KOENIG

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will to visit Washington on November 10 to meet with U.S. President Trump at the White House, Axios reported citing U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack.

This would make the one-time jihadist the first Syrian leader to be granted a White House reception. 

Al-Sharaa has already met with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last month, becoming the first Syrian leader to take part in a UN high-level meeting in almost 60 years.

John Hurley, U.S. under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, plans to travel to Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Lebanon, the U.S. Treasury Department stated on Friday.

John Hurley
John Hurley, U.S. under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Credit: Courtesy.
The trip is part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign against Iran,” and it increases “safeguards to further restrict terrorist groups from gaining access to the global financial system,” per the department.

“President Trump has made clear that Iran’s destabilizing and terrorist activities must be met with sustained and coordinated pressure,” Hurley stated.

The Pentagon approved providing Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, leaving the final decision to be ratified by President Donald Trump, CNN reported on Friday citing U.S. and European officials familiar with the matter.

The decision comes amid ongoing debate within the Trump administration over how far should the U.S. support extend to Ukraine’s war effort against Russian invasion.

According to CNN, the Joint Chiefs of Staff delivered their assessment to the White House earlier this month, ahead of Trump’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, who has urged Washington to supply the weapons to strike strategic targets deep inside Russia.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Thursday that Hamas will be disarmed and the Gaza Strip demilitarized, asserting that if the international community doesn’t do it, then Israel will.

Netanyahu’s comments came even as the US continues to lead efforts to put together a force that will be both willing to see through the disarmament mission and be acceptable to Israel, which continues to insist on excluding Turkey, which is keen to participate.

Israel “has more work” to do in Gaza, Netanyahu said, speaking at an Israel Defense Forces cadets’ graduation ceremony at the Bahad 1 officers’ school in southern Israel.

The soldiers deployed to Gaza as part of a peacekeeping force will be exclusively Muslim, the Telegraph reported on Friday, citing diplomatic sources.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the joint U.S.-Israeli command center in the northern Negev city of Kiryat Gat on Wednesday. The center was established to oversee the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

The premier spoke with U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Adm. Brad Cooper and Lt. Gen. Patrick Frank, commander of the U.S. Army in Central Command (U.S. Army Central).

According to an Israeli statement, Netanyahu was “impressed by the joint Israeli-American effort to advance and implement President [Donald] Trump’s framework.”

The US has recently approached additional countries across East Asia, Europe, and South America to participate in the International Stabilization Force (ISF) intended to deploy in the Gaza Strip. According to American sources, the force's entry into Gaza is expected to occur in stages...

It was not immediately clear whether Trump was referring to nuclear-explosive testing, which would be carried out by the National Nuclear Safety Administration, or flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles.

US Vice President JD Vance says President Donald Trump was able to secure a ceasefire in Gaza because he used “leverage” over Israel.

“The most recent Gaza peace plan that all of us have been working on very hard for the past few weeks — the president of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the State of Israel,” Vance tells students at the University of Mississippi where he was participating in a campus tour organized by the recently killed, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point organization.

Ongoing negotiations between Israel and Syria are said to be nearing completion, with discussions reportedly including plans for a joint Israeli, Syrian, and American presence at several strategic points, among them Mount Hermon. 

The development was revealed by an Israeli official speaking to the Saudi outlet Al-Arabiya on Wednesday.

According to the official, the possibility of establishing a humanitarian corridor between Israel and Sweida has been ruled out. Instead, any such corridor would originate from Damascus under an American proposal designed to ensure that aid and movement occur through officially sanctioned channels.

The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday morning reaffirmed its commitment to the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, which had been jeopardized after a deadly Hamas attack on Israeli forces the previous day prompted retaliatory strikes.

“Following a series of significant strikes in which dozens of terror targets and terrorists were attacked, the IDF has begun renewed enforcement of the agreement after its violation by the Hamas terror organization,” the military said.

