Chag Succot Sameach to my readers.
TERROR ATTACK
Netanel Shukrun, 36, a father of six from Alei Zahav in Samaria, was killed on Sunday after immersing himself in a natural spring before Yom Kippur. A Hamas operative opened fire from a vehicle, then fled on foot, still armed. An IDF combat tracker opened fire on the gunman as he fled, injuring him. Hours later, IDF soldiers, following information provided by the ISA, captured the terrorist at a hospital near Ramallah.
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COUNTER-TERRORISM
The IDF killed a terrorist and arrested another who attempted a car-ramming attack against soldiers in Samaria on Sunday.
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GAZA
Israel continues to target Hamas Commanders.
Last week, Israeli strikes killed several high-ranking terrorists involved in the October 7 attacks, including Hamas squad leader Jihad Samih Mahmoud Ismail and Islamic Jihad rocket squad leader Mohsen Abu Hadaf. Ismail had recently been advancing attacks against Israeli troops and civilians. Targeted operations also successfully eliminated key Hamas leadership across Gaza, including Rafah Brigade commander Nayal Abu Obeid and Jabalia Battalion commander Ahmad Batash.
Over the weekend, two Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel on Oct. 7 – Yahya Hamdouna and Mohammad Rafa’i – as well as Basir al-Barsh, a commander in the Nukhba Force, were killed. The IDF and Shin Bet killed Hamas Finance Department Chief Muhammad Abu Alwan who directed internal funding to Hamas from humanitarian aid and by stealing merchandise from Gazans.
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“NAZA” A FILM LIBEL
IDF Head of Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor rejected claims made in the film “NAZA,” asserting that Israel actively minimizes civilian harm while Hamas uses non-combatants as human shields. He emphasized that the military remains committed to investigating its errors, telling truth to counter false accusations, and preserving internal unity against external efforts to damage its reputation.
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Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former hostage Omer Shem Tov suggested that Israel “paid a price” for its efforts to reduce civilian casualties: “They gave Hamas time. They exposed Israeli soldiers to greater danger. And they left hostages like me waiting longer”… “In Venice, the film received a standing ovation that lasted more than 24 minutes…As a former hostage, those minutes felt like a shower of knives. Not because the film shows Palestinian suffering, which is real. What hurts is that the film, as it has been reported, doesn’t seem to see me.”
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THE WAR AGAINST HIZBULLAH
Israeli commandos and combat engineers conducted three months of exhausting ambushes, close-range fighting and underground warfare on southern Lebanon’s Ali Taher Ridge to clear it before blowing up the major Hizbullah strategic underground complex.
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INTERNATIONAL AWARD TO ISRAELI VET
Veterinarian Dr Galia Melman Shalev is the recipient of the 2026 WSAVA (World Small Animal Veterinary Association’s) Animal Welfare Award.
When Hamas terrorists stormed Israeli communities, shooting residents and kidnapping families, countless terrified dogs and other pets fled amid the gunfire, explosions and chaos. Other animals were left behind when their owners were murdered, kidnapped or forced to evacuate. Risking her own safety, Dr Shalev remained in Moshav Ein HaBesor, near the Gaza border, to rescue and treat hundreds of these abandoned pets. She later opened a free emergency veterinary clinic to care for the pets of evacuated Israeli families, ensuring that animals who had survived the horrors alongside their families were not forgotten.
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MOROCCO
Israel and Morocco, which already have formal diplomatic relations, have agreed to elevate their liaison offices to full embassies and appoint ambassadors.
They also agreed to expand direct flights, which resumed last month after nearly 3 years, and help advance economic ties.
DEFENCE
Under a 2021 agreement with Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, the Czech Republic has received all four ordered SPYDER air defence systems, which are now fully integrated into NATO’s air defence architecture. The mobile, all-weather system can track up to 500 targets simultaneously and counter multiple threats—including aircraft, drones, and precision-guided munitions—at ranges up to 160 km.
SPYDER has been operational for 15 years and is used by Romania, the UAE, Morocco, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore.
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Despite a tough diplomatic stance against Israel in Europe, sales of Israeli defence products are expanding rapidly through joint ventures and local manufacturing facilities, as seen in Germany and potential expansions in Cyprus. Politically and economically, this model preserves diplomatic ties and boosts host-nation economies while securing advanced technological transfers. From an operational perspective, these European-based facilities also provide Israel with a vital security fallback to procure domestically designed armaments during wartime.
