‘Strategic ambush by Hamas’: Israel said discussing open defiance of Gaza roadmap by resuming strikes

The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.

A Palestinian terrorist who invaded Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught was captured by the IDF earlier this week while working as a truck driver who arrived in the Israeli-held portion of the Gaza Strip to collect goods, according to security sources.

The member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force had requested a permit to deliver private sector goods inside the Strip, and was granted one by the Shin Bet security agency.

Upon arriving at the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing on Wednesday to collect the goods, Israeli troops apprehended him, the sources say.

He was then taken to be questioned by the Shin Bet.

Defense Minister Israel Katz left a security cabinet meeting yesterday in the middle to attend the wedding of a Likud official’s son, Hebrew media reports, in an apparent case of campaigning for the August 17 primaries, sidelining national security discussions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly asked, “Where is the defense minister?” after Katz headed to the wedding of Kiryat Ata Mayor Yaakov Peretz’s son, and then to the engagement party of a family member of senior ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto.

Katz reportedly also attended a series of other such events in recent days during security flare-ups, including meeting other Haredi rabbis and a group of Likud women, which were held inside ministerial offices in violation of laws barring the use of government assets for party politics.

Katz’s office responds that he held close to 10 hours of security discussions yesterday, won’t go into detail regarding the security forums, and that the meetings were held at the Defense Ministry due to his busy schedule that included other meetings there.

Prosecutors charge 19-year-old Agam Tzarafi, 20-year-old Shilat Huta, 17-year-old Avior Sasson and three other minors with the murder of 19-year-old Benayahu Razi in an Airbnb in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood on July 11.

Another woman, 46-year-old Jerusalem resident Linor Sasson — Avior’s mother — is charged with helping the other suspects flee after the four minors allegedly stabbed and beat Razi and a male friend of his with knives, brass knuckles, a club and a kitchen mallet.

Tzarafi, Huta and the four minors, including Avior Sasson, are charged with murder with intent and causing grievous bodily harm with intent. The four minors, including Avior Sasson, are also charged with illegal possession of a knife. Linor Sasson is charged with aiding and abetting after the act. All seven suspects face additional charges of obstruction of justice.

The indictment is filed in the Jerusalem District Court. Police request the court to keep all seven suspects in custody until the end of the legal proceedings. The four minors, aged 15-17, are unnamed in the indictment in accordance with Israeli privacy law. However, Avior Sasson has been publicly named after police asked the public to help find him while he evaded arrest for some two weeks after the incident before he was caught.

Tzarafi and Huta had rented the apartment for the weekend and invited Razi and his friend to join, the indictment says. It adds that Tzarafi and Razi were in a romantic relationship.

Tzarafi and Huta left the apartment in the afternoon on July 11, following an argument with Razi and his friend, and made their way to Linor Sasson’s home, where they recounted the argument to the four minors and alleged that Razi had been violent, according to the indictment.

Tzarafi, Huta, Avior Sasson and the three other minors then jointly decided to “finish” Razi, and Linor Sasson drove the six murder suspects to the Airbnb apartment while Huta threatened Razi and the unnamed friend and demanded they exit, the indictment says.

Upon arrival, the suspects found Razi and his friend outside the apartment, and the four minors coaxed the two victims to go back inside for a conversation, according to the indictment.

Once inside, they allegedly cornered Razi and attacked him, and also wounded the friend when he came to Razi’s defense. Huta stood in the doorway and broadcast the violence to Tzarafi via video call, prosecutors say.

After the attack, Linor Sasson allegedly helped all six suspects flee the crime scene.

She drove Huta and Tzarafi to Jerusalem’s Malha neighborhood, near the home of Tzarafi’s sister, and then drove with the minors in the direction of Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood, dropping off one of them — her son Avior — on the way in a location unknown to prosecutors, according to the indictment.

Linor Sasson and the remaining three minors were arrested en route, while Avior Sasson managed to evade arrest for some two weeks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Saudi Arabia’s city of Jeddah, Saudi media reports, where he is expected to sign a defense agreement with the kingdom and Pakistan, sources tell AFP.

Saudi Arabia’s Alekhbariya television reports that the Turkish president arrived in the Red Sea port city.

A temporary Iran-Oman deal framework has been reached regarding the Strait of Hormuz, the MS Now (formerly MSNBC) US outlet reports.

The report, which cites two unnamed Middle East diplomats with knowledge of the talks, says Oman has agreed to the temporary deal but doesn’t explicitly say that Iran has, although it cites an unnamed Iranian government official as saying it will establish a new Iran-controlled entry route and an Oman-controlled exit route from the waterway, a critical oil trade route.

