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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Israel’s hostage negotiating team on Saturday evening to prepare for further talks in Doha based on what it said was a proposal from US special envoy Steve Witkoff under which 11 living hostages would be freed immediately.

The directive was issued at the conclusion of a meeting convened by Netanyahu of top aides and security chiefs, who were briefed by the negotiating team on the state of the talks. The team returned from Doha on Friday.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the proposal put forward by Witkoff would see 11 living hostages, and half the slain captives, released “immediately.”

President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to a fiery Truth Social post published on Saturday.

In the post, Trump wrote that he had "ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen."

"They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones," Trump wrote.

Trump also criticized his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, writing that the Democratic president's response to the terrorist group "was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday slammed as “nuts” the terms being demanded by Hamas in hostage-ceasefire negotiations, while insisting the Trump administration was committed to freeing all of the 59 captives held by the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza.

“We care about all the hostages, we want all the hostages released. … But we’re also talking about bodies. And these trades that are being made, they’re ridiculous trades—400 people for three. These are nuts,” Rubio said at a press conference during the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec. 

“On top of that, you see the condition these people are being released in. … We’re sitting around as the world, sort of accepting that it’s normal and okay for you to go into a place, kidnap babies, kidnap teenagers, kidnap people who have nothing to do with any wars, that are not soldiers … and taking them and putting them in tunnels for almost a year and a half,” he continued.

Ex-central banker Mark Carney was sworn in as prime minister of Canada on Friday and immediately said he could work with U.S. President Donald Trump, who is promising tariffs that could devastate the Canadian economy.

Carney succeeds Justin Trudeau, who had a combative and often cold relationship with Trump. Carney, 59, made clear his approach would be different.

"We respect President Trump - President Trump has put some very important issues at the top of his agenda. We understand his agenda," he told reporters after being sworn in, noting he had worked with Trump at international meetings.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated in the traditional reading of the Book of Esther during the holiday of Purim at the National Police Academy in Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, on Thursday evening.

Addressing the police officers, the prime minister drew a comparison to the story of Purim, in which the Jewish people were saved from annihilation in Persia, now present-day Iran, to the modern Jewish state’s conflict with the Islamic Republic.

“Two thousand five hundred years later an enemy of the Jewish people arose in that land. He, too, wants to destroy and annihilate the seed of the Jews from the face of the earth,” Netanyahu said.

“Heroes like you have arisen—the heroes of our people. And with stratagem, heroism and courage we turned the tables upside down, and we are breaking the Persian axis,” he said, referring to Iran.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday rejected holding negotiations with the United States over a nuclear deal, as a letter was delivered from US President Donald Trump calling for such talks. Last week, Trump said he had sent the letter to Khamenei proposing nuclear talks, but also warned that “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal.”

A total lunar eclipse occurred over North America during part of the night from March 13-14, 2025.

One interesting thing about this eclipse is that it is occurring during the feast of Purim in the United States. This feast celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from potential destruction in the book of Esther in the Bible. This historic event occurred in the ancient region of Persia.

This eclipse could be a prophetic indicator of an event in the near future happening in the Middle East. Could this possibly involve the United States and Israel taking action against Iran's nuclear program sometime relatively soon?

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt met with U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Doha, Qatar on Wednesday to discuss Egypt’s Gaza reconstruction plan.

The discussions also covered the establishment of an administrative committee to manage the Strip.

According to reports from Saudi outlets Al Arabiya and Al Hadath, Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, also attended the meeting.

Following US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Qatar, a new outline for an updated hostage-ceasefire proposal is on the table, a source familiar with the details told the Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

As part of the proposed outline, Hamas would release around five living hostages as well as the bodies of nine dead hostages. In exchange, Israel would allow a 50-day ceasefire, starting from [April 1].

(photo: AFP)

In an apparent softening of his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip, US President Donald Trump asserted Wednesday that the plan does not involve expelling Palestinians.

During a press spray with Ireland’s Prime Minister Michael Martin in the Oval Office, a reporter asked the Irish leader about Trump’s plan to “to expel Palestinians out of Gaza.”

“Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians,” Trump piped in.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday dismissed the idea that the Hamas terrorist organization is prepared to lay down its arms.

“I don’t see any indication that Hamas is ready to disarm,” Sa’ar said in an interview with ABC News chief national correspondent Matt Gutman.

I said in an interview on @ABC with @mattgutmanABC: The war in Gaza will not end without the demilitarization of Gaza Strip.

Sa’ar emphasized that if Hamas were to disarm, it would significantly alter the current conflict. “That would be a huge development—one that could change the entire equation. But up until now, they have been very clear and decisive that they will not disarm,” he said.

Israel has recently intensified its intelligence operations, using drones to deploy espionage devices in various areas of the Gaza Strip and collect information on future targets, the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported, citing sources from Palestinian terror factions in Gaza. 

The report also said that some of these drones are being used to gather intelligence on hostages still held in Gaza. 

