first letter of credit in 14 years to facilitate a petroleum products supply deal between the Syrian Petroleum Company and Saudi Aramco, according to the Jerusalem Post. The bank said the transaction was arranged in coordination with a major US bank, which it did not name, opening a channel to finance oil imports and settle payments through the formal banking system.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday evening on the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the head of the Shin Bet and the attorney general to launch a comprehensive investigation into participants in the documentary “NAZA”, according to i24NEWS. Netanyahu urged the authorities to prosecute those involved for alleged serious information security offenses, criminal libel and harm to Israel’s diplomatic and security interests. The documentary features anonymous testimony from 24 people presented as Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel, including allegations about the use of artificial intelligence in targeting operations and the consequences for civilians.
Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection, according to Middle East Eye.
Israeli warplanes carried out two airstrikes on the town of Mansouri in southern Lebanon, according to the Mehr News Agency, which describes the action as a ceasefire violation.
Hundreds of doctors protested outside the World Medical Association (WMA) summit in Rotterdam, calling for the suspension of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), according to Al Jazeera. On Saturday, 81 healthcare workers removed their scrubs and hung them in a line facing the WMA assembly in Rotterdam, each bearing the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker held in Israeli detention. The IMA OUT! campaign said it delivered a petition with more than 6,500 signatures from health workers around the world calling for the suspension.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Nobel Peace laureate Navi Pillay a “bigot” and the prize committee “misguided,” according to the Jerusalem Post. The Prime Minister's Office said the committee had lost its moral compass by awarding its highest honor to someone who built a career around inventing and propagating blood libels against the only Jewish state. Israel's Foreign Ministry rejected Pillay's genocide allegations.
A senior Israeli security official told Walla that Hamas is showing signs of preparing for attacks against Israeli forces, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israeli intelligence had identified indications that Hamas was planning to confront IDF troops along the Yellow Line, according to the same official. Asked about the possibility of a large-scale confrontation before Israel's October 27 elections, the official assessed the likelihood as low.
Air France has agreed to enforce an Israeli order barring pilots and cabin crew of certain nationalities from flights to Israel, including those from Muslim-majority countries, according to a Mediapart investigation reported by Middle East Eye. The restrictions cover 31 nationalities, including Algerian, Tunisian, Iranian and Pakistani citizens, and also affect French citizens with dual nationality. Israel's Ministry of Transport issued the directive on October 1, requiring crew in Israeli airspace not to hold the nationality of a country without diplomatic relations with Israel, according to Israeli broadcaster N12.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed concern over the continuing impact of Israeli military operations on civilians in southern Syria, including raids on homes, restrictions on movement, harassment, arbitrary detention and destruction of livelihoods. The UN office continues to document the detention of Syrians by Israeli forces and said 49 Syrians remain in Israeli custody, a total it has not independently and comprehensively verified. According to Middle East Eye, Israel carried out 280 armed incursions into Syria in September, the highest monthly number of the year.
Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded others across Gaza on Thursday and Friday, according to local medical sources and rescue workers cited by RT. Since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025, Gaza’s Health Ministry counts more than 1,450 Palestinians killed and over 5,000 wounded, according to RT.
An Israeli attack wounded six people in northeast Lebanon on Friday, near the border with Syria, and Israel said it targeted a “Syrian terrorist” who planned attacks against Israel. The Israeli military said it struck Yusuf Ali al-Hassoun, who, according to Tel Aviv, operated under the direction of the Iranian regime.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Public Prosecutor said an Omani flydubai co-pilot planned to carry out a suicide attack on flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30, according to The Jerusalem Post. Reuters reported that the co-pilot intended to seize the flight and crash it into a terminal at Ben Gurion airport in Israel.
The European Union supports extending the mandate of UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday, according to AFP, in a text published by Türkiye Today. Kallas said she expected EU foreign ministers to formally establish the new mission on Monday, October 12. The EU's new military mission in Lebanon is expected to have a permanent component of around 100 personnel, according to Rapporteur.
Seven people were killed in separate Israeli strikes across Gaza, six of them in Gaza City, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence. According to the same civil defence, two people, a woman and a child, were killed and others wounded when Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building in Gaza City. The Israeli army said three of the victims were “military operatives”. Middle East Eye recorded seven killed in separate Israeli strikes across Gaza.
The Israeli military announced it had killed Muhammad Muhsen Nimr Yazji, a commander of Hamas’s Shati Battalion, in strikes in Gaza City on Monday, according to the Jerusalem Post. The announcement was made on Thursday evening. Yazji held Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Matan Angrest as hostages, according to the military. In separate strikes on Tuesday, the military said it killed Muhammad Fawzi Muhammad Awad Gamal, of Hamas’s Daraj Tuffah Battalion.
The Israeli military announced on Thursday the death of Capt. Eliav Haim Tzapalamus, 21, from Haifa, a combat engineering officer in the 603rd Battalion, 7th Brigade, in southern Lebanon, according to the Jerusalem Post. According to the military, he was killed when a Humvee flipped during operational activity in the Litani sector. Three other soldiers were lightly injured, were evacuated to a hospital and their families were notified.
David Milstein, a senior advisor to US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, used his position to quash reports on Israeli activities in the West Bank and present the Netanyahu government in a favorable light to Washington, according to the New York Times, in a report published by the Jerusalem Post on Thursday. The report is based on 12 anonymous sources who work or interact with Milstein in both Jerusalem and Washington. Huckabee refuted the report and criticized the absence of any named source.
