Israel Update 11.9.25

Here’s the link to last week’s Israel Update which was not circulated: https://ksds.org.uk/2025/09/04/israel-update-4-9-25/

DOHA STRIKE

An Israeli strike on Tuesday targeted Hamas’s senior political-terrorist leadership in Doha, Qatar. Israel said the targeted leaders have been directing the war, are directly responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and that measures were taken to mitigate harm to civilians. Oded Ailam, a former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad said that the timing of the strike was driven by several factors, including recognition in Israel that the hostage negotiations had reached a dead end. Hamas’ external leadership in Doha were blocking any possibility of compromise. Report here

Hamas officials said on Wednesday that two members of its political bureau were injured in Israel’s strike. Regardless of the outcome of the Israeli strike, a security source said that one goal – to instill fear in Hamas leaders and show them there is no place where they can successfully hide – was achieved. Report here (paywall) Report here

The strike indicated that Israel is unwilling to negotiate by Hamas rules. Israeli negotiators believe Hamas was using time as a tactic. One veteran envoy said that Hamas would “go quiet” on issues that could have been answered in a day, then reappear three, four, and even seven days later with a partial reply that initiated a new loop… In July, Washington began signalling that it was exploring “alternative options” to bring hostages home if the Doha track remained stuck. Tuesday’s strike is what “alternative options” look like when diplomacy is treated as a delay tactic. Report here

Footnote: At the time of writing Thursday afternoon, Hamas casualties remain unconfirmed.

And see UN Watch’s Executive Director Hillel Neuer’s speech at the UN yesterday:

Extract: “And so, we ask Qatar: If you don’t want targeted bombings against terrorists in your capital, why do you harbour terrorists in your capital? Terrorists who are still holding hostages, torturing them, and rejecting peace deals?” Speech here

MONDAY: A DARK DAY IN ISRAEL

Gaza

Four soldiers were killed in a Hamas attack on an army encampment near Gaza City early Monday morning.

They were: Lt. Matan Abramovitz, 21, Staff Sgt. Uri Lamed, 20, Sgt. Amit Arye Regev, 19 and Sgt. Gadi Cotal, 20.

Report here

Jerusalem

Six Israelis were murdered and dozens were wounded after Palestinian terrorists opened fire on civilians at Ramot Junction on Monday morning. The victims were Jacob Pinto, 25; Sarah Mendelson, 60; Rabbi Israel Matzner, 28; Rabbi Yosef David, 43; Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, 79 and Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Pash, 57. About 15 others were reportedly injured in the attack, including a pregnant woman. Six were in critical condition.

A soldier and several civilians killed the attackers.

Hamas‘s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the shooting attack. Reports here& here

After responding to the attack, a platoon commander in the IDF’s haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Hashmonaim Brigade said: “Today, I was at the stop where the terrorist attack was. I heard shooting and saw the terrorists, so some civilians and I opened fire until the terrorists were neutralized, and I then helped the wounded.”

A yeshiva student was among the civilians who fired at the terrorists. He had received his handgun licence last year and carried his grandfather’s (a long time police volunteer) gun. His brother, a paramedic, was among the first responders.

Reports here& here

MORE FAKERY EXPOSED

A Palestinian boy whom a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation contractor claimed was killed by the IDF is, in fact, alive and has been sent abroad with his mother. Finding the family became a priority for GHF after Aguilar began publicizing his account, which the organization feared would make the boy a target of Hamas.

“That publicity placed the child squarely in the crosshairs of Hamas, who have benefited greatly from Mr. Aguilar’s lies and the media amplifying them,” he said. “If the boy was proven alive, it would unravel their propaganda, expose Mr. Aguilar’s lies, and discredit a narrative that Hamas has used to stoke outrage and violence.” Report here

And see Comment & Opinion article below.

HOUTHI ATTACKS CONTINUED

Ballistic missiles and drones are being fired at Israel daily including this morning at around 05.40 targeting southern Israel.