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US defence technology firm Ondas has agreed to acquire Israel’s Gate Technologies, a developer of miniaturized electronic fusing and actuation systems for drones and precision munitions. Marking its 13th Israeli defence startup acquisition, the deal supports Ondas’ strategy to scale low-cost autonomous weapons—a push bolstered by recruiting former Mossad chief David Barnea as global president to guide next-generation multi-domain defence initiatives.
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INTERVIEW WITH US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee challenged allegations of apartheid by highlighting the country’s integrated healthcare system, pointing out that both Jewish and Arab medical personnel working together treated his own wife. He also noted Israel’s growing Christian population from 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 200,000 today. He states that American military co-operation with Israel is rooted purely in US self-defence, framing Tehran’s hostility as a direct threat to the US, noting that President Trump authorized strikes against Iran entirely of his own volition to protect American interests rather than at Israel’s request. Ultimately, he stresses that Israel has never required foreign troops on the ground to fight its battles, serving instead as a vital partner in countering shared regional threats.
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PODCAST WITH AHMED FOUAD ALKHATIB
Alkhatib leads Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. He describes how being an anti-Hamas Gazan means he’s not in lockstep with the zeitgeist, including those who gave a 25-minute ovation for the film ‘NAZA’. He says that the international community and pro-Palestine activists hypocritically trust Israeli dissent while dismissing anti-Hamas Palestinians as traitors or inconveniences, emphasizing that Gazans are enraged by this double standard, which grants a terrorist regime a pass while keeping local residents captive.
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TECHNOLOGY
Nvidia has established a new research group in Israel aimed at using artificial intelligence to accelerate medical and scientific breakthroughs, marking another expansion of the chip giant’s research and development operations in the country. Click here
Seven Israeli teenagers have developed Flair, a digital stylist that recommends outfits using physical traits alongside context like the occasion, season, and holidays. The technology aims to streamline clothing selection and help users quickly find suitable items.
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Applied Materials Israel CEO has said “There isn’t a microchip in the world that isn’t screened by a made-in-Israel Applied Materials machine.”
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BUSINESS
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has come to the end of another strong year, 5786 in the Jewish calendar, with returns placing it ahead of most stock exchanges around the world despite geopolitical and security challenges, including the war with Iran. Click here
THE UN
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, Neta Heiman Mina criticized UNRWA after revealing that her 84-year-old mother was held hostage in an attic by a teacher employed by the UN agency. She questioned how the international community could entrust the education of Gaza’s children to individuals involved in the captivity of civilians.
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This website compiles nearly 100 documents, articles and testimonies from official, academic and independent sources documenting systematic informational bias in UN agencies’ reporting on the Gaza war, reflecting an overarching systemic failure spanning data production, personnel choices, and public messaging. Click here
Israel has launched a campaign video exposing the UN’s “Industry of Lies”
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REHABILITATION
Since October 7, the number of young IDF disabled veterans—mostly reservists pulled from active careers and families—has grown at a rate unprecedented since 1948. Rather than viewing their injuries or PTSD as lifelong definitions, these veterans are rebuilding their lives with dignity through long-term physical, mental, and personal adaptation. Beit Halochem, the nationwide network of rehabilitation centres, supports this journey across Israel by providing crucial rehabilitation, psychological care, vocational training, family programmes, and a strong community network. Click here
YOM KIPPUR
Magen David Adom treated 3,322 people over the course of the 25-hour fast, including 368 who fainted while fasting or were suffering from dehydration and other fast-related issues. 299 people required medical treatment for injuries sustained while riding bikes, rollerblades, scooters and skateboards — a popular Yom Kippur activity among secular Israelis. MDA teams were also transported 155 women in labour to hospitals. Click here
COMMENT & OPINION
Israel Derangement Syndrome
Kyle Smith: Irrational hostility toward Israel, termed “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” leads critics to abandon reason and make absurd accusations regarding its judicial and military actions.
Israel’s prosecution of the war Hamas started has resulted in around 24,000 combatant deaths among 73,000 war dead in Gaza. That’s a civilian-to-warrior kill ratio of about 2 to 1.
