At dawn on Thursday, hundreds of colonists stormed the “Joseph Shrine” in the eastern region of the city of Nablus in the West Bank, where they performed Talmudic rituals, under heavy protection from Israeli forces, according to what was reported by the Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa).
Local sources reported to WAFA that “occupation vehicles stormed the eastern area of Nablus, forced the residents of the houses surrounding the shrine to evacuate, and turned them into military barracks, while snipers were deployed on the roofs of a number of houses.”
The sources added that “buses carrying hundreds of colonists stormed the eastern area of the city and headed to (Joseph’s shrine) to perform Talmudic rituals,” according to what the German News Agency reported.
The Israeli forces “stormed the central vegetable market east of Nablus, and abused the citizens there,” according to the agency.
At least 100 passengers on board an Emirati Flydubai plane heading to Tel Aviv yesterday survived an accident resulting - according to preliminary reports - from an argument between their crew, which caused it to make an emergency landing at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia.
The motives for the incident remained varied. The Emirati company reported that the reasons “are still unknown at this initial stage” and are under investigation, while official Israeli officials considered the incident “terrorist.”
A Flydubai spokesman explained in a statement that an altercation occurred inside the cockpit. Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk issued a statement stating that the air control center received a distress call from the flight, requesting an emergency landing, and it was allowed to land, with the concerned authorities providing the necessary care to the passengers in the passenger lounge.
The airport confirmed its commitment to the regulations and instructions issued by the General Authority of Civil Aviation, in accordance with international treaties and agreements related to the safety of air navigation, passengers and cabin crews.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the passengers of the plane “succeeded in neutralizing the attacker and preventing him from causing a major disaster.” However, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz asserted that the incident was “an attempted jihadist attack,” he said. He added: “The attacker had one goal, which was to destroy the plane.”
Seven people were killed on Wednesday when gunfire targeted a bus carrying civilians in Homs Governorate in central Syria, according to the official Syrian news agency, SANA.
The attack also resulted in four people being injured. A security source, who requested to remain anonymous, told Agence France-Presse that an attack targeted a bus transporting employees of an electricity company in Homs Governorate in central Syria, explaining that the bus was carrying “engineers and workers in a private electricity company.”
SANA indicated that the security forces began investigations to identify those involved in targeting the bus.
The security source explained that the bus was carrying “engineers and workers from a private electricity company.”
Prior to the attack, an explosion struck a gas pipeline near one of the most important electrical power stations in the Damascus countryside, according to what was reported by official media, two days after what was described as an “act of sabotage” that targeted another pipeline in eastern Syria.
Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's rule in late 2024, the new Syrian authorities have faced major security challenges, especially in and around Damascus.
On August 22, the explosion of a bus belonging to the Internal Security Forces near Damascus resulted in a number of casualties among its members.
At the beginning of that month, 14 people were injured in a bombing that targeted a passenger bus in the city of Jaramana, near Damascus.
Jaramana is a crowded suburb southeast of Damascus, inhabited by a Druze majority and also includes Christians and residents from several governorates. In April 2025, it witnessed bloody clashes on a sectarian background that left dozens of Druze dead.
In July, two simultaneous bombings, with two explosive devices, targeted the vicinity of a hotel where French President Emmanuel Macron stayed during a visit to Damascus. The Syrian authorities said that the cell involved in the two bombings belonged to ISIS.
