News Digest — 8/27/25
IDF Probe: Hamas Used Nasser Hospital Camera To Target Troops
The IDF released findings of an initial inquiry regarding the Nasser Hospital strike in Khan Yunis which occurred on Monday (25th). The inquiry was presented to the IDF Chief of Staff, LTG Eyal Zamir, by the Commander of the Southern Command, MG Yaniv Asor, on Tuesday (26th).
According to the inquiry, troops from the Golani Brigade, who were operating in the Khan Yunis area to dismantle terrorist infrastructure, identified a camera positioned by Hamas near the Nasser Hospital. According to the IDF, the camera was being used to monitor IDF troop movement in order to facilitate terrorist attacks. This assessment was based on intelligence indicating Hamas’ use of the Nasser Hospital for terrorist purposes since the beginning of the war, as well as on the documented use of hospitals by terrorist organizations throughout the conflict.
In response to the identified threat, the troops acted to neutralize it by striking and dismantling the camera. The inquiry confirmed that the operation was aimed at removing the threat.
LTG Zamir received the initial findings and instructed that the inquiry be continued. He highlighted the enemy’s extensive use of covert visual-intelligence gathering while exploiting sensitive civilian sites at the Nasser Hospital to conduct terrorist operations against IDF forces.
LTG Zamir also stated that six individuals killed in the operation were terrorists, including ones who participated in the October 7th infiltration into Israeli territory. He expressed regret over any civilian casualties.
The Chief of Staff reiterated that the IDF targets only military objectives in its operations.
Report: Syrian Soldiers killed In Israeli Strikes Near Damascus
Six Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli drone strikes in the Damascus countryside, state-run El Ekhbariya TV reported early on Wednesday (27th).
According to the report, the attack took place in the Al-Kiswah area, a rural area southwest of the Syrian capital, but no further details were provided regarding the extent of the damage or the identity of the targets attacked.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday (26th) that the IDF will remain at the peak of Mount Hermon and in the buffer zone, citing threats from Syria and protecting residents of the Golan Heights.
Katz called the decision “necessary to protect the Golan Heights settlements from threats looming from the Syrian side as a central lesson that we’ve learned from October 7.”
“And we will continue to protect the Druze in Syria as well,” he added.
The IDF took over the peak almost immediately after the collapse of the former president Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024.
On Monday (25th), a source told The Jerusalem Post that the Trump administration is working to bring about an announcement by Israel and Syria on agreed security arrangements by the time the UN General Assembly convenes in September.
Also on Monday (25th), Syria said that Israel had sent 60 soldiers to take control of an area inside the Syrian border around the mountain, adding that the operation violated its sovereignty and posed a further threat to regional security.
According to Syrian state TV, military vehicles and over 60 IDF soldiers entered the Beit Jinn area, located in southern Syria on the outskirts of Damascus.
Israel did not immediately comment on the accusation by Syria’s Foreign Ministry, which comes as the two countries engage in US-mediated talks on de-escalating their conflict in southern Syria.
Last month, Katz told US Senator Ted Cruz that he “didn’t trust” Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, saying that the allegedly reformed Islamist would use “jihadist groups” against Israel in the future.
A Normalization Agreement Between Israel And Syria Remains A Distant Prospect – Yoni Ben Menachem
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Israel was forced to confront a new reality on its northern border. The collapse of the regime created a power vacuum that could have facilitated the rise of extremist groups such as ISIS or Iran-backed militias, posing a new security threat to Israel. Israel acted swiftly, expanding its buffer zone in the Golan Heights and launching airstrikes to destroy Assad’s military arsenal, preventing it from falling into the hands of jihadist terror groups.
A senior Israeli political official stresses that in its talks with the new Syrian regime, Israel insists on protecting the Druze community in Suweida and removing all armed forces from the Israeli border. He warned that jihadist groups in the area aspire to attack Israeli communities in the Golan Heights and carry out massacres similar to the Oct. 7 atrocities – necessitating precise military and diplomatic planning.
Syrian leader al-Jolani (Ahmed al-Sharaa) does not exercise full security control over all of Syria, and his security forces have sometimes been complicit in massacres of minorities, including the recent killings of Druze in Suweida. Israel seeks a normalization agreement with Syria, but such an agreement remains a distant prospect.
A senior security source warned that signing a security agreement with al-Jolani’s jihadist regime would limit the IDF’s freedom of action and restrict Israel’s ability to defend Golan Heights communities and the Druze in Suweida. “Insofar as a jihadist regime rules Syria, it is preferable for Israel not to sign any agreement and instead maintain the current situation, in which it faces no international constraints on essential security operations,” the source concluded.
The writer, a veteran Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel Radio and Television, is a senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center.
(jcpa.org)
Germany Rules Out Recognizing Unilateral Palestinian Statehood
Germany’s head of government announced Tuesday (26th) that Berlin will not take part in an initiative next month to recognize Palestinian statehood, explicitly rejecting calls for the country to join several other Western powers that plan to back Ramallah’s unilateral claim of statehood.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz addressed reporters at a joint press conference in Berlin alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, fielding questions on the war in Gaza and plans by France, Britain, Australia, and Canada to officially recognize unilateral Palestinian statehood next month.
“The position of the federal government is clear as far as the possible recognition of the state of Palestine is concerned,” Merz said. “Canada knows this. We will not join this initiative. We don’t see the requirements met.”
Merz’s comments Tuesday (26th) echoed those made by a government spokesperson last Friday (22nd) who emphasized that Berlin would only back a final-status agreement negotiated between Israel and the Palestinian Authority rather than unilateral steps.
