The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.

Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, met an Israeli delegation in Paris on Tuesday to discuss bolstering stability in the region and southern Syria, Syria’s state news agency SANA reports.

Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting US-mediated talks on deescalating the conflict in southern Syria.

The discussions between the Israeli and Syrian sides focused on deescalation and non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs.

Some 60,000 Israeli reservists are set to receive call-up orders that the IDF will issue starting tomorrow for the planned offensive in Gaza City, provided Defense Minister Israel Katz approves the move, according to security sources.

The orders are not immediate, and the reservists will be given at least two weeks before needing to report for duty.

The number of reservists being called up is in addition to tens of thousands of reservists who are currently serving in the reserves.

Not all of the reservists being called up are expected to participate in the operation to capture Gaza City, as some will instead be replacing standing army troops on other fronts.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam tells the Jordanian channel Al-Mamlaka that the government will not walk back its decision directing the country’s army to confiscate all of Hezbollah’s weapons by the end of 2025.

Hezbollah announced after the decision that it would act as if it did not exist, with the terror group’s leader Naim Qassem pledging to defy the ruling.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announces it is changing the format of nationwide protest events originally planned for next Sunday, following reports of ongoing negotiations for a comprehensive hostage-release deal.

Instead of holding a mass rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, the forum says it will organize events across the country calling for an immediate agreement, with the large demonstration postponed to an undisclosed later date. The weekly Saturday night rally in Tel Aviv will still proceed as planned.

In a statement addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the forum says, “This is the last chance to sign an agreement for the return of the 50 hostages,” while expressing frustration that a security cabinet meeting has yet to be called this week on the matter.

The announcement comes after a day of massive protests this past Sunday, which some estimates put at over one million participants nationwide, including more than 500,000 in Tel Aviv alone. The rallies were accompanied by strikes at hundreds of local authorities, businesses, universities, and tech companies, though Israel’s central labor union, the Histadrut, did not join.

The protests were sparked by the cabinet’s recent decision to move forward with plans to conquer Gaza City, despite warnings from top security officials that such an operation could endanger the remaining hostages held by Hamas. The forum had called the previous demonstrations and strikes to pressure the government to end the war in exchange for the release of hostages.

Munition left from Israel’s war with Iran earlier this year exploded on Tuesday in the Islamic Republic’s west, killing one person, state media says.

Official news agency IRNA says that “unexploded ordnance of the Zionist regime” detonated near the city of Beyranshahr, in Lorestan province of western Iran.

“The incident left one person dead and nine people injured,” it adds, quoting a Revolutionary Guards statement.

The 12 days of fighting in June saw Israel bomb Iranian nuclear and military sites as well as residential areas, killing more than 1,000 people, including senior commanders and nuclear scientists.

Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks that killed dozens in Israel.

The United States, which briefly joined the war by striking Iranian nuclear sites, announced a halt in fighting on June 24.

While the hostilities ended, there was no agreement formalizing the ceasefire.

Iranian officials have since maintained that Tehran remains ready in case another confrontation breaks out with its sworn enemy, Israel.

On Sunday, Yahya Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told local media the country was “preparing plans for the worst-case scenario.”

France slams as “abject” and “erroneous” an accusation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that President Emmanuel Macron’s move to recognize a Palestinian state was fueling antisemitism in his country.

France “protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens,” Macron’s office says, adding that a letter from Netanyahu containing his allegation “will not go unanswered.”

“This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation,” the French presidency adds.

“Violence against the [French] Jewish community is intolerable,” the French presidency says.

“That is why, beyond criminal convictions, the president has systematically required all his governments since 2017 — and even more so since the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 — to show the strongest action against perpetrators of antisemitic acts,” it says.

Macron’s minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, separately says in reaction to Netanyahu’s letter that France has “no lessons to learn in the fight against antisemitism.”

The issue “which is poisoning our European societies” must not be “exploited,” Haddad adds.

France is home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community.

Reported antisemitic acts in France surged from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, before dipping to 1,570 last year, according to the interior ministry.

The family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin is holding a memorial service in Jerusalem to mark the one-year Hebrew calendar anniversary of his murder in Hamas captivity, along with five other hostages.

“Sometimes I look deep into my own eyes. I unzip them — my eyes — and I can hear you. And I know you’re here inside,” says Hersh’s mother, Rachel, gesturing toward her heart during prepared remarks at the gathering. “Even though I can’t see you with my eyes — that are your eyes, that are my eyes. Like the too-big ocean that I cannot always see. But there is no doubt that it is there.”