The Iranian official is cited as saying that under the deal, ships won’t currently be required to pay tolls or fees.

The same official adds that the United States and the United Nations International Maritime Organization will be involved in the deal’s formal announcement, although the timing isn’t yet known.

However, a US official is quoted as saying Washington will only support the deal if it includes no fees and also no “impediments — meaning no approvals or permissions.” The report doesn’t say if the framework includes such provisions.

The members of the Gulf Cooperation Council have also endorsed the agreement, the report says, citing an unnamed Gulf government official.

Various outlets have reported progress in the talks and details of the deal for about a week. It is said to set a 60-day period in which the US and Iran will negotiate long-term arrangements and an end to the war that began in late February.

A Houthi drone attack on Yemen’s Marib province has killed three members of government forces, a Yemeni military source tells AFP, as rebels ramp up the conflict a day after the deadliest Houthi attack in years.

“Three killed and four wounded in a preliminary toll from the Houthi drone attack on the Harib area, in the south of Marib,” the source says, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The official earlier told AFP that artillery exchanges and clashes were taking place in Sirwah and on the Al-Kasara front, north of Marib city, where Houthi drones were spotted.

The rebels also hit an arms depot in the province.

The latest violence has raised the specter of a return to war in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, where a 2022 truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government had largely held before unraveling last month.

Yesterday, the Iran-backed rebels killed at least 58 government troops in missile and drone attacks, a military source said, in one of the deadliest incidents between the two sides in years.

Yemen, which has been embroiled in more than a decade of war, last month became the latest front to be sucked into the US-Iran conflict, as the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels upended the 2022 truce.

The rebels welcomed an Iranian plane directly to the capital Sanaa, triggering a series of tit-for-tat attacks, and later announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its tankers.

Last month, the Houthis killed 16 troops in an attack on government-aligned forces south of the port city of Hodeidah, two medical officials told AFP.

Ministers and security chiefs reportedly discussed yesterday how to deal with recent US-backed Board of Peace moves to go ahead with a roadmap for postwar Gaza, to which Jerusalem objects.

While the security cabinet approved having an International Stabilization Force enter Gaza to disarm Hamas and assume control of the territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel did not agree to the terms of the disarmament plan, which was accepted by the terror group last week. Some ministers have publicly urged the premier to openly declare that he will not abide by the terms.

“Hamas agreed to the 15-point plan, but hasn’t abandoned the vision of destroying Israel,” warned Brig. Gen. Ofir Mizrahi-Rozen, head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate’s Research Department, according to the Israel Hayom daily.

“It is apparent that there is a Hamas effort to put the ball in our court,” he added, warning of internationalizing the conflict by placing foreign forces, including from hostile states such as Turkey and Qatar, close to Israeli border towns.

Shin Bet chief David Zini reportedly said that Hamas signing the agreement “is a process of strategic deception aimed at buying time and ensuring we don’t return to [military] action in Gaza before the [October 27] election.”

“This is a strategic ambush by Hamas,” he asserted, according to the report.

The report adds that National Security Adviser Shmuel Ben Ezra said Israel has handed the US a list of corrections it is demanding to the roadmap, and that Netanyahu has said the roadmap contradicts November 2025 understandings reached with Washington.

He added that there is great pressure on Israel to withdraw to the original Yellow Line set last year — handing Israel control of 52 percent of the Strip, which it has since expanded to 70% — and to stop targeted strikes on terror officials.

Minister Ze’ev Elkin is quoted as calling for Israel to resume operations in Gaza in a way that makes clear that it does not accept the recent developments, which include a near-total 14-day freeze on military operations and strikes.

“If Israel doesn’t carry out offensive action for two weeks, the meaning is that we have accepted and entered the process. That’s why we need to publish that we are not signing these 15 points,” Elkin said.

The outlet says ministers Bezalel Smotrich, Orit Strock and Avi Dichter backed this demand.

Smotrich is quoted as telling Netanyahu: “You are a master at maneuvering, but now that there is an official document, we must delegitimize this document. We can’t maneuver.”

Transportation Minister Miri Regev is confronted during a campaign stop in Jerusalem by Nissim Louk, the father of Shani Louk, who was murdered at the Nova festival on October 7, 2023, and had her body dragged to Gaza, where it was recovered by commandos seven months later.

In one of the most shocking videos from the Hamas onslaught, her body was seen in a video, slung across the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by gunmen and paraded through Gaza.

In video from the incident shared on social media, Louk is seen shouting at Regev, outside the Mahane Yehuda marketplace.

“You caused October 7! Shame on you all! Shame on Likud!” he exclaims.

“You don’t know how proud we are [to be in Likud],” Regev responds.