Other sources from Gaza-based terrorist organizations claimed that the newly deployed surveillance tools released by drones include cameras and other wiretapping devices as small as a worm. These devices, they alleged, are hidden in bags placed in remote areas, cemeteries, and sometimes even in densely populated neighborhoods.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday dismissed the idea that the Hamas terrorist organization is prepared to lay down its arms.

“I don’t see any indication that Hamas is ready to disarm,” Sa’ar said in an interview with ABC News chief national correspondent Matt Gutman.

(photo: AFP / Getty)

The former al Qaeda terrorist and current Interim President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, failed to stop a massacre of over 1,000 Syrians, including Christians, that unfolded last Thursday and continued over a period of days.

Al-Sharaa and his organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a U.S.-designated Sunni terrorist organization, toppled former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December.

Christian leaders and human rights activists have cast strong doubts on the capability of al-Sharra’s Islamist regime to build a democracy that can protect vulnerable religious minority groups.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday said that deadlines were needed on a deal for the next phase of the hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and that “all things are on the table” if the terror group agrees to demilitarize and leave the Gaza Strip.

Speaking on Fox News a day before he is slated to fly to Qatar for talks with Israel and Hamas, Witkoff said the terror group has “no alternative” other than disarming and leaving Gaza.

“If they leave, then all things are on the table for a negotiated peace, and that’s what they’ll need to do,” said Witkoff.

Israeli fighter jets on Monday night struck radars and other detection equipment in southern Syria, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed Tuesday morning.

Additionally, the Israeli Air Force targeted command positions and sites containing weapons belonging to the former Assad regime.

“The presence of these assets in southern Syria posed a threat to the State of Israel and IDF activities. These targets were struck in order to eliminate future threats,” according to the IDF.

The United Nations Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to address Iran’s growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, diplomats confirmed to Reuters on Monday.

Six member states requested the session—France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain and the United States—amid rising concerns over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Western diplomats say they will also press Iran to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by providing necessary information about undeclared nuclear materials detected at multiple sites. Tehran has not yet commented on the planned meeting.

U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler confirmed on Sunday in a series of television interviews with American and Israeli media that direct talks with Hamas had indeed taken place, despite long-standing U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists. 

“The reason that I met Hamas is because I want to work to help to get Americans and Israelis out,” he said during an interview with Israel’s Kan News, adding that he wanted to know the terror group’s demands for ending the war. “Some of the things that they talked about were relatively reasonable things and workable things,” he said.

The Knesset Land of Israel Caucus, the largest lobby in Israel’s parliament, representing some 80 Knesset members, threw its weight behind U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza relocation plan during a special conference it hosted in the Knesset on Sunday.

The conference, titled, “The New Middle East: The Plan for Voluntary Migration from Gaza,” featured numerous speakers, both Knesset members and activists. 

“It’s amazing how issues that would have sounded completely absurd a few years ago … have today become the consensus,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, chairman of the Religious Zionism Party. “We were thought of as crazy, delusional. It turns out that the crazy people are the knowledgeable realists,” he added.

Israel sees “eye to eye” with the Trump administration on the Iranian threat, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday.

“I only say that we are committed to Iran not being a nuclear power,” Smotrich said in response to a question from JNS at a meeting of his Religious Zionism Party’s Knesset faction.

“The American president will decide how to do this,” he added, declining to expand further on the Iranian issue.

Tehran will not be bullied by the United States over its nuclear program, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump said he sent a letter to the Iranians asking to negotiate a deal.

“The insistence of some bully governments on negotiations is not to resolve issues, but to dominate and impose their own expectations,” Khamenei said in a meeting with senior Iranian officials in Tehran, Reuters reported.

“Talks for them is a path to have new expectations, it is not only about Iran’s nuclear issue. Iran will definitely not accept their expectations,” the dictator added, seemingly ruling out a path to negotiations.

The White House responded on Saturday to Iran’s rejection, reaffirming Trump’s stance that Tehran faces a choice between military action and a diplomatic agreement.

Meetings between Hamas leaders and US hostage negotiator Adam Boehler in recent days have focused on the release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, a senior Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday.

“Several meetings have already taken place in Doha, focusing on releasing one of the dual-nationality prisoners. We have dealt positively and flexibly, in a way that serves the interests of the Palestinian people,” said Taher Nunu, political adviser to the leader of the terror group, confirming that talks took place over the past week.

The US-Hamas discussions broke with a decades-old policy by Washington against negotiating with groups that the US has designated terrorist organizations. Hamas has been proscribed as such since 1997.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed gratitude to U.S. President Donald Trump in an X post on Saturday for his strong support of Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, referring to the Islamist group as “monstrous terrorists.”

Netanyahu wrote the remarks in a retweet of a Thursday post by Trump, in which the president warned Hamas that failing to release the hostages held in Gaza would lead to severe consequences, saying, “There will be hell to pay later.”

Trump’s post included images from his White House meeting on Wednesday with eight Israelis who had been freed from captivity in the Strip.