News Digest — 9/12/25
PM Netanyahu Signs West Bank Settlement Expansion Plan, Rules Out Palestinian State
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an “umbrella agreement” on Thursday (11th) to push ahead with a controversial settlement expansion plan that would cut across land in the West Bank.
“There will never be a Palestinian state. This place is ours, Netanyahu said during a visit to Ma’aleh Adumim in the West Bank, where thousands of new housing units would be added to an already sprawling city of some 37,000 inhabitants.
Netanyahu was joined by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Construction and Housing Minister Haim Katz, mayor Guy Yifrah, Construction and Housing Ministry Director General Yehuda Morgenstern, and other senior officials.
Under the plan, Ma’aleh Adumim’s population is expected to double. A cooperation framework developed between the Construction and Housing Ministry and the municipality aims to ensure long-term planning, high-quality infrastructure, and the successful integration of new residents.
This marks the city’s largest development plan since its establishment in 1975. Of the NIS 3 billion investment, NIS 420 million is designated for infrastructure upgrades – including roads, drainage, water, sewerage, electricity, and transportation – to support the new neighborhoods. Another NIS 340m. Will be used for building public institutions and enhancing community services in both new and older neighborhoods.
Katz said the plan represented a “historic agreement in Judea and Samaria” and aligns with his policy of boosting investment in settlements.
Next Sunday (14th), I will convene the Israel Land Council to approve the extension of the Discounted Apartment program, which will allow marketing thousands of apartments at an 80% discount in Ma’aleh Adumim, with 50% reserved for reservists and 25% for combat soldiers” he said.
“I am working to promote a government decision to expand marketing, with development subsidies for municipalities in general and for Ma’aleh Adumim in particular, with a dedicated budget of NIS 10m. Thursday’s (11th) signing joined a series of agreements we have signed recently, after a year of stagnation in the North, and the periphery, to expand the housing supply, improve the urban space, and improve service to the citizens.”
Mayor Yifrah called the agreement a pivotal moment in the city’s development. “This is the city where I was born, and this is my life’s mission – to build and lead Ma’aleh Adumim forward,” he said. “For more than 20 years, no new neighborhood has been built here, and today, in the city’s jubilee year, we are signing an historic roof agreement that grants the city an enormous horizon for growth. We will build new neighborhood , renew the older ones, invest in infrastructure and the community, and most importantly, keep this city a city of people, of spirit, and of vision.”
Morgenstern said the plan would bolster Ma’aleh Adumim’s status.
“The agreement in Ma’aleh Adumim is a significant step in strengthening housing solutions nationwide and a major move in transforming this city into an attractive, accessible, and inviting place for new populations,’ he said. ”Umbrella agreements are an important tool for the housing market, providing a comprehensive response for the local authority to both increase total marketing in the city and improve infrastructure and public spaces for residents.”
Last month, the E1 project, which would bisect the West Bank and cut it off from east Jerusalem, received final approval from a Defense Ministry planning commission.
E1 is located adjacent to Ma’aleh Adumim, and building there was frozen in 2012 and in 2020 amid objections from the US and European governments.
Western capitals and campaign groups have opposed the settlement project due to concerns that it could undermine a future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law.
Hamas Leader Khalil al-Hayya’s Absence From Son’s Funeral After Doha Strike Raises Questions About His Condition
Uncertainty surrounds the fate of senior Hamas figures on Thursday (11th), with acting Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya missing from funeral photos released by the group in Doha two days after the Israeli airstrike on its leadership compound.
Al-Hayya’s son was killed in the strike, while his wife and daughter-in-law were reported injured.
The images published by Hamas and showing Qatar’s Emir among the mourners, included senior officials Osama Hamdan and Izzat al-Rishq.
Al-Hayya, however, was absent, fueling speculation about his condition. Hamas spokesman Fozi Barhoum said that al-Hayya’s chief of staff, Jihad Labad, and three escorts were also eliminated.
He has served as acting Hamas leader in Gaza following the killing of Yahya Sinwar.
Once imprisoned in Israel and targeted multiple times, he has lived in Qatar in recent years.
His absence from his son’s funeral, and the lack of any photos or videos of him since the attack has led many to conclude he was at least seriously wounded when the Israeli Air Force fired roughly 10 missiles at his residence.
Other leaders’ whereabouts remain uncertain. Conflicting reports have circulated regarding Mohammed Darwish, Mousa Marzook, and Zahir Jabarin, while former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal was widely believed to have survived, though without public confirmation.
Some analysts suggest the officials are deliberately keeping a low profile to avoid further Israeli strikes.
Hamas quickly declared that its leaders survived, though the group had previously concealed losses for months before admitting them.
By Thursday evening (11th), none of the targeted figures had appeared publicly. Only Husam Badran issued a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz also avoided confirming any eliminations, hinting that Israel may not have fully achieved its objectives. Some officials may yet succumb to injuries sustained in the strike.
Hamas Government Docs Detail Terror Group’s Use Of Gaza Hospitals, Medical Facilities
Documents from the Hamas Ministry of Interior and National Security in Gaza, dating from 2020, have emerged that detail how the terror organization has long exploited medical facilities in the territory for military purposes.
Two documents declassified by the IDF and recently brought to public attention by the pro-Israel watchdog NGO Monitor organization, detail how Hamas has used hospitals in Gaza for its own purposes, including to shelter and harbor its operatives and leaders.
Hamas’ use of hospitals has come under increasing scrutiny amid the Gaza war, with Israel facing international condemnation for operations in and around hospitals.
