The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they unfold.
Sweeping UN ‘snapback’ sanctions are reimposed on Iran after nuclear talks fail
Widespread UN sanctions against Iran return into force for the first time in a decade, after last-ditch nuclear talks with Western powers failed to produce a breakthrough.
The sanctions, two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran, bar dealings related to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles program but are expected to have wider effects on a troubled economy.
Iran allowed UN inspectors to return to its nuclear sites, but Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said the United States offered only a short reprieve in return for handing over its whole stockpile of enriched uranium, a proposal he described as unacceptable.
An 11th-hour effort by Iran allies Russia and China to postpone the sanctions until April failed to win enough votes in the Security Council on Friday, leading to the measures taking effect at midnight GMT, or 3 a.m. Israel time.
Haredi MK’s son arrested at anti-enlistment protest outside AG’s home
Police have arrested United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush’s son, Yisrael Porush, at a demonstration held outside Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in Tel Aviv.
The younger Porush — a member of the Elad city council on behalf of his father’s Shlomei Emunim movement, as well as a former mayor of the Haredi city, and the leader of the Magen u-Moshi’a anti-enlistment group — was protesting against the detention of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.
In a video posted on an official Shlomei Emunim WhatsApp group, Porush’s fellow demonstrators can be heard singing a song about God thwarting the designs of Israel’s enemies as the Haredi politician, wearing a prayer shawl, enters a police cruiser.
“I am being arrested for blowing the shofar in the Land of Israel while there are a hundred young men in detention,” he declares.
According to the extremist Jerusalem Faction group, around 100 Haredi draft dodgers were being held in military prison as of last week.
In a statement, Shlomei Emunim calls Yisrael Porush’s arrest “an outrageous violation of the right to protest,” while MK Porush declares that his son’s detention exposed the “hypocrisy” in which those protesting against the government “cannot be arrested because that is democracy.”
“But when people demonstrate against the attorney general, who demands mass arrests with governmental violence [and] the denial of the right to study Torah…that is forbidden, and the demonstrator must be arrested,” MK Porush says, accusing the authorities of practicing “open discrimination” against Haredi Jews and allowing freedom of demonstration “only to those it wants” while denying it when it is “not convenient.”
“Rabbi Porush exposed this hypocrisy tonight. Thanks to him, everyone now knows that the State of Israel is not a nation of law, but a dictatorship hostile to democracy. There are unelected rulers in the legal system against whom it is forbidden to protest,” he adds.
MK Porush quit as Jerusalem affairs minister over the summer when his party left the coalition over its failure to pass legislation exempting yeshiva students from military service. During his time as a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, he was responsible for the operation of a telephone hotline that advised yeshiva students to ignore draft orders and lie to the Israel Defense Forces.
MK Porush's son Yisroel was arrested after blowing a shofar during a protest against the detention of draft dodgers held outside the attorney general's home. He leads an anti-conscription group pic.twitter.com/iZa9rLvcE6
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) September 27, 2025
Just 2 weeks before Oct. 7, Mossad reportedly said Hamas ‘not interested’ in armed conflict
The Mossad put out a position paper shortly before October 7, 2023, downplaying the threat of an attack from Hamas, Channel 12 reports.
“We perceive that the leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is not interested in military conflict with Israel at the present time, but will not be deterred if it is forced upon them,” the report quotes the spy agency’s assessment as saying.
The network says the paper was published just two weeks before Hamas’s devastating massacre in southern Israel, which killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The terror group, the Mossad reportedly said, was “maintaining a high degree of readiness out of concern for Israeli countermeasures.”
“The broad interest of Hamas’s leadership in Gaza is to avoid escalation at present,” the paper said, according to Channel 12.
In a response to the network, the Mossad says it was not responsible for intelligence in Gaza. It does not go on to explain, in light of that, why it had composed the position paper.
“According to the distribution of responsibilities between the intelligence services… the Mossad has no responsibility for strategic alerts about the use of force in the Palestinian arena,” the Mossad statement says, adding that it thus attributed “low significance” to the paper.
“In accordance with that delination, the Mossad did not deal operationally in the Gaza Strip — neither in intelligence gathering, nor in running agents, nor in conducting special operations,” the statement says.
At UN, UAE warns against Israeli annexation, calls for Palestinian state ‘with no place for terrorists’
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, the UAE’s foreign minister says Israeli calls to annex the West Bank are “unacceptable,” condemns Israel’s recent strike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar and calls for a Palestinian state without terrorists and with restrictions on weapons.
The speech by Lana Nusseibeh is significant because the UAE normalized relations with Israel five years ago, and recently issued a warning that Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank would be a “red line.”
Her speech follows other speeches by Arab leaders at the UN who castigated Israel and, in multiple cases, accused it of “genocide” in Gaza.
Nusseibeh’s speech does not make that accusation, though she says that “nothing can justify targeting tens of thousands of civilians or besieging them or starving them and forcibly displacing them.”
“Nor can anything excuse the pursuit of unacceptable expansionist ambitions, including the threat of annexing the West Bank,” she continues.
Unlike other Middle Eastern dignitaries, however, she also devotes time in her speech to condemning the taking of hostages, a likely reference to those held by Hamas in Gaza.
“There is no justification for the taking of hostages or the targeting of civilians in conflict,” she says. “We emphasize the need to protect the hostages as per international humanitarian law.”
She calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state “living side by side with Israel in security, peace and prosperity,” notably saying that conditions for its establishment should include “restricting the use of weapons.”
She adds that a future two-state outcome should have “no place for terrorists and extremist groups.”
She fiercely condemns Israel’s attack earlier this month in Doha, which targeted Hamas’s leaders. The strike is widely believed to have failed.
“Israel’s treacherous and reprehensible attack against the State of Qatar constituted a flagrant violation of its territorial integrity and of the security of the Arabian Gulf region, as well as a breach of the most fundamental principles of international law,” she says. “Aggression will not bring stability to the region.”
At UN, Oman calls for sanctions on Israel, establishment of Palestinian state
Oman’s foreign minister calls for the United Nations to place sanctions on Israel, and also advocates for the establishment of a Palestinian state, in an address to the UN General Assembly.
The statements from Badr al-Busaidi, who also accuses Israel of genocide, come following denunciations of Israel from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries at the plenum.
“For too long, this conflict has persisted, the suffering has grown unbearable, and the time has come to end the occupation, to undo the injustice, and to restore the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people through the implementation of the two-state solution,” he says.
He praises the string of Western countries to recognize a Palestinian state in recent days, saying that “the recognition of the State of Palestine is the most crucial step of this critical phase of history of the Palestinian cause.”
He condemns Israel’s strike earlier this month targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar, as well as Israeli strikes in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, the latter of which fought a 12-day air war with Israel in June.
Oman “calls upon the international community to adopt measures that limit the Israeli government’s ability to continue its policy of genocide, destruction, and illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, and its ongoing policy of starvation and blockade against the Palestinian people and the obstruction of humanitarian assistance,” he says.
He adds, “We call for imposing sanctions on Israel in response to its blatant violations of international law and its unlawful encroachments on the sovereignty of states.”
Israel rejects the charge that it is committing genocide in Gaza, saying it strives to avoid civilian casualties.
New Gaza-bound flotilla sets off from Sicily to join larger group of vessels
A flotilla of 10 vessels set off for Gaza from Sicily today with 60 people on board, including elected officials from nine nations, organizers say.
A statement from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Thousand Madleens to Gaza says they intend to “break the illegal Israeli blockade” to deliver aid to the embattled territory.
They intend to join the Global Sumud Flotilla, which has dozens of ships bound for Gaza carrying aid supplies.
“For the most part, our boats carry medical supplies, dry food and school equipment, as this was highlighted as some of the biggest priorities by Palestinians on the ground,” organizers add.
On board are elected officials from the European Parliament and from countries including Belgium, France, Ireland, Spain, and the United States.
On Wednesday, the United Nations called for an investigation into alleged drone attacks off Greece against the Global Sumud Flotilla, which activists have blamed on Israel.
Israel has intercepted previous flotillas, which it has described as publicity stunts, and vowed to stop this one from breaching its blockade.
Organizers of the flotilla have rejected an offer to drop off their onboard aid with Catholic officials and have it delivered to Gaza.
Man shot dead in Hadera, criminal motive suspected
A 39-year-old man was shot and killed in Hadera tonight, police and paramedics announce.
Medics found the victim, a resident of the city, unconscious and in critical condition with several gunshot wounds, authorities say. They transported him to the hospital, where he was declared dead by medical staff.
Officers at the scene have launched an investigation into the incident and are searching for the perpetrator. They suspect the man was shot as part of a criminal dispute.
Hadera has seen a string of violent incidents in recent days. Yesterday, police announced they arrested a man on suspicion of shooting at a car belonging to a well-known resident of the city. No injuries were reported.
At UN, Saudi FM slams Israel’s ‘brutal’ actions, calls for two-state solution
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister condemns Israel’s conduct and calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
Near the beginning of his address, Prince Faisal bin Farhan laments “the suffering of the Palestinian people and the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” and condemns “the brutal and unchecked practices of the occupying forces, including starvation, forced displacement and systematic killing.”
He adds, “This is done in complete disregard of the historic and legal rights of the Palestinian people, with an aim to erase their legitimate rights.”
He calls at length for a two-state solution — the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel — and highlights his country’s efforts to advance that outcome. Saudi Arabia and France recently co-chaired a conference on the two-state solution, at which a string of Western nations announced they were recognizing a Palestinian state.
“It is time to find a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue,” the minister says. “Military escalation will not achieve peace and security.”
He continues, “Saudi Arabia stresses the need for the international community to shoulder its responsibility to put an end to this tragedy and achieve sustainable peace through the two-state solution as the only path that will guarantee the security of all countries in the region.”
He also alluded to the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, which Jerusalem adamantly rejects.
“The failure of the international community to take firm action to end the Israeli aggression and violations will only cause further instability and insecurity regionally and globally. Such inaction will have great consequences and will escalate war crimes and acts of genocide.”
Prince Faisal calls on more countries to recognize a Palestinian state, as well as for international support for reforms in the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Israel has decried recognition of a Palestinian state in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack as a “prize for terror.”
The Saudi minister, however, also praises Lebanon’s government implicitly for its efforts to disarm the terror group Hezbollah, a goal also sought by Israel. He also calls for Israel to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon as well as Syria.
He says Saudi Arabia “appreciates the efforts of the Lebanese state… extend the sovereignty of the state, and limit weapons to the Lebanese state and its legitimate institutions.”
He also calls for a “diplomatic track” to address Iran’s nuclear program, which saw renewed sanctions today.