News Digest — 10/22/26
‘All The Enemies Of Israel Want Me To Lose’ Netanyahu Tells “Post” In Pre-Election Day Interview
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran and its regional proxies have been considering ways to influence the upcoming election in a Wednesday (21st) interview with The Jerusalem Post.
“We have clear warnings from military intelligence and the Mossad that Iran and its proxies are considering ways to influence the elections,” Netanyahu told the Post.
“If they do, it’ll be a big mistake for them because we’ll respond with force and with might that they can’t even imagine,” he warned.”
The prime minister added that Iran and its allies could seek to undermine public confidence in Israel’s security by staging attacks intended to suggest that the country’s military achievements had not fundamentally changed the regional balance of power.
“We’ve had an amazing success story,” Netanyahu said, describing Israel’s transformation since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.
“We went from October 7 to being the most powerful force in the Middle East, clearly, the most powerful country in the Middle East,” he repeated.
According to Netanyahu, Israel has completed “90% of the job” against Iran and its proxies, but the remaining challenge is preventing the Islamic Republic from rebuilding its capabilities.
The prime minister framed the election as a strategic contest, naming Iranian leaders, Hamas, Hezbollah, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas among those he said wanted him defeated.
“All the enemies of Israel want me to lose,” he said.
Netanyahu identified Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the most consequential security threat currently facing Israel, arguing that Israeli military operations had addressed an immediate danger but had not eliminated the underlying threat.
“About a year ago, Iran was on the verge of developing several atomic bombs,” he said. “If we hadn’t acted in Operation Rising Lion and after that with Operation Roaring Lion, they’d have atomic bombs to destroy us.”
As long as the current regime remains in power, Netanyahu said, Iran will seek to rebuild its nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities.
During the interview, Netanyahu claimed that the Islamic Republic had planned to acquire 20,000 ballistic missiles, describing such an arsenal as an existential threat to Israel. He estimated that Iran still possessed over 1,000 missiles.
Asked whether he and US President Donald Trump were aligned on potential targets for another operation against Iran, Netanyahu said he believed the two leaders shared an understanding of the strategic stakes.
“President Trump recognizes what I recognize,” he said, without specifying which targets might be considered in any future military action.
“As long as the Iranian regime is here, they’ll reconstitute themselves,” he said.
Asked whether a name had already been chosen for a potential third operation against Iran, Netanyahu pointed to the lion-themed names of the previous campaigns: Rising Lion and Roaring Lion.
“We’re dealing with lions,” he said. “This generation – lions, lions, and lionesses.”
This article is a preview of the complete interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which will be published in full on Thursday (22nd), on jpost.com and on Friday (23rd) in The Jerusalem Post Magazine.
Gaza, Lebanon And Syria: 850 Polling Stations Open For IDF Early Voting
Early voting for the 26th Knesset began on Wednesday (21st) at military polling stations on Israel Defense Forces bases and outposts across all operational areas, including the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
More than 850 polling stations, many of them mobile, have been deployed, according to the IDF.
“Our mission is to enable all IDF service members to exercise their democratic right to vote by secret ballot, including during operational activities and combat beyond the border. The IDF is an apolitical people’s army that will do everything necessary to ensure that the elections are held as scheduled,” said IDF Elections Officer Col. Vered Ben-Yehuda.
Regular duty soldiers and active-duty reservists may vote at either military or civilian polling stations, with a double-envelope system used to verify eligibility and prevent double voting, an Israeli military official told JNS last week.
Hundreds of election officers and about 3,000 soldiers trained as polling committee members will administer the voting, with each station run by a four-member committee, the official added.
Israelis are heading to the polls to elect the 120 members of the 26th Knesset in the country’s first national election since the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, and the multi-war that followed.
Israel has strict rules on early voting. Military personnel and diplomats are the exception. Approximately 4,800 diplomats as well as their families started early voting on Oct. 15.
IDF Chief of Staff LTG Eyal Zamir said on Tuesday (20th) that the military had reinforced troops across all fronts to thwart threats and allow the Oct. 27 vote to proceed securely.
