News Digest — 9/14/26
In New Year Greeting, Netanyahu Thanked Trump For “Historic Progress” In Curbing Iran In The Year Ahead
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday (11th) extended a Shana Tova – a happy New Year – to U.S. President Donald Trump, his family, and the American people.
“Over the past year, the United States and Israel have achieved historic progress together. Iran and the axis of evil are weaker than ever, while the U.S.-Israel alliance is stronger than ever.”
The premier congratulated the president on “his blockade of Iran’s evil regime and on the economic pressure brought to bear against the world’s greatest source of instability.
“The people of Israel stand with the people of the United States and with President Trump in confronting the forces of terror,” Netanyahu continued. “In the year ahead, we will continue to make the world safer for all.”
Trump on Saturday (12th) defended his decision to go to war against Iran, saying that if the regime in Tehran acquired nuclear weapons, it would target Israel and the entire Middle East as well as Europe.
“They were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon,” said Trump. “If they had it they would have blown up Israel, they would have blown up the Middle East, and they would have hit some European cities… and they would probably hit us too before we put out the fire.”
(jns.org)
Some 250 Jews Said To Visit Temple Mount With Police On 2nd Day Of Rosh Hashanah
Some 250 Jews visited the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday (13th) the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, according to Palestinian media.
The Palestinian Authority’s official Wafa news agency reported that some of the visitors “performed Talmudic rituals,” likely meaning they were performing religious practices of praying under heavy police protection.
Some of the Jewish visitors also “raised Israeli flags” on the Mount, according to the English-language Saudi outlet Arab News.
Non-Muslim prayer had until recently been forbidden atop the Temple Mount – known in Islam as Haram al-Sharif – due to a string of agreements generally known as the “status quo” between Israel and Jordan, which administers the site through the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.
Under the status quo, only Muslims are permitted to worship on the Temple Mount itself, while Jews pray at the Western Wall, revered as a remnant of the Second Temple. Israel maintains overall security at the site, but the Islamic Waqf administers religious activities there.
In the past , police would eject or detain Jewish visitors caught praying at the site, but the policy has largely fallen by the wayside over the past several years under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who has repeatedly demanded that police allow Jews to pray there.
The hotly disputed site is the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, and is believed to be the location of both ancient Jewish temples. Since the 7th century, it has housed the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine. Conflicts around the site have sparked several rounds of violence in the region.
Jordan, in a statement released by its foreign ministry, alleged that for the duration of the Jewish visit to the Temple Mount on Sunday (13th), Muslim worshipers were prevented from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in what it said was a “flagrant violation of the historical and legal status quo” at the site.
Despite the formal changes to Israel’s policy on Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount in recent years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently insisted that “Israel’s policy of maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed and will not change.”
Upcoming Round Of Israel-Lebanon Talks Delayed From Next Week Until October – US Official
The next round of US-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon has been pushed off until next month, a State Department official said Saturday (12th).
The next round was supposed to take place next week in Rome but now will be held in October, the official said, adding that the two countries’ ambassadors will still meet at the State Department to discuss implementing the framework deal meant to disarm the Hezbollah terror group and phase the IDF out of southern Lebanon.
Scheduling conflicts led to the delay, an Israeli official said, though the development suggested slowing momentum amid Israel’s upcoming elections and Hezbollah’s refusal to comply.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun confirmed “there are no new talks with Israel at the present time,” according to comments carried by local media from a trip he made Saturday (12th) to south Lebanon’s Nabatieh with the commander of Lebanon’s armed forces.
The postponement comes after a Lebanese official told The Times of Israel this week that “indiscriminate” IDF strikes in southern Lebanon were undermining Beirut’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah, while Jerusalem argued that the Lebanese Armed Forces is not yet up for the task.
Israel says its strikes target Hezbollah members and infrastructure, including weapons depots intended for attacks on Israel.
Jerusalem has generally defended the destruction in parts of southern Lebanon by arguing that Hezbollah has riddled many of the villages along Israel’s northern border with tunnels and other terror infrastructure.
Hezbollah again drew Lebanon into the broader Middle East conflict in March by launching rockets and drones at Israel in support of its sponsor Iran, which had come under attack by a US-Israeli air campaign. Israel responded to the Hezbollah attacks with a heavy air campaign and ground invasion.
Fighting has persisted despite a ceasefire declared in Lebanon in April, but at a reduced rate. Israeli forces continue to operate inside a self- declared “security zone,” which runs around six miles deep inside Lebanese territory along the border.
In June, Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement committing Lebanon to restoring sovereignty over its territory through the “verified disarmament of non-state armed groups,” which would in turn enable a progressive Israeli withdrawal. The State of Lebanon, along with Israel and the US, signed the agreement, but Hezbollah and its allies are opposed to it.
Israel pulled forces out of three pilot zones into which the Lebanese army entered, but has said it will not carry out any further withdrawals before Hezbollah is disarmed.
On Thursday (10th), the IDF said it had demolished a “strategic” underground facility belonging to Hezbollah beneath a mountainous ridge in southern Lebanon.
