The eclipse will be unusually long — the phase of totality will last about 80 minutes. The peak of the eclipse will occur at 21:12.
The lunar eclipse is expected to be visible in the skies over Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.
The eclipse is called a "blood moon" because, during totality, sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere, is refracted and scattered — mainly at longer red wavelengths — and reaches the Moon, which takes on a deep red color.
The next total lunar eclipse is expected to take place on March 3.
Saudi Arabia has quietly given the United Arab Emirates a green light to pull back from its normalization deal with Israel if Jerusalem moves ahead with annexation in the West Bank, according to a report by Israel’s Kan news outlet.
The development, cited by a source close to the Saudi royal family, comes after a closed-door meeting last week in Riyadh between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed. The official Saudi Press Agency acknowledged the meeting, saying the leaders discussed “the latest developments in Palestine,” though it made no mention of annexation.
Kan quoted the source as saying both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi agreed that rolling back participation in the Abraham Accords would be a “realistic” response to Israeli annexation moves. The source added that such a step would also bring ongoing Saudi-Israeli normalization talks to a standstill.
The warning underscores the fragility of the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 when the UAE normalized ties with Israel in return for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shelving annexation plans. That breakthrough was widely believed to have Saudi Arabia’s tacit blessing.
In recent weeks, Abu Dhabi has issued a series of increasingly sharp warnings to Israel against renewed annexation efforts. These included an on-the-record interview with The Times of Israel, an official UAE government statement, and private messages relayed through backchannels. The Washington Post reported that the warnings were serious enough to push Netanyahu’s government to remove annexation from the agenda of a scheduled cabinet meeting Thursday night.
The Saudi intervention comes as Riyadh has ramped up its criticism of Israel over the war in Gaza. Earlier, the kingdom accused Israel of “genocide” against Palestinians in a strongly worded statement. While that communiqué did not reference annexation, Kan’s reporting suggests the issue is very much at the center of high-level Saudi-Emirati coordination.
Any Emirati withdrawal from the Abraham Accords would mark the first unraveling of the landmark U.S.-brokered agreements and could trigger a wider diplomatic crisis across the region. For Netanyahu, already under intense domestic and international pressure, the warning from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi presents yet another red line he is now forced to navigate.
The results of the 2025 World Zionist Congress elections were officially certified this week, confirming a dramatic shift in representation: for the first time, frum and right-wing slates together hold a majority in the American delegation.
The certification followed months of disputes over voting irregularities, including fraudulent ballots, that were ultimately resolved by the American Zionist Movement’s election tribunal and the Zionist Supreme Court in Jerusalem.
According to the American Zionist Movement, which oversees the U.S. elections, a record-breaking 224,969 valid votes were cast—nearly double the turnout of 2020 and the highest in history. Twenty-two slates competed for 155 American seats, which make up almost one-third of the body’s elected membership. Delegates from across the world will join representatives from Israel at the 39th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, scheduled for October 28–30.
The World Zionist Congress, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, determines the allocation of over $1 billion annually through the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael (JNF-KKL), and Keren Hayesod. Decisions made at the congress affect Jewish education, settlement initiatives, and the character of Jewish communal life in Israel and the Diaspora.
This year’s results highlight the growing presence of the Orthodox community within the WZO’s political framework. Am Yisrael Chai captured 21 seats, while Eretz HaKodesh secured 19. Combined with the Orthodox Israel Coalition–Mizrachi, which won 18 seats, the religious bloc now holds significant influence, an outcome unthinkable just a decade ago.
Other religious and right-wing groups also gained ground, while some centrist and progressive factions lost strength. The Reform movement’s “Vote Reform” slate remained the largest single faction, winning 33 seats, though fewer than the 39 it held in the last congress. The Conservative movement’s Mercaz USA gained modestly to 19 seats, while progressive lists such as Hatikvah dropped sharply.
The elections were not without controversy. Shas was initially disqualified over ballot issues but was later reinstated with two seats. Achdut Israel, another slate, was disqualified completely after investigators found evidence of fraudulent registrations.
Smaller groups also managed to carve out a presence. Aish Ha’am, linked to Aish HaTorah, secured five seats, while newcomers like Kol Israel, Vision, and the Israeli American Council each won four.
“The United States has never asked Israel not to apply sovereignty” in Judea and Samaria, Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told broadcaster Channel 14 on Friday.
Huckabee’s statement came on the backdrop of Hebrew-language reports claiming that Washington asked Jerusalem not to advance policies that could cause harm the stability of the Palestinian Authority.
“I have repeatedly said that the United States respects Israel as a sovereign state and will not tell Israel what to do. That’s also what Secretary of State Rubio said just last week,” Channel 14 quoted the American envoy as saying in response to these reports.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “abruptly” canceled a Cabinet discussion on a plan to annex part of Judea and Samaria, Channel 14 reported.
The report provided several reasons for the cancelation, including American pressure not to press forward with this agenda.
An unnamed Israeli official reportedly said that the meeting was only postposed due to schedule congestion.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that an “unusual message” delivered by the United Arab Emirates had prompted Netanyahu and several senior ministers to remove the annexation plan from the Cabinet’s agenda.
“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace. It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” Special Envoy of the Emirati Foreign Ministry Lana Nusseibeh told Hebrew and international media on Tuesday.
It was reportedly the first time an Emirati official has publicly put under question the Abraham Accords, which the UAE and Bahrain were the first Arab countries to sign onto on Sept. 15, 2020.
The public message followed several warnings in diplomatic back-channels, which were met with silence by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, according to the Post.
Asked by reporters on Thursday in Ecuador to comment on this development, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “What you’re seeing with [Judea and Samaria] and the annexation, that’s not a final thing—that’s something being discussed among some elements of Israeli politics. I’m not going to opine on that today.”
He went on to say that Washington had harsh words for world leaders, who have said that they plan to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
“We told all these countries, ‘If you guys do this recognition stuff—it’s all fake, it’s not even real,” Rubio told reporters during the diplomatic visit to Quito, Ecuador. “If you do it, you’re going to create really big problems.”
Rubio is expected to visit Israel on Sept. 14.
