At least five people have been killed and five others wounded after Israeli warplanes struck eastern Lebanon in the latest violation of the ceasefire agreement signed last November, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
The attacks on Monday hit the Bekaa and Hermel districts, with state media saying at least eight air raids were carried out. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, seven bombs fell on the outskirts of Hermel, while another strike targeted the nearby town of Labweh.
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Israel’s military claimed the raids hit weapons depots and military facilities used by Hezbollah, though the claims could not be independently confirmed. Hezbollah has not yet commented.
Israel has continued launching near-daily assaults on Lebanese territory, particularly in the south, while maintaining an occupation at five border outposts despite the truce requiring a full withdrawal earlier this year.
The conflict erupted on October 8, 2023, when Israel opened a military offensive in Lebanon. By the time the ceasefire was reached in November the following year, more than 4,000 people had been killed and almost 17,000 wounded.
The fragile truce is under further strain as Lebanon grapples with a contentious plan pushed by the United States and Israel to disarm Hezbollah.
Earlier this month, Lebanon’s army presented a proposal to the cabinet outlining steps to begin dismantling the group’s arsenal. Information Minister Paul Morcos said the government welcomed the move, but stopped short of confirming cabinet approval.
The plan prompted a walkout by five Shia ministers, including representatives of Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal Movement, who insist the group will not disarm while Israel continues air strikes and occupation in the south.
The US and Hezbollah’s political rivals in Lebanon have increased pressure on the group to surrender its weapons. Hezbollah has resisted, warning that even raising the issue while Israeli attacks persist would be a “serious misstep”.
United States President Donald Trump is pushing for a ceasefire deal in Gaza after issuing a “last warning” to the Palestinian group Hamas.
Trump provided few details, but he insinuated that the already catastrophic war on Gaza – in which Israel has already killed more than 64,500 Palestinians and a famine has been declared – could get even worse if Hamas did not submit to the terms of his new proposal.
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Negotiators from the US, Qatar, and Egypt have been working on a ceasefire deal for months, but Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected or failed to respond to efforts to bring an end to their military operations.
Most recently, Hamas accepted a ceasefire proposal crafted months ago by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which would have resulted in the partial release of captives held in Gaza.
However, Israel and the US backed out after Netanyahu changed his tune and insisted on a full release of captives – as well as the full surrender of Hamas. Trump is now claiming that his new proposal could lead to a different and more positive outcome.
“We’re working on a solution that may be very good … You’ll be hearing about it pretty soon. We’re trying to get it ended, get the hostages back,” the US president told reporters in Washington, DC on Sunday evening, referring to the Israeli captives still in Gaza.
Here’s all you need to know about Trump’s latest plan and if it will stop Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
What is the plan?
Little information has been disclosed about the deal. However, Israeli media outlets say that the proposal is similar to one previously proposed by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, but with a few crucial differences.
Witkoff had previously proposed a deal where half of the living Israeli captives would be released, which would then lead to a 60-day ceasefire, and negotiations for a permanent end to the war. This was agreed to by Israel, but then, once Hamas had also indicated its agreement, Netanyahu insisted on the release of all the captives, reportedly telling the Israeli cabinet that “a partial deal is not relevant”, and that “Hamas must be destroyed”.
The current proposal being pushed by Trump appears to call for a release of all Israeli captives from the get-go, in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons, and then only negotiations – but no permanent end to the war.
“[The new proposal] is basically a variation of the Witkoff plan – a hostages-for-prisoners swap, after which negotiations will commence to end the war,” according to an analysis in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The crucial difference is that the release of all the captives would not come in exchange for an immediate end to the war, leaving Israel with little incentive to not continue attacking Gaza with even more intensity in pursuit of its stated goal to completely destroy Hamas. That goal is difficult to quantify, and many Palestinians see it as useful cover for the complete destruction of Gaza.
How has Hamas responded?
Hamas confirmed it had received a US proposal. The group put out a statement saying it welcomed “any initiative that helps in the efforts to stop the aggression against our people”.
Hamas has repeatedly stuck to its own position: that the remaining Israeli captives held in Gaza be released in exchange for guarantees that Israel would stop its attacks and withdraw from Gaza.
“We affirm our immediate readiness to sit at the negotiation table to discuss the release of all prisoners in exchange for a clear declaration to end the war, the full withdrawal from Gaza, and the formation of a committee to manage Gaza from Palestinian independents, who will immediately begin their work,” a Hamas statement obtained by the news outlet Drop Site News is reported to have said.
Writing on Telegram, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said: “It is clear that the primary goal is to reach the refusal of the offer and not reach an agreement that leads to the end of the war.”
A Palestinian man carries a wounded child after an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza City, September 7, 2025 [Khamis Al-Rifi/Reuters]
What is Israel’s position?
Israel has accepted the proposal, according to a press conference that Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar gave on Monday. He said that Israel was ready to end the war in exchange for all the captives and for Hamas laying down its weapons.
Hamas has previously said that it would surrender its weapons only if Israel withdraws from Gaza and agrees to a Palestinian state made up of the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.
