[IsraelTimes] US State Department restores proscription — revoked by Joe Biden — of Iran-backed Yemen group that launched attacks on Israel, hundreds of ships after outbreak of Israel-Hamas war
The US State Department on Tuesday reinstated the "foreign terrorist organization" designation for Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ’s Iran-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... group, fulfilling an order announced by US President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... shortly after he took office.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... announced the department had restored the designation, which carries with it sanctions and penalties for anyone providing "material support" for the group.
"Since 2023, the Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as US service members defending freedom of navigation and our regional partners," Rubio said in a statement. "Most recently, the Houthis spared Chinese-flagged ships while targeting American and allied vessels."
The Houthis — whose slogan calls for "Death to America," "Death to Israel," and a "curse on Jews" — have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships off Yemen since November 2023 in support of Paleostinian Lions of Islam fighting Israel, disrupting global shipping.
In January, the group signaled that it will limit its attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships after a ceasefire began in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip but warned wider assaults could resume if needed.
During the war in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis also repeatedly fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, in what eventually became nearly daily assaults. While most were intercepted, the attacks sent millions scrambling to bomb shelters, often in the middle of the night.
Some drones and rockets hit the country, killing a man in Tel Aviv on one occasion and causing extensive damage to a school on another, as well as other damage including in the southern resort city of Eilat.
Trump’s first Republican administration similarly designated the Houthis in its waning days, but the designation had been revoked by President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. The man who made Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter look competent, if only by comparison.... ’s Democratic administration over concerns it would badly affect the delivery of aid to Yemen, which was considered to be facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Rubio suggested in his statement that such a concern was not an issue anymore, saying that the US would no longer "tolerate any country engaging with terrorist organizations like the Houthis in the name of practicing legitimate international business."
US STATE DEPT. OFFERING $15M FOR INFO ON HOUTHI FINANCING
Besides the "foreign terrorist organization" announcement, the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program announced that it would pay up to $15 million for information that leads to the disruption of Houthi financing.
The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... said last month that it suspended its humanitarian operations in the stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi rebels after they detained eight more UN staffers.
The rebels in recent months have detained dozens of UN staffers, as well as people associated with aid groups, civil society and the once-open US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. None of the UN staffers has been released.
The Houthis have been fighting Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition, since 2014, when they descended from their stronghold in Saada and took control of Sanaa and most of the north.
The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the US, in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including civilians and combatants, and in recent years it has tanked largely into a stalemate.
The UN has projected that more than 19 million people across Yemen will need humanitarian assistance this year as many deal with climate shocks, malnutrition, cholera and the economic effects of war.
[IsraelTimes] The teenage son of a senior Hamas official who featured in a since-pulled BBC documentary on Gaza was also the focus of an award-winning documentary by another British news channel a year ago, though his connection to the Palestinian terror group largely went unnoticed until now, the Telegraph reports.
The British outlet reports: “For seven months, Channel 4 News broadcast footage of Abdullah al-Yazouri, who was then 13, without disclosing he was the son of Dr. Ayman Alyazouri, the deputy agriculture minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government.”
…and related to at least one of the founders of Hamas. Practically Gazan royalty, in fact. No doubt photogenic, articulate, charismatic, and available for suitable donation to the cause.
The program, which focused on financial hardships in Gaza, won multiple awards, including being picked as news program of the year by Press Gazette and the Royal Television Society (RTS), as well as winning a Bafta and an International Emmy for news reporting, according to the new report.
[IsraelTimes] A second Australian nurse has been charged over alleged antisemitic threats made in an online video chat with an Israeli influencer, police say.
Footage posted to social media last month by Israeli content creator Max Veifer allegedly showed a male and a female nurse making antisemitic remarks as they spoke to him from their Sydney hospital.
… the story of Israeli Max Veifer randomly video-calling Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both nurses at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney. Mr. Nadir is an Afghan refugee who only became an Australian citizen four years ago; Ms Abu Lebdeh is of Palestinian extraction. They were referred to the police for investigation by shocked hospital management, despite a whistleblower revealing after 10/7/2023 that staff were enthusiastic supporters of egregious anti-Israel slogans.
The 27-year-old male nurse, Ahmad Rashad Nadir, was arrested Tuesday and charged with using a carriage service to menace or harass, as well as one count of illegal drug possession, police say in a statement.
He was given bail until a Sydney court hearing scheduled for March 19.
Last week, police charged the other nurse at the southwest Sydney hospital — 26-year-old Sarah Abu Lebdeh — with three counts including using a carriage service to threaten to kill.
She is also due in court on March 19.
“Detectives have overcome many challenges — including huge public expectation — to put these individuals before the court,” says New South Wales police commissioner Karen Webb.
The two nurses were removed from their jobs in February over the video.
#2
The “illegal drug possession “ was a vial of morphine, most likely medication stolen from a patient in severe pain. These two charmers are being looked at very closely- the proctology department may well be assisting. Well done, Mr Viefer.
#3
IIRC the male nurse admitted to actually having killed at least one patient in the video, this is beyond threatening.
Also there's plenty of opportunity to harm or kill people without getting caught in healthcare, especially if there's no personal, classical motive but an abstract hatred for a group.
[IsraelTimes] US president says foreign ‘agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently’ deported and American students ‘will be permanently expelled,’ drawing rebuke from free speech group
US President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... said he wanted to cut the federal funding of colleges that allow what he called "illegal protests" in a social media post that civil rights groups called an attack on the freedoms of speech and assembly.
The post on Tuesday appeared to repeat some of the ideas of executive orders he issued during his first term, in 2019, and on January 29, which described the pro-Paleostinian, anti-Israel student protest movement that swept college campuses last year as antisemitic.
"All federal funding will STOP for any College, School or University that allows illegal protests," Trump wrote on social media. "Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!"
A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to questions about how the White House would define an illegal protest or how the government would imprison protesters. The US Constitution’s First Amendment protects the freedom of speech and assembly.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-profit group, said on Tuesday that Trump’s threat was "deeply chilling" and would make students "fear punishment for wholly protected political speech."
"The president can’t force institutions to expel students," the statement said.
The US government does not control either privately or publicly funded schools or colleges, although a president has a limited ability to encourage policy goals via federal funding disbursed through the US Department of Education.
Trump’s executive order in January restored a similar order he signed in 2019, instructing the Department of Education to investigate colleges that receive federal funding if they failed to protect Jewish students and staff from antisemitism.
