🎯 Gaza: Hamas finance chief and abduction warning: Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis eliminated Muhammad Abu Alwan, head of Hamas’s finance department. The IDF had not issued its own statement at the time of the announcement.
Katz also said intelligence indicates Hamas “intends” to abduct an Israeli soldier or civilian. Addressing Hamas and its supporters “from Iran to Erdogan”, he threatened to evacuate more than one million Gaza City residents southward and flatten the city if even one Israeli were abducted. He said Gaza City would receive the same treatment as Rafah, Beit Hanoun and 70% of the Strip until those abducted were returned.
🇸🇾 Syria: negotiations, sovereignty and illegal crossings: President Ahmad al-Sharaa said negotiations with Israel had nearly reached agreement before Israel withdrew, citing various reasons, although engagement continues. “We almost reached 90% of an agreement,” he said, while cautioning that lasting peace was not imminent and that Syrians’ security and rights must first be protected. He accused Israel of creating problems in the name of security and advocated mutual respect and economic cooperation.
Al-Sharaa also said dialogue had reduced Russia’s inherited military presence from approximately 170 bases to two facilities converted into Syrian Army training bases, barred from supporting operations against other countries. He maintained that Syria seeks full sovereignty and the removal of foreign military bases. Recounting Trump’s assertion that the Golan Heights belongs to Israel, he rejected any Syrian or American president’s authority to give the territory away, saying it belongs to its people.
Separately, IDF troops returned fourteen Israeli activists who illegally crossed into Syria near Alonei Habashan and handed them to police. The activists belong to Bashan Pioneers, which advocates Israeli settlement in southern Syria. Attempted crossings have increased in recent months, with no charges filed against members and some coalition lawmakers supporting them. The IDF condemned the disruption and danger to troops and demanded enforcement to prevent repeat offenses. The group said political and local support had failed to produce settlement and that activists were trying to push implementation forward themselves.
🏛️ Diplomatic disputes and UN positions: Macron’s assertion that “Hamas has never operated in the West Bank” drew Israeli condemnation. He had argued that Palestinian rights must be respected as a condition for Israel’s security. The Prime Minister’s Office countered that Hamas terrorists have murdered numerous civilians in Judea and Samaria, citing Netanel Shukron, a French citizen and father of six whom it said a Hamas terrorist murdered in his car on the Sunday before Yom Kippur. The statement said Shukron told his son to run as he was dying.
Eisenkot called Macron’s position detached from reality and rejected international hypocrisy at the expense of Israeli security. In commentary shared by Amit Segel, Abu Ali Express described the claim as either ignorance or deliberate rewriting of the record to incite against Israel, linking it to incitement against Jewish settlers.
Lieberman proposed an agreement under which Jordan would administer Areas A and B in both security and civilian affairs, describing an Israeli-Jordanian confederation and saying Netanyahu had no right to preach morality. Jordan’s King Abdullah, whose country would be central to such an arrangement, accused Israel in his UN speech of seeking to dispossess an entire population in Judea and Samaria and pursuing unlimited regional expansion.
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