A Houthi drone struck the passenger hall at Ramon Airport near Eilat on Sunday, injuring one man. The Israel Air Force intercepted three other drones during the day, two of which were destroyed before entering Israeli territory. The airport, which opened in 2019, replaced Eilat Airport and Ovda Airport for domestic and international flights. Report here

Three drones launched by the Houthi rebels in Yemen were shot down by the Israeli Air Force over southern Israel within half an hour on Monday, Report here

In response, Israel struck the Yemeni capital Sanaa and a northern province on Wednesday, hitting military camps, the HQ of the Houthi military “propaganda” department, and a fuel storage site.
Report here

THE UK

The UK Foreign Office has concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza did not constitute genocide, the then British Foreign Secretary David Lammy wrote in a letter last week. “As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.’ The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.” Report here (paywall)

“The British Government has now been forced to admit that the hateful rhetoric frequently published about Israel committing genocide is false,” Sir Michael Ellis, former Attorney General for England and Wales, said on Monday. “There has never been any evidence of such a thing, but this irresponsible government persists in repeating the slurs and ramping up hatred and diplomatic attacks against Israel. It also shamefully fails to hold Hamas terrorists to account and thus helps to prolong the conflict.” Report here

Footnote: Genocide in international law is determined by a strict legal definition, with a high threshold for proof, particularly when determining intent. Currently, certain groups are accused of quietly rewriting and reinterpreting the meaning of genocide in order to fling charges at Israel.Article here

THE US

President Trump on Sunday presented Hamas with an ultimatum: either accept a new American ceasefire proposal or face Israel’s military advance into Gaza City.
“The Israelis have accepted my terms,” Trump posted, hinting at a new American proposal to exchange all the remaining hostages for Palestinian prisoners and end the Gaza war. “It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”
If Hamas baulks, it could allow Israel and the U.S. to argue that they tried everything and that the group was bringing disaster upon itself. Report here (paywall)

FLOTILLA

Jordi Ventura, a Spanish national and vocal supporter of Israel, was recorded last week sailing behind the so-called Gaza aid flotilla, loudly playing Israeli and Jewish music from the speakers on his boat. “I’ve been a skipper for many years, and I have quite a few Israeli friends,” Ventura said. “That’s why I felt the need to criticize the provocation they made, so I sailed next to them and played music by my friends. Report here

The flotilla reported that one of its main ships was attacked by a drone in a Tunisian port on Tuesday.
However, Tunisia’s interior ministry said the reports “have no basis in truth” while Tunisia’s national guard said it had detected no drones in the area.

“According to preliminary findings, a fire broke out in the life jackets on board a ship anchored 50 miles from the port of Sidi Bou Said, which had come from Spain,” the National Guard spokesman stated .

Reports here & here

GAZA WAR

Last week, Israel bombed several high-rise buildings in Gaza City which were being used to direct attacks against Israeli forces and
where Hamas had installed cameras, war rooms, snipers and anti-tank missiles. The 18-storey Mushtaha Tower in the Zeitoun district was being used for terrorist activity, with intelligence-gathering equipment and an underground escape tunnel nearby. Israel warned the building’s residents on Friday morning in an effort to mitigate harm to civilians.
IDF Arabic spokesman Lt.-Col. Avichay Adraee urged Gaza City residents to “take this opportunity to move early to the [Al-Mawasi] humanitarian zone and join the thousands of people who have already gone there.” The IDF said the zone had essential “infrastructure such as field hospitals, water pipelines, and desalination facilities, alongside the continued supply of food, tents, medicines and medical equipment.”

The Al-Rawiya building, destroyed on Saturday, was notable for the large number of solar panels covering its roof, believed to be connected to a nearby terror tunnel.

Reports here (paywall)& here

The IDF said Wednesday it would increase its strikes on Gaza City in the coming days as part of its preparations to conquer the city, as it pushed back against Hamas’s claims that the humanitarian zone in the south was full. On Sunday, the IDF ordered residents of the city to evacuate immediately. Tens of thousands have evacuated in the past day bringing the total number of those who left the area in recent weeks to around 200,000. Civilians have been instructed to head for an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Strip’s south. Reports here & here

Israel is building two new aid distribution sites, which will be handed over to the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the coming days. They are designed to be “as safe as possible, as short of a distance as possible, for the trucks, and for the people coming in.”The GHF says it has distributed over 161 million meals since May, and almost 1.2 million meals on Wednesday alone.Report here

HAMAS HYPOCRISY

The IDF on Thursday published photos showing the Hamas Rafah Brigade commander dining underground with fellow operatives in March and enjoying a Ramadan iftar meal inside a tunnel, with platters of falafel, grilled meats, fish, vegetables, flatbreads, and fried foods.
The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson commented:
While “residents of the sector were forced to break their Ramadan fast with the scraps left by Hamas, the organization’s leaders were celebrating in the tunnels with a grand feast.” “With one hand, Hamas runs a media campaign about ‘starvation’ in the sector, and with the other, it plunders food to feed its leaders and their families. Time and again – the images…do not lie.” Report here