Trump has also told Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... that he wants non-citizen protesters admitted to the US on student visas to be deported.
Protesters set up tent encampments on college campuses across the US and around the world last year to protest against Israel amid the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... sparked by Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... ’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught . Many of the protests centered on their school’s investments in companies that they said supported Israel’s military control of Paleostinian territories.
#1
👍 for TRUMP
Since the 1st Amendment protects Peaceful Assembly to verbally protest and not Violent, Riots, & Property damages, and Physical assaults.
As an already overtaxed, US Citizen.
I support cutting all Taxpayer $$$$ to such Universities that become breeding & training grounds for future Liberals, Terrorists and general malcontents.
I also support charging the Facility, College Board members & Donors, that supported these violent campus protests, as co-defendants / co-conspirators.
#2
Why is the government supporting ANY college or university with taxpayers money? These are businesses, without regard to how they see themselves, and should be self-supporting.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/05/2025 7:18 Comments ||
Top||
#3
...legacy of the post-WW2 GI Bill.
BTW, everyone talks about Eisenhower's admonition about the MIC, but ignore the very next comment about the Academic Technological Complex.
#5
Cut it all, every single semi-pro sports league entertainment brand indoctrination camp one of them.
They wanna be Ghana State University, fine. Let them all live on what they promote as secondary education, I don't need to pay for it and every single college my kids will never attend.
[Rudaw] Iraqi security forces have largely eradicated the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) from the country, with only a few hundred faceless myrmidons remaining in remote areas, the head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell told Rudaw.
Major General Saad Maan stated in late February that some 400 to 600 ISIS faceless myrmidons are still dispersed across uninhabitable areas in the country, emphasizing that "[local] communities are rejecting their presence, and no one is harboring them."
He further explained that "for over a year, we have not faced direct attacks from ISIS, and the number of explosions caused by improvised bombs (IEDs)" has been minimal, occurring only "a few times in non-urban areas." He underscored that Iraqi forces "are taking the initiative [to strike first]," adding that they have "recently" carried out nine precision-guided Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s against ISIS cells.
As recently as mid-February, Iraq’s Security Media Cell announced the killing of at least two ISIS bully boyz in airstrikes near Kirkuk. The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed the operation, describing it as "part of the ongoing Defeat-ISIS campaign" aimed at "disrupting and degrading" the group’s capabilities, and "ensuring its enduring defeat."
Maan also highlighted key improvements in the Iraqi security forces’ capabilities, particularly in the areas of "arms, intelligence, and training." He argued that Baghdad has been successfully "preventing ISIS bully boyz from regrouping and launching attacks."
In a different vein, the Iraqi security official stated that drug trafficking is "the most widespread crime" in Iraq. Maan highlighted that Erbil and Baghdad are working jointly and with regional neighbours to address the issue. Iraqi security apparatus rely on "highly-advanced cameras and drones" to tighten their grip on the borders, he explained.
The head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell also said that "drugs are almost exclusively imported" into Iraq and that there have been "failed attempt ...Curses! Foiled again!... s" to manufacture Crystal and Captagon - the most commonly used types of psychotropic substances - within the country.
Of note, Crystal is often referent to Crystal meth, however, it could also refer to other crystalline forms of drugs including MDMA and uncut Cocaine.
A research study published in July by the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Office reported that Iraq - including the Kurdistan Region - has recorded "a sharp increase in the trafficking and use of Captagon over the past five years." The study revealed that Iraq saw a staggering 3,380 percent increase in Captagon seizures from 2019 to 2023, with over 4.1 tons of Captagon tablets seized in 2023 alone.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/05/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Rudaw] Nearly 3,000 Yazidis kidnapped during the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... ’s (ISIS) brutal rule in Iraq remain missing with an unknown fate over a decade after jihadists invaded their heartland, an official affiliated with the Kurdistan Region Presidency said on Sunday.
Statistics from the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, affiliated with the Kurdistan Region Presidency, showed that the fate of 2,832 members of the ethnoreligious community remains unknown.
Nearly 5,000 have also died, leaving behind 2,745 orphaned children.
"We have worked on various cases, including those related to Iraq, Syria, Rojava [northeast Syria], and foreign countries," Hussein Qaidi, head of the office, told Rudaw. "In the coming days, we will rescue another person and announce their return."
In February, a Yazidi woman from Shingal (Sinjar) kidnapped by ISIS was rescued by the office and returned to her family after over ten years in captivity.
The office has also documented 93 mass graves of Yazidi Kurds who were killed by ISIS holy warriors between 2014 and 2017.
The remains of 274 abductees killed by ISIS have been recovered and returned to their families, including 37 women and 237 men, the office added.
In its assault on Shingal in 2014, ISIS holy warriors kidnapped 6,417 Yazidi women and kiddies, many of whom were subjected to sexual slavery and forced labor. Although the group was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, it continues to pose a security risk.
Many Yazidi women and kiddies have been rescued from al-Hol, the notorious camp in northeast Syria that houses tens of thousands of ISIS families and supporters. Others have been found in areas of Syria controlled by rebels or Ottoman Turkish-backed gangs, and some have been located in third countries.
[IsraelTimes] The Shin Bet security agency has published a summary of its investigations into its failures during the lead-up to the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, concluding that there were failures within the organization but mostly pointing to external elements such as an unclear division of responsibilities with the IDF, an overly defensive government policy regarding Gaza over the years, and the Shin Bet being unsuited to counter an army-like foe such as Hamas.
The security service says a broader investigation is needed — a likely hint at the perceived need for a state commission of inquiry, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to establish.
The investigations were carried out internally by each of the Shin Bet’s units and by an external team of former senior agency employees and other experts, who provided a series of findings, conclusions and recommendations.
Many of the findings remain classified, as they would reveal the Shin Bet’s intelligence secret tools and methods, the agency says.
The investigation has found that the Shin Bet failed to provide an alert for Hamas’s October 7 large-scale onslaught. Warning signs received by the Shin Bet on the night of October 6 did not result in major actions being taken.
While a small team of elite officers from the Shin Bet and police that were deployed to the Gaza border before the onslaught managed to contribute to the fighting, they were unable to prevent the massive Hamas attack.
The investigation points to several reasons, both related to professionalism and management, which contributed to the failures. “The organizational failures were thoroughly examined and the lessons were learned and continue to be learned,” the Shin Bet says.
