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Hezbollah Rocket Hits Haifa Synagogue an Hour After Prayers
Illustrative. Israel’s Haifa port. Credit: Zvi Roger – Haifa Municipality.
JNS.org – A Hezbollah rocket struck a synagogue in Haifa on Saturday, just one hour after the end of a prayer service.
The Avot Ubanim synagogue complex suffered major damage from the strike, but no one was hurt.
“This is divine providence,” Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav told Israel Hayom.
Five people were lightly injured on the way to shelters in various areas of Haifa during the barrage.
Hezbollah launched 10 rockets in the barrage, setting off sirens in the Haifa Bay area, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Only some of the projectiles were intercepted.
Multiple fires in Haifa and the surrounding area were reported after the attack, as well as widespread power outages in Carmel Center.
“All emergency organizations arrived quickly,” said Amir Herel, commander of the Haifa district in the Home Front Command, according to Israel Hayom.
“There were no people in the synagogue, but in the surrounding buildings there were people who experienced a significant blast,” he said. “But as I said, most of the damage is not physical. There’s damage in many apartments, mainly windows. Some vehicles were also burned.”
Hezbollah launched a total of 80 projectiles into Israeli territory on Saturday, according to the IDF.
On Sunday morning, 20 rockets were launched at the Haifa Bay and Western Galilee regions, some of which were intercepted and some of which impacted in open areas, the IDF said.
Sirens also sounded in Acre and the Upper Galilee during the morning hours.
Report: IDF removing roadblocks near northern border
The IDF is removing military roadblocks near the border with Lebanon, Army Radio reported on Sunday. The move is in preparation for the potential return of displaced residents to their homes, according to the report.
“The reality in the north has changed. There are no longer areas where travel is impossible. There’s no need for detour routes anymore—civilians can now drive on these roads. Traffic is unrestricted due to the IDF’s control within Lebanese territory,” military sources told the news outlet.
Meanwhile, the IDF on Saturday night declared the areas of Metula and Kfar Yuval in northern Israel closed military zones. Entry is prohibited for civilians until Sunday night.
The move comes amid IDF ground operations in Southern Lebanon that began in early October.
IAF strikes Hezbollah targets in Tyre, Beirut
The Israeli Air Force overnight Saturday struck Hezbollah targets in the Tyre area in Southern Lebanon and in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh south of Beirut. The targets included command centers, weapons storage facilities and terror infrastructure sites, according to the IDF.
In Tyre, the strikes targeted several military assets belonging to Hezbollah’s “Aziz” Unit, which according to the Israeli military is responsible for carrying out attacks against Israel from southwestern Lebanon.
Fifty Hezbollah targets were hit in Dahieh over the past week, according to the IDF, and the strikes continued on Sunday morning.
The IDF emphasized that civilians were given advanced warning before the strikes and many steps were taken to minimize the harm to noncombatants. The Israeli military accused Hezbollah of “systematically” embedding its infrastructure into Lebanon’s civilian population.
“This is a further example of Hezbollah’s cynical abuse of civilian areas for military activities that deliberately endangers the lives of Lebanese civilians,” the IDF said.
Lebanese government reviewing US ceasefire proposal
Beirut is reviewing a draft proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanese officials told AFP on Friday.
A senior Lebanese government official confirmed that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson had presented a 13-point proposal to Lebanese officials on Thursday.
Johnson delivered the document to Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the head of the Hezbollah-aligned Amal movement, according to the report.
The proposal includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon would redeploy its troops along the border.
According to the official, Jerusalem has not responded to the plan.
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed the proposal with US President-elect Trump during a visit to his Florida estate on Nov. 10, The Washington Post reported on Nov. 13.
The discussions at Mar-a-Lago centered on a ceasefire that would involve Western and Russian cooperation, according to the Post. The proposal calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying via Syrian land routes.
Following his meetings in Florida with Trump, Dermer headed to Washington to meet on Nov. 11 and 12 with Biden administration officials, including Amos Hochstein, the president’s special envoy to Lebanon.
According to Israeli officials, the plan also includes moving the Hezbollah terrorist group north of the Litani River. The Lebanese military would then take control of the border area, overseen by the United States and Britain.
A source close to the Iranian terrorist proxy told the Post that Hezbollah would be willing to withdraw its forces north of the Litani as part of a temporary ceasefire deal.
Hezbollah began launching thousands of rockets, missiles and drones at Israel the day after Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. More than 60,000 Israeli citizens remain internally displaced from their homes in the north due to the ongoing Hezbollah attacks.
Israel is closer to reaching a deal to stop the fighting with Hezbollah than it has been since the start of the war, but must retain the freedom to act in Lebanon should any deal be violated, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Thursday.
“We will be less forgiving than in the past over attempts to create strongholds in territory near Israel,” Cohen told Reuters.
A senior Israeli diplomatic official told Israel Hayom last Saturday that there has been a significant breakthrough in efforts to achieve a diplomatic settlement.
One potential sticking point, however, is the ability of Israeli forces to reenter Lebanese territory if Hezbollah attempts to rearm and reestablish itself.
The official emphasized that the IDF will retain operational freedom to respond to any security threats from across the northern border, regardless of any diplomatic arrangements.
However, a source close to Hezbollah told the Post that the group’s “condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.”
Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said on Nov. 15 that Tehran would support a decision by the Lebanese government and the country’s “resistance” to halt the war.
“We are not looking to sabotage anything. We are after a solution to the problems,” Larijani said after meeting with Berri and Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
If the ceasefire efforts fail, an Israeli military official told the Post that there are plans in the works to expand ground operations in Lebanon.
The post Hezbollah Rocket Hits Haifa Synagogue an Hour After Prayers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.