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US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have presented a $112 billion reconstruction plan to Gulf officials to build a “high-tech metropolis” atop the remains of Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The 32-page PowerPoint presentation labeled "sensitive" and titled "Project Sunrise" was developed over 45 days and reportedly presented to officials from Qatar, UAE, Egypt, and Turkiye. The plan envisions turning the Gaza Strip into a "high-tech metropolis" over the next two decades with four phases of reconstruction beginning in southern Gaza. It also calls for turning Rafah into Gaza's new "administrative center," housing over 500,000...

Nationals of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria also banned, plus 12 countries already on list; US was already reportedly rejecting Palestinians’ visa requests US President Donald Trump on Tuesday expanded a travel ban by barring Palestinian Authority passport holders from entering the United States, along with banning five other nationalities. In a social media post, a White House account said that Trump, who has long campaigned to restrict immigration, was acting “to protect the security of the United States.” The policy announced Tuesday will go into effect on January 1, 2026. In June, Trump had announced that...

Context: Omer Shem Tov, an Israeli who spent 505 days as a hostage of Hamas, described the fear and anxiety he observed among his captors following Donald Trump's election victory in November 2024. During his captivity, Shem Tov was forced to work in Hamas's tunnel system, but noted a shift in his treatment after the election, including improved rations, as the group appeared to anticipate significant changes. Released in February 2025, he expressed gratitude toward Trump for his efforts in securing hostages' freedom and fostering peace in the region, as a cease-fire was established following Trump's 20-point peace plan. Shem...

A joint statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz read: "In response to the detonation of a Hamas explosive device that wounded our forces today in the yellow zone of the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the elimination of the terrorist Ra’ad Sa'ad, head of Hamas’ force-build-up directorate." "Sa'ad was one of the architects of the October 7th massacre and had recently been involved in rebuilding the terror organization, planning and carrying out attacks against Israel, and reestablishing an offensive capability, in blatant violation of the ceasefire terms and...

Israel's Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter unleashed a pointed retort at NBC News anchor Kristen Welker on Meet the Press on Sunday, dismissing her citation of casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry as unreliable propaganda. Welker referenced the ministry's reported death toll while grilling Leiter on civilian casualties during Israel's operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Leiter fired back: "Kristen, you just quoted the Gaza Health Ministry. That’s like quoting MS-13 Social Welfare Ministry." The analogy, equating the ministry to the brutal Salvadoran gang MS-13, quickly went viral via the Washington Free Beacon's X post. Link to...

Yasser Abu Shabab, an Arab militia commander who collaborated with Israeli forces in eastern Rafah, was murdered on Thursday in a violent scuffle in territory that is under Israeli military control. Defense officials estimate that the fight stemmed from internal disputes in the militia, which escalated over the past few weeks and became out of hand. Abu Shabab was punched and kicked by the members of his own militia. The defense establishment stresses that "Hamas terrorists were not involved." During the scuffle, Abu Shabab's second-in-command, Rasan a-Dahini, was injured. The two were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. A-Dahini...

Tens of thousands rallied in Paris on Saturday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, as protesters accused Israel of violating a fragile US-brokered ceasefire and demanded tougher international action amid soaring death tolls and ongoing restrictions on aid. Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, said Saturday that more than 70,000 people have been killed since the war began. “Gaza, Gaza, Paris is with you.” Marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, tens of thousands of people, according to organizers, marched in Paris on Saturday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, devastated by more than two...

Hamas gathered sensitive information on IDF movements, bases and weaponry from IDF soldiers’ social media accounts—and used that information to train for and execute the October 7 massacre. That’s according to a disturbing scoop by @Doron_Kadosh . I’ll break down his main findings. During the October 7 massacre, Hamas terrorists “managed to disable [IDF] tanks in the Gaza border area and render them unusable.” How? “The terrorists knew about a secret button in the tank which, when pressed, disables the tank for a certain period.” This left Israeli officials wondering: how on earth did Hamas have such sensitive information on...

About 20 miles from Gaza, the United States has taken over a large and long-vacated industrial complex, where it has set up a civil-military coordination center. At any given time, approximately 200 American soldiers and officials are milling about in the facility in Kiryat Gat, a town in southern Israel. They are the United States’ eyes and ears, monitoring the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. It’s clear that they are not meant to be deployed as a combat team to enforce the next stages of the Trump administration’s peace plan. But neither is anyone else. None of the United...

