Channel 14 News Israel

Category: Israel

  • IL Universities Face Budget Cuts for Pro-Terror Claims

    IL Universities Face Budget Cuts for Pro-Terror Claims

    Despite university leaders’ claims that there is no incitement to terror on campuses, C14 has obtained an official Council for Higher Education document showing that cases of incitement and terror support have been reported at multiple institutions across the country.

    The document surfaced following an inquiry by Education Committee Chairman MK Tzvi Sukkot to the Council for Higher Education, after the committee held hearings on the issue in recent months. During those hearings, university presidents claimed “there is no incitement to terror in academia,” and later announced they would boycott further Education Committee sessions on the grounds that the premise was false.

    The document reveals data on several institutions where complaints were filed regarding incidents involving incitement, expressions of support for terrorism, problematic publications, and suspicions investigated by the relevant authorities. The document further shows that in some cases disciplinary measures were taken, in other cases institutional investigations and treatment were conducted, and in some instances incidents were reported involving support for terrorism or expressions of identification with hostile entities—in complete contradiction to the sweeping claim that the phenomenon doesn’t exist at all.

    Education Committee Chairman MK Tzvi Sukkot, who was briefed on the report, responded: “The enemy within is operating in academic institutions. The incitement continues and university leaders prefer to bury their heads in the sand and deny documented reality.”

    Sukkot clarified that he plans to advance, together with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an examination of withholding budgets from academic institutions where incitement to terror has occurred, alongside a demand that enforcement bodies provide a briefing on how incitement incidents at higher education institutions are being handled and what is needed to prevent their recurrence.

    According to Sukkot, “While the State of Israel is in a multi-front existential war from Iran to Lebanon, the enemy within is operating. The incitement continues and university leaders prefer to bury their heads in the sand and deny documented reality. The official documents of the Council for Higher Education explicitly contradict their claim.”

    He added: “The truth is coming to light. After they claimed there is no incitement to terrorism in academia, the official documents tell a different story. There are incidents, there are complaints, there are cases that were handled, and therefore there is full justification for cutting budgets from academic institutions based on existing law.”

  • The State of Tennessee Recognizes Judea and Samaria

    The State of Tennessee Recognizes Judea and Samaria

    Adapted from the Hebrew article by Judea and Samaria Correspondent Eliya Aviv

    Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed historic legislation recognizing Judea and Samaria, making the state the third in the United States to drop the 1950-era contrived Jordanian term “West Bank” from official documents.

    The term “West Bank” refers to the area west of the Jordan river, and prior to Jordanian annexation, the area was known as Judea and Samaria for thousands of years, including in the Bible.

    The bill, which passed both chambers of the state legislature by overwhelming margins, mandates that Tennessee use only the biblical names Judea and Samaria in all official state documents. The move follows similar legislation in Arkansas and Arizona, deepening American recognition of Israel’s historical claims to the heartland.

    Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) became the first governor to sign such legislation. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D) has yet to sign the bill passed by her state’s House of Representatives.

    Tennessee State Representative Chris Todd, who toured the territory and championed the bill, issued a forceful declaration of support: “I am ready and able to do everything in my power to support the people of Israel. This land was given to you by God by right and must be defended, and it should all be under the control of the people of Israel.”

    The law’s key provisions include:

    Eliminating ‘West Bank’: Mandatory replacement of the term in all official state documents with “Judea and Samaria.”

    Recognizing Jewish rights: A formal declaration of Israel’s historical and biblical connection to the territory.

    Bipartisan support: The measure was advanced by Representative Todd and won broad backing in both legislative chambers.

    Yesha Council diplomacy: The law is the fruit of diplomatic efforts by Yesha Council Chairman Yisrael Ganz, who held working meetings with the governor and state legislators.

    The Tennessee victory comes alongside a similar resolution in Arizona, where State Representative David Livingston led the effort. “It’s clear this is Israel—the people, the culture, and the history. It’s biblical,” Livingston said during the Senate debate.

    The Tennessee move is just the first in a much broader wave: 17 additional U.S. states are at various stages of advancing similar legislation and resolutions, fortifying the status of settlement in Judea and Samaria against international pressure.

    “We’re seeing a strategic shift in the United States,” the Yesha Council stated optimistically. “The historical truth and moral justice of the people of Israel in Judea and Samaria are defeating the false narratives.”

