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Weeks before the October 7 massacre, Israeli security officials received an unusual message attributed to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar warning that “An earthquake is expected in the prisons because of the prisoner issue.” The warning triggered discussions inside Israel’s security establishment, but officials at the time connected it to the captivity of Israeli researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov in Iraq rather than viewing it as a possible signal connected to an impending Hamas attack.

Channel 12 News reported Tuesday evening on new details surrounding the intelligence assessment and the circumstances that led officials to interpret Sinwar’s message through the lens of the Tsurkov case.

According to the report, Israeli intelligence had learned at roughly the same time of a development involving Tsurkov, who had been abducted in Iraq. A senior Iranian official had reportedly approached Hamas with a proposal that the terror group take responsibility for negotiations aimed at securing her release, while the pro-Iranian Iraqi group holding Tsurkov had agreed to the arrangement.

Against that backdrop, Israeli intelligence officials believed Sinwar’s reference to prisoners fit with the information they were already receiving about Tsurkov.

“Sinwar’s message fit the new intelligence picture like a glove,” officials who participated in the discussions told Channel 12 News.

The message led the Shin Bet to request a special situation assessment. According to the report, those taking part in the discussion did not offer an alternative explanation for Sinwar’s words, and the prevailing assessment remained that his warning was connected to the developing Tsurkov negotiations.

Channel 12 reported that the assessment proved incorrect. In retrospect, according to the network, Sinwar’s message was part of an effort to secure additional concessions from Israel while delaying and concealing the attack Hamas was preparing. The network reported that the message had been conveyed in September 2023 through Sufian Abu Zaida, a senior Fatah figure associated with Mohammed Dahlan, before reaching Israeli intelligence officials.

The report also revisited recent claims involving a warning from the United Arab Emirates ahead of October 7. Channel 12 reported that Emirati intelligence had warned the Shin Bet in September 2023 that Hamas could carry out a violent action, and that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed subsequently contacted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure that the information had reached him. Netanyahu has denied that such a conversation took place.

A senior Israeli security official cited in the report said that such a warning, had it reached Netanyahu as described, might have prompted officials to reconsider the reassuring intelligence assessments that were prevailing at the time.

“If a message indeed subsequently reached the Prime Minister himself from Mohammed bin Zayed, it could have been the missing piece that would have prompted us to take additional, more in-depth steps,” the senior official said. “Something was needed that would outweigh the reassuring signs that we had presented to ourselves. It is possible that this could have been that sign.”

Chris Christie is openly considering another run for the White House in 2028, with the former New Jersey governor acknowledging Tuesday that the possibility of a third presidential campaign remains very much on his mind.

Christie, who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and again in 2024, discussed his political future while appearing at the Granite State Summit on Responsible Gambling in Manchester, New Hampshire. The event listed Christie as its keynote speaker.

The onetime Trump ally, who later became a prominent Republican critic of President Donald Trump and challenged him for the GOP nomination in 2024, said the results of this November’s midterm elections could influence how Republicans think about the party’s direction heading toward the next presidential race.

Christie suggested that significant Republican losses could prompt questions within the party about whether its current approach, and what he called its “dominant wing,” should change.

“So, am I looking at it? Look, anybody who comes up here, anybody who comes up here and has ever run for president and not one and told you they’re not looking at it again is lying. …,” Christie said, according to footage of his appearance shared by WMUR political director Adam Sexton.

Christie said that once someone has gone through the process of seriously envisioning himself in the Oval Office, the idea does not simply disappear after an unsuccessful campaign.

“Once you go through the thought process of convincing yourself that you can be president, and then the next step that you should be president, that doesn’t leave your brain.”

But Christie indicated that merely wanting to run again would not be enough. Any third campaign, he said, would have to be based on a credible rationale that he could explain to his wife, Mary Pat.

“So, the way I look at this is, if I’m going to go back home to my wife and say, ‘I know you may not believe this, but third time is the charm,’ like, I better have a real theory,” Christie continued. “And what she has said to me is, ‘Chris, I want to see the path.’”