We are extremely concerned for the safety of Jews in New York City. The mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, has ties to antisemitic groups, has antisemitic staffers on his team, and wanted to "globalize the intifada."Last night showed us once again what that really means. Mobs of antisemitic, anti-Israel protesters swarmed Park East Synagogue to demonstrate against Jews in the Big Apple.🚨 HAPPENING RIGHT NOW in Manhattan:A mob of antisemites is outside Park East Synagogue screaming for “Globalize the Intifada” and “There is only one solution: Intifada revolution.”The Rabbi inside, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, is 93 years old. He survived the Holocaust. He...

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet on Wednesday in Istanbul with a delegation of senior Hamas officials led by Khalil al-Hayya to discuss efforts to maintain the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel. It will be Witkoff’s second meeting with Hayya after the special envoy along with fellow top adviser to US President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, met with senior members of Hamas’s ceasefire negotiating team hours before an agreement was inked in Egypt on October 9. That meeting was said to have been critical in bringing the deal across the finish line,...

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) called on Monday for targeted assassinations of Palestinian Authority officials, whom he called “terrorists,” if the United Nations Security Council approved the US-proposed Gaza international stabilization force resolution in its current form. Opposition MKs also slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the resolution’s potential advancement. The political storm among right-wing and left-wing ministers and MKs alike was centered around the fact that the resolution mentions a “path to Palestinian statehood.” Ben-Gvir said that if the resolution was advanced, “targeted assassinations of senior Palestinian Authority officials, who are terrorists for all intents and purposes,...

Nov 18 (Reuters) - Hamas rejected the United Nations Security Council passing a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, saying it fails to meet Palestinians' rights and demands and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose. "Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," the group added.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday in support of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan in Gaza, and Trump has been named chairman of the Board of Peace. The resolution passed the council 13-0-2, endorsing the president’s plan, which Hamas agreed to on October 8 and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially endorsed in a signing with Trump on October 13. “Congratulations to the World on the incredible Vote of the United Nations Security Council, just moments ago, acknowledging and endorsing the...

A short time ago the UN Security Council voted to adopt President Trump's peace plan for Gaza. This is being seen as a big win for the Trump administration.The United Nations Security Council on Monday approved President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, a breakthrough that provides a legal U.N. mandate for the administration’s vision of how to move past the cease-fire and rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip after two years of war.The Council’s vote was also a major diplomatic victory for the Trump administration. For the past two years, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas has raged, the United...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Trump administration’s blueprint to secure and govern Gaza won strong approval at the United Nations on Monday, a crucial step that provides international support for U.S. efforts to move the devastated territory toward peace following two years of war. The U.S. resolution that passed the U.N. Security Council authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in Gaza, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state. “This will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the...

Shift from famine declaration in Gaza to normalcy happens in the space of a few weeksFor months, headlines warned of an impending famine in Gaza — images of starving children, shattered infrastructure and humanitarian collapse filled the news. On Aug. 22, 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared that while full data was lacking, expert inference indicated famine was underway. Governments pledged aid; humanitarian agencies sounded alarms. Yet today, the word "famine" has nearly vanished from headlines. What happened? This is not to deny the human suffering in Gaza; it is to ask difficult, necessary questions. Was famine...

South Africa will investigate the “mysterious” arrival of scores of Palestinians who were kept on a charter plane at Johannesburg for 12 hours by border police because they did not have travel papers, the president has said. A group of 153 Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo international iarport in Johannesburg on a chartered Global Airways flight from Kenya on Thursday without departure stamps, return tickets or details of accommodation, according to the border authorities. They said none of the Palestinians had applied for asylum, leading to their initial denial of entry. A pastor who was allowed to meet the passengers...

President Donald Trump is facing a pivotal decision that could define the next phase of his Middle East policy: whether to allow Turkish troops into Gaza as part of a U.S.-backed stabilization force. The move, which Ankara is lobbying for, has triggered alarm in Israel and among Arab allies who view Turkey’s ambitions and Islamist ties as a threat to regional stability. According to Middle East Eye, Turkey is preparing a brigade of at least 2,000 soldiers drawn from multiple branches of its military to join the mission once a U.N. Security Council mandate is approved. Israel has flatly rejected...

Indonesia has trained up to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks during a planned peacekeeping operation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza, the defense minister said on Friday. The world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is among the countries with which the United States has discussed plans for an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, which include Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar. Last week, Reuters reported a draft readied by Washington for such a force that would authorize it to “use all necessary measures” to demilitarize Gaza, secure its borders, protect civilians and aid delivery, and support a...