“In your 23 years and 11 months, you always prioritized things that can’t be quantified. Smiling and making other people smile, knowledge, experiences, relationships, and justice. And the legacy you have already left from your 23 years and 11 months is greater than any of those legacies that could be quantified,” says Hersh’s father, Jon.

ג'ון פולין מספר עכשיו באזכרה של הירש: 'לפני כמה שבועות הלכתי עם בתי ברחוב בירושלים, כשניגש אלינו בחור נחמד. 'אבא של הירש, אפשר להראות לך משהו?' הוא הראה לנו את הרקע של הטלפון שלו – תמונה של הירש. "בכל בוקר, הדבר הראשון שאני רואה הוא את הירש מביט בי. ואני שואל את עצמי, מה אני יכול… pic.twitter.com/HdrqNbIbIv

— Akiva Novick (@akivanovick) August 19, 2025

Israeli Druze leader Sheikh Muafak Tarif meets in Paris with US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack.

In a statement on the meeting, Tarif says he urged the US envoy to ensure the implementation of the ceasefire in southern Syria in addition to urging him to open a humanitarian corridor to the predominantly Druze area of Sweida, there, which he says is under siege and enduring shortages in aid.

Today I had a warm and informative meeting with Israeli Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif and his team. We discussed the situation in Suwayda and how to bring together the interests of all parties, de-escalate tensions, and build understanding. pic.twitter.com/A7htbbSl2r

— Ambassador Tom Barrack (@USAMBTurkiye) August 19, 2025

The mother of the security guard, who Likud MK Tally Gotliv compared to the Holocaust-era “Judenrat” today, calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn her comments, and expresses astonishment as to how such remarks could be uttered.

The mother, whose name is given as Chani, tells Channel 12 News in an interview that her son is a combat soldier and deputy company commander in the IDF reserves and has served some 400 days in IDF reserve duty since the war with Hamas began following the October 7 atrocities.

Chani also notes that her mother, his grandmother, was a Holocaust survivor. And she adds that she has four sons and a son-in-law, and that at any given time, at least one of them is serving in IDF reserve duty.

“I really think that the leadership needs to get a grip on itself,” she said, adding that “the nation deserves better.”

She said that her mother, a Holocaust survivor, had been very happy to live in the Jewish state and had always been proud of her grandsons.

“How can you say something like this?” she asked of Gotliv’s comments.

“I very much expect people to condemn this, especially Bibi [Netanyahu], who is prime minister and head of the Likud,” she continued, adding that Netanyahu knows the family personally.

Gotliv was forcibly removed by the security guard on a judge’s order after she repeatedly interrupted a court hearing and called the guard “an animal” on her way out.

When he responded that he was doing his job, Gotliv retorted that the Judenraete (Jewish councils), which the Nazis established and forced to implement their policies, had done the same.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says that the US “continues to discuss” the Arab mediators’ ceasefire proposal that was accepted yesterday by Hamas.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Hamas accepted this proposal after the president of the United States posted a very strong statement about this conflict on Truth Social yesterday,” Leavitt says during a press briefing, referring to US President Donald Trump’s assertion that all of the hostages will only be released once Hamas has been destroyed.

However, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel that Hamas had already approved the proposal by the time Trump issued his tweet.

Defense Minister Israel Katz is meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, other senior officers, and Shin Bet representatives to approve the military’s plans for the capture of Gaza City, his office says.

The meeting and the presentation of the army’s plans to Katz come despite Hamas saying yesterday that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal. Should a hostage-ceasefire deal be reached, the plans to capture Gaza City are likely to be called off.

According to Israeli officials, the IDF’s plans to capture Gaza City involve first the establishment of humanitarian infrastructure in southern Gaza, including allowing tents and shelter equipment into the Strip in recent days.

The IDF will then issue evacuation warnings for the estimated one million Palestinians residing in Gaza City. Israeli officials have said that Palestinians will have until October 7, 2025, to evacuate Gaza City, which coincides with the second anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Afterward, the IDF will then launch its ground offensive into Gaza City, including by placing a siege on the area to kill any remaining Hamas operatives.

The military is set to call up tens of thousands of reservists in the coming days ahead of the operation, though it is unclear how many of them would be deployed to Gaza, as military officials say many reservists will be swapping out standing army troops on other fronts.

The Bnei Brak religious council, a taxpayer-funded government body, is listed as one of the backers of an upcoming anti-enlistment event in the central Israeli city scheduled for Thursday morning.