DEFENCE

Elbit Systems has introduced Frontier, a new AI-powered surveillance platform designed to tackle the growing challenges of border defence. Report here

As drones continue to pose threats to NATO and EU member states, Israeli tech innovator ThirdEye Systems Ltd.(headquartered in Netanya) has secured a new $800,000 order from two NATO-affiliated customers for its cutting-edge drone detection systems. The deal marks the second major NATO-related contract for the company in 2025, following a $620,000 order earlier this year, solidifying ThirdEye’s growing reputation as a key player in international security technology.Report here

U.S defence giant Lockheed Martin has successfully completed a trial for the U.S. Army of Israeli company Rafael’s Spike non-line of sight (NLOS) anti-tank missile.
Spike NLOS is the sixth generation of Rafael’s anti-tank missile series. Rafael has sold 50,000 Spike missiles, and 10,000 of them have been fired on the battlefield and in tests. 42 countries use Spike missiles, including 20 NATO members. Report here

Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems signed an agreement on Wednesday to install its Trophy active protection system on South Korea’s K2 battle tanks and additional platforms.Report here

The Finnish Navy has officially placed the Israeli-made Gabriel-5 missile, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, into operational service after a series of extensive exercises. The Gabriel-5 has been installed on board the Hamina-class fast-attack missile boats, significantly expanding the Finnish Navy’s strike capabilities.Report here

ECONOMIC RESILIENCE

For almost two years, Israel has been embroiled in conflict on seven fronts. Yet its economy has defied expectations and displayed remarkable resilience. This resilience is rooted in solid economic fundamentals: a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 60% at the conflict’s onset, a roughly 3% unemployment rate, and a relatively low budget deficit.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is among the best-performing markets worldwide. For three decades, Israel’s high-tech sector has been its engine of growth.
Tourism has declined, but exports remain robust. The Bank of Israel is projecting 3.3% growth this year. Article here (paywall)

MEDICAL INNOVATION

An Israeli plasma filter promises a cutting-edge solution to life-threatening bleeding. Prof. Abd Al-Roof Higazi’s ClearPlasma, a small device that can be attached to a bag of donated plasma, filters it to remove clot-dissolving proteins that are naturally present in the liquid, helping patients form stable clots and stop bleeding quickly.Article here

AGRI-TECH

From the Sahara to the labs, Israel and Morocco are collaborating in sustainable agriculture: algae, insects, smart water. The future of our food starts here.50 second video here

COMMENT & OPINION

Doha strike

Alex Winston: For decades, Israel has attempted to hold its conduct to Western standards. Diplomatically, it has looked to the West as a model for democracy and military, operated within the constraints of Western diplomatic norms. These include measured responses, careful escalation ladders, and endless rounds of negotiations that often reward the very actors who orchestrate violence against Israeli civilians. Tuesday’s strike in Doha may mark a fundamental shift: Israel speaking the language the Middle East actually understands.

On Tuesday, Israel, sick of Hamas’s games in dragging its feet in negotiations to end the Gaza war , took matters into its own hands.

The choice to strike in Qatar specifically sends multiple messages. First, it ends the fiction that Hamas’s “political wing” operates separately from its military operations. These leaders “cheered the Oct. 7 massacre” from their comfortable exile, directly complicit in every rocket fired and every hostage taken.

Second, it challenges Qatar’s double game of positioning itself as a mediator while providing sanctuary to terror leadership. The Gulf state has leveraged its hosting of Hamas leaders to gain influence in peace processes, but Israel’s strike suggests this arrangement no longer serves Israeli interests.

Third, it demonstrates that geographical distance no longer provides immunity. If Israel can strike in Doha, no Hamas leader anywhere can assume safety based on their location’s diplomatic sensitivity.Full article here

Brendan O’Neill: (Qatar has) been hosting Hamas for 10 years. That is an innately hostile act. There are untold instances in history of nations going to war with those who harbour their enemies, from Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland for hosting his Royalist opponents in the English Civil War to America’s own invasion of Afghanistan for providing sanctuary to al-Qaeda…The question is not how Israel can attack a Western ally – it’s why the West is allied in the first place with a state that happily harbours a racist militia founded with the express intention of annihilating the Jewish State. Full article here

