KOENIG

Two gunmen shot dead at least 11 people on Sunday at a Hanukkah event being held at Sydney’s Bondi Beach to mark the first night of the Jewish holiday, Australian authorities said, in one of the deadliest attacks targeting Jews outside Israel in decades and the worst on Jews abroad since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Jewish leaders in Australia and Israeli officials described the deadly shooting as an outgrowth of rising antisemitism globally since October 7, 2023, with many accusing the Australian government of doing too little to protect the country’s Jewish community.

Australian officials declared the incident a terror attack, and the country’s prime minister vowed to “eradicate” antisemitism.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday labeled the attack during the lighting of the first Hanukkah candle in Sydney as “pure anti-Semitism,” hours after initially condemning the violence without specifically referencing the Jewish community.

In his first statement, Albanese said: “The scenes in Bondi are shocking and disturbing. My thoughts are with everyone who has been affected,” omitting mention of the Jewish community targeted.

Israeli authorities are investigating whether state actors, chiefly Iran, were involved in the mass shooting attack against Sydney’s Jewish community at Bondi Beach on Sunday.

Iran is reportedly dissatisfied with the performance of Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem and is preparing to reorganize the group’s leadership, potentially removing him from his position, according to a report by Emirati outlet Erem News citing senior Lebanese diplomatic sources.

If Israel should apologize for attacking Hamas terrorists in Qatar, then the U.S. should apologize for killing arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in a video released on Thursday.

“If that’s the new standard, then the United States must apologize for going after Osama bin Laden while he was in Pakistan being protected by the Pakistanis. Once again, we can’t apply a different standard to Israel than we do to every other nation,” Huckabee remarked in an address at the Friends of Zion Museum, an institution in downtown Jerusalem dedicated to Christian Zionists and their contributions to the Jewish state.

The diplomat rejected claims that Israel attacked the country of Qatar. “It did not,” he stressed. “It did, in fact, send a missile to attack a terrorist who had been partly responsible for the murder of Israeli citizens—but it did not attack the country.

Top Hamas commander Raad Saad was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Saturday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces said, in an escalatory move that Israel claimed was a response to violations of a ceasefire by the terror group.

Saad, head of Hamas’s weapons manufacturing headquarters and one of the architects of the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, was one of the few remaining members of Hamas’s top military brass in the Gaza Strip and was considered only second to the terror group’s latest military chief, Izz al-Din Haddad. Sunday marks 800 days since the Hamas attack.

The strike hit a vehicle traveling along the coastal Rashid Road, on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line, according to Palestinian media, which reported four people killed and over 20 injured.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi currently has no plans to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a government official familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, amid reports that the Israeli premier is actively seeking such a sit-down.

Egypt has fumed at Israel for a host of issues in recent months that remain unresolved, accordingly decreasing the chances that Sissi will meet Netanyahu any time soon, despite interest in Jerusalem and Washington in making such a summit happen, the official said.

Throughout the Gaza war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, Cairo warned Israel against military operations that would push Palestinians southwards in the Strip toward Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, viewing such a possibility as a red line and a national security threat.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will travel to Washington, DC, sometime this month to meet with his US counterpart, President Donald Trump, The National, a UAE state-owned daily newspaper, reported on Friday.

Sisi may also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which will reportedly be hosted by Trump.

Subjects to be discussed at the meeting between the US and Egyptian leaders include Egypt's diplomatic relationship with Israel in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza.

The U.S. is preparing to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil following the seizure of a tanker this week, as it increases pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, six sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The seizure was the first interdiction of an oil cargo or tanker from Venezuela, which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2019. It came as the U.S. executes a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean and as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes for Maduro's ouster.

Further direct interventions by the U.S. are expected in the coming weeks targeting ships carrying Venezuelan oil that may also have transported oil from other countries targeted by U.S. sanctions, such as Iran, according to the sources familiar with the matter who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

US forces seized a Chinese cargo headed to Iran, as part of an operation to disrupt the rearming of Iranian regime forces, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The ship was boarded on the Indian Ocean a month ago, with military equipment being seized, officials revealed to the US newspaper.

The previously undisclosed operation occured near the coast of Sri Lanka, with US operatives tracking the weapons shipment and intercepting it before letting the vessel continue on its way.

Israel isn’t the world’s most popular country, except when it comes to military hardware. A country the size of New Jersey is now the world’s eighth-largest arms exporter with a record-breaking $15 billion in sales in 2024.

Behind Britain, but ahead of Turkey and South Korea in foreign arms sales, governments are flocking to Israel to buy battle-tested weapons, especially rockets from its vaunted Iron Dome missile defense system.

Europe accounts for most of the sales — Germany and Finland being the largest, but India, Thailand and Greece are buyers as well. Even Muslim majority countries — Morocco, the UAE and Bahrain — buy missiles, drones and cybersecurity systems from the Jewish state.