Despite Israel’s backing for Trump’s proposal, some analysts believe Israel will later try to spin the proposal and claim that they accepted it while Hamas were the ones to refuse. This has precedence.
Hamas has previously accepted ceasefire proposals, only for Netanyahu to add conditions he knows will not be amenable to the group – or to Palestinians – as a tactic to continue the war.
In the meantime, Israeli officials are continuing to threaten Gaza.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz warned on Monday that a “powerful hurricane” will hit the territory and destroy Hamas targets, as Israel destroys civilian high-rise buildings across the Gaza Strip.
Also on Monday, Netanyahu threatened Gaza City residents, telling them to “get out of there”, and that a ground operation was about to begin in the city.
Will the proposal work?
Trump is confident it will.
“I think we’re going to get them all,” he said of the return of the Israeli captives. Trump had previously predicted on August 25 that the war would come to a “conclusive ending” within three weeks.
But it is unclear why this time will be any different from when Trump made past promises to end the war. Analysts largely believe Trump’s latest proposal will meet similar fates as past ones, largely due to Netanyahu’s reticence to end the war.
“It won’t lead to anything because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no desire or interest to end the war,” Chaim Levinson wrote in an analysis for Haaretz. “Rather, he wants to claim that Hamas is being recalcitrant so he can keep it going for many months.”
The US under Trump has also shown little appetite to rein in Netanyahu. Back in May, Witkoff told Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the US will not “force Israel to end the Gaza war”.
Can Trump be trusted?
Trump is saying that if Hamas gives up all the remaining captives, the US will make sure negotiations progress. However, Trump made a similar promise when his team helped outgoing US President Joe Biden ink a ceasefire deal that came into effect on January 19.
Netanyahu unilaterally violated the ceasefire to continue the war two months later.
Critics are sceptical that Netanyahu will stick to any future ceasefire agreement unless the US reins him in and holds Israel accountable.
“There is very good reason not to trust either Netanyahu or Trump at this moment on forcing Israel to stick to its word,” said Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, a think tank in Doha, Qatar.
“That is especially true in light of their public plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into an American real estate development,” he told Al Jazeera.
Trump previously proposed that Gaza’s population be forced out and that a “Gaza Riviera” be built on the ruins of the territory, an idea widely condemned as ethnic cleansing. The US president has largely dropped mention of the proposal, although he and his administration have occasionally returned to the idea.
What happens next?
Israel’s genocide in Gaza does not look like it will end in the foreseeable future.
At least 19 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in Nepal. Mostly young ‘Gen Z’ demonstrators took to the streets and stormed parliament amid anger over a social media ban and corruption.
Anonymous street artist Banksy has unveiled a new mural on London’s High Court, depicting a judge striking a protester with a gavel, in what appears to be a commentary on the mass arrests of demonstrators backing the banned campaign group Palestine Action.
The anonymous artist shared images of the work on Instagram on Monday. The stencilled piece shows a bewigged judge bringing down a gavel on a protester sprawled on the ground, clutching a blood-stained placard.
The mural was painted days after nearly 900 people were detained during a protest in London opposing the government’s proscription of Palestine Action.
The artwork has since been fully covered up by British police, after attracting curious bystanders.
In July, Britain designated the activist network a “terrorist organisation” after its members stormed a Royal Air Force base and damaged military aircraft. Supporting or belonging to the group now carries criminal penalties.
Security guards stand beside a metal barrier covering up an artwork by street artist Banksy, depicting a judge using a gavel to beat a protester using a placard as protection, on an exterior wall of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, on September 8, 2025 [Carlos Jasso/AFP]
But rights groups and campaigners have accused the British government of criminalising pro-Palestinian activism, saying the ban threatens the right to peaceful protest.
Lawyers and civil liberties advocates argue that proscribing Palestine Action sets a dangerous precedent for restricting activism on foreign policy issues, with Amnesty International calling the decision by the Labour government “a disturbing legal overreach”.
Banksy has long used his work to highlight Palestinian struggles under Israeli occupation. His murals in the occupied West Bank include ones that depict a girl conducting a body search on an Israeli soldier, a dove wearing a flak jacket, and a masked protester hurling a bouquet.
A man looks at British street artist Banksy’s mural ‘The Bethlehem Wall’ during a preview of the exhibition ‘The world of Banksy, the immersive experience’ at the Milano Centrale main railway station in Milan, Italy on December 2, 2021 [Miguel Medina/AFP]
In 2017, he opened the “Walled Off Hotel” in Bethlehem, designed to offer what he called “the worst view in the world,” a direct reference to Israel’s separation barrier known as the apartheid wall, which stands in front of the hotel.
The wall that stretches for more than 700km (435 miles) on Palestinian land inside the occupied West Bank was termed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.
British artist Banksy’s Walled-Off Hotel facing Israel’s ‘apartheid wall’ in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]
One of his most famous West Bank works, a rat armed with a slingshot, was painted near Bethlehem in 2007. The artwork was later removed by Israeli art dealers and displayed in a Tel Aviv art gallery in 2022.
The move was condemned by Jeries Qumsieh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism, who told The Guardian at the time: “This is theft of the property of the Palestinian people.”
