KOENIG

Mossad chief David Barnea returned to Israel on Monday from his 24-hour trip to Qatar to discuss proposals for a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu projected pessimism over the restarted negotiations.

According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, Barnea, CIA chief Bill Burns, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani discussed “a new unified proposal that combines previous proposals and also takes into account the main issues and recent developments in the region,” during their meetings in Doha.

The phrase “recent developments” is taken to refer to the killing earlier this month of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the terror group’s October 7 invasion and massacre in southern Israel. Sinwar was widely considered to be the main obstacle to productive talks between Israel and Hamas, though it remains to be seen whether negotiations can succeed in the wake of his death.

The head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency was in Doha on Monday to resume negotiations for the release of the 101 hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip, after a nearly two-month lull in talks.

CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani are joining David Barnea for the latest round of discussions.

According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the officials will discuss “the various possibilities to restart negotiations for the release of hostages from Hamas captivity, based on recent developments.”

The Doha talks are taking place a day after Egypt, another key mediator, proposed a two-day ceasefire that would see four hostages released.

In a historic move, the Knesset has voted to ban all activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on Israeli territory. 

The legislation, passed in its final reading on Monday, was spearheaded by MK Boaz Bismuth, who emphasized that “UNRWA is not a refugee aid agency; it is a Hamas aid agency.”

Israel’s aerial offensive inside Iran overnight Friday caused severe damage to Tehran’s ballistic missile program, according to analyses of satellite imagery.

Dubbed by Jerusalem “Operation Days of Repentance,” the strikes were in response to Iran firing a barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Some 100 Israeli fighter jets, spy planes and refueling aircraft flew across the Middle East on Friday night to attack 20 missile and drone facilities across Iran in three waves.

Iranian officials told The New York Times that the Israeli strikes have caused serious concern that the country is now exposed to future Israeli attacks, with sources in Iran and Israel telling the Times that Israel destroyed air defense systems protecting the country’s oil, gas and petrochemical facilities.

Israeli fighter jets reportedly attacked the air defense systems at the Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex and nearby economic port in Khuzestan province, the Abadan refinery and the Tange Bijar gas field in Ilam province and at Khomeini International Airport in Tehran.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, aged 85, is reportedly seriously ill, with his second oldest son, Mojtaba Khamenei, likely to succeed him when he dies, a Saturday New York Times report disclosed. 

The report noted that Khamenei's serious medical condition created a "quiet battle" over his succession. It also stated that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps would have a say in who would become the Ayatollah's successor.

The Times report came shortly after Israel responded to Iran's ballistic missile attack at the beginning of the month by striking numerous military sites early Saturday morning.

In a phone call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin conveyed Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and support for its right to defend itself,” as he did after Iran attacked Israel on Oct. 1, according to Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.

The two leaders spoke after the Jewish state conducted “overnight precision strikes on military targets in Iran,” according to Ryder, and Austin noted the U.S. “recent deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel as an example of these commitments.”

Austin told Gallant that the United States is well prepared to defend its own soldiers and sites and its regional partners “and determined to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict in the region,” according to Ryder. “He told the minister that Iran should not make the mistake of responding to Israel’s strikes, which should mark the end of this exchange.”

Iran on Saturday played down Israel's overnight air attack against Iranian military targets, saying it caused only limited damage...

China will take "countermeasures" to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the government said, lambasting a $2 billion arms sale package by the United States to Taiwan.

The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, to the constant anger of Beijing.

On Friday, the Pentagon said the United States had approved a potential $2 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defence missile system battle-tested in Ukraine.

A criminal investigation is underway in the crucial presidential battleground of Pennsylvania after election workers in one county flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Two other counties were alerted to look for similar problems.

Koenig News Note: We need to be actively praying as we approach the election that God will continue to expose and prevent any fraud.

After Israel’s daring aerial military strikes in Iran early Saturday, the Jewish state announced that it is prepared to continue to go on the "offense" against the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran, if Tehran responds.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said, "If the regime in Iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation - we will be obligated to respond. Our message is clear: All those who threaten the State of Israel and seek to drag the region into a wider escalation — will pay a heavy price." 