The record sales come as Israel unveils its latest weapon. The Iron Beam is a laser capable of knocking out incoming missiles, mortar rounds and drones up to 6 miles away for as little as $2 per interception. By contrast, interceptor missiles typically cost anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million apiece.

(photo: Magen David Adom)

Several Israelis were injured, and at least one was found dead as Storm Byron made landfall in Israel throughout Thursday, with severe flooding and heavy winds recorded across Israel.

Severe flooding along highways and roads in central Israel saw drivers trapped in their vehicles, with Magen David Adom (MDA) saying its paramedics were sent to the scenes of flooding to help evacuate those stuck on the roads amid heavy storms.

At least 14 Israelis were rescued from vehicles stuck in eight severe flooding hotspots across Yavne, according to the Fire and Rescue Service. The local municipality declared a state of emergency amid the heavy floods.

Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu, seen in September 2024. (photo: CC-BY-Liu Shu fu, Office of the Taiwanese President, Flickr)

Taiwan’s high-profile Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu made a previously unpublicized visit to Israel recently, three sources familiar with the trip told Reuters, at a time when Taiwan is looking to Jerusalem for defense cooperation.

Taiwan has few formal diplomatic ties due to pressure from Beijing, which views the island as one of its provinces and not a country. Like most other countries, Israel only officially recognizes Beijing and not Taipei, and while senior Taiwanese diplomats do travel abroad, trips to countries such as Israel are rare.

Still, Taiwan views Israel as an important democratic partner and offered strong support to the country after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel and subsequent war in Gaza, and since then, there has been an increased level of engagement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) discussed their “mutual commitment” to countering radical Islam and advancing Middle East peace during a meeting in Washington on Tuesday, according to a readout from Jerusalem.

“Always good to meet, dear friend,” Jerusalem’s top diplomat stated. “We appreciate the Senator’s friendship and unwavering support for Israel!”

The conversation with Graham was one of several diplomatic meetings Sa’ar convened with lawmakers during his Tuesday visit to Capitol Hill.

A coast guard boat of the Venezuelan Navy operates off the Caribbean coast on the day Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro says that Venezuela would deploy military, police, and civilian defenses at 284 "battlefront" locations across Venezuela, amid heightened tensions with the US, Sept. 11, 2025.
(photo: Juan Carlos Hernandez, Reuters)

The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, three officials told Reuters on Wednesday, a move that raised oil prices and may further inflame tensions between Washington and Caracas.

US President Donald Trump confirmed the seizure.

Trump has also ordered a massive US military build-up in the region, including an aircraft carrier, fighter jets, and tens of thousands of troops.

Middle East Peace: Man’s Plan vs God’s Plan. We are joined by Bill Koenig (Founder, World Watch Daily; White House Correspondent). Topics discussed include: The Current Framework. God’s Framework for Peace. The Trump Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi Concerns. Gaza Phase 2. 

The legislative leaders of the Knesset and the U.S. House of Representatives officially began their campaign on Tuesday to enlist parliamentary leaders from around the world to nominate U.S. President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will announce the members of the Board of Peace overseeing the postwar management of Gaza early next year, in the latest sign the effort is stalling.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to meet in Washington on Wednesday, Israeli media reported. 

This marks the fourth meeting between the two, the most recent of which was during Rubio's October visit to Israel to continue overseeing the implementation of phase one of the US-brokered Gaza deal.

Hamas will be disarmed “either the easy way or the hard way,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Knesset lawmakers on Monday, responding to terror chief Khaled Mashaal’s rejection of President Donald Trump’s demands for the Gaza Strip to be fully demilitarized.

“How did Khaled Mashaal put it yesterday? ‘We will continue on our path and we will not disarm.’ But we—and I commit to you—will not allow Hamas murderers to rearm and threaten us again,” he declared during a 40-signature debate in the Knesset, which the opposition can call once a month and which the prime minister is required to attend.

“We are acting every day to prevent this, and this mission will be completed either the easy way or the hard way,” he continued.

The White House is reportedly looking to broker a summit between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, hoping to push the two countries together through shared economic interests.

According to a report in the Axios news site on Sunday, the Trump administration is nudging Israel to forge deals with a number of countries in the region, including Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and sees improving ties with Egypt as an achievable place to start.

While Israel and Egypt officially have diplomatic relations — and Cairo played a key role in mediating the Gaza ceasefire — relations between the two leaders are frosty. Sissi had avoided speaking to Netanyahu throughout the Gaza conflict, and the two have not met in public since 2018.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump in the United States on December 29 to discuss plans for Gaza’s future, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Monday.

“The Prime Minister will meet with President Trump on Monday, December 29 they will discuss the future steps and phases and the international stabilization force of the ceasefire plan,” government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said in an online briefing to reporters.

The trip will mark Netanyahu’s fifth since Trump took office earlier this year, and the first since the Trump administration brokered a ceasefire and hostage release that effectively ended two years of fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair is no longer under consideration to join the so-called Board of Peace intended to supervise a transitional government in Gaza under U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point Middle East peace plan, the Financial Times reported on Monday.