IDF says settlers raid Palestinian village, vandalize building and set fire to shed

12:21 am Netanyahu pushing for Charedi Public party to drop out of race — report Moti Leitner, chairman of The Charedi Public, and Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, head of the party's rabbinic committee, attend the kick-off of the new ultra-Orthodox faction's Knesset campaign in Beit Shemesh, August 23, 2026. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for the Charedi Public, an ultra-Orthodox party with relatively moderate stances on IDF enlistment, education and employment, to suspend its campaign with nine days to go until the October 27 election, Channel 12 reports. Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, chair of the far-right Religious Zionism party, are pushing for the Haredi party to drop out because they worry that it will not receive enough votes to enter the Knesset. In that case, those votes would be wasted, rather than presumably going to pro-Netanyahu factions. No poll has shown the party winning enough votes to enter the Knesset. The report says that party chair Moti Leitner wants to be a member of Knesset or a government minister, but that Netanyahu and Smotrich are presenting other offers, which the report does not specify. The party says in a statement reported by the network, “We do not have the privilege of stepping away. We cannot step away. We have a large public that we will represent.״ The party claims it will be the “surprise of the election.” Share Copy link Send by email Facebook X Whatsapp Telegram Bluesky Reddit 11:56 pm Iran’s IRGC navy says oil tanker hits mine, catches fire in Strait of Hormuz By Reuters An oil tanker caught fire and exploded after striking a naval mine in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy says, according to Iranian media. Share Copy link Send by email Facebook X Whatsapp Telegram Bluesky Reddit 11:55 pm Recording captures miscommunication at JFK as El Al flight forced to briefly postpone landing A recording of a conversation last week captures an apparent miscommunication between a pilot on an El Al flight and a traffic controller at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. The El Al flight was reportedly forced to postpone its landing because the body of a dead animal was found on the runway. The air traffic controller and the pilot then had a misunderstanding, which came “close to causing a traffic situation, given the other plane on departure,” according to One Mile at a Time , an airline news publication. Channel 12 reports that the miscommunication appears to be the fault of the air traffic controller. The plane was able to land safely, but the incident raised eyebrows in the wake of the attempted terror attack on a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv last month, in which the co-pilot attempted to crash the plane and was thwarted by the flight’s captain and several Israeli passengers. Share Copy link Send by email Facebook X Whatsapp Telegram Bluesky Reddit Add ToI as a preferred source on Google 11:07 pm Settlers raid Palestinian village, vandalizing building and setting fire to shed — IDF By Emanuel Fabian Israeli settlers raided a Palestinian village in the West Bank earlier today, spraying graffiti on a building and setting fire to a storage container, according to the military. The army says troops and police officers were dispatched to Wadi a-Rahim in the South Hebron Hills after a fire was identified near an illegal outpost in the area. “It later emerged that several Israeli civilians who entered the area of the village had sprayed graffiti and set fire to a container used as a storage shed,” the military says. Police officers, with an IDF escort, are at the scene investigating the attack. The army adds that security forces began dismantling the illegal outpost earlier today. Share Copy link Send by email Facebook X Whatsapp Telegram Bluesky Reddit SHOW ALL UPDATES Help us report truthfully on social media As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos. This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. 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