Avi Gil, former military secretary to Benjamin Netanyahu, told N12 News on Thursday that he gave an inaccurate account of his timeline on October 7 and said that Netanyahu’s chief of staff allegedly tried to change the official record of the prime minister’s schedule, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Three people have been killed by Israeli gunfire in Gaza City and northern Gaza since early Thursday, according to Al Jazeera, citing medical sources. In a separate attack, two people were killed and three wounded when an Israeli strike hit a vehicle in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, according to the Middle East Eye.
Syrian general Bassam al-Hassan, who ran Syria’s chemical weapons programme and was a senior advisor to former President Bashar al-Assad, has been living in Lebanon under US protection since Assad’s government was toppled in late 2024, according to a joint NPR and BBC investigation released on Thursday, because he has provided information about the abduction of American journalist Austin Tice.
The US State Department notified Congress last week that it approved the sale of more than $2bn in US weapons systems to Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, according to Middle East Eye. Egypt will buy more than 2,000 FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles and up to 200 launchers, for about $832m. The priciest purchase in the package is the UAE’s, for up to 10,000 APKWS-II laser-guided kits, at about $1.04bn; Kuwait will buy services and parts for Patriot batteries for $400m.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said one of its positions near Kfar Shouba, on the Blue Line in the eastern sector, was hit by small-arms fire on the morning of the 7th and that there were no casualties. The peacekeeping force said the shots hit a post on the Israeli border, according to Al Jazeera.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem declared that the liberation of southern Lebanon is within sight and that Israeli forces will not manage to maintain what he called their illegal occupation, whatever the time, according to the Tehran Times. Iranian general Ali Abdollahi said the 7th of October turned the Resistance Front’s defensive strategy into an offensive one and accelerated the decline of what he called the usurping Zionist regime.
An August report by CIA experts assesses that Israel is at risk of internal collapse or civil war because of tensions among Israelis, according to the Middle East Eye, citing Drop Site News. The document describes a volatile situation ahead of the October 27 Israeli elections, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political future. One of the most divisive issues is the long-standing exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox Israelis.
The UK threatened to expel one Israeli diplomat for each of the 27 British diplomats whose diplomatic status at the consulate would be terminated if Israel closes the British consulate in East Jerusalem, according to Al Jazeera. Israel ordered the consulate’s closure by 8 October, in retaliation for British sanctions on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Foreign Office did not deny the Ynet report and said it would not comment on speculation, according to The Guardian.
The Israeli army killed a man in southern Syria early on Monday, as it continues to carry out raids in the country, according to Middle East Eye. The army claimed the man attempted to enter one of its military posts when troops opened fire and killed him, according to Middle East Eye.
Syria’s Al-Ikhbariah TV reported that Israeli forces shelled farmland between Buraiqa and Kodana in southern Quneitra, according to the Middle East Eye. Syria, Qatar and Jordan denounced Israel’s resumed excavation work on the “Sofa 53” project in Syria’s Quneitra province. Syria’s Foreign Ministry said the resumption of excavation work near the separation line with the occupied Syrian Golan Heights was a “flagrant breach” of the 1974 deal.
An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle south of Deir al-Balah killed one person and injured at least nine, one of them in critical condition, according to the Palestinian Information Center. Six-year-old Suha Mohammed Nasser died after being shot inside her family's tent in Wadi al-Salqa, south of Deir al-Balah, according to the WAFA news agency, in a report republished by Middle East Eye.
Israel's Supreme Court unanimously overturned the Central Elections Committee's decision to ban the Arab-majority parties Joint List and Ra'am from the October 27 election, according to the Times of Israel. The court also ruled 7-2 against the committee's decision to ban Joint List MK Ofer Cassif of Hadash, the same outlet reported. The decision keeps Palestinian citizens of Israel, about 20 percent of the population, in the race after critics accused the committee of double standards, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli forces detained three Palestinian farmers and seized a truck loaded with bananas in Ras al-Ahmar, southeast of Tubas, according to the Middle East Eye. Israeli settlers protected by soldiers attacked Palestinian homes in Wadi al-Hasin and Harat Jaber, in the Old City of Hebron, and settlers wounded a 27-year-old Palestinian in the village of Usarin, south of Nablus.
Israel’s defence ministry said that 1,318 Israeli personnel have been killed since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, whether in the line of duty or as a result of an accident, illness, or suicide, according to the Middle East Eye.
US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau praised on Saturday Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar and the other passengers who overpowered the co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073, who allegedly tried to crash the plane, according to the Hindustan Times. Landau wrote that he wanted to express his utmost respect and awe to the pilot and the mostly Israeli passengers for preventing what would have been one of the world’s most horrific terrorist incidents. Passengers said the crew asked them to untie the Omani co-pilot who attacked the pilot-in-command and that they had no idea why, according to the Hindustan Times.
Israel launched a new wave of demolitions of olive groves in the occupied West Bank, with military orders to uproot trees on the eve of the olive harvest, which typically begins in October, according to Middle East Eye. According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, 55 such orders were issued between the start of the year and September, affecting about 2,373 dunams, compared with 47 orders covering 1,613 dunams throughout 2025.
Israeli forces opened artillery fire on a demilitarized zone in Quneitra Governorate in southern Syria, according to TASS, which cited Al Mayadeen TV channel. Shell impacts were recorded in the countryside near the Al-Mantara dam, with no civilian casualties reported, according to TASS. Israeli forces also shelled an area southeast of the town of Al-Rafid in the southern Quneitra countryside in southwestern Syria, according to Anadolu Agency.