  • Three Killed in Arab Sector Violence Within 24 Hours

    Three Killed in Arab Sector Violence Within 24 Hours

    The wave of violence and crime in Israel’s Arab sector continued over the weekend, with three men in their 20s murdered in two separate shooting incidents in Ramla and Rahat on Saturday. Large police forces opened investigations into both cases and launched manhunts for suspects.

    The first incident occurred Friday night, when officers from the Shephelah District began investigating a shooting in Ramle. According to the initial investigation, the motive was an ongoing blood feud. Two men in their 20s were shot dead while sitting in their car on Route 431, near the Ramla South interchange.

    Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency medical service, paramedics and EMTs who were called to the scene pronounced both men dead. Dr. Shai Barnes, a volunteer MDA physician, said: “We saw two men around 25 years old in their car, unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing, with severe penetrating injuries to their bodies. We performed medical examinations but unfortunately their injuries were significant and we had no choice but to pronounce them dead.”

    In a separate incident Saturday evening, police opened an investigation following a shooting in the city of Rahat. A 27-year-old local resident was critically wounded in the shooting and pronounced dead shortly afterward by an MDA team. According to police’s initial assessment, the motive was criminal.

    Rahat police station officers who were called to the scene began collecting evidence and launched searches to locate suspects. Guy Wigder, a senior MDA paramedic, said: “The victim was lying in a yard, unconscious and suffering from penetrating injuries to his body. We provided medical treatment and performed advanced resuscitation efforts, but his injury was critical and we ultimately had to pronounce him dead.”

  • Israel to Invest Millions in Samaria’s ‘State Balcony’

    Israel to Invest Millions in Samaria’s ‘State Balcony’

    Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will bring a proposal to the cabinet at its next meeting to invest ₪3 million (~$820,000) from the Foreign Ministry budget to develop and upgrade the “State’s Balcony” site in Peduel, Samaria. The initiative will be carried out in cooperation with the Tourism Ministry and is designed to strengthen Israel’s public diplomacy efforts.

    The budget will be used to build advanced content stations combining observation points with accessible information in multiple languages, and to develop interactive content displayed in a dedicated room. The investment comes against the backdrop of a 15-fold increase in foreign delegations visiting Israel—including elected officials, journalists, and opinion leaders—who are directly exposed to the country’s security challenges.

    “The geographic and topographic location of the ‘State’s Balcony’ makes it a premier advocacy tool,” Sa’ar said. “Visitors to the site see with their own eyes the ‘narrow waist’ of the state at its pre-Six-Day War borders and the dangers of relinquishing Israeli control over areas that topographically dominate all its population centers.”

  • IDF General Makes Maddening Comments During Speech

    IDF General Makes Maddening Comments During Speech

    While deadly terror attacks continue across Judea and Samaria, Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth delivered a speech Thursday that focused squarely on what he called settler violence—drawing sharp criticism for ignoring the ongoing wave of Islamic terrorism.

    Bluth spoke at “Beyond the Fence,” a political conference organized by the group “For Settlement – Against Violence,” held in Alon Shvut. In his remarks, he aligned himself with the campaign against ‘settler violence’ while making no mention of two terror attacks that had occurred just in the previous 24 hours.

    A Jewish shepherd injured in a terror attack this week

    “It’s important to say that these incidents blacken the State of Israel,” Bluth said. “They harm the legitimacy effort that’s critical not just for the Central Command. When you harm the legitimacy effort of IDF soldiers, you harm IDF soldiers on all fronts. And if you’re fighting on seven fronts, what do you need more right now than that legitimacy effort? Especially in these days when we’re fighting shoulder to shoulder with the United States.”

    He continued: “The other thing is the diversion of attention. We’re canceling arrests, canceling weapons searches to deal with this. Why? Because we know that if we don’t deal with this, who knows what follows. And so on this matter, beyond the damage to Israel’s good name and legitimacy trust, it also diverts attention and harms our fundamental mission, which is thwarting terror and protecting residents.”

    Bluth warned: “We are one step away from a serious disaster. By the way, it could be from this side or that side. In many cases we’re a moment before—if we’re a bit late and don’t manage to get the family out of that house that was set on fire, you can imagine for yourselves what will happen to the Central Command. You can imagine for yourselves what the reverberations of an incident of this type would be, as happened at the time with Duma several years ago.”