Additionally, the investigation found that the Shin Bet did not underestimate Hamas, but rather the opposite, that the agency had “a deep understanding of the threat, and had initiatives and a desire to thwart the threat and especially [eliminate] the leaders of Hamas.”
Several reasons are given as to why the Shin Bet provided no alert for Hamas’s mass onslaught:
Hamas’s ground invasion plans, which were obtained by the IDF in a document known as Jericho’s Walls, were not handled correctly over several years, and the plans were not turned into a scenario that the military and Shin Bet train for.
An unclear division of responsibility between the IDF and Shin Bet regarding which organization should provide a warning for war, amid a change of Hamas from a smaller terror group to a full military force.
The Shin Bet’s focus was on foiling terror attacks, and its methods were not applicable to an enemy that acted like an army.
During the night between October 6 and 7, there were gaps in the “handling of information and integration of intelligence,” as well as operations that did not follow the usual protocol, and a lack of “fusion” with the IDF’s intelligence.
There were gaps in the work of intelligence supervision mechanisms.
The assessment was that Hamas was trying to heat up the West Bank, and was not interested in doing so in the Gaza Strip.
The Shin Bet had an “incorrect understanding” of the strength of the Israeli border barrier with Gaza and the IDF’s ability to respond.
Hamas’s believed intentions were not challenged enough during assessments.
There was relatively little intelligence, including as a result of limited freedom of action in the Gaza Strip, especially independently by the Shin Bet.
The Shin Bet investigation also finds several reasons that enabled Hamas to build up its forces for the October 7 onslaught and decide to carry out the attack:
Israel’s policy vis-à-vis Gaza was to maintain periods of quiet, which enabled Hamas massive force build-up.
The flow of money from Qatar to Gaza and their delivery to Hamas’s military wing.
An ongoing erosion of Israel’s deterrence.
An attempt to deal with a terror organization based on intelligence and defensive measures, while avoiding offensive initiatives.
The catalysts to Hamas’s decision to carry out the onslaught included the cumulative weight of Israeli violations on the Temple Mount, the attitude toward Palestinian prisoners, and the perception that Israeli society was weakened.
In an accompanying statement, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar says the agency “did not prevent the October 7 massacre” and “as the head of the organization, I will bear this heavy burden on my shoulders for the rest of my life.”
He adds: “The investigation revealed that if the Shin Bet had acted differently, in the years leading up to the attack and during the night of the attack — both at the professional level and the managerial level — the massacre would have been avoided. This is not the standard we expected of ourselves, or that the public expected of us.
“The investigation shows that the Shin Bet didn’t underestimate our rival — on the contrary, it took the initiative, went on the offensive and tried to nip the threat in the bud — but despite all this, we failed.”
Bar adds that truly investigating the failures necessitates a broader probe that also encapsulates the contact and cooperation between security and political elements.
“The path to reparation, as is emphasized in the report, demands a broad process of clarity and truth,” he says. “So I asked the investigatory committee and the agency’s top command, to probe and to discuss not only the reasons why the service failed, but also to take a wide look at all the relevant work processes at the organization, as part of learning lessons and as an opportunity for a broad change. But it also demands readiness to change in the political-security interface, otherwise, the failures could come back in the future.”
“I believe this organization is strong, stable, humble and its values are even more professional than they were on the eve of the massacre,” he adds.
Report: The alert IDF sent PM’s office hours before Oct. 7 attack said Hamas activity wasn’t unusual
[IsraelTimes] The Kan public broadcaster publishes the content of an alert sent by the IDF to the intelligence officers of seven key Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, hours before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, which seemingly confirms the premier’s contention that it was framed as non-urgent.
The existence of the memo was revealed on Saturday by Channel 12 news, which reported that it set out “numerous” worrying signs of Hamas activity in Gaza that night and that Netanyahu’s intelligence officer did not pass the information up the chain.
In response to that report, the Prime Minister’s Office said the intelligence officer received the message along with a report that Hamas was operating as usual and that the IDF Southern Command would hold a discussion in the morning. He forwarded the message to Netanyahu’s military secretary Avi Gil but decided not to wake him up as the message did not indicate any urgency.
Kan’s report today appears to support Netanyahu’s version of events.
“Today and yesterday SIM cards were activated in certain ares of Gaza,” the memo sent at 2.45 a.m. that night reportedly said, referring to SIM cards Hamas fighters activated ahead of their invasion and onslaught. “This isn’t out of the ordinary, since last year as well such checks were carried out by Hamas.
“The understanding of the [Gaza] Division and the [Southern] Command, Hamas isn’t deviating from its routine [activities]. The information is initial and Hamas is showing characteristics of routine activity. A discussion of the matter will be held by the Southern Command’s intelligence officer at 8:30 a.m. and by the [Southern Command] commander at 10 a.m.”
Kan adds that only after that night’s SIM card activation was the Southern Command chief, Yaron Finkelman, updated about the fact that this had happened the previous night as well.
The report says that during that crucial night, Finkelman asked if the developments meant the alertness level should be raised, and received a negative answer.
"The investigation points to several reasons, both related to professionalism and management, which contributed to the failures. “The organizational failures were thoroughly examined and the lessons were learned and continue to be learned,” the Shin Bet says."
#2
While a small team of elite officers from the Shin Bet and police that were deployed to the Gaza border before the onslaught managed to contribute to the fighting, they were unable to prevent the massive Hamas attackof thousands of thugs.
The minimalist US efforts at border containment would not survive a surge of thousands. At the moment hunger and fatigue from traveling hundreds of miles has been an ally.
[IsraelTimes] Hostage Matan Angrest has been held for a long time in a dark cellar with little air, and is suffering from untreated severe burns and bruises as well as harm to his eyes as a result of injuries he sustained during his kidnapping from a burning IDF tank in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023, Channel 12 reports.
The account isn’t attributed to anyone but comes after many captives were released recently, including five female soldiers who have said service people are being tortured by Hamas for intelligence. It also comes a day after Angrest’s family published the first photo of him from captivity, from a video received from Hamas.
The report says Angrest is forced to treat his injuries by himself, and that his Hamas captors are purposely starving him.
Angrest’s father told the Kan public broadcaster earlier today that if the family feels like it is necessary, it will also publish the full video of Matan, which he contended will “shock the country.”
“Matan’s face is completely broken, the boy is completely broken and this is just the face,” he said. “We know he treated his own body.”