The death toll from the Israeli attack on the al-Asala building in the Remal neighbourhood of western Gaza City rose to five, including three women and a young girl, according to Middle East Eye, citing Palestinian medical sources who spoke to Al Jazeera. The attack hit the building early on Saturday without prior warning, killing at least five people and severely wounding at least six, according to medical staff at al-Shifa Hospital.
The co-pilot of flight FZ1073 was transferred on Thursday to the United Arab Emirates, where Israeli officials are expected to question him, according to a source cited by Reuters. Israeli investigators are expected to take part in the investigation led by the United Arab Emirates alongside Emirati authorities, seeking to determine what happened and examine the suspect's motives and background.
The Israel Defense Forces said that 170 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who were identified as journalists after their deaths were members of armed groups, according to The Times of Israel. According to the military, 118 were active in Hamas's military wing and 49 operated in Islamic Jihad, two were members of the Popular Resistance Committees and one was in the Mujahideen Brigades.
Flydubai suspended flights to and from Israel while the investigation into the FZ 1073 incident, on 30 September, continues. Israeli investigators will question the Omani co-pilot in the probe led by the United Arab Emirates, according to The Times of India, which cites Reuters. Indian pilot Smit Machchhar was praised by Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Friday that Israel would impose a very heavy price on any power behind the FlyDubai incident, according to France 24. The aircraft carrying 174 people was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after the co-pilot apparently stabbed the pilot, according to France 24. US President Donald Trump said he was hearing that Iran was involved and that the country will be hit very hard if so, without presenting evidence, according to France 24. Netanyahu admitted Thursday that there was a loophole in vetting pilots from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel, according to the Hindustan Times.
France approved 35 new sales of military equipment to Israel between May and September 2026, according to research by the rights groups Palestinian Youth Movement and Urgence Palestine. The items include cooling systems for tanks and missile launchers, helmet visors for helicopter and fighter-jet pilots, connectors and electronic equipment, as well as surveillance systems, all destined for Elbit Systems subsidiaries, according to the report seen by Middle East Eye.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that the co-pilot of the Flydubai flight underwent Islamist radical indoctrination, saying investigators had learned this from the man’s “personal information”. The United Arab Emirates said it would take the lead in investigating whether the attack was linked to terrorism. A video circulating as a BBC report on the case is a deepfake and the claims it contains are unfounded; the BBC never broadcast it, according to France24.
Israeli settlers shot dead Mashhour Shaher Yassin, 51, during an attack on the village of Yasuf, in the central West Bank district of Salfit, according to WAFA. Salfit Governmental Hospital Director Mohammad Al-Ramahi said Yassin succumbed to injuries sustained during the attack by the settlers. Reuters, citing Palestinian officials, reported that Israeli settlers shot two Palestinians, killing one and injuring the other, in the village of Yasuf in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday (October 1, 2026) that the suspect who allegedly tried to crash a flydubai flight to Israel had undergone “Islamist, radical indoctrination” and gave no details. Asked who helped radicalise the man, he said he did not know and that Israel was cooperating with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) investigation. In a separate statement, he said it was too early to say whether Iran was involved, but repeated the accusation of Islamist radical indoctrination. Indian pilot Smit Machchhar, widely praised as one of the heroes of the flight, was reportedly in stable condition, the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said overnight.
A fellow pilot described the flydubai co-pilot as someone with extreme religious behaviour: “He prayed excessively throughout the day and refused to shake hands with women,” he told Channel 16’s foreign correspondent Yosef Yisrael. The co-pilot joined the airline eight months ago and is an Omani national. Israel has called the incident a terror attack, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and flydubai have so far refrained from calling it one. The airline cancelled all its flights to Israel until its own investigation is concluded.
The flydubai plane flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv plunged more than 17,000ft (5,200m) in less than two minutes, about two hours into its journey on Wednesday, before passengers and crew overpowered the attacker and retook control to land safely. Passenger Adam Polovincik, 40, told BBC Newshour that he hugged his six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter “really hard” and tried to stay calm for them as the attack unfolded.
Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, will reportedly demand at the security cabinet the extradition of the flydubai co-pilot who allegedly attempted to crash the Tel Aviv-bound plane with nearly 180 people onboard on Wednesday, according to the Hindustan Times, citing the Jerusalem Post. The suspect is being held in Saudi Arabia, where the aircraft carrying 174 people, including 27 children, made an emergency landing at Tabuk on Wednesday after an altercation in the cockpit. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Attorney-General Hamad Al Shamsi ordered the formation of a team of specialised Public Prosecution members to investigate the circumstances.
The village of Mansouri, occupied by Israel and perched a few kilometres from the coastal city of Tyre, in Lebanon, is slowly disappearing, day after day, according to Middle East Eye. The Israeli army presents the village as an operational stronghold of Hezbollah, and it was initially located outside the “Yellow Line”. Today the Yellow Line cuts through Mansouri and divides it in two, although officially only in part.
The Deir Ali, Nasiriyah and Tishreen power plants went out of service after an explosion on a gas line at the Tishreen thermal power plant, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). The shutdown of the three plants will temporarily reduce electricity generation and increase power rationing hours. A gas pipeline in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, which borders Iraq, exploded and caught fire after an isolation valve blast, interrupting gas flows to power stations, in an incident Syrian authorities attribute to sabotage, according to The National.