“Our goal is to enable democratic elections to take place without external interference,” Zamir said.
US Urged By Lebanese Diaspora To Pressure Lebanon To Repeal Law Criminalizing Ties With Israel
Washington must urge Beirut to repeal Lebanon’s 1955 Boycott Law which criminalizes social and business ties with Israel, and ensure that Hezbollah does not regain the explosives seized from the group several weeks ago, the American Mideast Coalition for Democracy said in an open letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday (19th).
Lebanese Americans Tom Harb and John Hajjar, AMCD co-chairs, argued that the 1955 law was being overextended beyond its original intentions and is now being used to criminalize basic conversations with Israelis and prevent religious pilgrimages to the land of Israel, which holds religious sites for Abrahamic faiths.
“The law is not only impractical: it has become a tool for politicized prosecutions of those who advocate peace,” the letter stated.
“One of AMCD’s own co-chairs, Tom Harb, an American citizen born in Lebanon, was summoned to appear before the Lebanese military court, as have so many others. Americans should not face criminal charges abroad for speech that is protected at home,” it noted.
Beyond calling for contact between Israeli and Lebanese citizens to be legalized, particularly ahead of the Christmas season, the signatories said channels of communication should be established between the two countries’ militaries to prevent the loss of innocent lives due to miscalculations during military operations. They also called for diplomatic channels to be opened to advance peace.
To advance this goal, AMCD said that the US should condition financial and military assistance to Lebanon on the repeal of the 1955 law and on Beirut implementing concrete steps to facilitate military, diplomatic, and civilian communication with Israel, and impose sanctions against the Lebanese government body, institution, or individual that prosecutes or penalizes people for peaceful contact with Israelis or for visiting the holy sites.
“American taxpayers should not underwrite a government that criminalizes the pursuit of peace,” the letter said. “We respectfully urge you to continue pressing Lebanese President Aoun on these issues and to support these measures in Congress.”
UK To Overhaul Holocaust Education Following Antisemitism In Schools
The British government announced Wednesday (21st) that it will introduce stronger Holocaust education and require schools in England to treat antisemitism as a specific threat to students safety, following an extensive review that uncovered widespread anti-Jewish harassment in the education system.
Education Secretary Lucy Powell said according to the BBC, the government would “update and strengthen” Holocaust education after an investigation revealed the “shocking scale” of antisemitism across British society.
Under the new approach, schools and colleges will be expected to identify antisemitism as a distinct form of harm requiring specific preventive measures, other than addressing it solely through general policies against racism and bullying.
The government has accepted all 27 recommendations contained in the independent review, including specialized teacher training, improved procedures for documenting antisemitic incidents, and clearer guidance to educational institutions.
The investigation was led by Sir David Bell, a former chief inspector of Ofsted, Britain’s education watchdog, and their findings were presented to Parliament on Wednesday (21st).
Speaking to the BBC, Powell described the findings as evidence of an increasingly serious problem, particularly among younger generations.
“It’s definitely a crisis and I think it’s actually gotten worse since Sir David began this review. This has become a real challenge for Jewish people in our country, but also Jewish students and Jewish teachers working in our schools and colleges.
“I really feel it is a generational moment to educate this generation and the next – that is the job of education – to understand what antisemitism is in the modern world.”
Powell said the revised Holocaust curriculum would “challenge” some of the assumptions held by young people and help students recognize contemporary manifestations of antisemitism.
The review also recommends strengthening guidance on political neutrality in the classroom.
Addressing the House of Commons, Powell emphasized that “teachers should not bring their own political views into the classroom,” while making clear that educators should continue discussing significant and sometimes controversial issues.
The investigation was commissioned following several prominent antisemitic incidents, including the October 2025 terrorist attack at Manchester’s Heaton Park Synagogue during Yom Kippur services in which two men were murdered.
The government also commissioned separate investigations into antisemitism in healthcare and the effectiveness of public order and hate crime legislation.