The event, which will take place at the city’s Yeshua L’yehuda yeshiva, will consist of ideological encouragement for “the holy and mighty yeshiva students in the face of the conscription decrees,” a promotion for the event states, using Biblical language to reference soldiers and other fighting men.

The religious councils are one of three organizations listed as backers of the event, which will feature several top Haredi rabbis, including former chief Sephardic rabbi and current Shas party spiritual leader Yitzhak Yosef, a staunch opponent of military service for yeshiva students.

Thursday’s event will be one of several held nationwide and across the Diaspora to protest the arrest and detention of yeshiva students who, obeying rabbinic orders, ignored IDF draft summonses and were declared evaders.

כזה עוד לא היה לנו: המועצה הדתית בבני ברק, גוף ממלכתי למי שלא זוכר, מממנת ומפיקה כנס מיוחד כנגד גזירת הגיוס???????? pic.twitter.com/lJ63dfNNaE

— אברהם פריינד (@avrahamFriend) August 19, 2025

An Arab Israeli college student suspected of spying for Iran told Shin Bet investigators that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, called him a “terrorist” after he shared his name during a customer service call for the HOT Mobile phone company last year, according to notes from the interrogation obtained by The Times of Israel.

The Ben Gurion University student had recorded the call and had written about the interaction on his phone, leading interrogators to ask about it during their questioning.

The suspect recalled how, when he was working for HOT one Saturday last year, he answered a call from a customer, sharing his name and asking how he could assist.

Netanyahu could then be heard on the other end exasperatingly declaring, “Another terrorist is answering me.”

The suspect testified that he subsequently realized that he was the third Arab to receive a call from Netanyahu. It was a Saturday when companies are legally barred from requiring Jewish employees to work.

The suspect passed a polygraph, and the notes on the interrogation obtained by The Times of Israel indicated that the Shin Bet uncovered the recording of the call on his phone. The investigators also noted that the suspect was cooperating with authorities.

The suspect is accused of responding to an Iranian operative who reached out and asked him to carry out intelligence-finding missions in exchange for money. He is one of dozens of Israelis from various backgrounds who have been arrested on such charges since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer is joining 225 new immigrants moving to Israel on the first Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah charter flight since Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023.

“Usually, during a war, people leave their country, but you are here coming,” Sofer says at a ceremony at JFK Airport in New York right before the immigrants board the plane.

More than 1,000 North American Jewish immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel in August, the highest monthly total since NBN was founded in 2002 to promote Aliyah, the organization says.

Included on the flight are 45 families with 125 children, as well as 10 single people. The youngest new immigrant is nine months old, and the oldest is 72 years old. The group includes five physicians and 19 other medical professionals.

NBN says it has brought a total of 2,358 immigrants since the beginning of 2025, and more than 7,000 since the October 7 attacks.

Overall, immigration to Israel has been on the decline since the war. Immigration numbers dropped by 30% in 2024 to 32,161, according to Immigration and Absorption Ministry data.

Wednesday’s flight, NBN’s 65th since it was founded, is the organization’s only group charter flight of 2025. Some 90,000 immigrants have made Aliyah with NBN in the past 23 years.

The flight is organized in cooperation with Israel’s immigration and Absorption Ministry, The Jewish Agency, and KKL-JNF.

Opposition politicians denounce the government’s decision to approve a NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget, including NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) for humanitarian aid for Gaza.

“The government approved the transfer of NIS 1.6 billion to Gaza, despite the IDF’s warning that the vast majority of the ‘aid’ reaches Hamas,” tweets Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman. “The government is stealing from the citizens and paying taxes to Hamas.”

“The government’s decision to cut the health basket means both shame is dead, and sick people will die as well. Funding could come from closing 15 superfluous ministries and canceling coalition funds for corruption and draft dodgers,” declares Opposition Leader Yair Lapid. “Instead, the worst government in Israel’s history is cutting healthcare, education, and welfare. Disgraceful.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government votes to approve an NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget — NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) of which will go toward humanitarian aid for Gaza.

According to public broadcaster Kan, the increase will primarily go toward defense spending and will be accompanied by cuts to ministerial budgets, angering some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet. The additional funds will still require the approval of the Knesset.

According to the Ynet news site, the ministries with already larger budgets will be the most influenced by the cuts, with the National Security Ministry set to face the biggest slash to its spending.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Education Minister Yoav Kisch said in a joint statement on Tuesday morning that they would oppose the budget proposal being presented to the government unless it included funding for security at educational institutions in the coming school year.

Speaking during today’s cabinet meeting, Kisch complained that while aid to Gaza is being increased, he has not received funds he requested for mental health assistance for students, telling Smotrich: “you prefer the children of Gaza over the children of Israel” and claiming that he is a “small man with a big ego, according to a transcript leaked to Hebrew media.