[IsraelTimes] Amman says over 30 Palestinian children ‘suffering various illnesses’ have arrived in kingdom to be treated as part of ‘initiative that the king spoke about in Washington’
Jordan on Tuesday evacuated the first group of Paleostinian children in need of medical treatment from the war-battered Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip under a plan the king presented to US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... last month.
Images aired by state TV channel al-Mamlaka showed Jordanian military helicopters arriving at a military airport in Amman carrying four injured children and their families.
The children, two of them amputees, were taken to hospital upon arrival.
Government front man Mohammad Momani told a news conference that the first group "of the Gazook children suffering various illnesses began arriving."
Momani said it was the start of the "implementation of the initiative that the king spoke about in Washington."
In his White House visit last month, King Abdullah II told Trump: "One of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children, cancer children who are in a very ill state. That is possible."
Later on Tuesday, another 29 children accompanied by 44 adults were brought into Jordan by land, a military front man said.
Ambulances carrying them entered via the King Hussein Bridge crossing, also known as Allenby Bridge crossing, between the Israeli-controlled West Bank and Jordan.
Ahmad Shehada, 13, told AFP he was eager to "get my life back" after a serious injury.
The boy, whose father and other relatives died in the war sparked by the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... -led terror onslaught on October 7, 2023,, said he had gone to get water when "a helicopter dropped a strange object, and it went kaboom! on us."
Shehada lost an arm and "traveled to Jordan to have a (prosthetic) limb fitted," he said.
The war has killed over 48,000 people in Gaza and left more than 100,000 maimed, according to unverified figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry, which do not differentiate between fighters and non-combatants.
Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 holy warriors inside Israel on October 7, during which some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — were killed and 251 kidnapped to Gaza.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 410. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
[IsraelTimes] With schools now open, the communities of Arab al-Aramshe and neighboring Kibbutz Adamit in the Western Galilee rethink their ‘naivete’ about dangers beyond the border.
[IsraelTimes] Though no skiing possible due to damage to lifts from rocket fire during war with Hezbollah, and low levels of snow, operators welcome revival of iconic resort site.
[IsraelTimes] Tapped to head welfare fund replacing ‘pay-to-slay,’ Ahmad Majdalani says it’ll be strictly need-based, and should suffice for US and Israel to scrap ‘unjust’ sanctions on Ramallah
Last month, Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> signed a decree ending Ramallah’s controversial prisoner payment system, which had been a lightning rod for criticism from Israel and the international community. "No cash, but four times the usual Green Stamps"
The decree ended a decades-long policy of providing welfare payments to Paleostinians in Israeli prisoners — in addition to the families of slain and maimed attackers — based on the length of their sentence.
All welfare stipends — for prisoners and others — have been moved out of the PA to a nongovernmental body called the Paleostinian National Economic Empowerment Fund, which will be headed by former PA welfare minister Ahmad Majdalani, a longtime Abbas confidant.
In a rare interview with a foreign media outlet — particularly an Israeli one — Majdalani cautiously explained what he acknowledged was a domestically unpopular reform, urging the international community to support it in both word and deed.
"It is not enough to welcome this reform. You also need to support it financially," Majdalani told The Times of Israel in his Ramallah office last week, recalling the message he imparted to international diplomats during a private briefing he held days earlier to explain the reform.
He argued that countries can do this by writing a check or by leaning on the US and Israel to roll back their "unjust" sanctions against the PA over what proponents of those penalties brand as Ramallah’s "pay-to-slay" policy.
Without financial support, the PA will find itself in an even more precarious position, given how unpopular the reform is among Paleostinians.
"Frankly, it is not easy to take this decision, because the issue of prisoners and deaders is a very sensitive one for the Paleostinian public," Majdalani acknowledged.
The political timing isn’t exactly ideal for Ramallah, given that the reform came in the midst of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... ceasefire deal, through which Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... secured the release of thousands of Paleostinian prisoners. The terror group has sought to capitalize on the opportunity, issuing statements juxtaposing its efforts on behalf of the prisoners with the PA’s "abandonment" of them.
IS IT REAL?
For years, the PA pushed back on calls to end the prisoner payments, arguing that the policy was necessary in light of what it views as Israel’s callous military rule, under which thousands of Paleostinians are detained without due process.
Notably, public resistance to the prisoner payment reform has not translated into major street protests as some analysts had predicted. Those might come, however, once the newly calculated stipends are divvied out. All recipients must reapply first and the review process by Majdalani’s office is expected to take several months, he said.
Regardless, Majdalani — who also serves as a faction leader in the high-level Paleostine Liberation Organization executive committee — made a point of clarifying that the PA was not "blackmailing the international community."
"We are not imposing conditions where we’re only doing this if they pay. We’re doing this because it’s our duty," he said.
The sensitivity of the issue — and Abbas’s attempt to balance domestic blowback with international support — was on full display late last month when the PA leader addressed a session of the Fatah’s Revolutionary Council.
"I once said... that if we have one penny left, it’ll be for the prisoners and deaders," Abbas said in a clip from a lengthy speech that was quickly picked up by critics, who argued it proved the PA wasn’t serious about the reform.
The prisoners "should receive [exactly] what they got in the past... I won’t allow [anyone] to take a penny away from them," the PA leader added.
Majdalani said Abbas was only referring to the previous payment scheme and that later in the speech he referred to the new system, which only offers payments based on financial need. He said this was left out of the clips shared by skeptics of the PA reform.
Nearly the same argument was made in a separate interview that The Times of Israel conducted hours earlier with another top Abbas aide, Mahmoud Habbash.
But the full video of Abbas’s speech was taken down from the PA’s website, indicating that perhaps the PA president wasn’t as clear-cut as his advisers made him out to be.
Still, the reform was lambasted by the since-ousted head of the PA’s prisoner support club, indicating that those potentially most impacted by the reform are taking it seriously, as is Ramallah.
MOVING FORWARD, DESPITE TRUMP PLAN
Successive American administrations had worked to coax the PA to reverse the prisoner payments program, and former US president Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Too old and senile to be prosecuted, not too old and senile to set national policy... ’s envoy to the Paleostinians Hady Amr quietly made significant progress in that endeavor.
Ultimately, however, Ramallah refrained from announcing the reform during the tenure of Biden, who failed to deliver on a number of campaign promises made to the Paleostinians.
Instead, Abbas waited to sign the decree until after US President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... returned to office, as a demonstration of goodwill.
The PA didn’t even hold off on the step after Trump announced his proposal for the US to take over Gaza and permanently "clean it out" of Paleostinians.