As part of its retaliation, the IDF said it targeted more than 30 high-ranking commanders of various terrorist groups operating in Gaza.

After unleashing destruction across portions of Jamaica, Cuba and Hispaniola through midweek, Melissa will track in a general northeast direction, emerging into the waters north of eastern Cuba and approaching the Bahamas.

Melissa made landfall near New Hope, Jamaica, at 1 p.m. EDT Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph. It was the first time an Atlantic storm made landfall as a Category 5 since Hurricane Dorian in 2019. It made a second landfall near Chivirico, Cuba, at 3:10 a.m. EDT Wednesday as a Category 3 storm.

Kingston, Jamaica's capital, was spared the worst of the hurricane, but western parts of the island experienced "total devastation," according to Daryl Vaz, the Jamaican Minister of Energy, Transport and Telecommunications. Officials added that there is a "total communication blackout" in the region that took the brunt of Melissa's wrath Tuesday.

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, directed some of the harshest language he has used to date against Francesca Albanese, a United Nations special rapporteur, or independent adviser, with a long history of anti-Israel remarks.

“You have tried to curse Israel with lies and hatred, but your poison has failed,” he told Albanese, as a U.N. committee discussed a report she penned that Danon said “vilified Israel and blamed countries that support it.”

“You are a witch, and this report is another page in your spell book,” he said. “You wrap your bias in the language of law, hoping it will hide what it really is: Hamas propaganda.”

A wave of Israeli airstrikes was reported Tuesday evening in Gaza City after Israeli officials vowed to respond to an attack on troops in south Gaza and Hamas’s failure to return the bodies of hostages still held in the Strip.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the strikes, reported by Palestinian media, which came hours after Israeli troops stationed in southern Gaza’s Rafah came under fire by terror operatives.

Troops returned fire at the attackers, and Palestinian media also reported Israeli artillery shelling in the Rafah area. Hamas later denied involvement in the shooting.

Hurricane Melissa is making a historic, catastrophic Category 5 landfall in Jamaica today with life-threatening flash flooding, landslides, destructive winds and storm surge in one of the strongest landfalls on record anywhere in the Atlantic Basin.

Its maximum winds have increased to 185 mph, with a pressure now at 892 millibars, as measured by a morning Hurricane Hunter mission. This places it tied with the Labor Day storm in 1935 for the third most intense Atlantic Basin hurricane of all time based on pressure. The storm is tied for the second strongest storm based on winds, only behind Allen in 1980.

The weather is deteriorating rapidly in Jamaica. Wind gusts from 50 to 60 mph have been clocked in both Kingston and Montego Bay.

Torrential rain is now pummeling the island, and some far outer rainbands are also soaking parts of southwestern Haiti and eastern Cuba.

(photo: KOKO / Israel Hayom)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to convene a security consultation later Tuesday to discuss how to respond to Hamas' conduct after the terror organization handed over a body that the National Institute of Forensic Medicine could not identify, with DNA results not matching any of the deceased hostages still in the terror group's captivity.

Netanyahu was testifying Tuesday morning in his trial at the Tel Aviv District Court, and the meeting was expected to occur after the testimony concluded. The prime minister was expected to meet with senior security officials to address Hamas' repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement.

Hamas has yet to return 13 deceased hostages still in its possession. Monday evening, Hamas transferred to the Red Cross, and from there to Israel, the coffin of someone the terror organization claimed was one of the 13 deceased hostages still held.

A dire situation is unfolding in the Caribbean as Category 5 Hurricane Melissa is forecast to make a right, northward turn and cross Jamaica like a giant buzzsaw and firehose at the same time. AccuWeather meteorologists continue to warn of the consequences of such an event, which could result in a humanitarian crisis with great loss of life and long-term devastation due to tremendous flooding, mudslides and high winds.

As of the latest advisory as of mid-afternoon on Monday, it was found that maximum sustained winds in Melissa's eyewall had increased to 175 mph, making it the strongest hurricane of the year for the Atlantic basin and perhaps the most intense hurricane in terms of central pressure for so late in the season.

