Top News
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August 18, 2026
A Syrian army checkpoint stands abandoned near the Abu al-Duhur military airport, east of Idlib, after Syrian opposition fighters took control of the area on December 7, 2024. (AP/Omar Albam)The runway of a military airport in northwestern Syria was targeted by unidentified fighter jets overnight Monday, with Damascus blaming Israel for the airstrike and the United States denouncing Israel for the attack.
“Israeli occupation aircraft early this morning targeted the runway of the Abu Duhur military airport… with eight strikes,” Syrian state television quoted an unidentified military source as saying, adding that “the attack resulted in material damage to the airport’s infrastructure, without causing casualties.”
There was no official comment from Israel on the reports, though a senior Israeli official told US media Tuesday that Israel notified the US before the strike, and shared “highly sensitive intelligence” related to the incident, without elaborating.
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August 18, 2026
A map posted by US President Donald Trump, showing the Strait of Hormuz as a "New US Territory," August 18, 2026. (photo: Via Truth Social)US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that no talks with Iran are under way or scheduled, as he posted a map showing the Strait of Hormuz as a new American territory in a fresh jibe at Tehran.
“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
A day earlier, Fox News said Trump had confirmed to the network that the US had a backchannel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that officials in Washington were speaking directly with IRGC officials.
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August 18, 2026
The first members of the International Stabilization Force, accompanied by other international personnel, have entered the Gaza Strip to prepare for reconstruction work in areas under Israeli military control beyond the “yellow line,” according to footage released Tuesday by Israeli groups Tzav 9 and the Otef Israel Forum.
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August 18, 2026
(screenshot: via OpenSourceIntel)According to the Syrian official, Air Force fighter jets struck a runway and abandoned warehouses. The official further noted that there were no casualties and that the damage was strictly material. Subsequently, a Syrian military official told the Al-Araby channel that the Israeli strike overnight Tuesday at the airfield in Idlib occurred one day after a visit by a Turkish military delegation to the area.
A senior Israeli official told Fox News' Trey Yingst that "Highly sensitive intelligence was shared with the United States in advance, at the most senior levels of the various agencies and bodies." According to Yingst, the official added that "Al-Sharaa understands that he cannot operate like the previous Syrian regime, which maintained proxy forces. It's possible that he didn't understand what was going on, or didn't know."
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August 17, 2026
Left to right: White House adviser Jared Kushner, Board of Peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP, Chaim Goldberg/ FLASH90)Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted during a meeting Monday with envoys from the White House and the US-backed Board of Peace that Israel would not redeploy any of its forces in Gaza or allow reconstruction to begin until the Strip was completely disarmed, a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel.
“The agreement was that there would be no redeployment or reconstruction until Hamas is disarmed throughout Gaza,” the official said of the premier’s four-hour meeting with Trump aide Jared Kushner and Board of Peace officials Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair.
According to a CNN report, citing an Israeli source familiar with the discussions, Kushner pressed Netanyahu during the lengthy meeting to “not create obstacles” to the implementation of the Board’s 15-point plan for disarming Hamas and moving toward the second and reconstruction-focused phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan.
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August 17, 2026
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August 16, 2026
US envoy Jared Kushner (left) and Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya (right) in a photo montage. (photos: Fabrice Coffrini, AFP; Khalil Hamra, AP)US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner met with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in the Egyptian coastal city of El-Alamein on Sunday, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel, even as Israel kept up strikes targeting terror groups in the Strip.
Kushner was joined by Board of Peace senior envoys Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair, as well as top diplomats from Mideast mediating countries Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.
Sunday’s meeting was Kushner’s first with Hayya and other Hamas officials since October 2025, when he sat down with them for the first time to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel.
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August 16, 2026
US President Donald Trump listens, as his son-in-law Jared Kushner speaks, during the inaugural Board of Peace meeting at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, US, February 19, 2026. (photo credit: KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS)US envoy Jared Kushner, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and Gazan Board of Peace (BoP) Director-General Nikolay Mladenov met with a Hamasdelegation in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the implementation of the BoP’s 15-point roadmap for the Gaza Strip, a source familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post.