Flydubai temporarily suspended flights to and from Israel until the investigation into flight FZ 1073 is completed, according to TASS. In a statement, the airline confirmed the suspension stands while the investigation continues, according to Middle East Eye. Flight FZ1073, which left Dubai for Tel Aviv, transmitted emergency signals and made a sharp descent before diverting to Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk, carrying 174 passengers, including 27 children, according to The Hindu. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the pilot a “true hero” and said that, despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster. Israeli news site Ynet, citing Israeli officials, reported that the co-pilot was an Omani national and was suspected of trying to crash the aircraft.
At least seven people were killed and four were wounded, two of them critically, after unknown assailants opened fire on a vehicle near the Masyaf Bridge in Homs, according to the Homs Media Directorate, cited by Middle East Eye.
The Islamic Waqf, the body that administers the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, said that roughly 700 Israeli settlers entered the site on Wednesday morning, on the fifth day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, according to Middle East Eye.
Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said on Wednesday that the incident on the FlyDubai flight that landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, was an attempted terrorist attack, according to G1. Ben-Gvir said a “terrorist” wanted to bring down the plane and kill Israelis on board. The captain and the copilot were found injured and were taken to hospital, Le Monde with AFP reported. The aircraft dropped from nearly 34,000 feet at 05:21 GMT to less than 17,000 feet at 05:22 GMT, according to Flightradar.
Two children are among six Palestinians wounded in fresh Israeli attacks in Gaza despite the ceasefire, according to local sources cited by the Wafa news agency, Middle East Eye reported. A drone targeted a shelter housing displaced people in southern Gaza, injuring four people, including the children; one of the wounded was reportedly in a serious condition. The Wafa news agency also reported several Palestinians injured in an Israeli airstrike east of Gaza City.
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband confirmed the United Kingdom is considering defying the Israeli order to close the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, saying the government does not want that to happen, according to Middle East Eye. The Israeli government ordered the closure in retaliation for British sanctions on illegal settlements, setting a deadline of 8 October, the same outlet reported. Former attorney general Dominic Grieve advised the UK Foreign Office that Israel has no legal right to act on its plan to close the consulate in East Jerusalem, according to The Guardian.
Around 100 settlers raided Jalud, south of Nablus, shortly after midnight, targeting the homes of the Toubasi family, according to Middle East Eye. The family had returned to the house hours before the attack, after an Israeli court ordered the army to secure their return, the same outlet reported. More than 100 Israelis blocked roads, burned tires and threw rocks at security personnel, and set fire to Palestinian-owned structures, vehicles and other property in the area, according to Israel National News.
The Netherlands said Monday it regretted Israel's decision to revoke the accreditation of Dutch diplomats based in the West Bank, according to AFP, in a text republished by France 24. Israel retaliated after Dutch authorities began implementing a ban on imports of products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Dutch Foreign Minister Berendsen said the decision stems from the obligation, under international law, not to contribute to the illegal settlements.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted on September 23 to bar the country’s main Arab parties from contesting next month’s elections to the Knesset, The Hindu reported. The ban targets Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, and the Joint List, an alliance of the Arab-led Hadash, Ta’al and Balad parties, according to Al Jazeera. A Channel 12 poll published on Tuesday projected seven seats for the Joint List and five for Ra’am, against 50 for Netanyahu’s current coalition bloc.
During a meeting in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to refute a report that he had warned Israel of an impending Hamas attack, according to Middle East Eye. The report, in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said the Emirati leader had warned Netanyahu days before the Hamas-led attack. The UAE Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the latest report and said it maintains “open and direct lines of communication” with Israel and shares “all relevant intelligence”.
Israel has said it intends to shut the British consulate in East Jerusalem on 8 October, in response to the sweeping ban on trade with goods from Israeli settlements announced this month by the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, according to The Guardian. Former attorney general Dominic Grieve assessed that Israel has no legal right to close the consulate. The British mission in Jerusalem dates from 1838, more than 100 years before the creation of the state of Israel, and is separate from the embassy in Tel Aviv.
Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously annulled the government’s ban on Red Cross visits to Palestinian security prisoners, according to the Times of Israel. The court said that the state failed to present a legal foundation for its blanket policy, in place since October 7, 2023, according to the Times of Israel. The government’s central justification for the ban was that Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were being denied Red Cross visits, a justification that no longer applies, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel revoked the credentials of Dutch diplomats in Ramallah in response to the Netherlands’ ban on goods from Israeli settlements, according to the Middle East Eye. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the diplomats must return their Israeli-issued diplomatic documentation within seven days. The Netherlands began enforcing a national ban on 22 September on the import, purchase and sale of goods from Israeli settlements, according to the Middle East Eye. Israel’s foreign ministry said it revoked the diplomatic status of the Dutch at the Netherlands’ Representative Office in Ramallah, in response to the Dutch government’s ban on imports of products originating from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to the Khaleej Times.
Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had reportedly sent a warning to Israel before its October 7, 2023, attack, with the message conveyed through a Shin Bet channel, according to the Times of India. Also according to Gallant, the warning came from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who cautioned that he would “shake the prisons”. Gallant told Army Radio that he first heard about these warnings from media reports, as quoted by The Jerusalem Post.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Sunday that Israel had been unable to break the group, at a ceremony marking two years since Israel killed the movement's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to Middle East Eye. Qassem said Hezbollah had demonstrated that Israel and its soldiers “were unable to achieve their goals to break the resistance, end its existence, consolidate the Israeli occupation and establish settlements in Lebanon”, in an address televised at a gathering in Beirut's southern suburbs. Qassem said “Palestine and the liberation of our land remains our priority”, at the ceremony marking the anniversary of the deaths of Nasrallah and Safieddine, according to Mehr News.