Less than a week later, Abbas signed the decree, catching many in the international community off guard, while others barely noticed the announcement amid the grueling Israeli-Paleostinian conflict news cycle of the last year.
It took two days for the Trump administration to respond, but the State Department issued a statement welcoming the reform as "a positive step and a big win" for the US president, while adding that it would be monitoring its implementation.
GETTING THE US AND ISRAEL ON BOARD
That monitoring is required under US legislation that the PA reform is trying to reverse — a 2018 law called the Taylor Force Act, which bars almost all aid that directly benefits the PA so long as the payment policy based on prison sentences remains in place.
With the decree now signed by Abbas to end the policy, the State Department will take the next several months to determine how it is being implemented.
The PA designed much of the reform specifically in order to come into compliance with the Taylor Force Act and is under the impression that the US will recognize it as such, a diplomatic source in Ramallah told The Times of Israel.
Majdalani said that the reform was built in coordination with US officials and politicians, including Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham ...soft-spoken senator from South Carolina, former best buddy of John Maverick McCain. Since McCain's demise, Graham has become more outspoken, more Republican and more of a supporter of President Trump. The speech he gave in support of Brett Kavanaugh was downright manly and really cheesed off the Dems... and Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who both expressed their backing for the PA plan.
A congressional aide to Van Hollen said the progressive politician had pressed the PA to conduct the reform on multiple occasions in order for Ramallah to come into compliance with US law.
A spokesperson for Graham did not respond to a request for comment, but a former US official said the Republican senator expressed his support for the reform when he was briefed on it last year.
Ramallah is also hoping that the reform will lead to the reversal of Knesset legislation passed shortly after Taylor Force, which deducts the sum of the payments the PA makes to the families of prisoners and slain and maimed Paleostinians from the tax revenues that Jerusalem transfers each month to Ramallah.
Majdalani indicated that there has been less contact with Israel regarding this issue, though, as ties are particularly poor with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who regularly likens the PA to Hamas.
Israel has been withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues that Jerusalem collects on Ramallah’s behalf, in what Majdalani branded as "theft."
The withheld cash has further exacerbated an already dire situation for the Paleostinian economy, which has long suffered amid the PA’s power imbalance with and reliance on Israel. The PA has been under particular duress since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, after which Israel rescinded permits for the vast majority of the 150,000 Paleostinians who were working in Israel and its settlements, citing security concerns.
DO YOU OWN A WASHING MACHINE?
Offering some details regarding the reform, Majdalani said all welfare payments will be distributed under one system moving forward. The amounts will be calculated based on very specific financial criteria that will be adjudicated by social workers, who will go house to house to probe the exact conditions of each applicant.
Anyone can apply, but only households earning particularly low wages will be eligible. Those making the minimum wage ($518) will be eligible for higher payments, and those making below the national poverty line ($770) will receive slightly less.
Majdalani declined to give specific amounts for how much a beneficiary household might typically receive, insisting that each case will differ based on the various criteria, which gets into granular details, such as whether or not a family owns a washing machine.
He avoided saying specifically that the families of prisoners and slain attackers will also be able to apply, but he did stress that the program will be open to every Paleostinian household. Accordingly, many prisoners are likely to remain eligible to receive funds from the PA, given the high Paleostinian poverty rate.
But now, how much those prisoners receive will depend on how poor they are and whether the PA secures the funds to sustain the program.
[IsraelTimes] Egypt’s Sissi presents proposal that would see Gazans remain in Strip during 5-year reconstruction, but avoids difficult questions on Hamas, which US says cannot remain in power
They’re completely missing the point: even if not in power, if allowed to stay in situ the community will do it all again. But then, Egypt has persuaded itself that they won the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Arab leaders adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... on Tuesday that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Paleostinians from the enclave, in contrast to US President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... ’s "Middle East Riviera" vision.
Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi said the proposal, welcomed in subsequent statements by Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... and criticized by Israel, had been accepted at the closing of a summit he hosted in Cairo.
Only Israel’s opinion matters… And President Trump’s.
Sissi said at the summit that he was certain Trump would be able to achieve peace in the conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... the agreement did not address the major questions that need to be answered about Gaza’s future regarding the role of Hamas
…none…
and which countries will provide the billions of dollars needed for reconstruction.
Sissi stressed that his country’s reconstruction plan would allow Paleostinians to remain in the war-torn territory.
No running water, no electricity, no sewer system, very few livable buildings — but lots of rubble, asbestos dust, unstable tunnel remnants, leaking poo ponds, and Hamas warehouses stuffed to the rafters with necessities hoarded away from the population. Why does President al-Sisi want the Gazans to suffer in the midst of squalor instead of letting them escape into the world where they can find jobs and healthy, comfortable places to live?
He said that independent Paleostinian technocrats unaffiliated with Hamas would run the Strip after an end to the war.
Israel also refuses to allow anyone related to the Palestinian Authority — which is just the old PLO with a pretty figleaf covering — to run Gaza. How many Gazan unicorns exist who are aligned with neither the PLO nor Hamas?
The committee would be responsible for the oversight of humanitarian aid and managing the Strip’s affairs for a temporary period, in preparation for the return of the Paleostinian Authority, he said.
In a statement, Hamas said it welcomed the plan as well as the formation of the Paleostinian committee.
Uh huh.
FUTURE OF HAMAS
There appeared to be divisions among participants over the future of Hamas, which sparked the war with the October 7, 2023 onslaught on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and took another 251 hostages.
The UAE, which sees Hamas and other Islamists as an existential threat, wants an immediate and complete disarmament of the terror group, while other Arab countries advocate a gradual approach, a source close to the matter told Rooters.
No gradualism. No Hamsniks. Let them move to Qatar or Turkey, somewhere far from Gaza.
A source close to Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... ’s royal court said the continued armed presence of Hamas in Gaza was a stumbling block because of strong objections from the United States and Israel, which would need to sign off on any plan.
Such perspicacity.
"President Trump has been clear that Hamas cannot continue to govern Gaza," White House National Security Council front man Brian Hughes said Tuesday in response to Arab leaders’ endorsement of the Egyptian plan. "While the president stands by his bold vision for a post-war Gaza, he welcomes input from our Arab partners in the region. It’s clear his proposals have driven the region to come to the table rather than allow this issue to devolve into further crisis."
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the Egyptian plan "fails to address the realities of the situation."
"It is noteworthy that Hamas’s vicious terror assault isn’t mentioned, and there isn’t even a condemnation of this murderous terrorist entity, despite the documented atrocities," the statement said.
Precisely.
It reiterated Israel’s support for Trump’s plan to resettle Gaza’s population elsewhere, describing it as "an opportunity for the Gazooks to have free choice based on their free will," a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again gave his full-throated backing to the proposal, calling it "visionary and innovative."
The Foreign Ministry statement also urged responsible regional states to "break free from past constraints and collaborate to create a future of stability and security in the region."
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty blasted Israel’s rejection as "unacceptable," describing its position as "stubborn and bad boy."
Too damned bad. This is what losing the war you started looks like.
"There will be no peace neither to Israel or to the region" without establishing an independent Paleostinian state in accordance with United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... resolutions, he said.
War it is, then. Egypt must be looking forward to being Lebanon in the next round.
He said "Israel violates all international law rules ... the international law must be imposed."
Some key elements were missing in the Egyptian education, if the Egyptian foreign minister is so deluded,
"No single state should be allowed to impose its will on the international community," Abdelatty said.
Go back and try again, dude your excellency. Joe Biden no longer lives in the White House. And if you don’t live up to your treaty obligations, America will summarily cut you off.
Paleostinians, along with the Arab world and many allies of Israel and the US, have condemned Trump’s proposal, rejecting any efforts to expel Gazooks.
That’s nice.
’PRESERVING THE HORIZON OF A TWO-STATE SOLUTION’
There’s the other fundamental error.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Sissi also reissued a call for a two-state solution.
No.
"There will be no true peace without the establishment of the Paleostinian state," Sissi said during Tuesday’s meeting. "It’s time to adopt the launching of a serious and effective political path that leads to a permanent and lasting solution to the Paleostinian cause according to the resolutions of international legitimacy."
So sorry, but the Palestinians in general have missed the boat, and then the Gazans holed it and burnt the sunken hulk.
The Egyptian plan, called "Early Recovery, Reconstruction, Development of Gaza," is based on "preserving the rights, dignity and humanity of the Paleostinian people, and on the horizon of a two-state solution."
The Palestinian state at this point is far beyond the event horizon by dint of their own efforts, both in Gaza, where they are still holding captives in inhumane conditions, and in the West Bank, where they are busily doing Hamas’s (and Iran’s bidding.
The Egyptian proposal says it is "illogical" to ignore Paleostinians’ desire to remain on their land.
Oh well. Anyway…
It also calls for the continuation of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of Israeli hostages and Paleostinian prisoners.
The Egyptian document, reviewed by The Times of Israel, envisions a Gaza Administration Committee, made up of independent technocrats, to manage an initial six-month transitional phase. It also urges elections in all Paleostinian areas within a year, if conditions support such a move.
And now the Handwavium:
Using colorful AI images, it envisages a series of modern living spaces, agricultural zones, commercial centers and government complexes throughout the Strip. An airport and seaport would also be constructed, according to Egypt’s plan, which would continue until 2030.
The emir of Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , Bahrain’s king, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister attended the Cairo confab, as did UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Any reconstruction funding would require heavy buy-in from oil-rich Gulf Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have the billions of dollars needed. Egypt estimated the plan would cost US$ 53 billion.
PA Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said the reconstruction fund would seek international financing as well as oversight and likely be located in the World Bank.
In a speech at the summit, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said international guarantees were needed that the current temporary ceasefire would remain in place, and supported the PA’s role in governing the strip.
Israel will not accept the PA. Try again with something else.
Leaders of the UAE and Qatar did not speak during open sessions of the summit.
Guterres said he fully supported the Egyptian plan.
"I welcome and strongly endorse the Arab-led initiative to mobilize support for Gaza’s reconstruction, clearly expressed in this summit," he said. "The UN stands ready to fully cooperate in this endeavor."
Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> , also in attendance, said he too welcomed the plan. The 89-year-old — who has been ruling since winning the last Paleostinian national elections in 2005 — said he is ready to hold presidential and parliamentary elections if circumstances allow, asserting that the PA is the only legitimate governing and military force in the West Bank and Gaza.
Wrong. The PA is not a legitimate governing force in either the West Bank or Gaza.
Abbas has repeatedly promised to hold elections and then backtracked over the years.
And that’s why. If the long-overdue elections were ever actually held, Hamas would win in the West Bank, no matter what happened in Gaza.
Trump triggered surprise and indignation when he first floated his idea last month for the United States to "take over" the Gaza Strip and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East" while forcing its Paleostinian residents to relocate to Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere.
Trump has since appeared to soften his stance, saying he was "not forcing" the plan, which experts have said could violate international law.
Netanyahu has embraced the Trump plan, however, saying that Israel is "committed" to it. Working groups have begun fleshing out the plan, Israeli officials told The Times of Israel.
HAMAS WON’T LET ’EXTERNAL FORCES’ DETERMINE GAZA’S FUTURE
Hamas front man Hazem Qassem said Tuesday that the terror group will only accept an Arab-led plan for postwar reconstruction of Gaza that wins the support of Paleostinians in the enclave, rejecting "external forces" determining the future of the Strip.
"Our position is clear, any plans for Gaza’s future... must be reached through national consensus, and we will facilitate the process," Qassem told Ottoman Turkish news outlet Anadolu.
Earlier, leading Hamas figure Sami Abu Zuhri ...a senior spokesman for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gaza. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... said the terror group would not disarm, and nor would other armed Paleostinian organizations. "Any talk about the resistance’s weapons is nonsense. The resistance’s weapons are a red line for Hamas and all resistance factions," Abu Zuhri said, speaking in the context of potential negotiations to end the current ceasefire.
And there it is.
AMBITIOUS FRAMEWORK, MISSING KEY SPECIFICS
The Egyptian plan doesn’t explain what Hamas’s fate would be, or how to prevent the terror group from intimidating officials or firing rockets at Israel.
Back to the drawing board.
It does call for Egypt and Jordan to train Paleostinian police, and a draft version encouraged the examination of an international force in the West Bank and Gaza.
That’s a detail, not the framework.
In the medium term, Israel and the Paleostinian Authority would negotiate final status issues.
No.
The early recovery phase would last six months and cost $3 billion, followed by a five-year reconstruction phase at a cost of $53 billion.
The plan takes its inspiration from the reconstruction of Hiroshima and Berlin, cities devastated by Allied attacks in World War II. They are now thriving, modern cities.
