Israel - AL-MONITOR: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Israel cover image

Israel

September 13, 2026

Tel Aviv 3:42 am

26°C

Erik Marmor

Analysis

Once Netanyahu’s top challenger, Bennett loses ground to Eisenkot: What to know

Facing the popular Gadi Eisenkot, the Together party of former premiers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid is sinking in Israeli opinion polls.

Mazal Mualem

By Mazal Mualem

In Tel Aviv, reporting on politics

A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Nabatieh shows smoke as it rises from the site of Israeli strikes that targeted the hilltops of the mountainous area of the strategic Ali al-Taher Ridge on Aug. 14, 2026.

Israel says it destroyed Hezbollah tunnels in Ali al-Taher ridge: What to know

The ridge has become a flashpoint in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon due to its extensive tunnel network Israel says is utilized by the Iran-backed group.

Chaim Goldberg / AFP via Getty Images

Netanyahu threatens to sue Haaretz for reporting UAE warned Israel of Oct. 7 attack

The Emirati president reportedly warned that a planned attack could cause bloodshed, destabilize the region and threaten the Abraham Accords.

TOPSHOT - Explosions from projectile interceptions by Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system are pictured over Tel Aviv on February 28, 2026. The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, with Israel's public broadcaster reporting that the Iranian supreme leader had been targeted, as the Islamic republic retaliated with barrages of missiles at Gulf states and Israel. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

Israel braces for Iran attack as Trump’s economic squeeze on Tehran intensifies

Skeptical about the effectiveness of the American economic blockade on Tehran to weaken the regime, Israel is preparing for the possibility that Iran could decide to strike the Jewish state during the upcoming high holidays.

In Tel Aviv, reporting on national security, Israeli politics, defense

Latest News

12 countries including France, UK, Canada end trade with West Bank settlements

West Bank settlements

Katz warns PA against 'Oct. 7-style' attack as West Bank violence rises

Israeli soldiers take positions during a military operation in the town of Qalqiya, in the occupied West Bank, Dec. 4, 2025.

Lebanon says at least 12 killed in Israeli strikes as tensions rise in south

An excavator digs as rescuers search for survivors amid the rubble following an overnight Israeli airstrike on the village of Kfar Roummane, southern Lebanon, Sept. 7, 2026.

Analysis

LORA missile test reveals limits of Germany’s Gaza criticism of Israel

A woman walks past a model of a Lora missile, Israel's long range artillery missile at the Israel defence stall at the international DefExpo 2008 defence fair, in New Delhi on February 16, 2008. India kicked off South Asia's largest defence fair, with hundreds of global weapons firms offering their latest hardware to the country's technology-hungry military. About 450 weapons companies from 30 countries are present at the four-day "DefExpo" in New Delhi, with several big-ticket announcements expected. AFP P

Rina Bassist

By Rina Bassist

In Paris, reporting on Israeli politics and European affairs

Samuel Wendel

Senior Analyst, Middle East Business & Tech

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

Adam Lucente

News and Business Correspondent

In New York City, reporting on regional news, militancy, climate change

Jack Dutton

Chief Business Correspondent

In Bristol, reporting on regional business, climate change, AI, tech

Ben Caspit

Israel Columnist

In Tel Aviv, reporting on national security, Israeli politics, defense

Francesco Schiavi

In Bologna, reporting on security, defense, economy, governance

Rina Bassist

Associate Editor (Israel)

In Paris, reporting on Israeli politics and European affairs

US peace plan quashes hopes for Israel-Hamas cease-fire

The announcement of the US peace plan has undermined any prospect for a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas.

TOPSHOT - Israeli settlers scuffle with Israeli security forces at Netiv Haavot settlement, near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank on June 12, 2018. - Fifteen Israeli settler families are expected to evacuate their homes in this outpost after it was declared illegal by the Israeli High Court (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP) (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump’s 'peace plan' rewards settler violence

President Donald Trump's blessing of territorial annexation is nothing less than a reward for government-sanctioned 'Wild West' settler violence and appropriation as illustrated by the small percentage of indictments for criminal acts committed against Palestinians on the West Bank.