    He concluded: “But also from the other side, if tomorrow those youths who came to burn a house, regardless of what we think of them, if they’re caught by guard committees in that village, and they lynch them or even kidnap the bodies—we saw what happened after the murder of Binyamin Achimeir in those grazing areas—we can imagine for ourselves where this thing can take the entire Central Command theater and the State of Israel. It would be a very significant diversion of attention.”

  • Bennett-Lapid Alliance Fades as Likud, Eisenkot Gain

    Bennett-Lapid Alliance Fades as Likud, Eisenkot Gain

    A new Channel 14 poll conducted today (Thursday) by Shlomo Filber shows the right-wing bloc strengthening to 65 seats, up from 64 earlier this week. According to the updated numbers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud rises to 35 seats, compared to 34 in the previous poll. Meanwhile, the left-wing bloc holds steady at 45 seats, while the Arab parties drop slightly from 11 seats earlier this week to 10 in the current survey (Hadash-Ta’al with 5 and Ra’am with 5).

    The central trend in the current poll is the weakening of the joint Bennett-Lapid party, dubbed “Beyachad” (Together). While the list received 20 seats in the poll conducted immediately after the merger announcement, it now drops to just 18 seats. In contrast, Gadi Eisenkot’s “Yashar” party records a significant jump to 12 seats, after standing at just 9 seats earlier this week. The remaining parties maintain their strength or show minor changes: Shas with 11 seats, United Torah Judaism and the Democrats with 8 seats each, and Yisrael Beiteinu and Otzma Yehudit with 7 seats each.

    At the bottom of the list, the Religious Zionism party maintains its strength with 4 seats, similar to the previous poll. Two parties remain below the electoral threshold in the current survey as well: Balad, which received 2.1% of the vote, and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party, which received 1.3%. These figures underscore the current political structure, in which the ruling party continues to lead by a significant margin over other competitors, while the center-left merger fails to sustain the initial momentum of the days following the announcement of the joint run.

    On the question of suitability for prime minister, dramatic shifts are recorded in favor of Netanyahu and Eisenkot at Bennett’s expense. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strengthens to 54% support (compared to 51% earlier this week), while Naftali Bennett experiences a sharp drop from 32% to 26%. Gadi Eisenkot strengthens here as well, rising to 16% suitability compared to 13% in the previous poll. Avigdor Lieberman remains at 3% and Benny Gantz at just 1%. The poll was conducted with 624 adults from the general population, while the previous poll from earlier this week was conducted with 932 respondents.

  • EASA Extends Request Airlines Don’t Fly from Israel

    EASA Extends Request Airlines Don’t Fly from Israel

    The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has extended its recommendation to foreign airlines not to operate flights to Israel until May 5th.

    The week-to-week decision-making situation reflects uncertainty in the region, both regarding Iran and Israel’s deteriorating ceasefire with Hezbollah. The decision is set to cause European Airlines to delay their planned return to Israel.

    The first to react is Wizz Air, which extended its hiatus until May 14th. Sources in the industry believe the EASA will extend its recommendation past May 5th.

    The fear of delaying flights into the summer is that a reduced number of flights means higher demand and soaring prices of flight tickets for Israeli travelers.

  • Torah Scroll Returns to Sa-Nur After 20 Years

    Torah Scroll Returns to Sa-Nur After 20 Years

    Twenty years after the expulsion, and just days since residents returned: emotional footage from Sa-Nur shows celebrations held Thursday as the Torah scroll donated by Shaul Halfon Z”L some 20 years ago was returned to the community. The scroll was brought back by his son, Shlomo Halfon, and the event was attended by Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said: “Now we are erasing the injustice of the expulsion.”

    Shlomo Halfon, who returned his father’s Torah scroll to the community, described the emotional full circle: “I was expelled from Sa-Nur as a 20-year-old boy and returned with my wife, my six children, and the holy Torah scroll I left with—which was so important to my father—to the place it was so hard for us to leave.”

    He recounted the days before the expulsion and his father’s efforts: “Before the expulsion, my father wrote a Torah scroll for Sa-Nur, and then worked hard to raise funds and build a new synagogue in Sa-Nur named after his friend, former IDF Chief of Staff Raful, in place of the mosque where they had prayed all those years. He managed to build the synagogue with Jewish labor—right up until the eve of the expulsion, the building stood with a roof and doors. On the last Shabbat evening, we held a Torah dedication ceremony in the building, from which we were ultimately expelled. As part of the expulsion, the synagogue was buried and still stands in its place under piles of dirt.”

