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At least 8 dead in Shabbat shooting attack on Jerusalem synagogue
This is a developing story.
(JTA) — A shooting attack on a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov killed at least eight people on Friday, a day after an Israeli raid on a West Bank city ignited vows of retaliation by Palestinian militant groups.
The attack took place Friday evening as worshipers left Shabbat services. A gunman was killed in a shootout with police, Israeli officials said, identifying him as a resident of eastern Jerusalem who was not Israeli.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised it as retaliation for the raid in Jenin, in which at least 10 Palestinians were killed. Israel said the raid was meant to prevent a planned major attack.
Neve Yaakov is one of the neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem Israel built after it captured the area in the 1967 Six-Day War. It was constructed to expand the Jewish presence in the city’s eastern portions, although in recent years Palestinian Jerusalemites have rented apartments there. It is near the separation barrier between Jerusalem’s boundaries and the West Bank and near areas under Palestinian Authority control.
Kan, Israel’s government-run radio network, reported that several other people were wounded in the attack, quoting the first-responder service Magen David Adom. Three were hospitalized, including a 70-year-old woman in critical condition, a 20-year-old man in serious condition and a 14-year-old boy with moderate injuries.
The attack comes just days ahead of visits to the region by top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA chief Bill Burns. Burns’ trip was hastily planned in response to the raid in Jenin and the vows of retaliation, which threaten to ignite simmering tensions.
The Biden Administration is invested in keeping the Middle East quiet while it focuses its energies on assisting Ukraine in repelling Russia’s yearlong war on the country. The United States and Israeli militaries this week carried out a major joint military exercise widely seen as a signal to Iran, Israel’s deadliest enemy, that any major escalation would be met with massive military force.
This is the first major attack since the new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was sworn in last month. The government includes ministers who want to loosen the rules of engagement for Israeli police and to expand Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas.
One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees internal security, traveled to the scene of the shooting Friday night. In the past, when he was not a government minister, his visits to the scene of terrorist attacks often drew charges that he was seeking to heighten tension to achieve his political goals.
The shooting is the first major one on an Israeli synagogue since 2014, when five people, including four Jews at prayer and a security guard from Israel’s Druze minority, were killed in a synagogue shooting in the western Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof.
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The post At least 8 dead in Shabbat shooting attack on Jerusalem synagogue appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Who Was Tabtabai, Hezbollah’s Military Leader Killed by Israel?
People inspect a damaged building, after Israeli military said on Sunday that it struck a militant from the Lebanese Iran-aligned Hezbollah group, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon November 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Yassin
The Israeli military on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s top military official, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, in a strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital that came despite a year-long ceasefire.
His killing was announced by Israel’s military. Hezbollah later confirmed his death, hailing him as “the great jihadist commander” who had “worked to confront the Israeli enemy until the last moment of his blessed life.”
Israel had already eliminated most of Iran-backed Hezbollah’s leadership during a war that raged between October 2023 and November 2024, when a US-brokered truce was agreed.
But Tabtabai, who was appointed as the group’s chief of staff after its recent war with Israel, was killed in a rare post-ceasefire operation against a senior Hezbollah figure.
MILITARY LEADER ROSE THROUGH HEZBOLLAH’S RANKS
Tabtabai was born in Lebanon in 1968 to a father with Iranian roots and a Lebanese mother, according to a senior Lebanese security source. He was not a founding member of Hezbollah but was part of its “second generation,” deploying with the group to fight alongside its allies in Syria and Yemen, the source said.
Israel’s military said Tabtabai joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and held several senior posts, including in its Radwan Force, an elite fighting unit. Israel killed most Radwan figures last year ahead of its ground invasion into Lebanon.
During last year’s war, Tabtabai led Hezbollah’s operations division and rose in rank as other top commanders were eliminated, the Israeli military’s statement said.
Once the ceasefire came into force, Tabtabai was appointed chief of staff and “worked extensively to restore their readiness for war with Israel,” according to the statement.
The Lebanese security source confirmed Tabtabai was swiftly promoted as other top Hezbollah officials were killed, and had been appointed chief of staff over the last year.
The Alma Center, a security research and teaching organization in Israel, said Tabtabai had survived other Israeli attacks both in Syria and during the war in Lebanon.
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Netanyahu, Smotrich to Meet on Israeli 2026 Budget that Faces Battle for Approval
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich during the weekly cabinet meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and senior ministry officials will present Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Sunday with the state budget and planned structural reforms for 2026, Smotrich’s office said.
“The Finance Minister will present to the Prime Minister the necessary measures to ensure continued economic growth and to combat the high cost of living,” it said.
It added that cabinet ministers would vote on the budget on Dec. 4 but it is unlikely the budget would be approved by year end.
According to Israeli law, the budget must be approved by parliament by the end of March or new elections are triggered.
Its final approval faces an uphill battle that could ultimately lead to new elections.
The government has splintered in the past two years over the Gaza war, the ceasefire which has halted it and demands by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties to exempt Jewish seminary students from mandatory military service.
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Hamas Delegation Meets Egypt Spy Chief, Says Israeli ‘Breaches’ Threaten Ceasefire
Palestinian women look out of a window near the site of Saturday’s Israeli strike in the Central Gaza Strip, November 23, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
A senior Hamas delegation met Egypt’s intelligence chief in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the ceasefire agreement and the situation in Gaza, the group said, as both Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group continue to trade accusations of truce violations.
Egypt, Qatar and the US have been mediating between Hamas and Israel, securing the ceasefire that came into effect last month.
In a statement, the group said it reaffirmed its commitment to implementing the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in its meeting with Egypt’s intelligence chief, but accused Israel of “continued violations” that it said threatened to undermine the deal.
Hamas, whose delegation included its exiled Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya, called for a “clear and defined mechanism” under the supervision of mediators to document and halt any breaches of the deal.
The movement said it also discussed with Egypt ways to urgently resolve the issue of Hamas members in Rafah tunnels, adding that communication with them had been cut off.
Reuters reported earlier this month that mediators were trying to address the fate of a group of Hamas fighters holed up in tunnel networks in Israeli-controlled areas of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said the country’s military killed five senior Hamas members on Saturday after a fighter was sent into Israeli-controlled Gaza territory to attack Israeli soldiers there.