No matter how many heart-rending pictures of war carnage appear, genocide means taking major steps toward wiping out a people. A 2 to 1 ratio isn’t even close to genocide…It’s tragic that Hamas operations guarantee the deaths of lots of civilians. But that’s their way. They embed themselves among innocents, use hospitals as weapons depots, and skulk in a 400-mile network of tunnels. When you’re pro-death, all of this comes naturally.
An entity that launches a war has no moral right to complain when it faces a justified counterattack. Japan’s response to losing a war it started wasn’t to beg for sympathy, but to drop its death cult, join the ranks of liberal democracies, and cease attacking its neighbours. Gaza could move on from Hamas and do the same.(paywall)
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“NAZA” – A film libel
As a co-founder of the IDF unit dedicated to civilian protection, Lt.-Col. (res.) Sarit Zehavi clarifies that the military target charts shown in the “NAZA” documentary are designed to assess and minimize potential collateral damage, not to target civilians. The IDF invests extensive resources, intelligence personnel, and command systems to track civilian evacuations and lower collateral damage estimates before authorizing strikes. Ultimately, this framework reflects a fundamental distinction between the IDF’s active efforts to prevent civilian deaths and the intentional targeting of civilians by Hamas and Hezbollah.
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Micha Danzig: The documentary “NAZA” claims the IDF used artificial intelligence to deliberately target Gazan civilians, a premise the military denies by clarifying that human personnel make all legally compliant targeting decisions. The IDF has created complex systems to identify specific operatives and assess collateral damage which contradicts the logic of genocide, which relies on indiscriminate destruction rather than precise filtering. Further, calculating potential collateral damage is a standard Western military protocol, rendering the film’s accusation a double standard that reframes standard discrimination efforts as genocidal intent. Click here
The Palestinians
Prof. Eyal Zisser: Pressure on Israel, or even punitive measures imposed against it like the sanctions initiated by Britain, has never advanced peace.
Instead, it has hardened Palestinian positions and reduced their willingness to engage with Israel or make compromises in negotiations.
After all, why negotiate or compromise if, as the Palestinians believe, the international community would in any case pressure Israel, force it to capitulate and compel it to make concessions? Click here
Eric Rozenman: Former President George W. Bush back in 2002 described a vision of “two states, living side-by-side in peace and security.”
But he set a condition: “There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror.” Palestinian Arabs required “new leadership,” he stated.
There is still no Palestinian Arab commitment to two states, one Arab, one Jewish, side-by-side and at peace. Click here
Hamas
Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Allowing Hamas to Participate in a Palestinian Election is a Mistake: Dr. Fadel Ashour, a Palestinian psychiatrist, behavioural-science professor and political analyst, argues that Hamas’s ideology has deeply damaged Gaza by conditioning society to celebrate violence and death over construction and development. Consequently, rebuilding Gaza requires transforming the Palestinians’ entire mindset rather than simply providing physical aid or political compromises. Ultimately, Ashour warns that allowing Hamas to retain any political or military influence will only perpetuate this destructive culture and prevent the establishment of a functional, peaceful society. Click here
Khaled Abu Toameh: Following a recent meeting with Iranian officials, Hamas has intensified its attacks on President Trump’s Board of Peace to resist disarmament and preserve its political and military power. Historically, Hamas uses negotiations and rhetoric—such as accusing Israel of ceasefire violations and advocating for Palestinian rights—to divert focus away from surrendering its weapons. Ultimately, these aggressive manoeuvres signal that Hamas intends to maintain control in Gaza while demanding international recognition and reconstruction without accepting demilitarization. Click here
Further reading:
Thane Rosenbaum: The Fauda Enigma: In many of the nations that believe Israel has no right to exist and routinely root for terrorists to slaughter Jews, a TV show that depicts Israeli covert operatives outsmarting and dispatching Arabs has an inexplicably loyal global audience. Click here
Brendan O’Neill: Now the Gaza maniacs want to turn every pop gig into an anti-Israel rally. Click here
Tom Slater: The Monstering of Ed Sheeran proves that “Free Palestine” has become a cult. Nothing short of total capitulation will satisfy the keffiyeh classes. Click here
Sabine Sterk: Israel Does Not Need Celebrity Approval. Click here