The Times of Israel is liveblogging Monday’s events as they unfold.
Netanyahu meets settler leaders, pledges to raise West Bank sovereignty with Trump – report
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly meets with West Bank settlement leaders on Sunday night ahead of his Monday meeting with US President Donald Trump, and says he will raise the issue of Israel applying sovereignty to the West Bank.
But he also reportedly acknowledges facing a “complicated reality,” signaling that Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank is unlikely.
Reports in Hebrew media say that the meeting in New York includes Israel Ganz, who heads the Yesha Council, and Yossi Dagan, who heads the Samaria Regional Council, among others.
Netanyahu’s allies to the right, including settlement leaders, have been pushing for Israel to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, particularly as a reaction to the wave of Western countries recognizing a Palestinian state.
But Trump has ruled out Israeli West Bank annexation, and the UAE, which normalized relations with Israel five years ago, said the move would be a “red line.”
In the meeting, Netanyahu reportedly says Israel must “navigate a complicated reality.” He also compares Trump favorably to former US president Barack Obama, who vocally pressured Israel to freeze settlement construction.
“We have a supportive president,” Netanyahu reportedly says regarding Trump. “Remember the Obama era, when he told us not to lay even one brick.”
Earlier on Sunday, Ganz posted on X that he and other settlement leaders visited the New York City gravesite of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, to pray for the military’s success, the return of the hostages held in Gaza, and the application of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank.
He writes that the “clear message of settlement is — no to a Palestinian state, yes to applying sovereignty.”
יחד עם משלחת מועצת יש״ע פתחנו את הביקור בארה״ב בציון הרבי מלובביץ׳, להתפלל להצלחת חיילנו, לשיבת חטופינו, לחיזוק מדינת ישראל ולהחלת ריבונות ביו"ש. בימים הקרובים ננהל מרתון פגישות חשובות, בראשן פגישה עם רה"מ, להשמיע את המסר הברור של ההתיישבות – לא למדינה פלסטינית, כן להחלת ריבונות pic.twitter.com/IUnl73QutM
— ישראל גנץ – Israel Ganz (@israelganz) September 28, 2025
Signs of optimism on Gaza peace plan emerge as Netanyahu meets with Witkoff, Kushner
WASHINGTON — The addition of a press conference to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House meeting with US President Donald Trump raises speculation that the Trump administration is planning to announce that it has finalized its agreement for ending the war in Gaza and releasing the remaining Israeli hostages held there.
The US has secured initial backing for the plan from Arab and Muslim partners needed for the postwar management of Gaza.
However, Israel was still deliberating the plan on Sunday, while Hamas said it hadn’t even been presented with it yet.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff held a roughly two-hour meeting with Netanyahu at his hotel on Sunday, where the top Trump aide worked to get Netanyahu on board despite the prime minister’s pushback regarding the proposal’s terms for Hamas’s disarmament and the role of the Palestinian Authority in postwar Gaza, a source familiar with the discussions tells The Times of Israel.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, also participated in the meetings.
Hebrew media reported that the Witkoff meeting went well and that Netanyahu is likely to express his support for the plan when the two leaders meet on Monday at the White House.
On Friday, Trump had begun declaring that he thought a deal had been reached.
But without Hamas’s approval, it’s unclear how significant an announcement of a deal would be.
One of the plan’s 21 points states that much of the agreement can move forward even if Hamas doesn’t agree, including the establishment of a new transitional government of Palestinian technocrats and an international stabilization force in areas cleared of Hamas’s presence — which includes the vast majority of the Strip.
But without Hamas releasing the remaining 48 hostages, it’s unlikely that Israel will agree to halt its offensive in Gaza City and beyond.
Moreover, the changes Netanyahu succeeded in making to the US plan could risk the support of the Arab and Muslim nations, which have emphasized the importance of a role for the PA in Gaza and a potential pathway to a future Palestinian state — two red lines for the Israeli premier that he surely sought to remove.
While the leaders of eight Arab and Muslim countries had an opportunity to sway Trump on these issues during their meeting last week on the UN General Assembly sidelines, Netanyahu has the advantage of potentially being the last regional leader to meet with the US president before an announcement is made regarding the plan to end the Gaza war.
Netanyahu’s White House visit to include lunch, meeting, press conference
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit with US President Donald Trump on Monday will include lunch and a meeting, as well as a press conference with the two leaders, according to a schedule distributed by the White House Sunday night local time.
The meeting, Netanyahu’s fourth trip to the White House since Trump returned to office in January, will focus on the US president’s 21-point plan to end the Gaza war, set up a postwar governing mechanism, and bring back the 48 hostages held by the terror group, some 20 of whom are thought to be alive.
Netanyahu has spent Sunday meeting with advisers in his hotel in preparation for the White House visit.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. local time (6 p.m. in Israel), when Trump will greet Netanyahu, according to the itinerary. The two men will then hold a meeting and sit for a meal together, followed by the press conference, scheduled for 1:15 p.m.