“These were paintings by an international artist for Bethlehem, for Palestine, and for visitors to Bethlehem and Palestine. So transferring them, manipulating them and stealing them is definitely an illegal act,” Qumsieh had said.
The latest London mural has already been cordoned off with protective barriers, underscoring both the value of Banksy’s art and the controversy it generates. While the artist rarely explains his creations, his consistent focus on Palestine ensures this new work will be seen as a sharp critique of Britain’s clampdown on pro-Palestine activism.
For many of his supporters, the High Court mural is not just about Palestine Action but also a broader reflection on how state power and the judiciary are wielded against movements challenging Britain’s political establishment.
A Palestinian woman stands with a child in an alley next to a reproduction of a mural by British street artist Banksy, originally painted on the wall of the West Bank in Bethlehem, at the Arroub refugee camp, north of the West Bank town of Hebron on February 11, 2016 [Hazem Bader/AFP]
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder joined aid workers on a boat as they delivered food and important medical supplies to people who have lost everything as Pakistan’s flood-ravaged Punjab province braces for even more heavy rain over the next two days.
SpaceX will buy wireless spectrum licences from EchoStar for its Starlink satellite network for about $17bn, a major deal crucial to expanding Starlink’s nascent 5G connectivity business.
The Elon Musk-owned aerospace company announced the purchase on Monday.
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The companies also agreed to a deal that will enable EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers to access Starlink direct-to-cell service to extend satellite service to areas without service.
The spectrum purchase allows SpaceX to start building and deploying upgraded, laser-connected satellites that the company said will expand the cell network’s capacity by “more than 100 times”.
Gwynne Shotwell, president and COO of SpaceX, said the deal will help the company “end mobile dead zones around the world … With exclusive spectrum, SpaceX will develop next-generation Starlink Direct to Cell satellites, which will have a step change in performance and enable us to enhance coverage for customers wherever they are in the world.”
The push comes amid fast-rising wireless usage. In 2024, Americans used a record 132 trillion megabytes of mobile data, up 35 percent over the prior all-time record, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) said on Monday.
SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites since 2020, building a distributed network in low-Earth orbit which has seen demand from militaries, transportation firms and consumers in rural areas.
Roughly 600 of those satellites – which SpaceX calls “cell towers in space” – have been launched since January 2024 for the company’s direct-to-cell network, orbiting closer to Earth than the rest of the constellation.
Crucial to those larger satellites’ deployment is Starship, SpaceX’s giant next-generation rocket that has been under development for roughly a decade. Increasingly complex test launches have drawn the rocket closer to its first operational Starlink missions, expected early next year.
The deal comes months after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) questioned EchoStar’s use of its mobile-satellite service spectrum and raised concerns about whether it was meeting its obligations to deploy 5G in the country.
EchoStar said it anticipates that the transaction with SpaceX and the AT&T deal will resolve the FCC’s inquiries.
An FCC spokesperson said the “deals that EchoStar reached with AT&T and Starlink hold the potential to supercharge competition, extend innovative new services to millions of Americans, and boost US leadership in next-gen connectivity”.
The company in August sold some nationwide wireless spectrum licences to AT&T for $23bn. AT&T agreed to acquire 50 MHz of nationwide mid-band and low-band spectrum.
US President Donald Trump previously prodded EchoStar and FCC Chair Brendan Carr to reach an amicable deal for the company’s wireless spectrum licences.
Underused airwaves
SpaceX will pay up to $8.5bn in cash and issue up to $8.5bn in stock. SpaceX has also agreed to cover roughly $2bn in interest payments on EchoStar’s debt obligations through late 2027.
After the sale, EchoStar will continue operating its satellite television service Dish TV, streaming TV platform Sling, internet service Hughesnet and its Boost Mobile brand.
SpaceX had aggressively pressed the FCC to reallocate underused airwaves for satellite-to-phone service after alleging EchoStar failed to meet certain obligations.
In a letter to the FCC in April, SpaceX said EchoStar’s spectrum in the 2 gigahertz band “remains ripe for sharing among next-generation satellite systems” and that the company has left “valuable mid-band spectrum chronically underused”.
The deal with EchoStar will allow SpaceX to operate Starlink direct-to-cell services on frequencies it owns, rather than relying solely on those leased from mobile carriers like T-Mobile.
In May, the FCC approved Verizon’s $20bn deal to acquire fibre-optic internet provider Frontier Communications. Verizon spent $5bn to acquire and clear key spectrum in 2021.
The news sent shares of EchoStar surging 14.7 percent as of 1pm in New York (17:00 GMT). Shares of US wireless carriers are trending downwards. AT&T is 1.6 percent lower and T-Mobile is down by 2.2 percent. Verizon as well is down 1.8 percent.
![British artist Banksy's Walled-Off Hotel facing Israel's apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem. [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/000_1N83BH-1757348579.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
![A Palestinian woman stands with a child in an alley next to reproduction of a mural by British street artist Banksy, originally painted on the wall of the West Bank in Bethlehem, at al-Aroub Palestinian refugee camp, north the West Bank town of Hebron on February 11, 2016. [Hazem Bader/AFP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/000_7U5P0-1757348985.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
