News Digest — 12/22/25
President Herzog Lights Candle In Memory Of The 15 Victims Of The Sydney Hanukkah Massacre
President Isaac Herzog on Sunday (21st) addressed a ceremony in Jerusalem, marking one week since the deadly terror attack in Sydney , Australia, warning that the rise in anti-Semitism worldwide constitutes a “global emergency.”
The ceremony was held at the National Institutions Building in Jerusalem and was attended by Chairman of the World Zionist Organization Yaakov Hagoel, officials from the Australian Embassy in Israel, and members of the bereaved families.
In his remarks, President Herzog sent a message of solidarity to the Australian Jewish community, noting that the period of Hanukkah, traditionally a time of celebration, had instead been marked by fear, loss and mourning.
“Tonight on the 8th and final candle of Hanukkah, I want to say to the Jews of Australia, the people of Israel are with you,” Herzog said, “Despite thousands of miles between us, we feel your pain.”
The President expressed condolences to the families of those killed and wishes of recovery of the wounded, saying that in Jerusalem, “we heard your hearts break and felt our own hearts steeped with grief.”
Herzog also spoke of the resilience of Australian Jewry and said he hopes to visit the community in the near future. “I hope to be able to visit you all soon in Australia and bring you a message of love from the State of Israel, to hug you and console you on behalf of the nation and people of Israel,” he said.
Addressing the broader issue of anti-Semitism, the President warned that Jew hatred is escalating across the globe. “The rise in Jew hatred across the world is a global emergency,” Herzog stated, calling the fight against anti-Semitism “an urgent call to action to prevent the next catastrophe.”
He stressed that combating anti-Semitism requires strong leadership, decisive measures, and the involvement of society at large, including ordinary citizens rejecting “lies and bias.”
Concluding his remarks, Herzog emphasized Jewish resilience and unity. “We will not allow hatred to break us. We will not allow terror to diminish our light,” he said, ending with the declaration: “Am Yisrael Chai.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar Urges Diaspora Jews To Make Aliyah Amid Global Anti-Semitism
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar urged Diaspora Jews to make aliyah to Israel at a Hanukkah candle lighting event in Rishon Lezion Sunday evening (21st).
“Over the past year, we have concentrated efforts in the fight against rising anti-Semitism around the world,” Sa’ar stated. “In May, I convened a major international conference on the issue here in Jerusalem. We demanded that foreign governments take real steps against the new anti-Semitism. Few did so. Most allowed an unrestrained surge of overt anti-Semitism in the public sphere.”
Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening, and we have a certain historical experience,” he said.
“Today, Jews are being hunted across the world. Today, I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel. Come home,” he said.
“We’re waiting for you here with open arms, with love, in the true home of the Jewish people,” he continued.
“Why raise your children in this atmosphere? Come with your families to the land of your forefathers, to the State of Israel, where the Jews taught the entire world what Jewish self-defense means. The time has come,” he concluded.
IDF Says It Nabbed Suspected ISIS Jihadist In Southern Syria Operation
The Israel Defense Forces captured a suspected Islamic State jihadist in an overnight raid earlier this week in southern Syria, the military said in a Saturday (20th) statement.
The announcement came after the United States and Jordan conducted strikes overnight Friday (19th) against Islamic targets in Syria, in response to a December 13 attack in the Syrian desert that killed two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter.
The US-led strikes killed at least five ISIS operatives, including the leader of a drone cell according to Syrian and monitoring sources.
The operation was carried out by troops of the 52nd Armored Battalion and field interrogators of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 – which specializes in human intelligence – under the command of the 414th “Golan” Regional Brigade.
The ISIS member was brought to Israel for further interrogation, the IDF said.. The military added that it captured a number of weapons during the raid.
The IDF has been deployed to nine posts in southern Syria since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024, mostly within the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the countries.
Troops have been operating in areas up to around some nine miles deep into Syria, aiming to capture weapons that Israel says could pose a threat to the country if they fall into the hands of “hostile forces.”
Last month, six Israeli soldiers were wounded, including three seriously, after coming under fire by gunmen during an arrest operation in southern Syria.
Army Chief, Hinting At Potential New Iran War, Says IDF Will Strike ‘Wherever Required’
IDF Chief of Staff LTG. Eyal Zamir warned Sunday (21st) that the military will strike Israel’s enemies “wherever required, on near and distant fronts alike,” apparently hinting that Israel may again need to attack in Iran.
“At the center of the longest and most complex war in Israel’s history stands the campaign against Iran,” he said, in reference to the multifront war that erupted on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel, and drew in Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraq militias, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, itself.
“Iran is the one that financed and armed the ring of strangulation around Israel and stood behind the plans for its destruction,” he said at a changeover ceremony for the head of the IDF Planning Directorate.
Zamir’s comments came a day after NBC News reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will present plans for a new potential attack on Iran to US President Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Washington.
According to the report, which cited several unnamed officials with knowledge of the matter, Israel is growing increasingly concerned that Iran is rebuilding and even expanding its ballistic missile production in the wake of the nation’s 12-day war in June.
While Israel has publicly called Iran’s nuclear program an existential threat, officials quoted in the report said that the ballistic missiles were seen by Jerusalem as a more pressing concern. “The nuclear weapons program is very concerning. There’s an attempt to reconstitute. [But] it’s not that immediate,” a source with knowledge of Israel’s plans told NBC News.