He added, "We demonstrated today that we have both the capability and the resolve to act decisively — and we are prepared — on offense and defense — to defend the State of Israel and the people of Israel."

Israel confirmed it had struck numerous military sites during its retaliatory strikes on Iran on Saturday.

The attack was declared over by 5:45 a.m., just as the sun began rising over Tehran, according to public broadcaster KAN11.

The attack occurred in three major waves, US and Israeli officials said. The second and third waves targeted Iranian drone and missile production sites, hitting over 20 targets, according to Axios and the New York Times.

Iran told AFP that it had not received any reports of injuries from the strikes.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was directing the attacks from a secure complex in IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli media.

Following the completion of Israel’s strikes in Iran, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari in an English-language statement warns that if Iran was to “make the mistake” of escalating further, Israel would respond.

“I can now confirm that we have concluded the Israeli response to Iran’s attacks against Israel,” he says in a video statement disturbed to foreign media.

“We conducted targeted and precise strikes on military targets in Iran — thwarting immediate threats to the State of Israel. The Israel Defense Forces has fulfilled its mission,” Hagari says. 

For over three hours, Israel has [struck] with unprecedented precision, unmasking a simple truth: Tehran, for all its bluster, isn’t untouchable. ... Iran knows that Israel can ... easily reach Tehran. This isn’t a vague threat; it’s a promise that’s landed, with clarity and force, right on their doorstep.

[Israel is said to have struck about 20 targets in three waves of attack that occurred over three hours.]

A Dassault Rafale C (below) and an F-16 Fighting Falcon combat airplane perform maneuvers over Ramstein air base during exercises on June 6, 2024, in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany. (photo: Thomas Lohnes, Getty Images)

US Central Command announced on Friday that F-16 fighter jets have arrived in the Middle East from Germany ahead of an impending Israeli strike on Iran.  

“US Air Force F-16s from the 480th Fighter Squadron based at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany arrive in the US Central Command area of responsibility,” CENTCOM wrote on X Friday.

CENTCOM did not specify the exact Middle East base or bases the F-16s had reached. The nearest base to Israel is the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan's Azraq that has served as a main hub for US air force operations in the region.

A leading Iranian dissident group, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (MEK), has provided Fox News Digital with information about a secret site where the Islamic Republic of Iran allegedly stores and prepares the missiles it uses against foes, sells to allies and provides to its proxies.

Located in a mountainous region outside of Eshtehard City, northwest of Tehran in Alborz province, the camp, known as the Shahid (Martyr) Soltani Garrison, is heavily guarded and surrounded by two rows of barbed wire. It has purportedly seen increased activity in the latter part of 2024, with the MEK noting that "more than ten trailers carrying missile parts" passed into the camp in July.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has asked the Iranian military to prepare response scenarios to a potential Israeli attack, according to a Thursday New York Times report, citing four Iranian officials.

Iran's response to an Israeli strike would be contingent on the extent of Israel's attack, the officials, two of whom were from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed.

According to them, the Islamic Republic may choose not to respond if Israel reduces the scope of its strike to solely military warehouses and bases.

However, were the strike to cause major casualties and destruction, or were Israel to attack nuclear, oil, or energy infrastructure or carry out targeted eliminations, Iran would hit back, the officials noted. 

In such a case, Iran's response scenario could include a potential barrage of up to 1,000 ballistic missiles, further attacks by Iranian proxies, and interference in energy supplies and shipping in the Persian Gulf. 

Mossad chief David Barnea returned to Israel from Cairo on Friday, Hebrew media reported, following a meeting with newly appointed Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad ahead of the resumption of hostage deal negotiations in Qatar next week.

US, Qatari and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha on Sunday to prepare for new talks on a possible deal that would see the release of the 101 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza and an end to the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian terror group that has reduced much of the enclave to rubble.

Barnea will be joined in Doha by CIA Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

IRGC chief Hossein Salami issued new threats to Israel on Thursday, warning the country not to count on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system for protection, Saudi media site Al-Hadath reported.