Christie’s comments come six weeks before the 2026 midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake. Public polling and outside election forecasts are continuing to shift as voters prepare for November, making the eventual results a potentially significant factor in how both parties approach the 2028 presidential campaign.

Although the next presidential election remains more than two years away, prospective candidates from both parties have already been making appearances in early-primary states. New Hampshire, where Christie spoke Tuesday, is required under state law to hold its presidential primary before any similar contest, despite continuing disputes over the Democratic Party’s nominating calendar.

Within the Republican Party, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are among the prominent figures who have drawn public discussion about 2028. Neither point, however, changes Christie’s calculation: he has repeatedly declined to close the door on another campaign and has indicated that the political landscape following the 2026 elections will play a role in his decision.

For Christie, who ended his 2024 campaign shortly before the New Hampshire primary, the latest comments represent one of his clearest acknowledgments yet that his presidential ambitions may not have ended with his second attempt at the Republican nomination.

{Matzav.com}

The Trump administration has removed roughly 750,000 people from Affordable Care Act health plans as part of a broad crackdown on suspected fraudulent, unauthorized or otherwise ineligible enrollments, Vice President JD Vance announced Tuesday. Administration officials said the cancellations are expected to save taxpayers approximately $2.2 billion.

The initiative is being carried out through the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, headed by Vance, with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services playing a central role. CMS has been tightening verification and enforcement procedures across the ACA exchanges, saying unauthorized enrollments and improper subsidies have become a significant problem.

“These are not real people. We’re not paying insurance for nonexistent ghosts,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said during a press conference.

Oz also estimated that approximately 35 percent of people enrolled through the ObamaCare exchanges have never made use of their insurance coverage.

Vance stressed that the administration views the initiative as an anti-fraud effort rather than an attempt to strip legitimate beneficiaries of health coverage.

“This is not about cutting off anybody from their benefits. It’s about cutting off fraudsters from stealing from these programs,” the vice president said Tuesday.

Vance and Oz said they were confident that legitimate beneficiaries would not be improperly removed, pointing to factors including the absence of insurance claims, missing Social Security numbers and failures to respond to attempts by the government to verify enrollment information. Reuters reported that the canceled policies involved unverified citizenship or immigration status as well as suspected unauthorized enrollments.

“We are putting ourselves under an extraordinary burden of proof,” Vance said. “So those 750,000 people are people that we feel confident either don’t know that they’re enrolled in the program, aren’t using the program at all, are unaware of it or … are potentially phantom people who are enrolled against their will, or maybe they don’t even exist.”

The administration is also temporarily freezing the registration of new insurance agents and brokers as it expands scrutiny of the enrollment system. CMS has separately taken enforcement action against hundreds of brokers over alleged violations connected to ACA enrollment. Reuters reported that 569 brokers were barred from participation after applications were submitted at implausibly high rates or without key identifying information.

The healthcare crackdown comes weeks before the November midterm elections, as Republicans and Democrats clash over healthcare affordability and access. Republicans have defended recent changes as necessary to curb waste and improper spending, while Democrats have argued that changes to ACA subsidies and other healthcare programs could increase costs and reduce coverage.

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans expanded significantly during the Biden administration, helped in part by enhanced premium subsidies. The Trump administration has argued that enrollment safeguards during that period were inadequate and allowed improper or unauthorized sign-ups to proliferate. CMS said earlier this year that it had ended premium subsidies for nearly 1.5 million people over the preceding year after determining that they were either ineligible for financial assistance or had been enrolled without authorization.

Administration officials and congressional Republicans have also disputed projections about the number of Americans expected to lose insurance under Republican healthcare changes, arguing that at least some of the reductions reflect the removal of improper enrollments rather than legitimate beneficiaries losing coverage.

Republicans have accused the Biden administration and Democrats of emphasizing increased ACA enrollment without imposing adequate safeguards to ensure that applicants were eligible and had actually authorized their enrollment. Democrats and healthcare advocacy organizations have challenged that characterization and warned that stricter verification procedures can also create obstacles for eligible consumers.