Before they were rebuilt, the countries had to surrender completely, disarm, and be de-Nazified for the Germans and the emperor lost his sacred status for Japan. Where is that in this plan?
Despite lacking solutions to fundamental challenges like Hamas’s role, the ambitious plan is concerned with issues like walkability, green buildings and smart cities.
It also doesn’t leave the Mediterranean resorts only to Trump’s plan. The Egyptian program also calls for resorts and tourist villages on the beach.
It plans for 120 hospitals and clinics to be constructed across the Strip.
The Cairo summit is taking place as Israel and Hamas find themselves at an impasse over the future of a fragile hostage-ceasefire deal that began on January 19.
The ceasefire’s first phase saw 33 Israeli hostages released, eight of them dead, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Paleostinian prisoners, including many convicted bully boyz serving hefty jail sentences. Five Thai nationals held hostage in the Gaza Strip were freed separately during that period.
While Israel said it backed an extension of the first phase until mid-April — including the release of the remaining 59 hostages in two batches toward the beginning and end of the Ramadan and Passover holidays that run through March and until April 19 — Hamas has accused Israel of violating the original deal and has insisted on continuing to the second stage.
Netanyahu on Monday warned Hamas that "there will be consequences that you cannot imagine" if the hostages still held by bully boyz were not released.
A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, accused Israel of actively sabotaging the ceasefire, calling its push for an extension "a blatant attempt to... avoid entering into negotiations for the second phase."
Update at 11:30 a.m.ET: the full text of the proposal can be read here.
Israeli FM Gideon Sa’ar says Israel’s conditions for proceeding to stage two of the ceasefire are Gaza’s full demilitarisation and the return of captives.
[IsraelTimes] Foreign Minister Sa’ar tells media Israel ready to move on to second stage of complex truce, but terror group must give up more captives; defends halting humanitarian aid
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Tuesday that Israel was ready to proceed to the second phase of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... ceasefire deal, as long as Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... was ready to release more of the 59 hostages it is still holding.
Speaking to international press in Jerusalem, the foreign minister also said the Hamas terror group’s main source of funding is now humanitarian aid flowing into the Strip, defending Israel’s decision to halt the delivery of goods into the enclave.
"We are ready to continue to phase two, we will come with our positions which are probably different from the positions of Hamas," Sa’ar said. "But in order to extend the time of the framework, we need an agreement to release more hostages. ’No free meals’ is a very known principle."
The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led bandidosturbans killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The US, Egyptian and Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... i-mediated deal requires Hamas to release all its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Paleostinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a "sustainable calm" and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.
Dozens of hostages — alive and dead — were released in batches during the first phase, but the initial 42-day stage has expired and Hamas and Israel remain far apart on broader issues including the postwar governance of Gaza and the future of Hamas itself.
All remaining living hostages were due to be freed in a second phase of the ceasefire, but Hamas and Israel are deadlocked over how to extend the truce.
Israel announced on Sunday that it would halt the entry of aid into Gaza after negotiations over next steps in the fragile January 19 ceasefire hit an impasse.
Hamas says it wants to move ahead to the second phase negotiations that could open the way to a permanent end to the war with the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the devastated Paleostinian enclave and a return of the remaining living hostages.
But Israel says hostages must be handed over for the truce to be extended, and backs a plan to extend the first stage of the ceasefire during the Moslem fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Saturday, until after the Jewish Passover holiday in April.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th and 47th President of the United States... ’s special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit the region in the next few days to discuss extending the ceasefire or moving ahead of phase two, the State Department said on Monday.
Sa’ar denied that Israel had breached the agreement by not moving ahead to stage two negotiations. He said there was "no automaticity" between the stages and he said Hamas had itself violated the agreement to allow aid into Gaza by seizing most of the supplies itself.
"Humanitarian aid became the number one source of income of Hamas in Gaza," Sa’ar said. "With that money they use for terror to restore their abilities and to get more young bandidosturbans into their organization."
Aid groups have said that looting and wrongful seizure of aid trucks into Gaza has been a major problem.
Sa’ar said Israel had allowed the aid into Gaza as a part of its responsibilities under the first phase of the ceasefire "as long as there was a commitment...to free our hostages."
After the first phase ended on Saturday, "we don’t have any commitment now to finance terror against ourselves," he said.
Sa’ar declined to comment on an Israeli media report that Israel had set a 10-day deadline to reach an agreement or resume fighting, but said: "If we want to do it, we will do it."
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The Iranian government continues to be rocked by high-profile resignations. Even before the Minister of Economy and Finance Abdolnasser Hemmati had left office after being ousted by impeachment, another political heavyweight, Iran's Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, was about to retire.
Zarif's resignation was initially perceived as a political demarche - especially since the vice president had previously demonstratively left his post (in August 2024). However, the current turn of events indicates serious changes in Iranian domestic politics.
The rift between the president's and the supreme leader's supporters is rapidly deepening, and in an attempt to maintain balance, reformists are choosing to get rid of overly toxic figures.
TOXIC MINISTERS
Although Hemmati and Zarif's career trajectories may not seem particularly similar at first glance, there are some overlaps.
In particular, both politicians were at one time introduced into the government as a “faction of hope” – to solve the most ambitious tasks set by President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Thus, Hemmati, the former head of the Iranian Central Bank, was supposed to “comprehensively rethink” the country’s economic strategy and bring Iran out of stagnation; find ways to lift (or, at first, at least to weaken) Western sanctions. Zarif, as the architect of the 2015 “nuclear deal,” was called upon to help the country “reset” the negotiations on “peaceful atom.”
Both points were cornerstones of the Iranian reformists' political program, and the failure to implement them has had a negative impact on the government's approval ratings.
Moreover, both officials became convenient targets for criticism from conservative forces.
Hemmati was branded a “saboteur” for the rapid (almost 50%) devaluation of the national currency, as well as attempts to artificially destabilize the country's economic system by forcibly introducing new types of cryptocurrency.
Zarif is even called a "conduit of interests" of the United States - for his excessive desire to find a compromise with Washington and his readiness to "sacrifice national interests" to achieve the set goal. They also do not forget to recall that in 2017, it was precisely because of the "excessive naivety" of the vice president (and then head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) that Tehran was unable to benefit from the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the "nuclear deal"; he wasted time on empty negotiations instead of a mirror reduction in obligations.
