This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, committed at her confirmation hearing on Friday to prioritize efforts to prevent domestic terrorism and counter the surge in antisemitism nationwide, Jewish Insider reported.
"We must remain vigilant against terrorism and against others who wish to do harm to our country and its great people. I will ensure that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are working together, hand-in-hand, fully equipped to detect, prevent, and respond to threats from radical ideologies or foreign adversaries," Noem said in her opening statement. "This requires resources, coordination, and collaboration across all levels of government. Once again, I will seek your wisdom and your input in the months ahead. For the sake of the people we both represent, we must get this right."
Asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D–Conn., if she were tracking the surge in attacks against American Jews since Oct. 7 and if she planned to try and address anti-Semitism in her role, Noem responded affirmatively.
"I'm very concerned about what we've seen in this country as far as antisemitic violence that has happened. In fact, last year during our legislative session I brought legislation to more clearly define it [antisemitism] so that we could fight it in our home state," Noem said.
"I'm hopeful I can work with you to continue to do what we can to make sure that we are addressing this rising threat and not facilitating it in this country."
Netanyahu: Israel has 'unequivocal' U.S. guarantee of support should Gaza war resume
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassured his security cabinet he has received "unequivocal guarantees" that the Jewish state will have U.S. backing if the war in Gaza were to resume as a result of Hamas violating the ceasefire deal, according to the Algemeiner.
"We have received unequivocal guarantees – from both [outgoing U.S. President Joe] Biden and [President-elect Donald] Trump – that if the negotiations on phase two [of the ceasefire] fail and Hamas does not accept our security demands, we will return to intense fighting with the backing of the United States," Netanyahu said in a statement on Friday, according to Israeli media reports.
The Israeli security cabinet on Friday voted to approve a ceasefire and hostage-release deal that would halt fighting in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the captives and dismantling Hamas's military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
IDF recovers body of Oron Shaul, held in Hamas captivity since 2014
Israel's military announced Sunday morning that a joint IDF and Shin Bet security agency operation in the Gaza Strip recovered the body of Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul, killed and captured in 2014's Operation Protective Edge.
As well as the IDF and ISA, several special forces units, including the Navy's Shayetet 13 commando unit (the equivalent of the U.S. Navy SEALS) and other elite forces were involved, according to the Times of Israel.
The operation was carried out in the northern Gaza Strip over the past day and was completed overnight between Saturday and Sunday.
The IDF said the operation was based on intelligence efforts from the past decade, which were ramped up amid the ongoing war.
Shaul's body was brought back to Israel and taken to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, where it was identified. His family was then informed.
Two Iranian Supreme Court 'justices of death' gunned down in Tehran.
Two high-ranking Iranian Supreme Court justices were killed Saturday – and another seriously wounded – when they were gunned down in Tehran.
Judges Mohammad Moghiseh, 68, and Ali Razini, 71, were shot dead inside the Supreme Court, while a bodyguard for one of the jurists was wounded in the attack, the New York Post reported.
The gunman then killed himself while attempting to flee the scene, according to Mizan, the judiciary's news outlet.
No immediate motive was identified, but judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir told state TV the slain judges had a history of handling "national security cases, including espionage and terrorism."
Israel's Supreme Court rejects victim's petition against terrorists' release
Israel's Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, on Sunday morning rejected a petition filed by terror victims that sought to block the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
"It is not our place or custom to intervene in matters of this type in which the scope of judicial review is extremely narrow," the justices stated in their ruling, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
Over the weekend, the Israeli Justice Ministry released the names of the terrorists that could be released as part of the ceasefire deal.
According to the ministry, Israel will release 1,904 Palestinian terrorists in the first stage of the agreement: 737 prisoners and administrative detainees – among them murderers – and 1,167 residents of the Gaza Strip not involved in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Among the prominent names on the list is Zakaria Zubeidi, who led Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the Samaria city of Jenin, and escaped from Israel's high-security Gilboa Prison in September 2021.
WATCH: Douglas Murray accepts Algeminer's Warrior of Truth Award
Palestinian carries out daylight Tel Aviv stabbing attack, passerby eliminates him
A 28-year-old man was severely wounded in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv on Saturday afternoon, police said, according to Ynet.
Police said they received reports of a man attempting to stab passersby on Levontin Street. Large police forces, including a helicopter, were dispatched, and officers combed the area.
Ari Fuld's murderer due to be released as part of hostage deal
As part of the ceasefire, hostage release agreement agreed between Israel and Hamas and due to come into effect Sunday, more than 1,700 Palestinian prisoners, among them murderers with significant amounts of blood on their hands are due to be set free. This includes the young man who murdered Ari Fuld in September 2018.
Terrorist Khalil Yusef Ali Jabarin was 16 years old at the time he stabbed Ari Fuld outside a shopping center in Gush Etzion. Fuld, a 45-year-old father of four, was a member of the rapid response team in Efrat, the town where he lived., reported Israel National News. After Jabarin stabbed him, Fuld fought back, even shooting at his attacker and preventing a follow-up stabbing. However, Fuld had suffered critical injuries, and Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center pronounced him dead shortly after his arrival.