Approximately 19 million Americans were enrolled in health plans through ACA exchanges as of figures released by federal health officials earlier this year. CMS publishes enrollment information for both the federally facilitated marketplace and state-based exchanges.

The Paragon Health Institute, a conservative healthcare policy organization led by Brian Blase, who served as a healthcare policy official during President Trump’s first term, has been among the groups drawing attention to alleged improper ACA enrollment. The organization estimated earlier this year that more than 6 million people were improperly enrolled in exchange coverage during 2026 and argued that improper subsidies could cost taxpayers nearly $25 billion.

Protect Our Care, a Democratic-aligned healthcare advocacy organization, disputed the administration’s characterization of the crackdown, calling the action a “smokescreen” and arguing that eligible Americans could lose health coverage. The organization also pointed to the administration’s previous reinstatement of hundreds of ACA brokers and agents who had been suspected of fraudulent activity.

“Families need coverage they can afford and count on when they get sick. Vance’s task force won’t accomplish that. It’s a smokescreen for an administration whose sole mission is to make it harder to get and stay covered but to shower billionaires with tax breaks instead,” Brad Woodhouse, Protect Our Care’s president, said in a statement.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich launched a blistering attack on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday, accusing the UN chief of fueling terrorism and endangering hundreds of thousands of Israelis following Guterres’ criticism of Israeli policies in Yehuda and Shomron during his address to the UN General Assembly in New York.

“The UN Secretary-General’s wild incitement gives a tailwind to terrorism,” Smotrich wrote on X. “He is endangering the lives of half a million Jewish Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria.”

Smotrich also invoked the controversy surrounding UNRWA, arguing that Guterres was in no position to lecture Israel over its policies.

“Someone who heads the organization that funded and provided cover for UNRWA – the operational arm of the Hamas terrorist organization in the October 7 massacre – cannot preach to us about anything.”

The finance minister then defended the Israeli government’s expansion of Jewish communities in Yehuda and Shomron and openly linked those efforts to preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“I am proud to be spearheading a settlement revolution in Judea and Samaria that is, in practice, eliminating the idea of a Palestinian state and strengthening Israel’s security.”

Smotrich’s comments followed Guterres’ final address as UN secretary-general to the General Assembly, in which the UN chief sharply criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza as well as settlement growth and violence in Yehuda and Shomron. Guterres reiterated his support for a two-state solution, a position he has repeatedly advanced during his tenure.

“It is nearly three years since the abhorrent terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October,” Guterres said, “but what followed was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in my years as Secretary-General.”

Turning to Yehuda and Shomron, Guterres accused Israel of pursuing policies that threaten the possibility of a future Palestinian state and warned of what he described as the potential for ethnic cleansing. His comments were consistent with positions he has expressed throughout 2026 opposing Israeli settlement expansion and calling for renewed movement toward a two-state solution.

“Meanwhile, violence, displacement and settlement expansion by Israel in the occupied West Bank are bulldozing the path to peace and raising the specter of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes.”

{Matzav.com}

Fourteen Israeli activists crossed the border into Syria on Tuesday in an effort to promote future Jewish settlement in the area, prompting IDF troops to locate the group and bring its members back into Israel.

The unusual incident unfolded near Aloney HaBashan, where the civilians crossed into Syrian territory before an IDF force was sent to intercept them. The military strongly condemned the action, saying it endangered soldiers operating in the sensitive border region.

According to the HaBashan Pioneers movement, whose members carried out the crossing, the activists entered an area they refer to as Neve HaBashan, located inside Syrian territory currently under IDF control. The group said it was returning to a site that families affiliated with the movement had previously reached before being removed.

Tuesday’s crossing was not the first effort by members of the movement to enter the area. On this occasion, the IDF said, 14 civilians reached the Aloney HaBashan region and proceeded across the border into Syria.

After becoming aware of the breach, the IDF dispatched troops to the scene. Soldiers found the activists and escorted them back to Israeli territory. According to the military, the individuals were then set to be handed over to the Israel Police for further action.

