An Israeli source confirmed that the targets struck in Gaza Wednesday evening were the commander of the Zeitoun Battalion and the head of Hamas’s naval force.
The operation was carried out based on precise intelligence that led to the targeted elimination. According to the source, it is believed that the terrorists were killed.
Earlier on Wednesday, terrorists opened fire at IDF forces in the Khan Yunis area.
No one was injured.
“This constitutes a violation of the ceasefire,” the IDF stated. “IDF forces under the Southern Command are deployed in the area and will continue to act to eliminate any immediate threat. The IDF will continue to operate with force to remove any threat to the State of Israel.”
US manages to rally international community around 20-point proposal, but still faces uphill battle convincing countries to contribute troops to ensure Strip demilitarized
Members of the UN Security Council raise their hands to vote in favor of a draft resolution to authorize an International Stabilization Force in Gaza, on November 17, 2025 at UN headquarters in New York City. (Adam Gray/Getty Images/AFP)
The UN Security Council voted on Monday to adopt a US-sponsored resolution authorizing the establishment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) that will help secure the Gaza Strip, in line with US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the war in the coastal enclave.
The resolution provides a much-needed tailwind for Washington’s effort to maintain the Gaza ceasefire that was inked on October 9.
The truce has come under strain, with Israel pledging to resume fighting if steps aren’t taken to disarm Hamas, which remains in de facto control of nearly half of the Strip following a partial Israeli withdrawal when the ceasefire came into place.
While the US claims that Hamas leaders pledged to disarm before the deal was signed and has worked in recent weeks to negotiate the decommissioning of its weapons with limited success, Trump’s 20-point plan also indicates that the ISF will take part in the demilitarization of Gaza.
However, Washington recognized that countries interested in contributing troops to the foreign force needed an international mandate backed by the UN in order to move forward.
Accordingly, it spent the last several weeks crafting a resolution to that effect, and holding talks with Security Council members as well as key Arab and Muslim allies that were also consulted in the formation of the original 20-point plan.
While the US faced some pushback last week when Russia tried to advance an alternative resolution, those efforts were quickly quashed and it became clear over the weekend that the Trump administration’s effort would succeed, a Western diplomat at the UN told The Times of Israel.
Still, the diplomat credited the US for galvanizing key Arab and Muslim stakeholders behind the resolution, while neutralizing potential spoilers in Russia and China, which both agreed to abstain. All other countries voted in favor.
But the Western diplomat argued that the US may well face a steeper uphill battle convincing countries to actually contribute to the ISF, given that much of the Arab world has privately pushed back on the idea of sending troops to a war zone where they’ll be expected to enter combat in order to disarm Hamas. The terror group has repeatedly and publicly insisted that it will not give up its weapons.
Notably, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told the Security Council before Monday’s vote that the resolution authorizes “a strong coalition of peacekeepers — many from Muslim-majority nations like Indonesia, Azerbaijan, and others — to deploy under a unified command.”
His decision to publicly name those two countries may have been an indication that they are still on board with contributing troops to the initiative, despite the difficult conditions that their troops will likely encounter in Gaza.
The resolution states that the ISF will help secure Gaza’s borders, protect civilians, secure humanitarian aid, train Palestinian police and — most critically to Israel — “ensure the process of demilitarizing” the Strip.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz raises his hand to vote in favor of a draft resolution to authorize an International Stabilization Force in Gaza, on November 17, 2025 in New York City. (Adam Gray/Getty Images/AFP)
The resolution also “welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace,” which will be chaired by Trump and tasked with overseeing the redevelopment of Gaza and the establishment of a technocratic Palestinian government that will be tasked with administering daily services in the Strip.
Neither the Board of Peace nor the Palestinian technocratic government have been staffed yet, but the 20-point plan states that the board will include former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and the US has been considering various names for both panels over the past several months, according to Arab diplomats.
The resolution authorizes the Board of Peace and the ISF to operate in Gaza until the end of 2027, and a US official told The Times of Israel that Washington is aiming for the foreign force to deploy at the beginning of 2026.
In rallying support for the initiative, the US organized a joint statement on Friday that said Trump’s plan offered a pathway to a future Palestinian state. The language raised some eyebrows, as it goes further than the actual text of the 20-point plan, which only said that it “may” provide for such a result.