“My daughter, Shani Louk, was murdered because of you! Shame on you all!” he says. “3,000 people were murdered because of you! Shame on you, Likud!”

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— ????יאיר אנסבכר (@AnsbacherYair) August 6, 2026

After a few of these shouts, men in the area – identified by the Walla news site as Likud activists – begin to challenge Louk, asking what Likud has to do with his daughter’s murder.

“Likud funded Hamas!” the bereaved father responds. “You funded Hamas!”

“You’re trash!” says one of the activists through the din, though it’s unclear he’s heard what Louk was saying.

When Louk repeats that his daughter was murdered, the activist responds: “What does that have to do with her?” referring to Regev.

Amid the back-and-forth, the activist chides the bereaved father: “Don’t come making provocations.”

“Are you joking?” he responds, again accusing Likud of funding Hamas.

“No, you funded Hamas,” says the activist, pointing his finger at Louk. “You, and Bennett, and Liberman, and Bennett, and Lapid, all of the stupid people!”

In a statement quoted by Walla, Regev’s office responds: “Minister Miri Regev shares in the enormous pain of the families that lost their loved ones in the October 7 massacre, among them the family of Shani Louk.”

“The minister spoke at length with the father, comforted him in his pain, and told him that her daughter, also, is a Nova survivor and that her friends were murdered at the Nova.”

It continues: “At the end of the conversation, the minister promised that she was committed to establishing a national commission of inquiry that will investigate absolutely everything.”

The statement uses the word “national” as opposed to “state,” indicating support for the government’s effort to set up a politically appointed probe, rather than a state commission of inquiry, which is the traditional body for investigating major incidents and the only body empowered to subpoena witnesses. Polls consistently show the latter has majority support.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t met any Iranian cabinet members since the US-Israeli strikes that killed his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, the opposition-aligned IranWire outlet reports, citing two unnamed sources close to President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration.

The sources claim that “rumors that he is in extremely critical condition and could pass away at any moment are circulating widely within the highest levels of the regime.”

One of the sources is quoted as saying: “We would not be surprised if we heard news of his martyrdom soon.”

Mojtaba Khamenei has not made any public appearances since he became supreme leader, and no recordings of him speaking have been aired — only written statements attributed to him by state media. He was reportedly injured and possibly deformed in some way during the attack that killed his father, and has remained in hiding, reportedly communicating with other senior regime figures via a slow array of intermediaries to avoid being targeted.

Pezeshkian himself said in an interview aired by state TV on Wednesday that interaction with Khamenei is currently “very difficult.”

A Palestinian man living on the outskirts of the West Bank Palestinian town of Taybeh and three Israeli civil-wing activists say they were assaulted yesterday by settler extremists on as they tried to rebuild fences torn down by extremists on Wednesday.

Video footage shows one of the extremists punching Charlotte Mandel, a Canadian-Israeli activist in her 50s who was helping rebuild the fences.

According to longtime Palestinian rights activist Rabbi Arik Ascherman, extremist settlers have been breaking down fences around homes on the outskirts of Taybeh over the last three days.

Naif Ka’abanah, a Palestinian resident of the area, tells The Times of Israel he was beaten over the head by extremists from a nearby illegal settlement outpost, and had to be taken to hospital to treat his head wounds. He was subsequently released and returned home.

Three civil rights activists with Ascherman’s Torat Tzedek organization doing what is dubbed “protective presence” activities were also assaulted by the extremists as they tried to stop the fences from being torn down once again, the rabbi says.

Ka’abanah and Ascherman both allege that despite repeated calls for assistance, the IDF and police failed to come to the scene for several hours.

The IDF and police have not responded to requests for comment.

“There is a fence around my house; they knocked it down [on Wednesday] and so [on Thursday] I made a new fence, and they came to knock it down again,” says Ka’abanah.

“They brought their goats into my house, into the living room. I have children, daughters, a wife at home. We called the police [starting] in the morning; they didn’t come until the settlers had already left [in the] evening,” he continues.

“Every day for two months we call the police when the settlers come and the police only come once the settlers have left. How is it possible for anyone to live in this country if the police don’t function?”

Ascherman says that despite the IDF having imposed a closed military zone order over the area, the settler extremists continue to enter the zone to assault the Palestinians, and the IDF and police fail to detain them.

“The clear refusal of security forces to protect Palestinians and to enforce closure orders against human rights defenders but not against violent settlers has led to a sharp upswing in settler violence in Taybeh in recent days,” says Ascherman.

“‘Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds,’ the Bible commands. For their trouble this afternoon, Torat Tzedek’s human rights defenders were beaten by violent settlers, along with Palestinians.”

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