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Israel Warns Hamas Against Attacks During Jewish Holidays

Israeli security forces at the site of a stabbing attack at the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on September 6 (EPA)
Israeli security forces at the site of a stabbing attack at the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on September 6 (EPA)
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Israel Warns Hamas Against Attacks During Jewish Holidays

Israeli security forces at the site of a stabbing attack at the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on September 6 (EPA)
Israeli security forces at the site of a stabbing attack at the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on September 6 (EPA)

Senior Israeli security officials warned Hamas through mediators that any escalation in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip during the Jewish holidays next week would be met with force.

The official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that the security services in Israel are preparing to confront and thwart attack operations estimated at approximately 200 warnings per day.

Security concerns prompted officials to warn Hamas against attempts to attack or launch rockets.

Israel said it would hold Hamas responsible for any attacks from Gaza or the West Bank during Jewish holidays and respond to any attacks forcefully and with a possible military operation.

However, Israel is preparing for an expected escalation that may become a multi-front confrontation during next week's Jewish holidays.

Israeli media said that the security establishment decided to raise the state of high alert during the holidays, increasing the number of warnings of Palestinian attacks.

Kan channel confirmed that the security apparatus decided to increase the army's activity in the West Bank on the eve of the Jewish holidays and is preparing for an escalation in several arenas.

Israeli security officials believe the escalation will begin in the West Bank and may spread to Gaza and Lebanon.

The Israeli army is training for a multi-front confrontation scenario that could include a confrontation with Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday warned groups "not to test" Israel during the upcoming Jewish holiday season and vowed a "crushing" response if they launch attacks.

"We are in a complex security period in all the areas, especially in [the West Bank] and surrounding Jerusalem," Gallant said during an assessment with senior military and defense officials.

"To make sure that the citizens of Israel will get through the holiday season safely, the defense establishment is being widely deployed, in intelligence, in the protection of the roads and settlements, and operations to foil operatives and those who send them," he said.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.