"People choosing to ride out the storm in unsafe areas, or those who are unable to move out of harm's way, will face great peril," AccuWeather's Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said. "An extremely urgent humanitarian crisis may follow. The devastation from the electricity infrastructure alone may take months to repair. Food refrigeration and safe drinking water may not be available for an extended period."

[Note: Please keep this in prayer.]

King Abdullah II of Jordan has cautioned that any international force deployed in Gaza under the ceasefire plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump should focus solely on "maintaining" peace, not "imposing" it. 

In an interview with the BBC, the Hashemite monarch emphasized the importance of this distinction: “We hope it will be a peacekeeping mission, because if it is an enforcement mission, no one will want to get involved.”

Peacekeeping operations, according to the United Nations, operate under strict rules that limit the use of force to self-defense or protecting the mission’s mandate. In contrast, peace enforcement missions, requiring a Security Council resolution, may involve active military intervention.

The ongoing ceasefire in Gaza does not obligate Israel to refrain from taking defensive action, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, addressing Israel's Saturday strike on a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in central Gaza.

Rubio's comments came as he accompanied US President Donald Trump on an Air Force One flight on Monday night.

Rubio defended the strike, stating that "all of the mediators agree" that they "don't view [the strike] as a violation of the ceasefire."

There has been rather strong language used when communicating Melissa’s impact to Jamaica, and rightfully so.

The National Hurricane Center warned on Saturday, “Melissa is still expected to make landfall in Jamaica as an upper-end Category 4 hurricane, which could be the strongest direct landfall for the island since tropical cyclone record keeping has been made in the Atlantic Basin.”

While Melissa could make landfall as a high-end Category 4 storm or even a Category 5, the practical difference between the two is minimal.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) issued a statement on Sunday outlining the succession process should the chairman’s position become vacant.

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Deputy Chairman Hussein al-Sheikh will temporarily assume leadership of the PA in the absence of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

The decree stipulates that al-Sheikh’s interim term would last up to 90 days, during which direct elections must be held to select a new chairman, in accordance with Palestinian election law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Jerusalem will continue to determine its own security policies, including by setting red lines regarding the international forces that will be deployed to stabilize Gaza as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Strip.

“Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us—that is how we act and we will continue to act,” Netanyahu told fellow ministers at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday.

“This, of course, is also acceptable to the United States, as its most senior representatives have stated in recent days,” Netanyahu stressed, adding: “Israel is an independent country. We will defend ourselves with our own strength, and we will continue to determine our own destiny.”

US President Donald Trump issued fresh threats to Hamas on Saturday, saying the terror group would be to blame if the ceasefire collapsed, and repeating Israeli assertions that the group has been choosing not to hand over the bodies of some deceased hostages despite being able to.

He warned that he would be watching Hamas’s actions “very closely” over the next 48 hours.

Trump made the remarks in a social media post, and as he met Qatar’s emir and prime minister aboard Air Force One. The Gulf state served as a key mediator of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that took effect earlier this month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday as the top U.S. diplomat concluded his brief visit to Israel.

They discussed the outcomes of the visit and reaffirmed "the deep and enduring partnership between Israel and the United States," according to a statement from Netanyahu's office. 

Netanyahu thanked Secretary Rubio for his steadfast support and for his "commitment to strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance during these challenging times."

U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio met in Jerusalem on Saturday with the families of the two Israeli-American hostages whose remains Hamas has not yet transferred to Israel as required by the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

“We will not forget the lives of the hostages who died in the captivity of Hamas,” tweeted Rubio, who is on a visit to the Jewish state.

“Today I met with the families of American citizens Itay Chen and Omer Neutra. We will not rest until their—and all—remains are returned,” he vowed.

"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming, but when I said, “Both sides would be treated fairly,” that only applies if they comply with their obligations," Trump wrote. "Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely."