August 5 2026 News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the notion of a premature Israeli withdrawal from the IDF’s current positions in Gaza in a video posted to his Facebook page on Tuesday. “We won’t retreat from the current lines until Hamas lays down all of its arms,” Netanyahu said in the video. He added that “we will allow IDF troops to do everything necessary to protect themselves, protect our territory, and protect our citizens.” Netanyahu also said the White House had sent Israel a draft proposal regarding Hamas’s disarmament, but clarified that Israel had not accepted it and had sent it back with comments.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the American delegation had held an “all-day negotiation” with Iran, characterizing the talks positively while also threatening to hit the Islamic Republic “really hard” if a deal is not reached. “We’re having very good discussions,” he said, insisting that Iran is keen to find a way to bring an end to the conflict. “The only thing that matters is action. And they want to make a deal. We’ll see what happens.” “I have plenty of time,” he added, warning that he will strike Iran if the strategic Strait of Hormuz is not reopened “very soon.”

Antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom rose 21 percent in the first six months of 2026 compared to the same period last year, reaching the second-highest total on record for the first half of a year, according to a new report published Wednesday morning by the Community Security Trust. The organization recorded 1,926 anti-Jewish hate incidents between January and June, up from 1,598 during the first half of 2025. The total came out to an average of 321 monthly incidents, nearly double the figure from before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

A new report by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reveals Hezbollah and Iran spent decades building a parallel education system in Lebanon to indoctrinate children with extremist ideology and prepare future generations of loyalists. According to the report, the network now includes at least 22 Hezbollah-run schools educating around 47,000 students, alongside affiliated institutions. Children are reportedly taught concepts such as martyrdom, jihad and loyalty to Iran's "Guardianship of the Jurist" (Wilayat al-Faqih) from an early age. The report says physical activities for children as young as five mimic military training, while Hezbollah's Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, estimated to have around 100,000 members, help channel youths into the group's ranks, with some recruited into Hezbollah's military from the age of 16. It also uncovers that textbooks, magazines, and classroom activities glorify "resistance," martyrdom, and hostility toward Israel and the West, while songs praising the Iranian cause replace Lebanon's national anthem in some schools.

Las Vegas billionaire and longtime UFO researcher Robert Bigelow has revealed that he sat down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year and urged the president to make a historic public statement confirming a non-human presence on Earth. According to a report from 8 News Now, Bigelow described the February meeting in a conversation with investigative journalist George Knapp. The aerospace entrepreneur, who has spent more than four decades and tens of millions of dollars investigating unidentified aerial phenomena and possible non-human intelligence, said he placed the topic of disclosure at the top of his briefing agenda.

In case you did not know about this, the Adhan, or Islamic call to prayer, is now blasting across Minneapolis five times per day. The Minneapolis City Council – with Muslim members – approved a resolution unanimously back in 2023 that changed the city’s noise ordinance to accommodate this public disruption. Minneapolis is the first major US city where the adhan has become law. Minneapolis set a precedent for other Muslim communities to follow.

In response to Israel’s growing teacher shortage, Nefesh B'Nefesh, in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Education and Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, announced today the launch of Israel's first-ever National Educators Aliyah Program. The initiative is designed to streamline the Aliyah and professional integration of qualified Jewish educators from North America and connect them with teaching opportunities across Israel.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has signed the Children’s Social Media Safety Act, a law that takes the age check off individual websites and builds it into the device. It gives the state a say in what time minors are allowed to receive notifications. It’s also similar to what California is up to and also to what some senators want to extend nationwide. Starting in 2028, House Bill 5511 requires internet-enabled devices, operating systems and app stores to ask for the primary user’s birth date or age during account setup. The device then tells websites, apps, and online services which bracket that user falls into, whether under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 and older.

Iraq’s highest appellate court has affirmed a ruling that grants a Christian woman recognition as a follower of Jesus rather than the Muslim designation forced on her under Iraqi law, ordering officials to fix her religious listing in the state’s records. Maryam and her two sisters grew up in a Christian home. When their mother left their father and married a Muslim man, Iraqi law converted the children to Islam, the group said. That change stemmed from Article 26(2) of Iraq’s National Card Law No. 3 of 2016, which states that “minor children shall follow the religion of the parent who has converted to Islam.” Once she was old enough under Iraqi law to act on her own, Maryam brought her case in January 2025, asking officials to list her as Christian rather than Muslim. A lower court ruled in her favor that May, finding she had the right to choose her faith and have it correctly entered in the government’s database. The Court of Cassation affirmed that ruling last week.