The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they unfold.
Cops shoot, injure East Jerusalemite who aimed pistol at them during chase
Police officers shot and injured an East Jerusalem man who pointed a pistol at them during a chase a short while ago, police say in a statement.
Police say cops demanded that a driver stop after suspecting he had illegal weapons, but he refused and tried to escape.
At one point, near the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, the suspect exited the car and fled on foot. The officers chased him and initiated an arrest protocol during which they fired shots in the air.
The suspect then allegedly turned toward the cops, brandishing the pistol, and the police officers shot him.
Police say the 28-year-old man has been taken to a hospital in serious condition.
The incident is criminal in nature, not terror-related, the pistol has been seized and the circumstances are being probed, the statement adds.
Detention of cop thought to have accidentally fired gun, killing IDF soldier, extended by five days
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court has issued a five-day extension to the remand of a police officer who accidentally discharged his gun, killing an IDF soldier in his home on Monday night.
The soldier was on furlough in his home in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, when he was killed by an apparent accidental discharge of the police officer’s gun.
According to the Walla news website, the officer is being charged with negligent homicide.
‘We will rise’: Brother of hostage killed by IDF vows to build a better future
Yonatan Shamriz, the brother of Alon Shamriz, taken hostage and accidentally killed by IDF troops in December 2023, recounts at the national memorial ceremony how he sat in his Kibbutz Kfar Aza safe room with his pregnant wife and their two-year-old child, celebrating her birthday on October 7, 2023.
In his last conversation with his brother, Alon told him that terrorists had entered his apartment. He didn’t hear from him again after that.
“Right there, in the safe room, I made myself a promise: We will rise,” says Shamriz, who founded Kumu (Rise), the organization that put together the national memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv marking two years since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.
“We emerged into a country where the only thing still functioning was the people. The people of Israel clothed us, fed us, and fought for us.”
“They were there when no leader showed up.”
When his brother Alon was killed, says Shamriz, he couldn’t find the energy to rise.
Three weeks later, his son Lavi was born, and he promised his two young children, “We will rise.”
“October 7 is not only a day of remembrance for those we lost,” says Shamriz. “It is a day of remembrance for negligence, for failed leadership, and for the abandonment of responsibility. On that day, a new commitment was born: To lead the State of Israel to a better reality — a far better one.”
“It’s not what we wanted, but it’s what fate has placed in our hands.”
He says the first step in rebuilding is bringing home the remaining hostages.
Noting that hostages listened to last year’s ceremony from the tunnels of Gaza, he says he hopes those still held hostage can hear this: “When you come home, and when this war is over, our generation will take off its uniforms, shake the ashes of the burned houses from its shoulders, and wash away the failures left to us by those before us,” says Shamriz.
The audience stands and applauds Shamriz.
“Our generation —Which inherited a country bleeding, isolated, fractured, and in pain — Will be the one to fix it,” says Shamriz. “It will be the best version of Israel, one that sanctifies the lives of its residents, that is built on truth, accountability and mutual responsibility.”
Shamriz says his generation will ensure that a state commission of inquiry is established — offering “a generation that will cultivate and lead a leadership that is unifying, egalitarian, principled, and Zionist.”
“We will bring back life. We will bring back hope. We have risen.
The people of Israel have risen,” says Shamriz.
Edan Alexander and family of slain hostage Omer Neutra meet with Trump at White House
The family of slain hostage Omer Neutra met with US President Donald Trump at the White House earlier today, along with released hostage Edan Alexander and his family, amid the ongoing negotiations in Egypt on the president’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Speaking to the press after the meeting, Ronen Neutra, Omer’s father, says they spoke to Trump as representatives of the “28 bereaved families who are among the 40 total hostage families.”
“We reminded him how important it is that the deceased are also returned for burial,” says Neutra.
Omer Neutra, a dual US-Israeli citizen, was killed and his body taken to Gaza from a tank stationed on the Gaza border on October 7, 2023.
Both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have, in recent weeks, referred to only the 20 living hostages in their pledges to secure their freedom, without mention of the deceased.
Regarding the ongoing negotiations in Egypt and the chance for a deal to free the hostages and end the war in Gaza, Neutra says he believes Trump is “hopeful, but he said we should ‘wait and see what happens in the coming days.'”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt publishes a photo of the meeting on X.
On the 2nd anniversary of October 7th, President Trump met with Edan Alexander and his family, and the family of Omer Neutra, whose body is still in Gaza. ???? pic.twitter.com/jFw2nVVQax
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) October 7, 2025