International law generally prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if they are used for military purposes.
NGO Monitor argued that the ministerial documents demonstrate Hamas’ deliberate strategy of embedding its military infrastructure, fighters, and leadership within hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza, “and thereby violating international law and endangering civilian lives.”
In one document of Hamas’ Ministry of Interior and National Security dated February 25, 2020, the Gaza Interior Security Mechanism of the ministry stated that the Gaza Ministry of Health was one of the largest government agencies in the territory.
“The facilities are considered to be of interest to hostile security parties and an important source for intelligence gathering, especially in time of war, since these health facilities are a place of gathering for the wounded during times of escalation, and these wounded cases [i.e. People] hold sensitive positions in the resistance,” the document states.
“Furthermore, these health facilities are a place of gathering for numerous leaders of the [Hamas] movement and the government during times of escalation,” it added.
A Hamas tunnel underneath the European Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, was where Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was killed.
The document also contained information testifying to the presence of Hamas’ terrorist and paramilitary forces.
It was stated in the document that the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) French organization “chose the only room in Abu Yousef El-Najar Hospital that has a (safe) communication landline which belongs to the positive’s activity, in order for the MSF to work in it separately.
According to NGO Monitor, “”The positive” is a known term for Hamas’Al-Qassam Brigades, the name of the terror group’s terrorist and paramilitary forces.
A second document, dated March 17, 2020, detailed Hamas directives for limiting access to the staff of foreign humanitarian organizations in Gaza hospitals and medical facilities to prevent them from encountering Hamas operatives.
“Do not let these associations have their own locations to work inside health facilities. When a location is allocated for these associations, it shall be outside the main building of the clinic or hospital, and far away from Hamas movement locations, and only following security authorization,” the second MInister of Interior and National Security document states.
“Medical Hamas members from the Gaza Strip must join incoming delegations, whether the delegations work in hospitals or their own locations,” the document adds.
The MInistry of Interior and national Security documents also detailed how Hamas requires extensive pre-approval procedures for foreign medical organizations, and imposes ongoing surveillance of these personnel “to ensure compliance and prevent exposure of Hamas activities,” NGO Monitor said.
“The internal Hamas documents reviewed in this report expose a systematic Hamas strategy to militarize Gaza’s healthcare system, using hospitals and medical facilities as extensions of its military and security apparatus,” NGO Monitor stated.
“Medical centers in Gaza are not merely spaces of treatment, but rather they serve as hubs for Hamas leadership, gathering points for operatives, safe rooms for wounded terrorists, and locations for secure communications infrastructure.”
“This arrangement is fundamentally inconsistent with the principle of medical neutrality in Gaza, transforming humanitarian spaces into dual-use facilities that serve both medical and military purposes.”
Hamas Fights For Power Built On A Mountain Of Corpses – Salem Alketbi
Anyone who examines the rhetoric of Hamas will quickly discover it is a project of organized death. It is a system that turns blood into political currency and suicide into a collective identity. Hamas was built on the lethal formula: “If you kill, you are a hero; if you are killed, you are a martyr in heaven.” This equation leaves no room for an ordinary person to choose their own life, dignity, or future. In their world, a hero is one who blows himself up among others because he is guaranteed a direct path to heaven.
The true tragedy of this dark and regressive ideology is that death is an absolute obligation. Followers must either kill or be killed. Every tragedy is turned into publicity. A grieving mother is not left to mourn; she is forced to stand heroically before the cameras, shouting that her sons are all potential martyrs. A widow is turned into a symbol of piety and endurance.
As for the children, their fate is predetermined. They are the “cubs of the cause,” and their next step is not toward school but down the path to another death. In essence, Hamas operates death factories, producing the dead while preparing the living to be their ready replacements.
Hamas invests in the business of death, which it sells to the gullible and the deluded. The more corpses pile up, the higher Hamas’ political stock rises. For Hamas, victory is not peace. It is the rising death toll. This perverse logic desecrates the sanctity of human life. Hamas is fighting for power built on a mountain of corpses. It is not liberating a people; it is bleeding them dry.
The writer is a UAE political analyst.
Israel Is Remaking The Map – Abe Greenwald
In the pre-Oct. 7 world, legitimate governments let terrorists kill a little, then hide a little, negotiate a little, and kill a little more. Israel was expected to play along. In the world being born, Israel kills terrorists, wherever they are. This is to be a world of greater moral coherence, swifter justice, and more enduring security – a saner, more civilized world.
You can board flotillas, declare phantom states, boycott companies, publish blood libels and propaganda images, blackball artists, re-litigate the entire history of the 20th century, and even attack Jews on the street. But none of it will stop the proud men and women of Israel from ridding the world of your terrorist heroes.
Instead of Israel being “erased from the map,” as Iran’s leaders have long promised, Israel is redrawing the map and erasing its enemies as it goes along. In taking out its enemies, Israel is also taking out enemies of the U.S.
I no longer feel compelled to defend Israel for anything it’s done since October 7, 2023. If you find yourself defending the very idea of Israel’s survival, you’re wasting precious breath. You’re having an argument that doesn’t matter. The only argument that matters is the one Israel is making in the skies and on the battlefield, because eliminating terrorist organizations and terror sponsors is a win for decency and humanity.
I’m praising Israel for its strength and clarity, and for its steadfast vision of a world that refuses to accept terrorists as anything but targets in a gun sight.
The writer is the executive editor of Commentary