As part of its response, the government will encourage educational institutions to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
The IHRA framework has been adopted by 47 countries, including the United Kingdom, and by most British universities. It is supported by major Jewish organizations, although some of its examples of antisemitic conduct have generated controversy.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomed the government’s approach, arguing that the IHRA definition would help schools “to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.
A spokesperson for the organization told the BBC that treating antisemitism as a safeguarding concern would strengthen schools’ responsibility to protect Jewish students.
“Treating antisemitism in schools as a safeguarding issue will have the benefit of creating an explicit duty on all schools to address this as they would any other threat to children’s safety, and will strengthen accountability.”
The government’s announcement follows new figures indicating a sharp increase in antisemitic incidents involving educational institutions.
The organization reported that the number of incidents recorded between January and June was higher than in the corresponding period of any previous year.
Robotic Beehives And Cancer-Sniffing Dogs: Israeli Innovation Make TIME’s Inventions List
Four Israeli tech companies have been named in this year’s annual list of TIME magazine’s Best Inventions for creations “that are changing how we live, work, play and think about what’s possible,” the publication said.
The global list of the 300 groundbreaking inventions includes Apple’s iPhone Duo, AI software that lets non-coders build websites, and a breakthrough treatment for pancreatic cancer.
The Israeli-funded startups that shone in the global list of inventions that the magazine said “are making the world better, smarter and even a bit more fun,” are: SpotitEarly, which trains dogs to detect cancer-related scent signatures in human breath samples, Beewise, a developer of robotic beehives using AI; Bria AI which helps artists earn royalties when their work is used as part of AI-generated content, and Aidoc, the developer of a clinical AI reasoning engine designed to analyze medical images and clinical data to identify urgent findings and prioritize cases in real time.
To compile the 2026 list, TIME asked for nominations both from its editors and correspondents from around the world and via an online application process with a focus on growing fields such as health care, AI and green energy. The jury then evaluated each contender on “key factors, including originality, creativity, effectiveness, ambition and impact.”
Founded in 2020, Tel Aviv-based SpotitEarly is the developer of a proprietary system that tracks dogs’ behavioral and physiological responses to human breath samples. The platform uses AI to analyze their cues to determine whether the canines’ highly sensitive noses detected lung, breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer. If they did, CEO Shlomi Madar said, “Our recommendation will be to get additional testing.”
“Some of the most powerful innovations come from rethinking what’s possible with the tools nature has already given us,” said Madar. “As we continue to clinically validate our technology and prepare for our commercial launch next year, we’re honored that TIME has recognized the potential of our approach to early diagnosis.”
Founded in 2018, Beewise is the developer of an autonomous, solar-powered, field-mobile beekeeping robot equipped with sensors and mechanical components.
The Ai-powered robot hive monitors honeybees for diseases, parasites and temperature changes. The system includes a wheeled unit, which can be driven up to the hives and uses robotic arms to reach inside to treat bees, similar to a human beekeeper. The technology was developed as a much-needed solution to protect bee populations and help them thrive.
Founded in 2020, Tel-Aviv headquartered generative AI startup Bria is the developer of a visual generative AI platform that helps businesses create, edit, and scale commercial images and videos, and market them safely and legally. The platform includes a patented attribution engine that tracks provenance to ensure original creators and rights holders receive proper compensation for royalties to artists whose work is reflected in AI-generated content.
“We understand which data was leveraged for the newly generated image, and then we compensate the creator of the original,” said Bria founder and CEO Yair Adato. “The tool will even cite and provide access to the exact source of inspiration for everything it produces.”
Aidoc was founded in 2016, developing medical imaging software designed to detect and pinpoint critical anomalies using deep learning and AI algorithms. The medical scans are quickly analyzed to help doctors triage patients and prioritize care.
“Rather than detecting a single medical condition, it can recognize a wide range of imaging findings while understanding both medical images and clinical text,” said Aidoc chief business officer Tom Valent.
Aidoc’s technology is deployed across more than 150 health systems and 1,600 hospitals around the world, the company said.
