Iran says it targeted base that enabled overnight US attack on Bandar Abbas airport * IDF says it launched strikes targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanese coastal town of Tyre
By ToI StaffToday, 4:00 am
A US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet launches from the flight deck aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in the Middle East, in a photo released May 20, 2026. (US Navy photo)
IDF announces senior Hamas moneyman killed in Gaza strike this week
An airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip earlier this week killed a senior Hamas moneyman, the IDF announces.
The Tuesday strike in Khan Younis killed Ihab Khrizim, who the military says headed a central network for transferring funds to Hamas. The strike also killed IDF Mohammed al-Habash, a commander in Hamas’s weapons production headquarters, according to the IDF.
Khrizim was responsible for “managing the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas’s military wing,” and recently, he “continued to violate the ceasefire agreement,” as his actions enabled Hamas to advance attacks on troops and Israeli civilians, the IDF says.
The IDF says his killing “constitutes a significant blow to the rehabilitation and force-building efforts of the Hamas terror organization.”
IDF detains 7 Palestinian terror suspects across West Bank; some accused of planning imminent attacks
By Stav Levaton
Troops from the IDF’s Duvdevan commando unit under the direction of the Shin Bet arrested five Palestinian terror suspects in a series of operations across the West Bank over the past two days, including one accused of planning an attack in the immediate future, the military says.
According to the IDF, the suspect was detained in Jenin.
In a separate raid in the village of Zeita, troops arrested a Hamas-affiliated suspect accused of “advancing terror activity.”
The IDF says three additional suspects were arrested in the Qalandiya and Al-Bireh areas, including one armed operative accused of incitement and another involved in assembling explosive devices.
Separately, undercover Border Police officers operating under Shin Bet direction arrested two additional Palestinian suspects overnight in Nablus who were also allegedly planning to carry out an attack imminently.
According to the IDF, the undercover forces surrounded the building where the suspects were hiding and negotiated their surrender before arresting them.
All of the suspects were transferred to security forces for further questioning, the military says.
At least 15 students dead after fire at girls’ school in Kenya, police say
By Reuters
A fire tore through a dormitory at a girls’ school in a town in Kenya’s Rift Valley overnight, killing at least 15 students, police say.
An unknown number of students were also injured at Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in Gilgil in Nakuru County, the Gilgil Police Station says in a report seen by Reuters. The cause of the fire was not known, it says.
Footage aired by Citizen Television shows broken window panes and smoke-stained walls.
Kenya has a long history of school fires, with more than 60 cases of arson in public secondary schools recorded in 2018 alone, according to government data. Many of the fires have been set by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions, researchers have found.
Masoud Mwinyi, a senior police commander, tells reporters at the school that 50 officers were combing areas around the school for students who may have fled when the fire broke out.
“Of that shock and fear and anxiety, many people went out, and it was at night,” he says.Share
Health ministry reports no current Ebola cases in Israel following outbreak in DRC
Following the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with nearly 1,000 cases and over 200 deaths reported since May 5, the Health Ministry urges the public to avoid non-essential travel to areas where there is an outbreak.
The ministry says that there has never been a case of Ebola in Israel as far as is known. There is also no known spread of the virus outside of Africa, except for patients who were flown securely to receive medical treatment in Europe and the US.
Ebola is a lethal infectious disease with high fatality rates, transmitted primarily through direct contact with a symptomatic patient or with blood, secretions, and body fluids.
The ministry says that travelers who have returned from areas with an Ebola outbreak and develop a fever or other unusual symptoms within 21 days of their return are asked to avoid contact with others and contact a medical professional immediately by phone.Share
AG calls on High Court to overturn appointment of Gofman as new Mossad chief
From L to R: Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, September 30, 2025. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90); Incoming Mossad head Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman arrives at the Knesset, in Jerusalem on February 5, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara accuses the appointments committee that reapproved the selection of Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as new Mossad chief of ignoring key facts in the case, asserting that Gofman’s actions in a controversial incident from 2022 constitute a “substantial blemish” on his ethical conduct and saying that the High Court of Justice should therefore annul his appointment.
The Senior Appointments Advisory Committee reapproved Gofman’s appointment on Tuesday 3-1 after the High Court ordered the committee to hear and review new evidence and testimony that it failed to obtain when it first approved Gofman’s appointment in April.
But in her response to the committee’s decision sent to the court this morning, Baharav-Miara states that the new evidence and testimony the committee reviewed shows Gofman was aware that the IDF’s 210th Division he commanded in 2022 had used blogger Ori Elmakayes in an influence operation, and that Gofman failed to intervene on Elmakayes’s behalf after he was wrongfully arrested and indicted on espionage charges as a result of his work with Gofman’s division.
The attorney general says that the committee ignored the critical new evidence it reviewed after the court order, essentially accusing the committee majority of seeking to appoint Gofman regardless of the facts of the case.