Kremlin says UK, French arsenals must ultimately be part of nuclear disarmament talks
Talks on reducing strategic nuclear weapons must first be conducted between Russia and the US, but the arsenals of Britain and France will ultimately have to be included in negotiations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov is quoted as saying on Sunday.
Peskov’s remarks come amid a Kremlin proposal to the US this month to voluntarily maintain for a year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons. The limits were set out in their New START arms control treaty, which expires next year.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty good,” but the issue was up to US President Donald Trump. The US president has said he wants to open denuclearization talks with Russia and China.
“Naturally, we have to start talks at the bilateral level. New START is after all a bilateral document,” Peskov tells Russia’s TASS news agency.
“But in the long term, you cannot remain abstract with these arsenals,” he says. “All the more so that these arsenals are a component of the overall problem of global European security and strategic stability.”
New START was signed by then-presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, came into force a year later and was extended in 2021 for five more years after then-US president Joe Biden took office.
In 2023, Putin suspended Russia’s participation, but Moscow said it would continue to observe the warhead limits. Putin this month made his offer to maintain the treaty’s limits as Ukraine tries to convince Trump to impose harsher sanctions on Russia over its February 2022 invasion.
Russia and the US have by far the biggest nuclear arsenals in the world. New START caps the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and the number of delivery vehicles — missiles, submarines and bomber planes — at 700 on each side.
France and Britain, which were never a party to New START or its precursor treaties, have much smaller arsenals numbering between 250 and 300 warheads each.
Death toll in Michigan Mormon church attack rises to four, police say
Two additional bodies were recovered from a Mormon church in Michigan that a gunman attacked and set aflame on Sunday, police say, bringing the total death toll to four.
Grand Blanc Police Chief William Renye tells a press conference that “a couple additional bodies” had been recovered during an ongoing search through debris at the burned-down church. “So that makes our total victim count up to four victims,” he says.
5 Maccabi Tel Aviv fans arrested for rock throwing at Bnei Sakhnin soccer match; fireworks thrown on pitch
Violence erupted at a soccer match in the Arab town of Sakhnin, as five fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were arrested on suspicion of throwing rocks, police say.
The rock-throwing followed unrest during the game between Maccabi and Bnei Sakhnin, which ended in a 0-0 draw.
Fireworks were repeatedly thrown on the pitch during the game, with one coming close to Maccabi’s goalkeeper, Hebrew media report.
“A number of fans disturbed public order and began throwing rocks at cars,” police say in a statement, according to Hebrew media. “Officers of the northern district who had positioned themselves ahead of time around the stadium identified several suspects in the act, and arrested five.”
Bnei Sakhnin said in a statement that Maccabi fans had been allowed to leave the stadium via an exit that placed them in proximity to the home team’s fans and their cars, leading to the clashes.
יציע סכנין ברגע שהשופט שרק לסיום והם יכלו לחגוג את ה0-0 pic.twitter.com/TLUGSDMlTL
— Tal Afek (@TalAfek11) September 28, 2025
Scores arrested on second day of Morocco protests, NGO says
Scores of people were arrested Sunday in Morocco during a second consecutive day of scattered protests called by a group seeking educational and public health reforms, a local rights group and AFP journalists report.
During the protests in Rabat, security forces prevent groups of young people from gathering in several places in the city center, where dozens are detained.
The protests, which also saw dozens of arrests on Saturday, were initiated by a collective known as “GenZ 212,” whose founders remain unknown.
Hakim Sikouk, president of the Rabat branch of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), reports that there were “more than 100 arrests in Rabat and dozens of others in Casablanca, Marrakesh, Agadir and Souk Sebt.”
Sikouk also says that more than 70 people arrested the day before in Rabat had been released.
AFP was unable to reach the police on Sunday, and the authorities have made no official comment.
The arrests are condemned by the AMDH, as well as opposition parties.
GenZ 212 had put out the call for protests days before on the platform Discord, citing issues such as “health, education and the fight against corruption,” while professing its “love for the homeland.”
The protests come at a time of popular discontent over Morocco’s social inequalities, which have disproportionately affected young people and women.
Recent reports of the deaths of eight pregnant women at a public hospital in Agadir have been a particular source of public outrage.
IDF says missile shot at Israel by Yemen’s Houthis has been intercepted
A ballistic missile launched by the Houthis in Yemen at Israel a short while ago was intercepted by air defenses, the military says.
There are no immediate reports of impacts or injuries. Sirens had sounded in central Israel and in several southern West Bank settlements.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed terror group, have repeatedly attacked Israel with ballistic missiles and drones, saying they are doing so in support of Gaza amid Israel’s war there against Hamas.
Sirens sound in Israel after missile launch from Yemen, IDF working to shoot it down
Sirens sound in central Israel and in several southern West Bank settlements following the launch of a ballistic missile from Yemen.
The IDF says it is working to shoot down the projectile.
Ballistic missile launched from Yemen at Israel, IDF says
A ballistic missile has been launched from Yemen at Israel, the military says.
Sirens are expected to sound in central Israel in the coming minutes.