President-elect Donald Trump unveiled a slate of high-profile nominees for his incoming administration on Wednesday, naming Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of State, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general. While Rubio’s confirmation is expected to move smoothly, Gabbard and Gaetz face potential hurdles due to their controversial records. Gabbard has previously faced criticism for her past friendly remarks on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Gaetz is under scrutiny over past allegations of misconduct, drug use, and improper gift acceptance. The contentious nominations are already drawing speculation about how Trump might maneuver around expected Senate opposition.

Violent protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday against a gala organized by pro-Israel figures which was intended to raise funds for the IDF, and included Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich among its invited guests. The demonstrations came on the eve of a high-stakes soccer match at France’s national stadium against the Israeli national team, overshadowed by tensions around the wars in the Middle East. Authorities in Paris announced that more than 4,000 police officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for the game. Smotrich, a vocal advocate of Israeli yishuvim, had been expected to attend Wednesday’s gala, dubbed “Israel is Forever,” which was planned by an association of the same name.

Multiple Iranian sources said that Tehran is postponing its plans to attack Israel – in the wake of the victory of President-elect Donald Trump over Kamala Harris last week, Sky News in Arabic reported on Wednesday. After Israel attacked Iran on October 26, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed that Iran would retaliate with a “severe response.” The Islamic Republic even named the attack Operation True Promise 3 – as it would be its third direct attack on Israel – and this time, it was reportedly scheming to launch the attack from Iraq to strike the Jewish state with more powerful warheads from a closer range.

The IDF has released the names of five soldiers from the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion who lost their lives in combat operations against Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon. The soldiers were identified as: Captain Itay Marcovich, 22, from Kokhav Ya’ir, served as a Platoon Commander. Staff Sergeant Sraya Elbom, 21, from Mehola, was a Squad Commander. Staff Sergeant Dror Hen, 20, from Gan Haim, served as a Squad Sergeant. Staff Sergeant Nir Gofer, 20, from Dimona, was a soldier in the battalion. Sergeant Shalev Itzhak Sagron, 21, from Sderot, also served as a soldier in the battalion. Details surrounding the soldiers’ deaths have not been released by the IDF. At least one other soldier was moderately wounded in the incident.

Donald Trump made a victor’s return to Washington on Wednesday, visiting the White House for an Oval Office meeting with Democratic President Joe Biden and committing to a smooth transition of power as the Republican president-elect moves quickly to build out his new administration. “Donald, congratulations,” Biden said, greeting Trump with a handshake and adding that he looked “forward to a smooth transition.” Trump made a similar pledge and expressed thanks to Biden for the invitation — one that Trump himself had not extended to Biden after losing the 2020 election. “Thank you very much,” Trump said. “Politics is tough. And it’s, in many cases, not a very nice world.

A CIA official, Asif W. Rahman, has been charged with leaking classified documents allegedly revealing Israel’s potential plans to strike Iran in response to a missile attack earlier this year, the New York Times reports. Rahman was indicted last week in federal court in Virginia on two counts related to the unauthorized retention and disclosure of national defense information. He was apprehended by the FBI on Tuesday in Cambodia and transported to Guam, where he is set to appear in federal court on Thursday. The leaked documents, originally prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), contain sensitive information based on satellite images, providing intelligence on a possible Israeli response to Iranian aggression.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group on Wednesday released a video of Israeli hostage Sasha Trufanov who has been in captivity in Gaza for 404 days. In the three-and-a-half-minute video, Trufanov is seen reciting a scripted message, telling Israelis to continue protesting for the return of the hostages, adding that he and his fellow hostages are suffering from a shortage of food, water and electricity. There was no indication of the date the video was filmed. Islamic Jihad previously released two videos of Trufanov in May which were reportedly published due to pressure from Russia after his mother met with government officials in Moscow.

The victims of the Hezbollah rocket attack in Nahariya on Tuesday evening were Ziv Belfer, 54, H”yd, and Shamoun Najm, H’yd, 52, the Nahariya municipality stated on Tuesday evening. “We send our heartfelt condolences to the families and we will continue to support them at this difficult time,” the municipality stated. Najm was a carpenter who was working in his shop when he and Belfer, who was nearby, were critically wounded earlier on Tuesday when a rocket launched by Hezbollah hit the shop. Paramedics who arrived at the scene pronounced them dead at the scene. Belfer, z’l, was the owner of a cafe in Haifa.

In what will likely go down as one of the most extravagant failures in American campaign history, Vice President Kamala Harris managed to blow through more than $1 billion in just three months—only to lose to former President Donald Trump. The lavish spending, complete with a parade of A-list concerts and influencer contracts, ended up yielding little more than empty hype as Trump sailed to victory, winning critical battleground states and becoming the first former president since Grover Cleveland to reclaim the White House in a nonconsecutive term. Harris’s fundraising spree brought in unprecedented amounts from wealthy Democratic donors, filling her war chest with cash from Silicon Valley titans like George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. And it sure didn’t take long to spend it.

New details about a tense incident that occurred prior to Israel’s execution of the “exploding pagers” operation were reported by Kan News this week. The report said that during one of the operations conducted by an elite unit of the IDF in the months leading up to the ground war in Lebanon, the soldiers seized various materials and equipment from a Hezbollah facility and brought it back to Israel Among the equipment was a pager – which was transferred to the Mossad. When Israel unexpectedly realized that they would have to carry out the pager operation earlier than they planned because Hezbollah had begun to express suspicions about them, one security official remembered that one pager had been brought into Israel.