Debbie Weiss: Some critics have denounced the Doha strike as a violation of international law, but international law experts note that Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes a state’s inherent right to self-defence and that this right is not confined by geography if attacks are directed from outside its borders. The so-called “unwilling or unable” doctrine holds that if a host country does not act against militants on its soil, the victim state may use proportionate force. Full article here

Dalia Ziada: For Israel, this strike was a declaration of a new deterrence doctrine. Hamas leaders once believed they were untouchable. Israel has altered the rules of the game. Now, no sanctuary is guaranteed. This sends shockwaves throughout the region. Turkey, Lebanon, and even European capitals that quietly support Islamist networks must face the new reality. Israel has shown it is ready to go after Hamas not only in Gaza or the West Bank.
Qatar’s claim to be a mediator now lies in ruins. Mediation only holds credibility when the mediator is impartial or at least not actively fuelling one side. Qatar’s financial pipelines to Hamas and its ideological promotion of Islamist narratives disqualify it from that role. Every “ceasefire deal” in Gaza over the past two years that Qatar championed was less about achieving peace and more about throwing Hamas a lifeline. Israel has redrawn the map of accountability in the Middle East. Full article here

Avi Issacharoff: The strike on Hamas leaders abroad was a legitimate and justified move that should have been carried out long ago. Qatar was wrongly granted a status of near immunity early in the war.
How could a country that openly funds and supports the Muslim Brotherhood, hosts Hamas’s top leadership responsible for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, channels billions of dollars into Hamas’s coffers, and zealously nurtures its global propaganda arms – primarily through the Al Jazeera network…become the central mediator between Hamas and Israel? Full article here

Also see:

Gregg Roman: Why Israel’s strike against Hamas in Doha was both justified and overdue.Full article here

Fake News Exposed

Jake Wallis Simons:In July, the BBC interviewed Anthony Aguilar after he was sacked by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Aguilar accused Israeli troops of the most lurid crimes. International editor Jeremy Bowen failed to ask the obvious question: Why would Israel go to the effort and expense of feeding the Palestinians only to gun them down?
In another interview, Aguilar claimed that a 10-year-old boy was “gunned down” by the IDF. Although pictures showed the boy looking pretty healthy, Aguilar said he was “emaciated” and “starving.” Fox News worked with the GHF to track down the boy and his mother. Turns out his name is Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamden and he is not dead.
He and his mother Naja were extracted from Gaza on Thursday after Aguilar’s version of his story had gone viral. There were concerns that, to preserve the propaganda victory handed to them, Hamas was trying to track down the boy and commit the crime that the IDF had not. This is just the latest example of apparently fake news finding a huge and enthusiastic audience among a public that has fallen victim en masse to its own growing confirmation bias.
Given the extensiveness of the tunnel network in Gaza, every single civilian could have found refuge from bombardment underground, as they did in London during the Blitz. Yet Hamas prevented them from entering. It wanted them dead. Why? Because it wanted you to see those pictures. It is striking how often policymakers across Europe cite “the pictures coming out of Gaza” when explaining their latest Israelophobic stance.
The appalling truth is that millions of people across the West have been manipulated into supporting the very forces of jihad that would have them dead, along with their civilization of disbelievers. With our help, the jihadis are winning the propaganda war. Full article here (paywall)

Gaza War

Col (retired) Richard Kemp: The IDF has been ratcheting up pressure on Hamas in Gaza City, pretty much Hamas’s last major stronghold. Israel has already warned the civilians there to move to designated safer areas. On Friday, Hamas issued a specific order threatening civilians who leave. They are intent on sacrificing their own population to bring international pressure on Israel to halt its offensive.
Egypt is abetting Hamas by refusing to open its borders to give civilians temporary refuge. Most desperately want to find safety in Sinai and on recent visits to Gaza almost every one of the 100 or so Gazans I met told me exactly that. In virtually every other conflict around the world, neighbouring states open their borders. During the Syrian civil war, Arab countries and Turkey took in millions fleeing the fighting.
Meanwhile, the IDF has been making immense efforts to ship thousands of tents and other supplies into southern Gaza, as well as beefing up the joint U.S.-Israeli humanitarian aid distribution operation.
The IDF has a more sophisticated system for mitigating civilian harm than any other armed forces in the world, developed over many years of fighting enemies that actually want to maximize the deaths of their own civilians. This offensive is not a matter of choice for Jerusalem but a tragic necessity. No country that wanted to survive could take any other path. Full article here (paywall)