“Even after the majority of the committee members were given an opportunity to review the examination process it conducted, they failed,” writes Baharav-Miara.
“The opinion of the committee majority ignores some of the real-time testimonies and documents, which have significant weight for understanding the matter, and includes ‘inaccuracies,’ as the committee chair said,” adds the attorney general in reference to retired Supreme Court president Asher Grunis who voted against immediately approving Gofman’s appointment and in favor of further clarifying the affair.Share
British Museum postpones Jewish Culture Month lecture on Ancient Israel and Judah due to security concerns
The British Museum in London has postponed a lecture on “Ancient Israel and Judah in the British Museum,” scheduled for today to celebrate Jewish Culture Month, due to security concerns, according to the museum’s statement.
Paul Collins, Keeper of the Department of the Middle East, was supposed to give an hourlong talk on how “the histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah can be illuminated by the archaeology and art of the wider ancient Middle East,” focusing on the artifacts preserved in the museum.
The museum says the event will take place at an unspecified later date.
“In recent days, we were informed that a significant proportion of registered attendees were individuals intending to deliberately disrupt the event, preventing others from participating in good faith and undermining the purpose of the programme,” the statement reads.
“The British Museum fully recognises the importance of lawful protest and freedom of expression in a democratic society,” it adds. “Equally, we have a responsibility to ensure that events hosted within the Museum can proceed safely, securely and without intimidation for speakers, staff and visitors alike.”
The museum pledges to continue supporting Jewish Culture Month.
In recent months, the British Museum has been at the center of a controversy regarding the use of the term Palestine and Palestinian in some of its displays.Share
Drone sirens sound in northern town near Lebanese border
By Stav Levaton
Sirens sound in the northern community of Shtula near the Lebanese border, warning of a suspected Hezbollah drone infiltration.
The IDF says the details are under review.Share
Australian police charge Melbourne woman accused of traveling to Syria to join Islamic State
By AP
An Australian woman has been charged with traveling to Syria and joining the Islamic State group, Australian Federal police say.
The 34-year-old woman was arrested at her Melbourne home eight months after she returned to Australia via Lebanon with another woman, Australia Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec says.
The arrest comes two days after seven women and 12 children linked to IS returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp against the wishes of the Australian government.
Three weeks ago, four women and nine children in similar circumstances returned from the same Roj camp for displaced people, which is located near the area where the frontiers of Syria, Turkey and Iraq converge. Three of the four women were charged on arrival with slavery and terrorism offenses and remain in custody.
All the women who returned from Syria this month remained under police investigation. Another woman, who accompanied the woman charged Thursday to Australia from Lebanon, also was under investigation, Sirec says.
A period of time passing without charges does indicate investigations have ceased, Sirec notes.
The woman most recently arrested in Melbourne is expected to appear today in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on a charge of entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone. She also has been charged with joining a terrorist organization, ISIS. Each charge carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Police allege she traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 to join ISIS. She was captured by Kurdish forces in March 2019 after IS fighters were defeated and placed in al-Hol camp for displaced people.
She returned to Australia on Sept. 26, police allege.Share
Israel reportedly cutting ties with UN chief Guterres over inclusion on sexual violence list
United National Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends an event to mark the end of the UN political mission in Baghdad, Iraq, December 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon says Jerusalem is freezing cooperation with the office of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres over a decision to place Israel on a list of sexual violence in conflict zone offenders, the Ynet news site reports.
In a tweet, Danon slams the alleged addition of Israel, which has not been announced by the UN, calling it a “political decision” and “disconnected from facts and from reality.”
A UN report released by Gutteress’s office in July 2025 included Hamas on its list of “parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict.” The move followed a finding by Special Representative Pramila Patten that the terror group engaged in systematic sexual violence during the October 7, 2023, attack and against hostages held in Gaza.
According to Ynet, Israel believes the decision to include Hamas sparked pressure on Turtle Bay to also include Israel. The latest annual report on sexual violence in conflict zones has yet to be made public.
“Anyone able to include Israel on the same list as the terrorists and rapists of Hamas has no moral standing to seek cooperation,” Danon says, according to Ynet.
He adds that Israel “will wait for a professional and fair secretary general to enter office.”
Guterres is slated to end his term at the end of the year.Share
IRGC says it targeted US base in retaliation for strikes, as ceasefire teeters
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted an American base on Thursday in retaliation for US strikes on the country’s south, Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB reports.
“Following this morning’s aggression by the invading US military against a location on the outskirts of Bandar Abbas Airport using aerial projectiles, the American air base that served as the source of the attack was targeted at 4:50 am (0120 GMT),” the IRGC says, according to IRIB.
It does not provide details of the location of the base, though Kuwait, a US ally, said it was responding to missile and drone attacks on Thursday morning.
The back-and-forth challenges the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran, four days after US President Donald Trump claimed a deal extending the truce by 60 days was nearly complete.
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