Washington Declines To Renew Mandate Of UN Force In Lebanon
Even after concessions from supporters of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, the Trump administration declined to green-light a revised UN Security Council resolution to extend the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) in Lebanon’s mandate.
Israel has long criticized UNIFIL, whose mandate expires on Aug. 31, and accused it of failing to contain Hezbollah’s military capabilities in southern Lebanon. The Trump administration called the UN force an “abject failure”and clawed back tens of millions of dollars in funding.
The Jewish state has said UNIFIL ought to be discontinued immediately, but Washington is reportedly willing to support extending it, provided its new mandate provides a date when it will terminate operations.
France, which is leading the effort to extend UNIFIL’s mandate, drafted terms of a one-year renewal, noting that the Security Council “indicates its intention to work on a withdrawal for UNIFIL, with the aim of making the Lebanese government the sole provider of security in southern Lebanon.”
Washington rejected a revised draft from France on Friday (22nd). The new draft also called for a one-year extension of UNIFIL and stated that the UN force is “planning its withdrawal,” per a copy of the draft that JNS viewed. As a permanent member of the Security Council, Washington has veto power.
The revised draft calls on Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, to produce a strategic review within five months to “assess the conditions of a withdrawal of UNIFIL, with the objective that the drawdown of UNIFIL starts no later than Aug. 31, 2026.” The review would also “explore options” after UNIFIL withdraws for implementation in the future of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for a permanent resolution to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon and insists that Hezbollah and other non-state actors disarm.
There is also to be a “restoration of Lebanese sovereignty throughout the country,” according to the draft that JNS viewed.
Lebanese forces would be redeployed, aided by United Nations “tools,” south of the Litani River, in an area which Hezbollah has controlled, according to the draft.
Washington is still willing to support a mandate extension but wants a phased withdrawal to begin immediately, a US diplomatic source told JNS.
The Israeli government said on Monday (25th) that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “acknowledges the significant step taken” by the Lebanese government, noting the latter’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah by year’s end is a “momentous decision” that “marks a crucial opportunity for Lebanon to reclaim its sovereignty and restore the authority of its state institutions, military, and governance.
It is unclear, at present, when a vote might take place on whether to renew UNIFIL’s mandate.
“The Green Prince” And The Truth About Hamas – Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein
In a quiet room at Israel’s soon-to-be inaugurated October 7 Museum, Mosab Hassan Yousef—the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef who is known as “The Green Prince”—looked at the evidence of Hamas’ atrocities and spoke the truth that too many still refuse to hear. “Hamas is not just at war with Israel. It is at war with Jews, Christians and the very foundation of civilization itself.”
Yousef knows this from the inside. Raised in a home steeped in Hamas ideology, he was taught from childhood that Jews must be killed, Christians eliminated, and “infidels” subjugated. He was beaten at school, indoctrinated on the streets, and expected to take his place in a cult of death. Instead, he broke free, worked with Israeli intelligence to prevent countless terror attacks, and later embraced Christianity. His father disowned him and sentenced him to death.
His visit to the new museum, which is in Glilot in central Israel, was organized by Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
When Yousef looks at Hamas’ hand-written instructions for Oct. 7, 2023—order to rape women, burn babies alive and kidnap hundreds—he doesn’t see aberrations. He sees the logical outcome of Hamas’ creed. “This is not politics,” he told us. “This is a religious war. Its purpose is to replace Judaism and Christianity with radical Islam. If the world does not understand this, everyone will pay the price.”
He is right. The “Al-Aqsa Flood, ” as Hamas named its Oct. 7 attacks, was not about borders or blockades. It was framed explicitly as a religious conquest, part of a centuries-old war of replacement. In Hamas’ view, Judaism and Christianity are illegitimate faiths that must yield to Islam.
That is why Hamas teaches Palestinian children to glorify death, publishes math textbooks where subtraction problems involve dead Jews, and hands out Hitler’s Mein Kampf alongside the Quran in Gaza schools.
This is why Yousef calls Hamas a “death cult.” It does not seek compromise. It seeks annihilation.
And yet, despite the mountains of evidence–videos of atrocities, testimonies of survivors and confessions of captured terrorists—the world still looks away. International organizations rush to accuse Israel of “war crimes” while ignoring the very real war crimes of Hamas: mass rape, child murder, incineration and abduction.
“Here are 1,200 war crimes,” Yousef said, gesturing to the museum’s displays while referring to the 1,200 people murdered on Oct. 7. “And yet the world remains silent.”
His warning could not be clearer: Oct. 7 was not only Israel’s tragedy. It was the frontline of a civilizational struggle. If Hamas and its allies succeed, it will not end with Jews and Chrisitans—all free people are next.
Yousef has devoted his life to exposing this truth, often at great personal risk. “I dedicate myself to defending Israel and the Jewish people from this psychopathic war against Jews and Christians,” he declared. “If nobody listens, I will continue alone.”
The world cannot afford to ignore him. The son of Hamas is telling us plainly: this is a neo-Nazi religious war of extermination. Israel is on the front lines, but the battle is for all of us. The only moral response is to stand with Israel—unflinchingly, decisively, and without illusion… Because if Hamas’ “flood” is allowed to spread unchecked, it will not stop at the borders of Israel. It will drown us all.
Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein is the Israel Foreign Ministry’s Special Advisor for Combating Anti-Semitism and a Senior Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
(jcpa.org)
