Yemen fires projectile toward central Israel, Hamas says hostage deal is 'imminent'

Saudi Arabia will not normalize ties with Israel “unless it ends the war in Gaza,” Saudi officials have informed associates of US President-elect Donald Trump, a person with knowledge about the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday evening.

In recent weeks, Saudi officials, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, met people close to Trump, including Steve Witkoff, Trump’s incoming special envoy to the Middle East.

Normalization between the countries could materialize only after the war in Gaza ends, the Saudi officials told Witkoff, according to the informed source.

Hamas called on “all movements, factions, tribal gatherings, and human rights organizations to mobilize massively” to repel the ongoing operation carried out by PA security forces in Jenin, in an official statement on Tuesday.

“We emphasize that the continuation of the PA’s security operation indicates that it is turning a deaf ear to all Palestinian voices calling for its cessation and for the protection of the resistance,” the terror group’s statement read, adding that the Palestinian Authority operation “serves only the occupation army and its futile dreams of ending the resistance in the West Bank.”

The large-scale Jenin operation began earlier in December after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists stole vehicles belonging to the PA.

Clashes have been since reported between terrorists and PA security forces in the area, with terrorists detonating a car bomb in the vicinity of a police station in Jenin.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the US had asked Israel to approve the supply of weapons to the PA’s security forces.

A top UN official on Tuesday pushed world powers and Iran to urgently work to restore a 2015 deal that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program, warning that its "success or failure matters to all of us."

Iran's deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Donald Trump's first term as president, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal.

Significant progress is being made, and a hostage deal can be reached within a month, two officials with knowledge about the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Behind the scenes, there is a positive atmosphere in the talks, according to officials involved in the negotiations, Hamas, and Arab media reports.

Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote a message on his Hebrew X/Twitter account that Israel was "gravely mistaken" about regional developments regarding Iran. 

"The enemies imagine that after the developments in Syria, the uprising is already over. They are greatly mistaken," he wrote.