Israel News

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake rocked southern Israel early Thursday, including the Dead Sea and parts of the Negev area, and residents were urged to rush to safety, experts and officials said.

U.S. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff announced Wednesday the launch of Phase II of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza Peace Plan, marking a transition from a fragile ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and large-scale reconstruction of the war-ravaged enclave.

A senior official of the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah has warned Lebanon’s government that expanding efforts to disarm the group across the country would plunge the nation into chaos and could spark a new civil war, according to comments circulated by Hezbollah on Wednesday.

Israel will immediately sever all contact with three additional United Nations agencies and international bodies, the Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday, expanding a sweeping reassessment of Israel’s engagement with UN institutions.

Israel’s military is moving ahead with an ambitious modernization effort as IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir initiates concrete steps to implement a new five-year strategic plan aimed at reshaping the battlefield of the future.

The Israel Defense Forces carried out airstrikes Sunday on a site in southern Lebanon that the Lebanese Army had previously declared free of Hezbollah activity, Israeli officials said, citing intelligence assessments that contradicted Beirut’s findings.

The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that it carried out an airstrike in the Zaita area of southern Lebanon, killing a Hezbollah operative involved in drone operations and terror activity along Israel’s northern border.

The administration of Donald Trump has informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it remains committed to securing the return of the final deceased Israeli hostage and to disarming Hamas, but will not make either a precondition for launching phase two of its Gaza peace plan, according to a Times of Israel exclusive.

Questions have been raised about Italian security arrangements after pro-Palestinian protesters physically blocked passengers from boarding a flight to Tel Aviv at Milan’s main airport, forming a human barrier at the gate and delaying the departure for more than two hours.

Israel, Syria and the United States have agreed to establish a new “joint fusion mechanism” aimed at enhancing security coordination, intelligence sharing and military de-escalation, marking the most significant formal cooperation between Jerusalem and Damascus in decades.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel and the United States are in full agreement on how to confront Iran, describing his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump as a strategic partnership that will drive continued Israeli security successes in 2026.

Senior Israeli and Syrian officials are set to resume high-level negotiations this week in talks mediated by the United States, marking a renewed diplomatic push after months of stalled progress, according to reports by i24NEWS and Axios.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump has been “unequivocal” that Hamas must fully disarm as a non-negotiable condition for advancing Trump’s proposed 20-point peace plan.

U.S. President Donald Trump has given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approval to take action against Hezbollah if the Lebanese state fails to disarm the Iran-backed terror group, according to a Jerusalem Post exclusive citing a source familiar with the talks.

Israel absorbed approximately 21,900 new immigrants in 2025, marking a sharp decline of about one-third from the previous year, according to data released Monday by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry. The drop was driven largely by a steep fall in arrivals from Russia, following the surge that accompanied Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.