According to the Wafa agency, Israeli authorities decided to impose a comprehensive closure on the West Bank and close crossings into the territory until Saturday for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Israeli forces closed roads and entrances to towns around Ramallah, including Turmus Ayya, Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh, and set up checkpoints at Yabroud and Ein Sinyah, according to local sources cited by the agency, while residents reported harassment at the entrance to Turmus Ayya.
Israeli fighter jets resumed attacks on Saturday against mountainous areas near the Lebanese towns of Jezzine and Nabatieh, north of the Litani River, according to TASS, citing the outlet Janoubia. The airstrikes targeted underground shelters, command posts and Hezbollah depots on the heights of Jebel al-Rafi, Rayhan and Sajoud. According to Mehr News, southern Lebanon saw Israeli air and artillery attacks in recent hours, with artillery fire covering Al-Mansouri, Eastern Zotar, Barashit, Kafrtbanit and Beit Yahoun.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Israel to “go to war” in the West Bank and “do what we did in Gaza”, according to Middle East Eye. He said the Palestinian Authority, which he called a “terror authority”, must be dismantled.
The Israeli army dropped white phosphorus bombs on the outskirts of the municipality of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, near Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, according to Middle East Eye, citing a report by Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA). There is no independent Israeli confirmation of the incident, and the information has not been independently verified.
The U.S.-created Board of Peace, which leads the reconstruction of Gaza, says there is no place for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the territory, but board members have met multiple times with agency officials, The Associated Press reports. Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s outgoing commissioner-general, told AP that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee want to work with UNRWA, and a Board of Peace official confirmed the meetings.
Syria’s Damascus and Aleppo international airports are now open for nighttime flights after Israel quietly lifted its block on the activation of navigation equipment, Middle East Eye reports, citing regional officials. A regional official told the outlet that the Israeli government had threatened to shoot down the small aircraft carrying out the calibration flights.
The outgoing commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said in Geneva in his last press conference before leaving office that the agency must be part of a political solution for the population it serves, and warned that UNRWA is near collapse, with funding for water, health and education services expected to last only until September, according to Geneva Solutions. On 1 July 2026, the Board of Peace (BoP), the body created by Donald Trump’s peace plan with a central role in Gaza’s reconstruction, had already said UNRWA “has no place” in the territory’s future, according to The Jerusalem Post.
About 100 protesters were detained by New York City police on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at the protest against Benjamin Netanyahu outside the United Nations (UN) headquarters, before Israel’s prime minister delivered his speech to the General Assembly. Among those held were Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon and Hacks star Hannah Einbinder, and hundreds of people blocked traffic on the streets around the UN through the day. The action was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, a US Jewish group critical of the Israeli occupation.
Dozens of delegates walked out of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly hall as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage on Thursday, 24 September 2026, in a protest caught on video. In the address that followed, Netanyahu defended Israel’s military campaigns in Iran, Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East, rejected the accusation of genocide and said the country would keep fighting: “We’re going to win. We have no other choice.”
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said he cannot entertain diplomatic relations with Israel while the rights of Syrians are usurped, citing as core concerns the territories Israel has occupied since December 2024 and the Golan Heights, speaking at a panel hosted by the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, according to Middle East Eye. He said talks with Israel reached ‘almost 90 per cent’ agreement before Israeli pullbacks and that Damascus regards the Golan as Syrian territory whose sovereignty is not open to negotiation, according to the Jerusalem Post. Al-Sharaa also said Russia kept 170 bases in Syria and now operates two, both for training Syrian forces, according to Middle East Eye.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called ‘grotesque absurdity’ French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim at the UN General Assembly that Hamas has never operated in the West Bank, according to Agence France-Presse, carried by Channel NewsAsia. The Israeli statement said Hamas militants attack Jews in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli name for the West Bank, ‘almost every day’ and that ‘ignorance is no excuse for erasing their blood’. The Jerusalem Post reports that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accused Macron of lying and cited the killing of a French-Israeli father of six in an attack attributed to Hamas in the West Bank on Sunday, September 20, 2026, two days before the speech. Macron spoke in French, and published renderings of his remark vary between ‘never operated’ and ‘never caused trouble’ in the West Bank; he criticised daily violations in the territory and called the humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘a spectacle that shames us all’.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has launched a petition calling for the suspension of Israel’s membership in the United Nations, addressed to the president of the 81st General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman, Bangladesh’s foreign minister, and arguing that Israel should be treated as South Africa was during the apartheid era. Released on Wednesday, 23 September 2026, during the Assembly’s general debate, the petition says Israel has violated international law, failed to comply with resolutions and decisions by UN bodies and the International Court of Justice and targeted UN facilities and personnel, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Amnesty International called on the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to suspend Israel’s football association, saying Israel’s participation in the UEFA Nations League, whose group phase opens on 24 September 2026, is “unconscionable” while clubs based in illegal settlements remain in Israel’s domestic leagues. Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s director for Europe, said UEFA and FIFA “should have suspended” the Israeli association long ago for refusing to exclude settlement clubs, in the statement published by the organisation itself (Amnesty International) and carried by Arab News. Israel is in League B with Austria, Ireland and Kosovo; the Ireland–Israel games were scheduled for neutral venues in Hungary and Serbia, behind closed doors, after the Football Association of Ireland asked UEFA to consider suspending the Israeli team. FIFA decided in March 2026 to take no action against the Israeli association, and the Palestinian Football Association appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
An Israeli air strike hit al-Khiam, in southern Lebanon, overnight into Wednesday, 23 September 2026, damaging transmission lines and cutting power to the entire Nabaa el-Hamas area, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), cited by Middle East Eye. A large explosion in al-Khiam, in the Nabatieh governorate, was felt across southern Lebanon, the agency reported. On Tuesday, 22 September, Israeli artillery struck the towns of Al-Mansouri and Baraachit, and Israeli forces advanced on Al-Mansouri with military vehicles and bulldozers, detonating houses in the town’s Fourth Neighbourhood that had been rigged with explosives, according to NNA.
Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, condemned Israel’s declared rejection of the roadmap to complete the implementation of the plan to end the war in Gaza, at a closed meeting of heads of state and government convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, according to Mehr News, citing Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the ministry, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman urged the international community to press Israel to meet its obligations under the Gaza ceasefire agreement and to halt violations of Palestinian rights, and reaffirmed Qatar’s support for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel rejected the 15-point plan put forward by the mediators in August and conditions any withdrawal from Gaza on Hamas disarming, according to Mehr News.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, in New York that Canada is giving C$100 million in international assistance for Palestine: C$80 million in humanitarian aid and C$20 million for peace and security capacity building, according to Politico and Reuters. Carney made the pledge on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), ahead of a meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on the two-state solution and the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2803, the U.S.-backed plan to end the regional conflict. He criticized Israel’s planned expansion of the E1 settlement in the West Bank and said Canada had restricted imports of goods produced in Israeli settlements.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, in his debut at the United Nations General Assembly, that violence in Gaza and Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank were pushing the two-state solution towards a “point of no return”, according to Middle East Eye. Burnham cited the E1 settlement project, which he said would sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank, and urged action to match the international support states declare for a Palestinian state. The speech came two weeks after Britain, France and Canada announced, on September 8, 2026, sanctions on goods from Israeli settlements, to which Israel responded by ordering the closure of the British consulate in East Jerusalem within 30 days, according to France 24.
Spain’s Council of Ministers on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, allowed a US extradition request against activist and donor James Cox Chambers Jr., known as Fergie Chambers, 41, to move to the judicial phase, a decision his defence calls a “dangerous precedent” for the Palestinian cause, according to Middle East Eye. Chambers was arrested in Ibiza on 10 July 2026 at Washington’s request and remains in pre-trial detention in Madrid. The sealed indictment charges him with international money laundering, riot and conspiracy to riot over transfers of about $7.5 million to a company in Tunisia and over 2023 protests at the US facilities of an Israeli arms manufacturer in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, according to The National and The Straits Times, which published a Reuters dispatch. It is the first time the US has sought the extradition of a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, The National says. Government spokesperson Elma Saiz said the decision was “purely procedural” and that the final word rests with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s cabinet, after review by the Audiencia Nacional, the Spanish court that handles extradition requests. Chambers’s lead counsel, Baltasar Garzón, said: “Spain cannot defend international law, the rights of the Palestinian people and the protection of those who provide humanitarian aid while at the same time allowing a request to proceed with an extradition that shows clear signs of political persecution by the US government.” The Sumar party, a junior partner in the governing coalition, had urged the government to block the request; Podemos lawmaker Ione Belarra called Chambers “the first political prisoner in Spanish history being imprisoned because of his support for Palestine”. His defence says the transfers funded humanitarian projects in Gaza, including a bakery and a medical clinic.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, criticised French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim at the United Nations General Assembly that Hamas has never operated in the West Bank. “The grotesque absurdity of Emmanuel Macron’s statement is staggering,” the statement said, as carried by Middle East Eye and the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). The statement cites the killing of Netanel Shukrun, a French citizen and father of six, who it says was shot dead in his car by a “Hamas terrorist” on Sunday, 20 September 2026, the eve of Yom Kippur, in the occupied West Bank — the region the Israeli government calls Judea and Samaria. “With his final breath, he told his son to run,” it says. “Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.” Macron had called the scenes in Gaza “shameful. A shame for all of us”, and said that “all those who claim that Israel’s security requires violating the sovereignty of all its neighbours are making a fatal mistake”, according to Middle East Eye. Netanyahu is expected to address the UN on Thursday, 24 September 2026.
Israeli restrictions have held up more than 900 wheelchairs donated by two Australian charities for children injured in Gaza, according to Australian public broadcaster ABC News, as reported by Middle East Eye. Two shipments from New South Wales-based Kids on Wheels Alliance reached Jordan in February 2025 and a third, from Western Australia’s Wheelchairs for Kids, arrived in October 2025; all three remain in warehouses run by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO). The JHCO says the block comes from the Israeli agency coordinating aid into Gaza, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), while an Israeli government source denied that an application for the Australian wheelchairs had been rejected. COGAT did not answer ABC’s specific questions about the Australian donations and said in a general response that it had let thousands of wheelchairs into the strip during the war.
According to the UN’s official record of the debate and Middle East Eye, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the general debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) saying that “generations of Palestinians will carry the pain and trauma left by the genocide of women and children perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Gaza.” In the same speech, on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, Lula said that “Israeli civilians paid the price for the radicalism and intolerance of Hamas’ terrorist acts” and that illegal settlements in the West Bank are making a two-state solution increasingly unviable, according to The New Republic. He criticised the persecution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its members and said that the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, must not be “silenced for telling the truth,” according to Al Jazeera, The New Republic and Israel Hayom.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, in his final address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly that countries must resist a “return to the law of the jungle” in international relations, at a moment when “the rhetoric of defeat” is “giving way to abuse of power by empires”. “The question put to us, in very simple terms, is whether we want to live in this state of nature, with a kind of return to the law of the jungle, or in a civilised international society,” he said, according to France 24, which carried the speech with AFP, and DW. On Gaza, Macron hammered the rostrum and said “the scenes, the spectacle, it is shameful. Shame on all of us”: “What is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza? Some claim that peace has been achieved, but this has not opened up humanitarian deliveries.” He said respect for the “legitimate rights” of the Palestinian people is a “prerequisite for security” for Palestinians and for Israel, and that “all those who claim that Israel’s security requires the violation of the sovereignty of all of its neighboring states are making a very fateful error”. On Ukraine, he proposed a “double moratorium”: an end to strikes by both sides on energy and civilian infrastructure, and a matching commitment in the Black Sea to allow “grain shipments” to flow. “Winter is coming,” he said. Turning to artificial intelligence (AI), he called on countries to pool resources to build an “open-source frontier model” independent of “one of the great powers”: “I don’t want anyone to become the vassal of one of the great powers,” he said, naming India, Brazil, Singapore, African nations and the Gulf states as possible partners.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, of holding a “genocidal mindset” toward the Palestinians in a speech at the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, during which the Israeli delegation walked out and Palestinian representatives applauded, according to Al Jazeera. “Despite this so-called ceasefire, more than 1,300 civilians have been murdered in Gaza,” Erdoğan said, describing the territory as “the most inhumane, most shameful concentration camp of our time” and adding that “no one with humanity, mercy or conscience can turn a blind eye”. According to Anadolu Agency, he called for Gaza’s reconstruction to begin “without wasting any time” and urged member states to increase pressure on Israel. In the same address, Erdoğan said the UN has failed to fulfil its duty to preserve peace and security and is “bleeding out” in Palestine, Lebanon and Sudan, and lamented the absence of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was denied a US visa for the second year in a row. TRT World reports that he also accused Israel of extending its offensive to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Qatar.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video posted on X on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, that he will use his address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, scheduled for Thursday, September 24, to defend the country’s soldiers and to “tell the truth” about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom he accused of supporting Hamas and of inciting riots against the city’s Jews, according to The Jerusalem Post and The Times of India. “Shame on you, Mr. Mamdani,” Netanyahu said. “Shame on you for supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people.” The statement answers a CNN interview aired on Monday, September 21, in which Mamdani again called Netanyahu “a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people” and said the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the prime minister should be honored.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, that Gaza City will be evacuated and destroyed if a single Israeli is abducted, and that the military will not make partial withdrawals from the 63% of the territory it holds until Hamas is disarmed. He spoke at the Yom Kippur War memorial in Jerusalem, according to Agence France-Presse, The Jerusalem Post and i24NEWS. “If a single Israeli soldier or civilian is kidnapped, the entire city of Gaza, with its houses and terror towers, will be evacuated southward with its million residents,” Katz said, addressing the warning to Hamas and, explicitly, to the governments of Iran and Turkey. Gaza City’s municipality puts its population at about 1.1 million.
The Trump administration has informally notified congressional committees of a US$ 2.8 billion arms package for Israel that includes 40,000 907-kilogram bombs, 20,000 MK-84s and 20,000 BLU-117s, The Washington Post reported, citing a government official speaking on condition of anonymity, along with Reuters. If completed, it would be the largest single sale of that munition to Israel in recent years and would exceed a 2025 transfer worth nearly US$ 3 billion that contained more than 35,500 of the bombs and was approved after the administration bypassed normal congressional review. Most of the package would be financed through Foreign Military Financing, a mechanism under which Washington provides the money and Israel buys the weapons from the United States. The package also includes 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, designed to punch through hardened underground structures. Outlets such as Al Jazeera fold the warheads into the bomb count to reach 60,000 items, while The Washington Post’s account treats the two categories separately. The State Department said it does not comment on pending sales before formal notification to Congress, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen have said they will work to block the sale. The deal is not final, and deliveries of orders this size can take years.
Lebanon’s general amnesty law remains suspended by the Constitutional Council, which ruled by majority on September 10 to freeze the effects of the contested text until a final verdict expected by early October, after an appeal by the Strong Lebanon bloc of MP Gebran Bassil, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) and The New York Times. The suspension blocks the release of detainees who would have benefited, and prisoners protested the decision, some of them launching a hunger strike, according to The New York Times. The law, passed by parliament on August 12, 2026, and signed by President Joseph Aoun, is the first general amnesty since 1991: it commutes death sentences to life imprisonment, cuts life terms to 17 “prison years” — each counted as nine months — and orders the release of anyone held for more than 12 years without trial, according to AFP and New Arab. The most cited case is that of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, sentenced to death over the 2013 Abra clashes in which 18 Lebanese Army soldiers were killed. Bassil argues the text pardons perpetrators of murder, rape and attacks against the army and wants it narrowed to Islamists held without trial; Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is the amnesty’s main backer.
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, told United Nations (UN) secretary-general António Guterres on Monday that the country needs an international force under the UN umbrella in the south once the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) expires, according to a statement from the premier’s office reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP). The statement said the presence should ‘ensure the continuation of the functions of monitoring, reporting and liaison’, help preserve stability and support extending the Lebanese state’s authority over all its territory. UNIFIL fields around 7,500 peacekeepers from 46 countries and its mandate ends on 31 December, after the Security Council decided last year, under US pressure, to end the mission created in 1978. Israel keeps troops in a self-declared ‘security zone’ about 10 kilometres deep inside south Lebanon, and President Joseph Aoun told AFP last week that extending UNIFIL’s mandate remains the best option; France and Italy want a multinational coalition to succeed it.