The tightening of the language, likely needed to get additional countries on board, infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, who issued a flood of statements pledging not to allow Palestinian statehood, leading the premier to do the same on Sunday, even though the joint statement wasn’t binding.
Netanyahu did verbally accept the 20-point plan when it was unveiled by Trump during the premier’s visit to the White House in September. But the actual ceasefire agreement signed by Israel and Hamas was a separate document that only focused on the truce, Israel’s initial withdrawal, the hostage-prisoner swap terms and humanitarian aid provisions.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz (L) speaks with his Israeli counterpart Danny Danon before the start of a UN Security Council meeting to vote on a US resolution on the Gaza peace plan at the UN Headquarters in New York City, November 17, 2025. (ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
The entire 20-point plan was included as an annex in the Security Council resolution passed Monday.
Point 19 states, “While Gaza re-development advances and when the Palestinian Authority reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”
The final point reads, “The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”
It was apparently those two points that led Israel to avoid welcoming the resolution pushed tirelessly by its closest ally.
“The demilitarization of Hamas is a basic condition of the peace agreement. There will be no future in Gaza as long as Hamas possesses weapons,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in a statement following the vote.
The PA welcomed the resolution’s passing, stressing that it’s willing to work with the international community to implement it “in a way that ends the suffering of our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and advances the political path leading to peace, security, and stability between Palestinians and Israelis, based on the two-state solution.”
US President Donald Trump greets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a summit on Gaza in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on October 13, 2025. (Evan Vucci / POOL / AFP)
Ramallah also thanked those who back “Palestinian efforts toward ending the occupation and achieving freedom and independence, based on their commitment to advancing a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian question — one that brings peace, stability, and security to the region and the world at large.”
Hamas, however, blasted the resolution, asserting that “it fails to meet Palestinians’ rights and demands and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose.”
“Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation [Israel],” the terror group added, while claiming that “resisting occupation by all means is a legitimate right.”
Shortly after the resolution passed, Trump published a post on Truth Social “congratulating the world,” and saying that the Board of Peace that he will chair will include “the most powerful and respected leaders throughout the world.”
He claimed the resolution’s adoption “will lead to further peace all over the world,” in a statement that notably made no mention of Israel, Hamas, the PA or even the Gaza Strip.
Israel-Syria security talks have stalled, according to Kan 11 News, with Israel rejecting Syria’s demand for full withdrawal from post-Assad positions.
Ahmed al-Sharaa and Benjamin NetanyahuChaim Goldberg/Flash 90, Reuters
Negotiations toward a security agreement between Israel and Syria have reached a deadlock, Israeli sources told Kan 11 News on Monday.
According to the sources, Israel has rejected Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from all positions captured by the IDF in Syria following the fall of former President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.
The sources added that Israel would consider withdrawing from some of those positions only in exchange for a comprehensive peace agreement with Syria – not merely a security arrangement – and that no such agreement appears to be on the horizon at this time.
Last week, in an interview with the Washington Post during his visit to Washington, al-Sharaa revealed that Syria is engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, but stressed his demand that Israel withdraw from territories captured after a group of rebels led by al-Sharaa toppled the Assad regime.
“We have gone a good distance on the way to reach an agreement. But to reach a final agreement, Israel should withdraw to their pre-Dec. 8 borders,” al-Sharaa said. “Today, we found that Mr. Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this.”
Asked whether Syria would agree to demilitarize the region south of Damascus, al-Sharaa rejected the idea. “To talk about an entire region demilitarized, it will be difficult, because if there is any kind of chaos, who will protect it? If this demilitarized zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?”
He added, “At the end of the day, this is Syrian territory, and Syria should have the freedom of dealing with their own territory.”
In a separate interview with Fox News, which aired a day earlier, al-Sharaa was asked about the possibility of Syria joining the Abraham Accords and was cautious.
He would not acknowledge whether Syria would agree to recognize Israel’s right to exist and would only say, “Syria has borders with Israel, and Israel occupies the Golan Heights since 1967. We are not going to enter into a negotiation directly right now. Maybe the United States administration, with President Trump, will help us reach this kind of negotiation.”
In September, al-Sharaa told reporters in Damascus that ongoing negotiations with Israel on a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days”
At the time, he stated that if the security pact is successful, it could lead to “additional agreements”, but also clarified that a normalization or peace deal with Israel are not on the table at this time.
