Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday, Egypt’s presidency said in a statement.

The meeting focused on regional developments, with al-Sisi reiterating Egypt’s call to avoid the expansion of conflict and the need to halt escalation to prevent a full-scale regional war.

Araqchi emphasized the importance of continuing efforts to explore prospects for mutual development of relations between the two countries, the statement added.

Araqchi landed in Cairo late on Wednesday for talks with Egyptian officials, the first such visit in years as part of a Middle Eastern tour amid concerns of a wider confrontation in the region with Israel.

Tensions are high in anticipation of an Israeli attack on Iran in retaliation for Iran’s missile attack on Oct. 1. That followed a rapidly spiraling conflict between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Araqchi arrived for “important talks with Egypt’s high ranking officials that will be held tomorrow [Thursday],” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a post on X on Wednesday, after stops in countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and Lebanon.

Relations between Egypt and Iran have generally been fraught in recent decades but the two countries have stepped up high-level diplomatic contacts since the eruption of the Gaza crisis last year as Egypt tried to play a mediating role.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty traveled to Tehran in July to attend the country’s presidential inauguration.

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i24 News – A new reports sheds light on the sophisticated Israeli plot that saw pagers held by Hezbollah members across Lebanon explode and decimate the jihadist group’s ranks.

According to Reuters, one of the operation’s main challenges consisted in coming up with a plausible backstory to diffuse suspicion of the deceptively designed weaponized pagers that arrived in Lebanon in early 2024.

To this end, Israelis created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a review of web archives conducted by Reuters shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story were key to the execution of a years-long operation that has struck unprecedented blows against the jihadist militia.

A thin, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos obtained by Reuters.

The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source told the news agency.

This “three-layer sandwich” was inserted in a black plastic sleeve, and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a matchbox, the photos showed.

The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturized detonator, typically a metallic cylinder; without any metal components, the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives, it was not detected by X-ray.

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Nothing suspicious was reported.

It is understood that the devices were set up to generate a spark within the battery pack, enough to light the detonating material, and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode.

Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35-gram weight, two battery experts said.

At some point, Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected, the Lebanese source said. However, the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns as the group was still handing its operatives the pagers hours before the attack.

On September 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message.

Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.

The post New Details Shed Light on Israel’s Stunning Pager Plot that Ravaged Hezbollah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

JNS.org – IDF soldiers killed Hamas terror master Yahya Sinwar in a firefight in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, Israeli sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Thursday.

The Israel Police positively identified the corpse of Sinwar, who was killed on Wednesday, several channels and news sites subsequently reported.

He was reportedly identified by his teeth. Official confirmation will follow DNA identification.

Netanyahu was set to address the nation at 8:30 p.m. local time.

The Israel Defense Forces said earlier Thursday that it was investigating whether Sinwar was one of three terrorists killed by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian enclave.

According to initial reports, the Hamas leader was killed by tank fire called in by IDF soldiers who had identified armed terrorists in a building.

When the soldiers subsequently searched the premises, they discovered that one of the bodies bore a striking resemblance to Sinwar.

“We will reach every terrorist and eliminate them,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant tweeted on Thursday.

“You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword,” added Gallant, quoting Leviticus 26:7.

The X post included pictures of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in an IDF strike in Beirut last month, and former Hamas “military”/Al-Qassam Brigades chief Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis in July.

Later on Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ronen Bar held a situation assessment.

The military said on Thursday that while no hostages were found in the building where the three terrorists were killed, “forces continue to operate with the necessary caution in the area.”

Netanyahu instructed the IDF to inform hostage families that there was no indication any hostages were hurt during the battle.

Efrat Machikawa, the niece of captive Gadi Moses, told JNS on Thursday, “I hope all Israelis including the government will remain modest and humble. While this is a military achievement, the most important thing remains saving lives, and by that I mean returning the hostages.”

While the Hamas leader’s elimination is “very important, I remain extremely concerned about [the hostages’] fate. They are in my head and my heart every second since Oct. 7. They are the only ones I think about,” Machikawa added.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid called on the Netanyahu government to “take advantage of the opportunity for a decisive move regarding the hostages.

“Strive for a comprehensive deal and offer monetary rewards and safe passage to anyone who brings captives to our forces,” he tweeted.

Qatari officials involved in indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas have told family members of hostages that Sinwar had surrounded himself with captives.

Channel 12 reported that Sinwar had been hiding with the six hostages who were executed and then recovered by the IDF on Aug. 31. The hostages were identified as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Almog Sarusi, 25, Alexander Lobanov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Master Sgt. Ori Danino, 25.

Hamas still holds 101 hostages, including 97 of the 251 taken during the Palestinian terror group’s massacre of some 1,200 people in the northwestern Negev just over a year ago.

“We need to thank the IDF if Sinwar is indeed dead. It also means that there is a lot of anxiety regarding the fate of the 101 hostages,” Ruby Chen, the father of captive Itay Chen, told JNS on Thursday. “Now is the time to leverage this military action for a deal to get them out.

“We received an update from IDF sources confirming that there were no hostages in the vicinity with regards to the incident,” he continued. “My message is that now is the time to get a deal done and put an end to all of this.”

Earlier this month, Sinwar reportedly renewed contacts with mediators in Qatar to find out the chances that he could receive immunity in any ceasefire-for-hostages-and-terrorists-release deal.

Similarly, in August, Ynet reported that Sinwar wanted protection against the possibility of an Israeli assassination. “Sinwar insists on guarantees for his safety and life” a senior Egyptian official said.

Two threats from Qatar led to Sinwar’s emergence from a long silence, according to Channel 12.

Sinwar was convicted on multiple murder counts by an Israeli court and sentenced to five life sentences, which he was supposed to serve until his death. However, in October 2011, he was released from prison—having served 22 years—as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.

Following his release, Sinwar gained power and popularity within Hamas, becoming its Gaza leader in 2017 by defeating Ismail Haniyeh in a vote.

In August, Sinwar was chosen to lead Hamas’s so-called political bureau, replacing Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran on July 31.

The post Israeli Sources: Hamas Terror Chief Yahya Sinwar Is Dead first appeared on Algemeiner.com.