News Digest — 8/27/26
US Urges Countries To Boost Security Around Synagogues Ahead Of High-Holidays
The US State Department instructed American Diplomatic missions around the world on Wednesday evening (26th) to contact the governments of the countries where they operate and call on them to significantly increase security around synagogues, Jewish institutions, and holiday events ahead of the High-Holidays.
In an instruction cable sent to US missions, American diplomats were asked to urge governments to deploy, when necessary, police forces, counterterrorism units, or even military personnel at synagogues and locations where prayer and holiday events will be held.
The directive extends beyond securing synagogues themselves. The State Department is also seeking increased protection around Jewish community residential areas and along routes used by worshipers walking to synagogues, noting that they often travel at predictable times and along predictable paths, and may be dressed in ways that identify them as Jewish.
The missions were also instructed to work with local authorities to ensure security briefings and coordination with Jewish institutions, security organizations, and businesses ahead of the holidays. In an unusual measure, the cable also calls for establishing a way to deliver immediate threat alerts on Shabbat and Jewish holidays to observant Jews who do not use electronic devices.
According to a source familiar with the matter, a similar directive was sent to US diplomatic missions around the world ahead of Passover.
Antisemitic incidents around the world have continued to increase. Recently released FBI hate crime data for 2025 points to a significant and ongoing level of attacks targeting Jews in the United States. Although Jews make up about 2% of the US population, they were the target of nearly two-thirds (63%) of all reported religiously motivated hate crimes last year.
In some US states, Jews were the target of 90% or more of religiously motivated hate crimes. 2025 marked the third consecutive year with a record number of antisemitic hate crimes since tracking began, following 2023 and 2024, which were the two highest years recorded.
According to an analysis by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of FBI data, 1,528 antisemitic hate crime incidents were reported across the US in 2025 in which the sole motivation was antisemitism. The incidents accounted for 63% of the 2,408 religiously motivated hate crimes reported that year.
Jews were also the target of 14% of all hate crimes reported in the United States, not only those classified as religiously motivated.
The Jewish High-Holidays begin with Rosh Hashanah on Friday, September 11th, at sundown, and it ends on Sunday evening the 13th.
Netanyahu At Judea And Samaria Event: ‘This Land Will Remain Ours’
Speaking at the Binyamin Regional Council’s annual flagship event highlighting the past year’s achievements in Judea and Samaria, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday evening (25th) that the land of Israel “will remain ours.”
“Today many of our brothers and sisters around the world understand: This is our land and it will remain ours,” Netanyahu told Judea and Samaria leaders at the event, which he attended with his wife, Sara.
In remarks translated from Hebrew, he added, “”And when I say our land, every Jewish man and every Jewish woman, the door is open. We are waiting for you, in the State of Israel, in the heart of the Land of Israel.”
Those attending the event, Netanyahu said, were “preparing the ground for a very large aliyah [immigration wave] that will come.”
The Binyamin Regional Council governs 47 Israeli communities in an area stretching from north of Jerusalem in Samaria to the Jerusalem Mountains in Judea.
The outgoing government has established and regularized 104 communities and 160 farms, Netanyahu said, adding that more were on the way.
Part of the work was carried out under the Biden administration and part under the administration of US President Donald Trump, he said.
“It isn’t easy, it’s never easy. The Land of Israel is acquired through suffering”, Netanyahu said. “Sometimes also through smiles, sometimes also through arguments, but it is being acquired by us. We are not giving up, we have a vision, this is our land, and it will remain our land.”
Some wish to uproot Israelis not only from Judea and Samaria but “altogether from the State of Israel,” Israel’s longest-serving prime minister continued.
This campaign “has gained considerable momentum and exposure during the three years of the War of Revival,” he said, referring to the ongoing multifront war that began when thousands of Palestinian terrorists from Gaza invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The axis [led by Iran] that we broke has not yet disappeared,” Netanyahu said. “But we are determined to ensure that there will be no threat—not from the Gaza Strip, and we have done a great deal on that front; not from Lebanon, and we have done a great deal there; not from Syria—we have security zones today inside those countries.”
Netanyahu praised the Trump administration for tightening economic sanctions against those assisting the Iranian regime, describing the move as “very important.”
“We still have more challenges ahead of us. The Iranian challenge is not over yet. Wwe need to finish that challenge. In Gaza, in Lebanon, and in other arenas as well—and we are determined to do so,” he said. “We are determined to ensure, and I am determined to ensure, that there will be no threat from Iran either.”
(jns.org)
Palestinians Carrying Out Military Buildup In Violation of Oslo Accords, Raising Fears In Israel
The Palestinian Authority has developed security forces with increasingly military-style training and weaponry far beyond the policing role envisioned under the Oslo Accords, according to an Israel Hayom investigation that has highlighted Israeli concerns over a potential future confrontation in Judea and Samaria.
The report published Tuesday (25th), cites footage and open-source intelligence collected by the Behind the Scenes OSINT Cell showing Palestinian forces training with RPG-7 launchers, PKM machine guns, armored vehicles and rifles modified with telescopic sights for long-range shooting.
Training exercises documented near Jericho reportedly include urban warfare, forced entry and other infantry tactics.
Israel Hayom said Israeli political leaders are increasingly concerned about a scenario known as “the turning of the guns,” in which PA security personnel who currently coordinate with Israel, instead direct their weapons against Israeli forces or civilians.
A source familiar with recent closed-door security discussions told the newspaper that Israeli planners are no longer looking only at the possibility of another Palestinian uprising, but at a much larger military confrontation.
“You have to understand that this could happen at any moment,” the source said, adding that discussing the possibility “raises awareness and sharpens the senses of the security officials.”
The issue reportedly arose Monday (24th) when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz visited IDF Central Command headquarters for a broad assessment of security conditions in Judea and Samaria.