"Don't count on THAAD. Every time you fire a projectile, we will fire more than you," Salami reportedly said. 

An Israeli delegation headed by Mossad Director David Barnea will travel to Qatar on Sunday to meet with CIA chief, the leader of Qatar and the head of Egyptian intelligence to restart Gaza negotiation talks. 

A senior official told i24NEWS that "as PM Netanyahu directed, alongside the need to destroy Hamas's military and governing capabilities, one of the elements of Total Victory is to free all the hostages. We intend to do that."

Israeli leaders said that last week's elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by the IDF has opened new avenues for returning the 101 hostages held in tunnel by Palestinians.

Israel has delayed its retaliation against the Islamic Republic, over the October 1 ballistic missile attack, after a Pentagon leak revealed Israeli plans, a British report claimed Thursday.

According to an unnamed intelligence source said to be familiar with Israeli deliberations quoted by The Times daily, "the leak of the American documents delayed the attack due to the need to change certain strategies and components. There will be a retaliation, but it has taken longer than it was supposed to take."

Earlier in the week reports in U.S. media identified the suspected leaker as Ariane Tabatabai, an Iranian American whose role as the Bureau Chief to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's aid for special operations granted her access to highly secret information. These reports were since disputed yet no official information is available on the suspect's identity.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and 27 other Republican senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would cut off U.S. funding to the United Nations and its subsidiary agencies if they downgrade Israel’s status.

“Reports indicate that the Palestinian Authority will attempt to downgrade Israel’s status at the United Nations” following a U.N. General Assembly vote in May, the 28 senators wrote. That vote saw Palestinians gain new rights within their existing non-member “permanent observer” status, which is short of full U.N. membership.

Saudi Arabia held military exercises with Iran and other countries recently in the Sea of Oman, the Saudi defense ministry spokesman said in a statement to AFP Wednesday.

The two Middle East rivals, which have long backed opposing sides in conflict zones across the region, severed diplomatic ties in 2016. However, Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia resumed relations last year under a surprise China-brokered deal, even as Riyadh appeared poised to sign a normalization deal with Tehran’s arch-foe, Israel.

“The Royal Saudi Naval Forces had recently concluded a joint naval exercise with the Iranian Naval Forces alongside other countries in the Sea of Oman,” Brigadier General Turki al-Malki told AFP. 

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and believed that an agreement to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia could be reached before the end of the year.

Graham ... told Reuters that Netanyahu supported work on a deal with Saudi Arabia, adding that the next U.S. administration was unlikely to be able to secure enough votes in Congress...

"I think the time to do this is on Biden's watch," said Graham, who had also met with Netanyahu earlier this month. He said Vice President Kamala Harris ... had not shown interest in working for such an agreement, but Biden was keen to see a deal get done...

The Biden administration had been working to broker a normalization accord between the two countries ... but those efforts stalled after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Analysts have said that an Israel-Saudi normalization deal would be difficult to achieve without a clear path to establishing an independent Palestinian state, which most Israelis oppose.

Note from Koenig News: We need to be praying against any peace/normalization accord that pushes Israel in the direction of dividing its land to create a Palestinian state.

Blinken’s flight to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for talks on normalization with Israel was a change from previous plans to head to Jordan.

The normalization deal is widely seen as dead in the water, as Riyadh is now conditioning it on the establishment of a Palestinian state — a nonstarter for Israel.

Lebanon state media reported 17 Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, with six buildings leveled and the vacated offices of a Hezbollah-linked broadcaster hit on Wednesday, after the Lebanese terror group fired rockets at central Israel as the country began marking the Simhat Torah holiday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Jerusalem with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday afternoon, according to U.S. and Israeli readouts.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the two officials had a “friendly and productive” conversation, before holding an “expanded” meeting with their respective staff members, per Netanyahu’s office.

“The issue of the Iranian threat was raised, including the need for both countries to unite against it,” per the Israeli readout. “The prime minister thanked the American secretary of state for the support of the U.S. in the fight against Iran’s axis of evil and terrorism.”