The IDF issued a sharp condemnation of the activists’ conduct, warning that unauthorized civilian crossings interfere with military operations and can put Israeli troops at risk.

“The IDF strongly condemns the incident, which constitutes another case of serious interference with operational activity and poses a danger to the safety of IDF forces operating in the area,” the military said.

The army also urged law-enforcement authorities to pursue the matter in an effort to prevent similar incidents from recurring.

“Law enforcement authorities are required to bring those involved to justice, in order to prevent these civilians from repeatedly engaging in this phenomenon, which constitutes a criminal offense.”

For its part, the HaBashan Pioneers movement said the activists deliberately entered the area as part of their campaign to promote Israeli settlement in the Bashan region. The group said its members believe that existing political and grassroots support for such a move has not yet translated into concrete action.

“After we realized that there is support for the idea of legal Israeli settlement in the Bashan, both from the political side and from elements on the ground, but that they are not sufficient to bring the matter to fruition, the activists decided to return and push from the grassroots, in the hope that we will soon reach actual settlement.”

A notorious cybercrime group says it penetrated FBI systems and obtained highly sensitive personal information belonging to thousands of bureau employees, potentially exposing home addresses, telephone numbers and details about employees’ spouses.

The group, known as ShinyHunters, announced the alleged breach on Tuesday. The FBI has not confirmed that its systems were compromised. Reuters said it reached out to the bureau multiple times seeking comment but had not received a response as of publication.

The technology news outlet 404 Media reported that it was provided with a sample containing roughly 5,000 records of individuals purportedly associated with the FBI. According to the report, the material included names, residential addresses, telephone numbers and information relating to spouses of bureau employees.

ShinyHunters maintains that the full collection of stolen material is substantially larger than the sample and contains extensive information about FBI personnel. Those claims have not been independently verified, however, and there is not yet a clear picture of whether FBI computer systems were actually compromised or how extensive any intrusion may have been.

The allegations come as ShinyHunters continues to draw attention for its activities in the cybercrime world. The group recently claimed that it had seized control of a dark-web website operated by Cl0p, another well-known hacking organization, marking an unusual confrontation between two cybercriminal groups.

Should the FBI breach ultimately be confirmed at the scale described by ShinyHunters, it could constitute a serious cybersecurity incident because of the nature of the personal information allegedly obtained and the potential exposure of thousands of federal law-enforcement personnel.

For now, key details remain unresolved. The FBI has yet to publicly confirm the reported intrusion, and the full size, method and consequences of the alleged breach have not been independently established.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon praised President Donald Trump on Tuesday following Trump’s address to the UN General Assembly, saying the speech demonstrated American “strength and leadership” and underscored the close alliance between the United States and Israel.

Trump delivered the address on the opening day of the 81st UN General Assembly’s general debate in New York. His wide-ranging speech focused heavily on American foreign policy, including Iran and other international conflicts, while defending his administration’s approach to confronting hostile regimes and pursuing diplomatic agreements.

Danon responded by thanking Trump and emphasizing what he described as the shared values and strategic partnership binding Washington and Yerushalayim.

“Thank you, President Trump, for opening the General Assembly today with a clear message of strength and leadership,” Danon said.

“The United States and Israel are bound by shared values and a deep alliance. The Abraham Accords proved that bold leadership can transform the Middle East. Together, we will continue to confront the axis of evil and expand the circle of peace,” he added.

Danon’s reference to the Abraham Accords highlighted one of the signature Middle East initiatives of Trump’s presidency. The agreements established normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries, beginning with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020, with the stated goal of building broader regional cooperation and stability.

Trump has continued to call for additional countries to join the Abraham Accords and has repeatedly portrayed their expansion as an important element of his Middle East policy.

Danon’s reference to confronting an “axis of evil” came as Iran featured prominently in Trump’s UN remarks. Trump sharply criticized Tehran and defended his administration’s military and economic policies toward the Iranian regime, while also indicating that Washington remained open to negotiations under certain conditions.

{Matzav.com}