    He described the Torah scroll’s journey back to the community: “The Torah scroll, the ark, and the curtain were in my parents’ home for almost 19 years. About a year and a half ago, Bnei Chayil Yeshiva was looking for a Torah scroll, and my wife encouraged me to ask my mother whether she would be willing to lend it to them. At first, I hesitated, but my wife said, ‘The moment the Torah scroll leaves the house, it will return to Sa-Nur, and we will all return to Sa-Nur.’ My mother was convinced, and a few weeks after we brought the scroll to Bnei Chayil, it was announced that the return to Sa-Nur was beginning.”

    According to him, the peak moment came on the last Independence Day, in a split-second decision: “When we arrived to visit Sa-Nur at noon, we discovered the scroll hadn’t yet been brought up, and without thinking twice, my wife and I understood we were going to bring the scroll. We quickly went back down to Kedumim, gathered our children from the house, and set out. It was the most spontaneous and holiest Torah dedication ceremony there could be. When I see Sa-Nur with the core group families, I feel like a dead person has come back to life. May we merit to soon return to all the communities we were uprooted from in the Gaza Strip, Gush Katif, and all of northern Samaria.”

    Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at the event that this represents “erasing the injustice and terrible folly of the expulsion from northern Samaria, and now we have returned to Homesh and Sa-Nur—this time forever.”

    Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan shared emotionally: “We saw through tears this righteous man, Shaul Halfon Z”L, taking this Torah scroll out of the Sa-Nur synagogue for the expulsion, surrounded by police and soldiers. And today we merit together to return the scroll to its place. Shaul is now rejoicing above in the heavenly court, and G-d comes and says to him: ‘See my son, there is reward for your work.’ Shlomo, Shaul’s son, is now placing the Torah scroll in the ark in the community, which Shaul also donated.”

    Shaul Halfon Z”L fought in Unit 101 under Ariel Sharon’s command and parachuted in Sinai under the command of Rafael (Raful) Eitan—he named the synagogue he built after Raful. Uniquely, the synagogue was the only structure not demolished in the Gush Katif and northern Samaria expulsion, but rather buried under tons of dirt. For over 20 years after Shaul’s death, the Torah scroll waited in Nofim, and later in his son Shlomo’s home in Kedumim.

  • State Dept: PA Spent $156M on Terror Payments in 2025

    State Dept: PA Spent $156M on Terror Payments in 2025

    The U.S. State Department submitted an official report to Congress on Wednesday confirming that the ‘Palestinian Authority’ continues its policy of salary payments to terrorists in what is known as the “pay for slay” program. According to the report, this activity violates restrictions under the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits American economic assistance to the PA as long as it incentivizes terrorism through payments.

    The report relies on data provided by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, detailing the scope of PA expenditures on terrorism during 2025. According to the figures, the PA provided a total of approximately ₪488.5 million ($156 million) in payments and benefits:

    • ₪395.9 million: transferred to imprisoned terrorists and terrorists released from Israeli prisons.
    • ₪92.6 million: transferred to families of terrorists killed while carrying out terror attacks.

    The report notes that Israel reported various mechanisms through which the funds are transferred, including a new welfare body called “the ‘Palestinian’ National Fund for Economic Empowerment Institution” (PNEEI)

    Cash Distribution at Post Offices

    The State Department cites a statement from Israel’s Foreign Ministry from December 2025, which includes documentation from October of that year. The documentation shows people waiting in line at Palestinian Authority post office branches to receive the funds—a method the report defines as “the standard method” under the PA’s terror-supporting compensation system.

    According to information provided by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and the organization PMW, distribution of funds and benefits continued throughout the period, despite protests recorded among some released terrorists. The official report confirms that the Palestinian mechanism for financing terrorism remains active and functioning as usual despite international criticism and American legislation on the issue.

  • Two IDF Soldiers Wounded in Judea & Samaria Attack

    Two IDF Soldiers Wounded in Judea & Samaria Attack

    Two IDF soldiers were wounded when two terrorists attacked during an overnight operation on Wednesday in the village of Silwad in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria. The terrorists were using knives in the attack. The soldiers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and their families have been notified.

    Troops returned fire, killing one terrorist. A second terrorist was neutralized and arrested by Israeli forces. One soldier was lightly wounded and the other moderately wounded.

    Following the attack, security forces arrested the father of one of the terrorists and his brother for an alleged connection to a previous terrorist attack.