Here are Friday’s latest updates:
■ The Israeli military said it killed two people in the northern Gaza Strip, saying they had crossed the Yellow Line, which separates the IDF-occupied parts of Gaza from the rest of the enclave.
■ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has released five Lebanese civilians whom it held and who weren’t suspected of terrorist activity, saying the move was a show of goodwill in the talks with Lebanon.
■ The Israeli military said it took over the strategic Ali Taher Ridge in southern Lebanon, where Iranian military personnel were reportedly holed up alongside Hezbollah fighters in what the IDF says are large underground command-and-control centers. Iran has warned the United States that it would respond forcefully to an Israeli offensive on the ridge.
■ U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Washington has cut contact with Iran so long as it fires at vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz without its approval, adding that China is “willing to play ball” on economically isolating Tehran.
■ The Israeli military set up a checkpoint in the Syrian village of Umm Batna, which lies outside the former UN buffer zone in Syria that the IDF captured after the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen channel reported.
■ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published his timeline for the morning of October 7, 2023, showing he spoke with the chief of the Israeli military more than three hours after the Hamas-led attack began.
■ Israel’s High Court of Justice unanimously struck down the law freezing arrests of ultra-Orthodox IDF draft evaders.
■ The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Ukraine ahead of the annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to the grave of Rebbe Nachman in the country’s city of Uman.