Ben Gvir also blasted Netanyahu during the meeting, saying that he is “the one responsible” for this “disgrace,” according to leaked transcripts.

In response to criticisms, Netanyahu insisted that “the money does not go to Hamas, but to the aid centers, to the residents of Gaza,” prompting Ben Gvir to ask “why prioritize the children of Gaza?”

Israeli military operations have collapsed just about all services in Gaza, and it is responsible under international law to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the war zone.

In a statement responding to the criticism, Smotrich panned the minority of “populist ministers” who were more interested in “hurling personal insults and creating headlines,” while the majority of cabinet members showed national responsibility by passing the budget.

First Lady Michal Herzog welcomes the United Nations’ decision to add Hamas to its official “blacklist” of countries and groups that commit sexual crimes in violent conflicts, calling the move “a long time coming.”

Herzog, who has been a leading voice in raising awareness of Hamas’s sexual violence since October 7, says the evidence has been clear for months. She points to an early 2024 report by the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, that documented Hamas’s deliberate and systematic crimes.

“The world must understand: Hamas uses rape as a weapon,” Herzog says. “These atrocities — rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, sexual abuse in captivity — are not incidental. They are deliberate, premeditated and systematic tools of terror.”

Her comments come a week after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres formally placed Hamas on the blacklist for the first time, while also warning that Israel itself could be added in the future if allegations of misconduct by its forces are substantiated.

A Hamas terrorist who took part in the kidnapping of former hostage Yarden Bibas during the October 7 onslaught was killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.

The strike on August 10 in Gaza killed Jihad Kamal Salem Najjar, who the military and Shin Bet say invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, and abducted Yarden Bibas.

Bibas was released from captivity in February. His wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were abducted by the Mujahideen Brigades terror group and murdered in captivity, before their bodies were returned to Israel.

The Health Ministry reports that 618 cases of measles have been diagnosed since the measles outbreak began in Israel about three months ago, including 236 active cases, with most hospitalized patients being unvaccinated children. Two unvaccinated infants with no underlying conditions have died from measles in the past week.

There are 21 patients now hospitalized, most of them children under the age of 6, along with one adult. Two patients are in intensive care, and one is connected to a life-support system.

The ministry also says that a measles patient traveled on public transportation on the Bnei Brak–Beit Shemesh bus line (line 681) during the contagious period of the disease.

On August 15, they took a bus from Bnei Brak to Beit Shemesh between 15:00–16:30, and on the following two days, they took the bus from Beit Shemesh to Bnei Brak between 23:30–00:45.

People who were near the measles patient at the above times and locations are advised to ensure that they are vaccinated according to the Ministry’s recommendations.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever, malaise, a runny nose, and a rash. Infection can lead to dangerous complications such as blindness, pneumonia, brain swelling and death.

Vaccination status can be checked through the government personal portal using the digital vaccination record.

For assistance in checking the need for vaccination, people can contact the Kol HaBriut health hotline (5400*).

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee spotlights Hamas-held hostage Bipin Joshi in a video posted on X, after meeting with the Nepalese citizen’s family in Israel.

“He’s not Israeli. He’s not American. He’s from Nepal. And he just happened to be here a couple of weeks before October 7th,” Huckabee says.

Speaking of Joshi’s sister, 17-year-old Pushpa, and his mother Padma, Huckabee adds: “They haven’t heard from Bipin since he was taken hostage. They don’t know his condition. They just want their son, their brother, to come home.”

The two also met with President Isaac Herzog and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar earlier this week.

“We will do everything possible for them to return,” Huckabee concludes.

On Sunday, Pushpa spoke at a protest in Jerusalem during a nationwide day of demonstrations, urging Israelis not to forget her brother once she and her mother return to Nepal.

Here are my thoughts after meeting with the family of Bipin Joshi, an innocent student who just happened to be in the way of Hamas on October 7th. pic.twitter.com/blkFYC7KIO

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@USAmbIsrael) August 19, 2025

The Lod-Central District Court rules to extend the restrictive conditions on key Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich until September 10, overturning a lower court decision.

Last week, the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court rejected the police request to extend restrictions on Urich, banning him from contacting other figures connected to the Qatargate affair, and anyone working in the Prime Minister’s Office, including Netanyahu himself.

Judge Amit Michles upholds the police appeal, however, saying that the lower court’s ruling was based on the issue of whether Urich could be considered as working in public service. Michles writes........

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