The U.N. resolution calls for Hezbollah to disarm and leave Southern Lebanon, and for the Lebanese army and the U.N. Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) to secure the area.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday told pilots and air crews at an airforce base that “after we strike in Iran, everyone will understand what you did in the preparation and training process.”

Visiting the Hatzerim base ahead of Israel’s promised response to Iran’s October 1 major ballistic missile attack, Gallant said, “Everyone who dreamed a year ago of beating us and attacking us paid a heavy price and are no longer in that dream.”

Israel has held several major drills simulating long-range strikes on Iran over the years in preparation for a possible confrontation with Tehran.

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview released on Sunday that expanding the Abraham Accords would be “an absolute priority” if he wins the election.

“Everyone wants to be in it,” he said in an interview with Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned news channel, claiming he would have added “12 to 15 countries literally within a period of a year” if he had won the 2020 presidential election. “If I win, that will be an absolute priority,” he added. “It’s peace in the Middle East — we need it.”

Trump also did not discuss whether he would seek to include Saudi Arabia in the Accords, as the Gulf kingdom has indicated that forging diplomatic ties would be contingent on Israel accepting a Palestinian state.

Note from Koenig News: We need to be actively praying that President Trump will not use Israel's land as collateral to make other peace agreements/accords in a second term, and we need to continue to pray that he does not support a two-state peace plan going forward.

A drone fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea on Saturday hit and caused damage to his residence when it exploded, the military censor permitted for publication on Tuesday.

An image, previously barred from publication by the military censor, showed the damage caused to the home by Saturday’s drone impact.

The blast cracked glass in a bedroom window but did not penetrate the home, apparently because of reinforced glass and other protections. Pieces of glass reportedly landed in the family’s pool nearby and in the yard.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Tuesday on his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, with the US hoping to revive a ceasefire-hostage deal after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was also meetingother top officials, including President Isaac Herzog and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

He is also expected to meet with families of the hostages who are being held in Gaza.

Following his trip to Israel, he’s set to visit a number of Arab countries, likely to include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will be shaking hands this week with multiple world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian.

They will all be in the Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday for a meeting of the BRICS bloc of developing economies...

The alliance, which aims to counterbalance the Western-led world order, initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa but started to rapidly expand this year. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January; Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia formally applied, and a number of others expressed a desire to be members.

Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said 36 countries confirmed participation, and more than 20 will send heads of state. Putin will hold around 20 bilateral meetings, Ushakov said...

A replica of the Ark of the Covenant, painstakingly constructed, its creators say, to the Torah specifications of the sacred vessel that was the First Temple’s central fixture, was displayed in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, during the intermediate days of the Sukkot holiday.

The ark described in the Torah, which housed the Ten Commandments tablets among other holy objects, was hidden after the destruction of the First Temple, per rabbinic tradition. At Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, the replica shown in the hotel’s sukkah contained a refurbished Torah scroll, which survived the Holocaust, from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Earlier in the day, it was fitted with the Greek Torah at Jerusalem’s City of David. It was later displayed—with some difficulty and via a Schweppes pallet jack—on a rooftop overlooking the Western Wall plaza and Temple Mount.

Two parallel efforts are underway as Israel attempts to make progress toward a deal with Hamas that would see the release of hostages in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

Mossad Director David Barnea has been pushing a broad deal that would bring both the war in Gaza and the expanding IDF campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon to an end, alongside the release of all Israeli hostages, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.

At a security cabinet meeting Sunday evening, meanwhile, ministers heard initial details about a different proposal, that would offer Hamas a two-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of five hostages, the Ynet news site reported.

According to the report, as the war went on, Sinwar accepted that he was likely to be killed ... In a message to prepare for his possible death, Sinwar warned that Israel would offer concessions if he was killed but that Hamas should not give in.

Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah financial sites across Lebanon overnight Sunday, including in Beirut.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, dozens of facilities and sites used by the Iranian proxy to fund its terrorist activities against the Jewish state were attacked.