News Digest — 5/18/26
Israeli President To Receive Credentials Of First Somaliland Envoy As Ties Deepen
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will receive the diplomatic credentials of the first-ever Ambassador of Somaliland, Mohamed Hagi, among other new ambassadors on Monday (18th), his office announced.
The ceremony comes on the heels of Israel approving the appointment of veteran diplomat Michael Lotem as ambassador to Somaliland in April
Somaliland broke away from Somalia and declared its independence in 1991. Israel is the first country to recognize Somaliland.
Situated in the Horn of Africa, Somaliland’s northern coast lies directly across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, where the Houthis control.
Israel is reportedly interested in establishing a base in Somaliland to counter Houthi and Iranian threats to Red Sea shipping.
Officials in Hargeisa are interested in cooperating in areas of energy, infrastructure, and agriculture, among other things.
Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has also expressed interest in joining the Abraham Accords.
Herzog will also receive the credentials of new ambassadors from Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Vatican.
Netanyahu On Iran: ‘Our Eyes Are Open’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Sunday (17th) at the start of a special Government Meeting in honor of Jerusalem Day, at the Knesset Museum in Froumine House.
In his opening remarks, the Prime Minister referred to the history of the building and said: “This is the second time I am visiting here since the restoration, the original home of the Knesset in Froumine House. I believe anyone who comes here feels the uniqueness of this place, which essentially served as the home for the revival of our people’s sovereignty in our land after thousands of years. It always makes the heart stir. I also remember as a Jerusalem boy, being right across the street and looking at this building; back then,it was closed to boys like me, but today it is open to all of the people of Israel. I invite all of you, the citizens of Israel, to come here and enjoy this heritage. A truly wonderful, highly original, highly authentic, and very faithful restoration job has been done here, and the atmosphere provides a great deal of inspiration.”
Continuing his remarks, the Prime Minister sought to share in the grief of the family of an IDF soldier who fell in battles in the north. “At the beginning of my remarks, I wish to send condolences to the family of the late Captain Maoz Israel Recanati. Maoz left everything behind, including his fiancee whom he was set to marry in about a month – he led his soldiers into battle in Lebanon, and fell. May God avenge him, and may his memory be a blessing.”
The Prime Minister then moved on to review the operational challenges on the northern border and the national struggle against the drone threats: “I want to say a few things about the campaign in Lebanon. We are doing a lot there, holding territory, clearing territory, protecting Israel’s communities, but also fighting an enemy that is trying to outsmart us.”
“Six years ago, during a Cabinet meeting, I warned against the threat of drones. At the time. I saw it primarily as a serious threat, as a tool for targeted eliminations of public figures, but since then, it has obviously evolved. From the start of the war, and of course having observed the war in Ukraine, I thought this could also serve as a tool on our battlefield. At my request, the IDF installed canopies on the tanks. That was one measure. The IDF and the Ministry of Defense have done a great deal over the years, this needs to be understood, and they have thwarted many hundreds, if not thousands, including UAVs, thousands of attempted drone and UAV strikes against our forces. And they are succeeding. Every time there is a new threat they succeed in neutralizing it,” he said.
Netanyahu elaborated on the establishment of a special team aimed at dealing with cyber drones, and emphasized that the team has no financial limitations: “Today, we are facing the challenge of neutralizing FPV (Fiber-Optic/First-Person View) drones. This is a specific type of threat. I convened a special team together with the Minister of Defense, personnel from the MInistry of Defense, and individuals from outside the ministry, not just from the defense industries, but also from the civilian sector, the best minds in Israel, and in my opinion, the best minds in the world. I held three meetings in two weeks, but in the meeting we held a few days ago, I told them something that surprised them a bit: ‘You have no budgetary constraint.’ Whatever it costs, it costs. You also have no limits, as far as I know, to your creativity and imagination, because you are the best in the world. Therefore, my directive to the team is to find a solution for this, and for the next threat that will come.”
The Prime Minister added: “I have no doubt that Israel will be the first country, just as we have done in other fields, to deliver a complete solution to this problem as well. This requires patience and sometimes gritting our teeth, but both of these, patience, determination, and the ability to stand up to the challenge, we have abundance. We will achieve this too.”
Addressing the Gaza Strip, he said: “Over the weekend we eliminated the master murderer Iz al-Din al-Haddad. He was essentially number one in Hamas’ military wing. He has been eliminated. This despicable terrorist was responsible for the murder, injury and kidnapping of thousands of Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers. He used hostages as human shields, and he is no longer with us. It is important to say that. I promised two things, and the Government, along with me. I promised that we would return all of our hostages, down to the very last one. Down to the hero of Israel, the late Ran Gvili. And we returned them. There were doubts, but we had no doubts. We returned them.”
Netanyahu added: “I promised a second thing, that every single architect of the massacre and the hostage–taking would be eliminated down to the last one, and we are very close to completing this mission as well. In Gaza now, we are no longer holding 50%, but already 60% of the land. We have Hamas in our grip. We know exactly what our mission is, and our mission is one: To ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel, and we are carrying out this mission too with the help of our heroic soldiers. They truly are heroes, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and also in the skies of Tehran. OUr fighters, our pilots, including our female combatants. Our female pilots, heroes and heroines.”
At the end of his remarks, he elaborated on the Iranian arena: “Our eyes are also wide open regarding Iran. I will speak today, as I do every few days, with our friend President Trump. I will certainly hear his impressions from his trip to China, and perhaps other matters. There are certainly many possibilities, we are prepared for any scenario.”