The source stated that the objective of the meeting was to translate the steps outlined in Mladenov’s roadmap into concrete, verifiable actions aimed at maintaining the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and removing Hamas from power in Gaza.
The meeting also covered the transfer of all governing responsibilities in the strip to the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) and deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF). -
August 15, 2026
FIRST ON FOX: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday directed a review of state grants to entities operating two major Texas airports over religious accommodations after Dallas Fort Worth International Airport said it would no longer move forward with a proposal to install Islamic washing stations.
Abbott said the state will review grants to entities operating DFW and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston for possible revocation and denial of future funding. He also referred both airports to the U.S. Department of Transportation for investigation.
"Government-owned airports cannot favor one religion over all others," Abbott wrote on X Friday. "DFW plans to install Islamic wudu washing facilities are illegal. I've directed a review of all state grants to both airports for possible revocation, and referred DFW & IAH to USDOT for investigation.
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August 15, 2026
US President Donald Trump reacts as he speaks to the media with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent behind him, on the day of a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. (photo: Umit Bektas, Reuters)US President Donald Trump said Friday that he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory, following a Truth Social post on Wednesday in which he said of the waterway, "I think we will keep it."
"Pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States," Trump told a crowd at a Garden City, New York, event honoring police.
Trump said the declaration would come "after we [the US] finish defeating Iran," which he described as being "very badly defeated."
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August 14, 2026
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August 14, 2026
The goal of a Kushner visit to Israel will be to "find a pathway to move forward with implementation of the 20 point plan" that Trump put forward for Gaza in late 2025, the source added.
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August 13, 2026
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August 13, 2026
Palestinians in Khan Younis, the southern Gaza Strip, August 12, 2026. (Abed Rahim Khatib/FLASH90)The Board of Peace on Wednesday denied that there is any “financial agreement” with Hamas, after the Kan public broadcaster reported that the body agreed to cover $400 million of Hamas’s debt to outside parties as part of its roadmap for the terror group’s disarmament.
Instead, the sum earmarked in the disarmament plan will be used to pay severance to Hamas civil servants who don’t end up being hired by the new Palestinian technocratic government meant to run the territory, an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.
“The claims that there is a financial agreement between the Board of Peace and Hamas are false,” Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov wrote in Hebrew on X on Wednesday. “No such proposal was discussed, negotiated, or considered, and it will not be on the table in the future either.”
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August 12, 2026
US forces operating in the Strait of Hormuz, July 17, 2026. (photo credit: Screenshot/X/@PeteHegseth)US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States is in control of the Strait of Hormuz.
"The USA has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, 'A WALL OF STEEL,' and there is nothing Iran can do about it," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
"They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their 'Leadership' is uncertain, at best!" Trump continued. "They have No Money - Their country is “shot.” All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer." -
August 12, 2026
The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse is one of two total solar eclipses to cross Spain during 2026-2027.
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August 11, 2026
The seal of the United States Department of State is seen in Washington, US, January 26, 2017. (photo credit: REUTERS)The US State Department is requesting that US embassies in the Middle Eastdevelop “reduced operations” plans, as the conflict with Iran shows no immediate signs of resolution, according to a CNN report published on Wednesday.
Sources have informed CNN that, although plans have not been finalized, the State Department has encouraged US embassy staff to reduce both their assignments and staff numbers. There is a general expectation that officials do not anticipate returning to normal staffing levels in the region anytime soon.
However, reports indicate that the State Department has yet to determine whether all affected posts will implement these changes.
Headline News
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August 19, 2026
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Israel News
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White House News
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August 19, 2026
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August 19, 2026
Provocative Commentary
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August 19, 2026
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August 19, 2026
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August 18, 2026
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August 18, 2026
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August 17, 2026
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August 17, 2026
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August 16, 2026
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August 16, 2026
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August 15, 2026
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August 15, 2026
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August 14, 2026
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August 14, 2026
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August 13, 2026
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August 12, 2026

“The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day.”
― E.M. Bounds

