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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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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.