WATCH: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu posed a pointed question to one of the troops at the new Chareidi IDF Chashmonai Brigade: “When your family asks you if you’re living a Chareidi lifestyle here, what do you answer?” The soldier replied confidently: “Of course I am.” Netanyahu then turned to the rest of the group and asked, “How many of you can say the same?” In response, all the soldiers raised their hands.

The Trump Administration has urged Israel to cease its ongoing military strikes on Syrian Army and Security Forces in Syria’s southwestern Suwayda Governorate, which Israel justified as necessary to prevent a “massacre” of the Druze minority, whose militias are engaged in active combat against both government and tribal forces in the Suwayda region.

The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s first judicial pick of his second term, voting to approve Whitney Hermandorfer as a judge for the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The confirmation of Hermandorfer, who worked for Tennessee’s attorney general, comes after the Democratic-led Senate under former President Joe Biden confirmed 235 federal judges and the Republican-led Senate in Trump’s first term confirmed 234 federal judges. The two presidents each worked to reshape the judiciary, with Trump taking advantage of a high number of judicial vacancies at the end of President Barack Obama’s term and Democrats working to beat Trump’s number after he had the opportunity to nominate three Supreme Court justices. So far in his second term, Trump has fewer vacancies to fill.

The clashes in the Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria resumed on Wednesday despite the so-called “ceasefire” announced by the Syrian government, with Syrian regime forces continuing to humiliate, abduct, and execute Druze. IDF forces early Wednesday afternoon carried out a drone strike on the entrance to the Syrian military headquarters in Damascus. Shortly before the strike in Damascus, the IDF carried out drone strikes against Syrian regime forces in Sweida, injuring a number of Syrian security forces. Earlier on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 248 people have been killed in the clashes. Dozens of Druze civilians were publicly humiliated and then executed by Syrian regime forces, including an 80-year-old sheikh.