A Vermont jury on Monday convicted Jason Eaton, 51, of attempted murder in the shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington in November 2023. The jury rejected the defense’s insanity claim, which held that Eaton acted on orders he attributed to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and to Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad, transmitted over FM radio. Hisham Awartani was left paralyzed from the waist down, and Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid were wounded. Eaton faces up to life in prison.
Hundreds of thousands of children returned to in-person classes in Gaza on Saturday, for the first time in nearly three years, in damaged buildings and tents, according to Reuters. Gaza education officials say about 660,000 students were deprived of in-person, regular schooling during the war, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 98 percent of schools in the territory were destroyed or damaged. According to Ibrahim Ramadan, director of education for East Khan Younis, the conflict killed about 22,000 students and more than 770 education workers, including 532 teachers — figures from a local authority, with no independent verification.
Israeli aircraft and artillery struck southern Lebanon again on Monday, hitting villages in the Tyre, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun districts, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) and the Anadolu news agency. On Sunday, the two agencies reported, phosphorus munitions set olive groves and citrus orchards ablaze in Majdal Zoun in the Tyre district, and three Merkava tanks advanced to Deir Mimas, blocking the town’s entrance and damaging utility poles. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had already said Israel’s operations undermine the June framework agreement brokered by the United States, which calls for the Lebanese army to gradually take control of the south.
Tunisian authorities have arrested at least 11 people who took part in a protest in Tunis on Saturday demanding the release of four pro-Palestinian activists held since March, according to lawyer Ghassen Besbes, who represents some of the detainees, and the group Maghreb Sumud, which says 13 were arrested. No official figure has been released and the exact number remains unclear. Lawyer Fedy Snene said a judge extended the protesters’ detention by 48 hours and that they were questioned about slogans chanted at the demonstration. The four activists, held since March, are accused of money laundering over fundraising for the Global Sumud Flotilla, which tried to deliver aid to Gaza in 2025 and was intercepted by Israel; one of them, Wael Naouar, has been on hunger strike since August 16, according to Al Jazeera. The arrest figures come from Middle East Eye and AFP.
Syria has seen a series of explosions at weapons and ammunition depots this month, and the country’s Defence Ministry says it is investigating the causes. The latest blast hit an arms depot in al-Eis, south of Aleppo, in the early hours of Monday and injured at least four people, according to Al Jazeera. On Friday, an explosion in Ayyash, west of Deir ez-Zor, killed 11 military personnel, according to the Defence Ministry, cited by Syria’s state SANA news agency, which said the funeral for the dead was held on Saturday. On 9 September, another explosion at a temporary weapons and war-remnants depot in Sarmada, in Idlib province, killed 14 soldiers and wounded more than ten people, including civilians, according to the ministry. Al Jazeera cites a Reuters tally showing at least 16 similar explosions have hit arms storage facilities since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Some of the incidents have been attributed to poor storage conditions; analysts interviewed by Al Jazeera disagree on the causes and say there is so far no evidence of sabotage.
Israeli forces raided the town of Biddu, northwest of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, before dawn on Monday and detained at least 53 Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera. The Jerusalem Governorate told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the operation targeted “dozens of young men” and that homes had been turned into interrogation centres; Biddu’s mayor, Nazmi Mansour, said dozens of military jeeps and hundreds of soldiers stormed the town. It is the third incursion into Biddu since a resident suspected of shooting dead an Israeli settler on Sunday was arrested; the Israeli military told AFP it was checking the reports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released video and photographs on Saturday of a visit to the excavation tunnels under Jerusalem’s Old City, beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, saying he was “very close to the Holy of Holies” and that Israelis “are here, and we will always remain here”; on Thursday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the compound for Yom Kippur prayers, and on Sunday about 570 settlers passed through the courtyards by 10am local time, according to the Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate. Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt condemned the entries; Jordan’s Foreign Ministry called them “a blatant violation of the existing historical and legal status quo” and said the Islamic Waqf affiliated with Amman is the site’s legal custodian. Hamas called Netanyahu’s tunnel visit “a flagrant assault” on the sanctuary’s identity. Analysts cited by Al Jazeera say the release is driven by the October election, with Netanyahu trailing in the polls.
Israeli forces set up a checkpoint in southern Syria, according to Mehr News, and explosions hit a Syrian army munitions depot near Aleppo, injuring four people, according to the Hindustan Times and Al Jazeera.
Israeli strikes hit the Nabatieh area in Lebanon, including an ambulance team, according to Middle East Eye, and towns around Tyre, according to Mehr News. Both outlets attribute the strikes to Israel.
Gaza authorities announced a plan to demolish 255 war-damaged buildings, according to Middle East Eye, as the school year restarts in damaged schools, reported by G1 and Al Jazeera. Gaza’s health ministry, cited by Mehr News, puts the cumulative death toll since the war began at 73,913 — a figure from the local authority, with no independent verification.
An Israeli was shot dead near the Halamish settlement in the West Bank and Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian driver, according to Reuters, France24, the New York Times, the Hindustan Times and Mehr News. Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the demolition of the gunman’s home, the Times of India reports. On the same day, Israeli forces detained 27 Palestinians in a raid on a village, according to Wafa as cited by Middle East Eye, and settlers set a Palestinian vehicle alight and tried to take a child, the same outlet reports.