Israeli left paralyzed over Trump’s peace plan

The Israeli left has failed to challenge President Donald Trump’s "deal of the century" or to suggest alternative ideas on peace despite the plan's troubling provisions, including revoking the citizenship of Israeli Arabs.

TEHRAN, IRAN - MAY 23, 2013: Under the picture of Ayatollah Khomeini the former foreign minister of Iran and a special adviser to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one of the favorite principalist presidential candidates in 2013 race, Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati speaks about his presidential agenda at Tehran university on May 23, 2013 in Tehran, Iran. He is one the the three candidates in 2+1 coalition. (Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)

Khamenei adviser calls Trump Mideast plan ‘nightmare’

Iranian officials and social media users criticized the White House plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

U.S. President Donald Trump puts his hands on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's shoulders as they deliver joint remarks on a Middle East peace plan proposal in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts? - RC27PE95YQQU

Netanyahu wants/needs annexation before elections

White House advisers Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner object Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intention to annex settlements before the March 2 elections, but Netanyahu has no intention of giving up.

TOPSHOT - Israeli nationalist settlers wave their national flag as they celebrate the Jerusalem Day at the Old City's Damascus gate in Jerusalem on May 13, 2018. - For Israelis, Sunday is Jerusalem Day, an annual celebration of the "reunification" of the city following the 1967 Six-Day War. (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP) (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

Netanyahu's land of the settlers

Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really think that he could fool US President Donald Trump and announce annexation of the West Bank without an angry response from the Americans?

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council speaks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the World Holocaust Forum marking 75 years since the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz, at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem January 23, 2020. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool - RC2RLE9EVQ76

Intel: Why Russia’s warming ties with Israel may lead Moscow to embrace Trump’s peace plan

Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned a young Israeli accused of drug charges ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. The release of Naama Issachar, who had been sentenced to 7½ years in prison, ends a bitter controversy that had plagued relations between the two countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump departs after delivering joint remarks with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a new Middle East peace plan proposal in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts - RC27PE9R8PMZ

Iran slams Trump’s vision for Mideast peace

The Islamic Republic is fiercely opposed to Trump's "deal of the century," stating that Muslims will never allow it to happen.

Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a campaign town hall meeting at La Poste in Perry, Iowa, U.S., January 26, 2020. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado - RC2UNE9MEP21

Intel: Pro-Israel super PAC attacks Sanders with $700,000 Iowa ad buy

A pro-Israel super PAC has launched a $700,000 television ad campaign targeting presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as he rises in the polls in the crucial days before the Iowa caucuses next week.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take part in an announcement of Trump's Middle East peace plan in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on January 28, 2020. - Trump declared that Israel was taking a "big step towards peace" as he unveiled a plan aimed at solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Today, Israel takes a big step towards peace," Trump said, standing alongside Netanyahu as he revealed details of the plan already emphatically rejected by the P

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ fails to resonate among Egyptians

While the Egyptian government treaded cautiously in its response to the rollout of the US administration’s long-awaited peace deal, expressing Cairo’s “appreciation” of US efforts, analysts and the public widely condemned the plan.

Trump’s plan revokes Israeli Arabs' citizenship

The authors of the Trump-Netanyahu peace plan bothered to ask Israeli Arabs whether they wanted to become Palestinian nationals, but the deal nonetheless strips them of their Israeli citizenship and in the process would split families and help perpetuate right-wing rule.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat (R) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (L), as U.S. President Bill Clinton stands between them, after the signing of the Israeli-PLO peace accord, at the White House in Washington September 13, 1993. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) - GM1E99D1UCD01

Trump’s Israeli-US deal is not a peace plan

Donald Trump's 'deal of the century' may have started out as a peace plan, but his administration's conflict with the Palestinian leadership turned it into a plan to give Israel the green light to annex one-third of the West Bank.