Death Penalty Law For Palestinians Convicted Of Deadly Terrorism Comes Into Effect In West Bank
The death penalty law for Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank came into effect after the Commander of IDF Central Command MG Avi Bluth signed the military order necessary to enact the measure in the territory.
The military order requires that a military court presiding over the prosecution of a terror attack that results in the death of a victim apply the death penalty alone as the only available sentence, unless the court finds special circumstances allowing for life imprisonment.
One of the three conditions for imposing the death penalty is that the motive was to either “negate the existence of the State of Israel or the authority of the military commander in the area,” motives which would likely only be applicable to Palestinian terrorists.
“This is a clear and sharp change of policy after the October 7, 2023 massacre: a terrorist who murders Jews can no longer rely on prisoner exchange deals, good prison conditions, or the hope to be released in the future,” Defense Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a joint statement.
“Whoever chooses murderous terrorism against Jews needs to know that the State of Israel will bring him to justice all the way.”
“Terrorists who murder Jews will not sit in prison in pleasant conditions, will not wait for prisoner exchange deals, and will not dream of release – they will pay the heaviest price,” Katz added.
Ben-Gvir lauded the signing of the military order as the fulfillment of a campaign promise of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, saying “we promised and we fulfilled,” adding: “We do not capitulate or contain murderous terrorism, we defeat it.”
Abbas Complains That Funds Withheld By Israel Are Needed To Pay Terrorists’ Sallaries
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas admitted that tax funds being withheld by Israel would be used to fund Palestinian Terrorists during a speech at the Eighth Conference of Fatah.
The comments confirm that the PA has not ended its pay-for-slay policy, even though it has restructured payments so they no longer reflect the prisoner’s sentence. It now distributes the funds under the guise of social welfare.
“The continued holding of Palestinian Authority funds by Israel is an unprecedented event that violates the agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as international law,” Abbas exclaimed in his Fatah conference address. “… The continued withholding of the Palestinian people’s funds, which have so far exceeded $5 billion…and all this needs to be paid to public employees, to prisoners (terrorists)…”
Israel began withholding funds that the PA had used to pay the salaries of terrorists in 2022, following similar legislation adopted by Washington in 2018. The Taylor Force Act has meant Washington is unable to offer economic aid to Ramallah until it ends its pay-for-slay payments and its statements of public support for terrorists.
Palestinian Media Watch founder and director Itamar Marcus commented to The Jerusalem Post that “Abbas’ admission” must have significant international implications.”
“To justify continued funding of the PA, Western countries have been denying PMW findings that pay-for-slay continues, and have accepted Abbas’ lies that it stopped funding terrorists in September 2025,” he explained.
“Abbas’ frank admission on camera that he needs the money to pay prisoners confirms PMW’s documentation,” he added. “Israel will be wise if it uses this video to put pressure on the Western countries to stop funding PA terror and to withhold their recognition of a Palestinian state, which France and others conditioned on the PA’s promise to end pay-for-slay. Marcus noted that Abbas’ comments were not featured in the official PA media reports on his script, meaning the admission was likely accidental.
A total of $150 million was paid out to the terrorists and their families last year, according to a US State Department report published last month. $126m. Was paid to Palestinian terrorists, including those released from Israeli custody, and $30m. was paid to the families of Palestinian terrorists who died committing their acts of terrorism. The PA had promised to give the families a total of $214m.
The economic ramifications of the missing funds have caused significant issues in the PA’s public sector, forcing employees to make do with only a fraction of their wages and public institutions, like schools, to operate on a part-time basis.
Palestinian Leaders Still Reject Israel’s Right To Exist- Khaled Abu Toameh
On May 11 and 12, the Palestinian Authority organized mass rallies across the West Bank to commemorate the “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) the term the Palestinians use to describe the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Senior Palestinian officials, including top figures from the ruling Fatah faction and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), participated in the event so-called “right of return.”
At first glance, the “right of return” may sound humanitarian. In reality, however, it represents one of the most extreme demands in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian leaders are demanding that millions of Palestinians classified as “refugees” – including descendants of the original refugees from 1048-49 – be allowed to settle inside Israel itself. The goal is to flood Israel with millions of Palestinians and transform Jews into a minority in their own country.
This demand fundamentally contradicts the idea of a “two-state solution.” Under a genuine “two-state solution,” Palestinians would establish their own independent state alongside Israel. Yet Palestinian leaders are effectively saying that they want the demographic destruction of Israel through mass migration. No Israeli government could ever agree to national suicide. The continued glorification of the “Nakba” and the Insistence on the “right of return” demonstrate that many Palestinians have not abandoned their long-term dream of replacing Israel rather than living peacefully beside it.
By defining Israel’s establishment as a “catastrophe,” the Palestinian leadership is effectively telling its people that the very existence of Israel is illegitimate. This is not the language of reconciliation, coexistence, or compromise. It is the language of rejectionism and extremism. If, every year, one side of the conflict commemorated the creation of the other side’s country as a disaster that must be reversed, would anyone seriously believe that such rhetoric prepares people for peace and compromise?
The annual Nakba commemorations reinforce the narrative that Jews are foreign colonialists with no legitimate historical and national connection to the land. This narrative erases nearly 4,000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, Hebron, Judea, Safed, Tiberias, and elsewhere in Israel. This explains why peace efforts have repeatedly failed over the past decades. While some Westerners continue to speak about a “two-state solution,” Palestinian leaders continue to educate their people that all of Israel is “occupied Palestine.” (Gatestone Institute)