The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Netanyahu met with Katz, IDF Chief of Staff LTG Eyal Zamir, Central Command chief MG Avi Bluth, Military Intelligence chief MG Shlomi Binder and other senior security officials. The official statement described the meeting more generally as an assessment of “the security challenges” in the area.
According to Israel Hayom, Netanyahu and Katz specifically asked during the meeting to hear Central Command’s preparations for a scenario in which PA forces turn against Israel, including a potential confrontation requiring tanks and air support.
The Palestinian security apparatus includes several separate organizations , among them the National Security Forces, civil police, Preventive Security and Intelligence services. Estimates of its total man power vary significantly.
Israel Hayom placed the force at roughly 60,000 personnel, while a recent study by Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs estimated approximately 70,000.
The Oslo Agreements created what they explicitly described as a “strong police force” responsible for Palestinian internal security while prohibiting the establishment of other Palestinian armed forces.
They also placed restrictions on the weapons, ammunition and equipment the Palestinian police could possess. Israel retained responsibility for external security and overall security of Israelis.
Hirsch argues that the security organizations have long since evolved from that intended policing force into what he describes as a de facto army.
His study points to military style exercises, foreign training and the growth of the security services since the 1990s, warning that their location close to Israel’s largest population centers makes any future breakdown in security coordination particularly dangerous.
“Continuing to ignore the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority’s ‘terror army’ is a dangerous gamble with the lives of millions of Israelis,” Hirsch wrote. “The writing is on the wall, less than 22 kilometers from the heart of the country.”
The newspaper reported that PA officer training now includes advanced urban combat and breaching exercises, and said some courses study the security arrangements surrounding Israeli communities and military installations.
The OSINT group further documented personnel who had undergone training abroad using hostile rhetoric toward Israel, including the declaration, “”Israel will be destroyed.”
While Palestinian terror attacks have been down recently, the relative calm is precisely what some officials fear could lead Israel to underestimate a different kind of threat.
With the PA military buildup, Hirsch”s analysis draws a comparison with October 7, noting that Hamas-led attackers penetrated as far as Ofakim, approximately 22 kilometers from Gaza. By contrast, major Israeli population centers sit considerably closer to Parts of Judea and Samaria.
A Breach westward from Qalqilya, for example, would place Highway 6 and densely populated communities in central Israel only kilometers away, while an attack from Tulkarm could threaten the Sharon region. Hirsch estimates that millions of Israelis lie within 22 kilometers of PA-controlled territory.
Israeli Rescue Team Returns From Colombia After Recovering 29 Missing People
An Israeli rescue delegation returned home after a 12-day mission in Colombia, where it helped search for people missing following a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that caused extensive destruction in parts of the country.
The delegation, led by the Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command, included about 80 rescuers, engineers and other experts from the ministry’s regular and reserve forces.
The team operated at several major destruction sites in Cali, working alongside Colombian authorities, local rescue teams and international organizations to search for missing people.
According to the IDF, the delegation located and rescued 29 missing people.
“Today we can say—there are no missing people left in the city of Cali,” Home front Command chief MG Shai Klapper said at a ceremony marking the delegation’s return.
“I led a delegation imbued with a sense of mission and endless motivation to save lives, reach the trapped and missing and bring them back to their loved ones and a proper burial,” Klapper added.
In addition to search-and-rescue operations, Home Front Command engineers worked with Colombian professionals to map and classify damaged structures and assess the damage to support construction efforts.
IDF marks seven decades of global humanitarian relief efforts
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on August 10, killing at least 31 people and injuring more than 4,449. Nationwide, 240 people remained missing, according to Colombian figures.
Turkey’s Quiet Takeover Inside Syria – Shachar Kleiman
A source in Western Syria said Turkey’s footprint in the region has grown significantly more pronounced, particularly in the port cities of Latakia and Tartus. “Officials representing Turkish intelligence and the Turkish military are playing in Syria as if it were their private playground,” the Syrian source revealed. “This manifests in Turkish vehicles – some of which are armored – that soldiers are using to move around on the roads.”
Syrian agents have been brokering real estate deals in the residential districts of the two cities on behalf of Turkish businessmen. Footage broadcast in July 2026 by the Qatari network Al-Araby revealed a convoy of Turkish military trucks and armored vehicles advancing toward Deir ez Zor in eastern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Turkish forces have actively fortified their footprint, surrounding bases with concrete blast walls, defensive trenches, and earthen berms.
Turkish National Defense Ministry Spokesman Zeki Akturk announced on July 16 that Turkish Naval Forces commander Ecument Tathoglu had visited Latakia alongside a flotilla of warships, the first time Turkish naval vessels had docked there in 15 years.
Turkey’s Blood Libel Against Israel – Nadav Shragai
History has never documented a genocide carried out by shipping in medicine and running mass vaccination campaigns for the population supposedly being “annihilated.” Nor has it ever recorded a genocide carried out by building humanitarian zones or feeding the “exterminated” population in active combat zones with hundreds of thousands of tons of water, food, and medical supplies every single day, all while setting up field hospitals.
Israel poured enormous resources into evacuating Gazan residents from their homes in combat zones before the ground offensive even began, using millions of leaflets, text messages, and phone calls to warn them. None of that will spoil the blood libel Erdogan has cultivated against Israel for three years running, including the push for an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The world doesn’t hear nearly enough about the Turkish president who has turned his own country into a dark police state that has investigated or prosecuted more than 700,000 of its own citizens since 2016. Amnesty International and the UN’s Middle East committee have published detailed reports documenting torture inside Turkish detention facilities.
Add to that the extensive testimony published by the UN Human Rights Office documenting war crimes and ethnic cleansing that Turkey and the militias it backs have carried out in Kurdish residential areas.