The threat of the missiles is very real, and we weren’t able to prevent them all last time,” another source said.
A source with knowledge on the matter, as well as former US officials, told NBC that Jerusalem believes Iran’s renewed production of ballistic missiles could increase to 3,000 per year if left unchecked.
Perhaps lending credence to Israel’s concerns, Iran’s Foreign MInister Abbas Araghchi claimed Sunday (21st) that the Islamic Republic had rebuilt its strategic facilities damaged in the Israeli assault in June. Speaking to Russia Today, Araghchi said his country was “fully prepared”for a new round of fighting if it comes.
“In fact, we have reconstructed everything that was damaged in the previous aggression. If they want to repeat the same failed experience, they will not achieve a better result,” he told RT, as reported by Iran’s ISNA news agency.
Araghchi added: “The reality is that our facilities have been damaged and seriously so. But there is another reality, and that is that our technology remains intact, and technology cannot be bombed. Our determination will also still exist. We have a completely legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology, including enrichment, and we want to use this right.”
The Iranian diplomat argued that Iran was willing to reach “a fair and balanced agreement” on its nuclear program, achieved through negotiation, but we are not ready to accept dictation.”
Iran, which regularly calls for the destruction of Israel, has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it has enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. When the war began, Israel said Iran had recently taken steps toward weaponization.
Israel launched its war against Iran in June, targeting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and citing an imminent existential threat to the Jewish state.
Over 12 days, successive waves of airstrikes killed Iranian nuclear scientists, took out much of the supply and production capacity for the missile program, and damaged uranium enrichment sites, with the US joining in the last days to take out underground nuclear facilities that only heavy bunker buster bombs could penetrate.
Iran said over 1,000 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the war. It retaliated by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel, which killed 32 people and wounded over 3,000 in Israel, according to health officials and hospitals.
In all, Israel suffered 36 missile impacts and one drone strike in populated areas, causing damage to 2,305 homes and 240 buildings, along with two universities and a hospital, and leaving over 13,000 Israelis displaced.
Report: Hezbollah Rebuilds Weapons-Snuggling Network Through Syria
Iran continues to advance the arming of militias affiliated with it across the Middle East, operating a sophisticated regional smuggling apparatus, according to a senior American official quoted by Al-Arabiya.
According to the report, in recent weeks Iran has transferred weapons to a Kurdish militia in northern Syria. The militia, which operates in the name of Kurdish interests, views itself as threatened both by Turkey to the north and by the new Syrian government.
At the same time, Hezbollah has succeeded over the past year in rebuilding a smuggling network from Iran through Syrian territory, exploiting the weakness of the Syrian regime and its lack of effective control over large areas of the country.
The officials emphasized that the limited capabilities of the Lebanese Army along the Syrian border also enables the network’s continued operation.
The report further states that weapons are also being transferred to Hezbollah through Lebanon’s seaports. In an effort to curb the military buildup, the US administration is working with the governments of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan to strengthen monitoring and interdiction measures along the borders.
In this context, recent discussions have taken place between American officials and the Iraqi government. A draft for a new security agreement is under review, aimed at tightening oversight of the movement of people and weapons across the country’s borders.
The Real War Is Islamism’s Infiltration of Western Democracies – Lt.-Col. (ret.) Jonathan Conricus
• The global civilizational conflict between the free World and the forces of Islamism – a movement that seeks not coexistence, but domination – has only begun. Islamism’s most violent expression erupts in the bloodiest of Hamas, ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Yet its more patient, insidious face belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates – groups that have mastered the art of slow infiltration, cultural manipulation, and institutional takeover. Their ambition is the same: the imposition of Sharia and the submission of free societies.
• I was raised in Malmo, Sweden, where I watched first hand the quiet surrender of a liberal Western city to islamist intimidation. Today similar scenes unfold in London, Paris, Toronto, Sydney, and New York, where Oct. 7, 2023, Islamists have marched openly through Western capitals, waving the flags of terror movements and calling for “global intifada.”
• The response from many Western governments has been paralysis: fear of being called “Islamiphobic” outweighs the courage to name the threat. Listen carefully to what Islamists say in their own rallies and mosques. They boast of taking over Western Institutions. They preach that democracy is a tool to be exploited until the day it can be replaced. They view liberal tolerance not as a virtue but as a weakness to be exploited.
• The same ideology that sent Hamas terrorists across Israel’s border on Oct. 7 now works methodically to seize student unions, civil-society groups, and local councils across Europe and North America. In Britain, dozens of municipalities are now governed by officials who declare loyalty not to the United Kingdom but to the global Islamic nation. In the process, this ideology has fueled a resurgence of anti-Semitism and social fragmentation in the West.
• This war is not over. It will only end when Islamism – violent and non-violent alike – is defeated intellectually, financially and politically. Education must be our front line. That begins with dismantling UNRWA, whose curriculum perpetuates hate and martyrdom in Gaza’s classrooms. A generation taught that killing Jews is holy cannot build peace.
• Governments should outlaw islamist organizations where evidence ties them to terror networks. The Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates should be designated terrorist entities. Qatar and Turkey – state sponsors of this ideology – must face consequences, not indulgence. Political correctness is a luxury we can no longer afford. This war will decide the fate of the entire free world.
The writer, a former IDF international spokesman, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