In 2020, Jabarin was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay damages to the Fuld family.
In 2023, five years after the murder, the Palestinian Authority, or PA, doubled Jabarin's monthly salary, raising it from $522 per month to $1,044 per month. At that time, the PA had already paid Jabarin a total of $25,726.
ICC chief prosecutor defends war crimes warrant for Netanyahu as he meets Syria's new leader
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Karim Khan made an unannounced visit Friday to Damascus to confer with the leader of Syria's de facto government on how to ensure accountability for alleged crimes committed in the country, according to France24.
Khan's office said he visited at the invitation of Syria's transitional government. He met with Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of Syria's new administration who was formerly known as Mohammad al-Julani, and the foreign minister to discuss options for justice in The Hague for victims of the country's civil war, which left some 600,000 dead and conservative estimates of 12 million people internally and externally displaced.
Former CIA analyst admits leaking secret info on Israeli response to Iranian ballistic missile attack
The former CIA analyst Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty on Friday to leaking classified information about Israel's military response to Iran's Oct. 1 missile attacks.
"Mr. Rahman betrayed the trust of the American people by unlawfully sharing classified national defense information he swore an oath to protect," stated Matthew Olsen, a U.S. assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's national security division, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
"Today's guilty plea demonstrates that the Justice Department will spare no effort to swiftly find and aggressively prosecute those who harm the United States by illegally disclosing our national security secrets," Olsen added.
Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI national security branch, stated that "with today's plea, Asif Rahman acknowledges he betrayed the trust of his country by sharing classified information in spite of the risk to the United States and our allies."
"Government employees who are granted security clearances and given access to our nation's classified information must promise to protect it," Wells added. "Rahman blatantly violated that pledge and took multiple steps to hide his actions."
Ben Gvir quits government over Hamas ceasefire deal
Itamar Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party are leaving the Israeli government in protest against the Gaza cease-fire agreement, putting Benjamin Netanyahu's parliamentary majority at risk, reported the Jewish Chronicle.
Three ministers are leaving the government: National Security Minister Ben Gvir, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who is in charge of development in the Negev and Galilee, and Amichai Eliyahu, the heritage minister.
Although Ben Gvir has said he will not try to bring down the coalition, his departure leaves Netanyahu's governing coalition with a razor-thin parliamentary majority.
Syria's new rulers call for U.N. peacekeepers along Israel-Syria border
Syria's de-facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa recently said the new government would welcome U.N. peacekeepers in the U.N.-established buffer zone with Israel. During the same press conference – where he spoke alongside Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani – al-Sharaa criticized Israel's continued presence in Syria's buffer zone on the Israeli border, saying that while the IDF's "advance in the region was due to the presence of Iranian militias and Hezbollah," those forces no longer have a presence in the region after his rebel forces captured Damascus and deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8. U.N. forces, such as UNIFIL in Lebanon, have proven ineffective in preventing terrorists from establishing a presence in areas under their control, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
On Dec. 8, shortly after al-Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Sunni Islamist rebel group took control of the country, Israeli troops deployed into the 155-square-mile demilitarized zone established after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which had been patrolled by a U.N. peacekeeping force comprising approximately 1,100 troops. The IDF said its entry into the buffer zone was a temporary defensive measure and that its goal was to prevent terrorists from taking advantage of Syria's instability to establish a presence in the region and threaten Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in December that IDF troops would remain there until a new arrangement is established to ensure Israel's security.
Earlier in January, the IDF announced it had captured 3,300 weapons since the start of its operation in southern Syria, including two tanks, 70 grenades, 165 shells and rockets, 20 anti-aircraft missiles, and approximately 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades.
U.S. considers temporary relocation for Gazans while Strip undergoes reconstruction
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is considering the temporary relocation of some of the two million residents of the Gaza Strip while the coastal enclave undergoes reconstruction following the war Hamas started against Israel.
Israel National News reported a source in the incoming Trump administration said that among the countries being considered for temporary relocation is Indonesia.
Throughout the ceasefire, Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to remain in the region "almost permanently" to ensure the ceasefire is observed by all parties.
It was also reported Witkoff is considering a visit inside the Gaza Strip.
Neo-Nazi impersonates a rabbi, tries to enter Nashville Jewish center
A Tennessee man suspected of membership in a neo-Nazi organization was arrested in Nashville after posing as an Orthodox rabbi and trying to enter a Jewish community center, Ynet reported.
According to Nashville police, the suspect, Keith Garland, 31,varrived at the city's Gordon Jewish Center wearing an obviously fake beard and sidelocks, and wearing a black coat and white scarf – attire designed to make him appear to be an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.
In the stunt that took place last week, Garland entered the center's lobby, carrying a cell phone, and approached the reception desk, where he approached a staff member and asked to speak to a rabbi. He reportedly held his phone in a manner that appeared to be recording or broadcasting the meeting. When told that there was no rabbi present, he ignored the comments and continued toward a secured door, which was momentarily open after two community members entered that area of the center. Center staff noticed his attempt to enter and blocked him from entering.
