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

Israel cover image

Israel

February 23, 2026

Tel Aviv 11:22 pm

12°C

People walk through a heavily damaged street in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 12, 2025.

'No meaningful protection': Israel’s new Gaza aid rules raise data, security risks

The guidelines expand Israeli authority to deny NGO registration in the Palestinian territories and visas for foreign aid workers as Gaza continues to reel from two years of war.

ANKARA, TURKEY - JANUARY 21: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to MPs at his party's group meeting in the Turkish parliament on January 21, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is among world leaders that have been invited by United States President Donald Trump, to join the Gaza Board of Peace, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was also included as an appointed member. (Photo by Serdar Ozsoy/Getty Images)

Analysis

Why Turkey’s exclusion from Gaza force may be a strategic blessing

Despite being excluded from Gaza’s international stabilization force, Ankara will likely leverage its ties with Hamas to maintain influence within the Trump administration’s Board of Peace.

Barin Kayaoglu

By Barin Kayaoglu

In Ankara, reporting on geopolitics and national security

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

US court overturns Trump global tariffs: What it means for MENA

Trump's defining economic policy of his second term has been dealt a key blow, upending a tariff regime that set levies in the Middle East as high as 41% for Syria even as most regional countries were insulated from the fallout.

Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images

How did FIFA become part of Trump’s Gaza reconstruction effort?

FIFA signed a deal on Thursday that marks the global soccer association's most significant postwar intervention in the Middle East yet.

Latest News

Analysis

Despite warnings from Israel's defense elite, Netanyahu pushes for Iran strike

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands amid debris outside the Soroka Hospital in the southern city of Beersheba, after it was hit by a missile fired from Iran on June 19, 2025. Israel's defence minister warned that Iran's supreme leader "can no longer be allowed to exist" after a hospital was hit in an Iranian missile strike on June 19, spiking tensions in the week-old war. (Photo by Marc Israel SELLEM / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

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

Billions pledged, but Hamas' grip clouds Trump’s Gaza plan

US President Donald Trump (C), flanked by US Vice President JD Vance (L) and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R), joins leaders for a group photo during the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, on Feb. 19, 2026.

As Hezbollah vows to defend Iran, Lebanon braces for potential spillover

Joseph EID / AFP via Getty Images

Israel steps up Iran war preparations, keeps plans within small inner circle

Members of the Israeli security forces check the apparent remains of an Iranian ballistic missile lying on the ground in the Golan Heights, Northern Israel, on Thursday, June 19, 2025. (Photo by Michael Giladi / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by MICHAEL GILADI/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Samuel Wendel

Senior Market Research Analyst

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

Amos Hochstein

Hochstein in Beirut, says 'significant progress' on Lebanon-Israel cease-fire as Hezbollah accepts proposal

US envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut in a bid to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah, as the Lebanese group reportedly approved a new proposal to halt the hostilities, with some comments.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee, Trump's ambassador pick to Israel, says two-state solution not legitimate

Trump tapped Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and fervent Israel supporter, as his soon-to-be nominee for ambassador to the country.

Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi (C), Director the Security Agency Ronen Bar (C-R) and Israel's Chief of the Mossad David Barnea (R).

Shin Bet chief discusses Gaza truce in Turkey: What we know

The Israeli official's travel to Turkey marks a dramatic development considering that Ankara has not played a part in these negotiations over the past year and Israel-Turkey relations have significantly deteriorated amid the Gaza war.

Israeli settlers walk through a street in Hebron's old city. Security is reinforced for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, West Bank, on Oct. 22, 2024.

US unveils new West Bank sanctions amid calls to target Israeli ministers

The latest sanctions come after nearly 90 Democratic lawmakers urged the administration to penalize Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog (L) and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during a press conference in Ankara, on March 9, 2022. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Turkey blocked Israeli President Herzog’s flight to COP29 in Azerbaijan, officials confirm

Ankara denied for Herzog’s aircraft to fly over Turkish airspace to reach Baku.

In this pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a flower-laying ceremony at the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square on the National Unity Day in Moscow on November 4, 2024. (Photo by Mikhail TERESHCHENKO / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MIKHAIL TERESHCHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

With leverage in Syria, can Russia's Putin broker Israel-Lebanon deal?

Israel is considering accepting the Russian push for some sort of involvement in the talks or in the implementation of a deal with Hezbollah.

Rina Bassist

By Rina Bassist

In Paris, reporting on Israeli politics and European affairs

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he arrives outside the West Wing of the White House September 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. Netanyahu is in Washington to participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Analysis

Israel euphoric over Trump's cabinet: Will he pick annexation or Saudi deal?

"Everything is ready," a senior source in Israel's settlement enterprise told Al-Monitor. "We just have to get Trump's approval and carry it out."

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

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington, DC.

Gaza hostage families look to Trump as hope fades for deal

As President Joe Biden's time in office wanes, the families of the American hostages are looking to his replacement to strike a deal.

Zebulon Simantov reads his old, tattered Hebrew prayer book as he celebrates the Jewish New Year feast of Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 18, 2009, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Three years after fleeing, Afghanistan's last Jew arrives in Israel

Having fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, heading to Istanbul via Pakistan, Afghanistan's last Jew has now arrived in Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-sentences-4-people-to-death-on-charges-of-spying-for-israel/

Iran arrests 7, kills 4 over alleged Israel links in southeast

According to a spokesperson, an elite military unit killed four “terrorists affiliated with the Zionist regime” and arrested seven others in the province that is home to a separatist group.

Olivier Doulier/Getty Images

CIA official arrested for top-secret leak on Israel plans to attack Iran: What we know

Asif W. Rahman was charged in a federal court in Virginia last week with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee leaves Trump Tower on November 18, 2016 in New York City.

Trump picks Mike Huckabee, staunch ally of settlers, as ambassador to Israel

“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Mike Huckabee said in 2008, and he has insisted over the years on referring to the occupied West Bank as Judea and Samaria.