The Ali Taher Ridge is located within Israel’s southern Lebanon buffer zone, near Nabatieh. According to the Israeli Defense Forces, the tunnel systems under Ali Taher served as the “nerve center” of the terror group’s Badr regional division—a unit tasked with the area of southern Lebanon that is north of the Litani River.
Germany Charges Seven Suspected Hamas Terrorists Over Planned Attacks In Berlin, Vienna
German authorities on Friday (11th) charged seven suspected members of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas over a plot to carry out coordinated attacks in Berlin and Vienna on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.
According to Germany’s federal prosecutors, Hamas operatives had planned to carry out attacks simultaneously or in close succession around October 7 last year, targeting Israeli and Jewish interests in the two European capitals on the second anniversary of the terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel.
German officials uncovered an international weapons-procurement network that moved pistols, automatic rifles, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition through Denmark, Germany, and Austria, with Israeli diplomats, Jewish community centers, and pro-Israel demonstrations identified as key targets.
Now the seven men remain in pre-trial detention, accused of procuring weapons for future attacks in Europe, belonging to a foreign terrorist organization, and taking part in preparations for acts of violence endangering the state.
As part of a months-long probe into the terrorist group’s activities, German authorities determined that Hamas operatives in Lebanon played a key role in directing this weapons network, overseeing procurement channels that linked members of the operation across Europe.
Investigators traced the weapons to two separate routes across Europe, with one leading to the cache in Berlin and the other taking handguns and ammunition from Copenhagen through Berlin before reaching Vienna, where they were hidden in a rented storage unit with clothing and other equipment.
Local law enforcement managed to arrest three suspects in Berlin just six days before the planned attacks, intercepting them during the handover of a weapons cache allegedly prepared for the operation.
According to court documents obtained by German newspaper Welt, one of the suspects filmed a claim-of-responsibility video in August 2025, threatening revenge attacks in Europe in the name of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing.
Expected to be one of Germany’s most significant terrorism trials in years, the case is now before the state-security division of Berlin’s biggest state court, placing the Hamas plot under intense judicial and public scrutiny.
Earlier this year, four men were sentenced to prison in Berlin for operating a covert Hamas weapons-stockpiling network across Europe in preparation for potential terrorist attacks—a landmark ruling marking the first time a German court convicted members of the Palestinian terrorist group under the country’s terrorism laws.
The court determined the men, aged 36 to 58 had acted as foreign operatives of the al-Qassam Brigades and had already helped establish several firearms caches across Europe, sentencing them to four and a half to six years in prison for membership in a foreign terrorist organization and related charges.
German authorities found the stockpiles were meant for attacks on Israeli, Jewish, or other targets across Europe over an extended period, with sites discovered in multiple countries, including Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and Denmark.
Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.
In recent months, German authorities have arrested several more suspects tied to Hamas arms-procurement efforts, with the weapons said to be intended for attacks on Israeli or Jewish sites in Germany and across Europe.
In November, federal prosecutors uncovered and arrested a suspected Hamas terrorist cell with at least five members accused of plotting attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets.
Hamas has repeatedly denied any connection to these criminal networks, calling the allegations of its involvement “baseless.”
However, experts have warned that the group has expanded its terrorist operations beyond the Middle East, exploiting a well-established network of weapons caches, criminal alliances, and covert infrastructure quietly built across Europe over the years.
Europe Joins The Boycott Israel Crowd – Editorial
Britain has banned imports of Israeli goods from the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, plus sanctions on anyone facilitating new construction. France and Canada plan similar measures.
That’s curious. If Israeli communities were the issue, Israel’s removal of every community from Gaza in 2005 should have helped. Instead Gazans voted in Hamas. The Palestinians have been destroying the two-state solution by showing Israel that any territory it relinquishes will be used to launch wars and pogroms.
Israel offered the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Gaza in 2000-2001. They turned it down and launched a terrorist intifada, then rejected it again in 2008. What they keep saying, (but the likes of Mr. Miliband refuses to hear) is that the Palestinians won’t live in peace alongside a Jewish state, even in Tel Aviv, which they consider a settlement. Yet Britain, Canada, and France have only carrots for the Palestinian side. They subsidize the Palestinian Authority, a dictatorship that still awards “pay-for-slay” salaries to terrorists who murder Jews.
The sanctions’ impetus is supposedly Israel’s plan to build in E1, an area in the Jerusalem suburbs. This is an excuse – E1 stayed Israeli in the 2000 peace proposal negotiated by Bill Clinton.
This is an attack on Israel, its economy and sovereignty, as a whole. Any Israeli bank that finances a mortgage for a Jew in eastern Jerusalem or its suburbs could now face sanctions. It also threatens U.S. firms. Under federal law warding off foreign coercion, U.S. firms are forbidden from cooperating with such a boycott.
It’s the European way for now: The Palestinians start wars, they lose and won’t make peace, but the Europeans punish Israel to pressure it to make land-for-war concessions anyway.
(wsj.com)