Zarif, like Hemmati, should probably have resigned as a result of impeachment, especially since the Majlis (parliament – editor’s note) National Security Committee called for his removal from office back in early February after his scandalous speech at the forum in Davos.
Then Zarif criticized the Iranian authorities from the podium for “excesses” in their policy towards women, which was perceived by the conservative public as “a deliberate split in Iranian society.”
The vice president was saved from "public disgrace" only by the intercession of his old comrades. In particular, the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, who recommended that Zarif resign before the impeachment procedure was launched.
TRUMP'S TIME
Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election played no small role in the resignations of Hemmati and Zarif.
The reformists who came to power during the Biden administration built their foreign policy strategy with an eye on the strategic interests of the Democrats. And for a time, this approach even paid dividends.
Tehran, among other things, managed to negotiate a full prisoner exchange with Washington, as well as fully restore the “Oman track” of negotiations on peaceful nuclear energy, which was perceived as a step towards gradual detente and a “prologue” to negotiations on a new deal.
Trump's return to the White House has thrown previous agreements into question.
Even though the Republicans abandoned anti-Iranian rhetoric during the election campaign, in February 2025 Trump gave the order to resume the “maximum pressure policy” on Iran, and also de facto supported Israel in its asymmetric confrontation with Tehran throughout the Middle East.
A significant part of Iranian society was not ready to conduct direct negotiations with the US under such conditions, much less make concessions in sensitive areas. Especially since on the other side of the scale were threats of strikes (by the Israelis) against Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
Not surprisingly, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has made it clear that the country will not negotiate with the US on nuclear issues - even if the presidential team is willing to continue making concessions.
THE FUTURE OF THE DEAL
The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the “European troika” (France, Germany, Great Britain), which for most of the time took a pointedly neutral and benevolent position in the negotiations, is moving to “nudge” tactics.
Tehran is being asked to restore the “nuclear deal” in one form or another by the end of June.
Otherwise, the EU3 threatens to reinstate – and perhaps even strengthen – the UN Security Council sanctions on Iran’s nuclear developments. Such a move would further isolate Iran’s economic system and provoke additional tensions. And the country’s adversaries, both external and internal, will not fail to take advantage of them.
For this reason, the presidential entourage prefers not to enter into direct confrontation with the conservative forces (led by the Supreme Leader) and to carefully get rid of individual figures who “have not lived up to the expectations” of Iranian society.
However, while Hemmati was let go relatively easily, Iran’s leadership is reluctant to let Zarif go.
The bargaining over his candidacy continues. Pezeshkian hopes to resume the dialogue on the "peaceful atom" sooner or later. And he still sees Zarif as one of the main players - especially since the vice president will spend his "political retirement" at one of the country's universities, from where he can quickly be called back to service.
The Conservatives, apparently, do not object to such an outcome either - although they would prefer that the “officials of unfulfilled hopes” do not return to the fold for as long as possible.
[IsraelTimes] Senior Russian officers have visited Iranian missile sites throughout the past year as military ties developed; unclear if they have specific expertise in nuclear weapons
Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... over the past year as the Islamic Theocratic Republic has deepened its defense cooperation with Moscow, a Rooters review of travel records and employment data indicates.
The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and September 17 last year, according to documents detailing the two group bookings as well as the passenger manifest for the second flight. The flights came 10 days after Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel, and two weeks before the second and most recent attack, respectively.
The booking records include the men’s passport numbers, with six of the seven having the prefix "20." That denotes a passport used for official state business, issued to government officials on foreign work trips and military personnel stationed abroad, according to an edict published by the Russian government and a document on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.
Rooters was unable to determine what the seven were doing in Iran.
A senior Iranian defense ministry official said Russian missile experts had made multiple visits to Iranian missile production sites last year, including two underground facilities, with some of the visits taking place in September. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss security matters, didn’t identify the sites.
A Western defense official, who monitors Iran’s defense cooperation with Russia and also requested anonymity, said an unspecified number of Russian missile experts visited an Iranian missile base about 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of the port of Amirabad on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast in September.
Rooters couldn’t establish if the visitors referred to by the officials included the Russians on the two flights.
The seven Russians identified by Rooters all have senior military backgrounds, with two ranked colonel and two lieutenant colonel, according to a review of Russian databases containing information about citizens’ jobs or places of work, including tax, phone, and vehicle records.
Two are experts in air-defense missile systems, three specialize in artillery and rocketry, while one has a background in advanced weapons development and another has worked at a missile-testing range, the records showed. Rooters was unable to establish whether all are still working in those roles as the employment data ranged from 2021 to 2024.
It was unclear if any had specific expertise on nuclear weapons. Iran, whose leaders are sworn to destroy Israel, has said it opposes nuclear weapons, but has since December increased by about a half its already sizable stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium, according to a report by the UN nuclear watchdog last week. The enrichment rate is far beyond what is necessary for a civilian nuclear program and a short step away from developing nuclear warheads.
The Russian experts’ flights to Tehran came at a precarious time for Iran, whose proxies — including Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... ’s Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... , Leb ...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... ’s Hezbollah and Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ’s Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s — have launched attacks on Israel since October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led Lions of Islam stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel in April 2024, firing some 300 attack drones and missiles in response to the killing of several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members in an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... near Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
Months later, in October, Iran launched some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killings of His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> and Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintained a separate PM in the West Bank. Zapped during the 2023-24 war, to eveyone's satisfaction... , the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively.
In both instances, the Iranian assaults were largely thwarted by Israel’s air defenses in cooperation with the US and its regional allies. Israel twice bombed Iran in response, the second time destroying much of its air defense systems as well as some rocket and drone manufacturing sites.
Rooters contacted all the experts by phone. Five of them denied they had been to Iran, denied they worked for the military, or both, while one declined to comment and one hung up.
Iran’s defense and foreign ministries declined to comment, as did the public relations office of the IRGC, an elite force that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program.
The Russian defense ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cooperation between the two countries, whose leaders signed a 20-year military pact in Moscow in January, has already influenced Russia’s war on Ukraine, with large numbers of Iranian-designed Shahed drones deployed on the battlefield.
ROCKETS AND ARTILLERY
The flight booking information for the seven travelers was shown to Rooters by Hooshyaran-e Vatan, a group of activist hackers opposed to the Iranian government. The hackers said the seven were traveling with VIP status.
Rooters corroborated the information with the Russian passenger manifest for the September flight, which was provided by a source with access to Russian state databases. The news agency was unable to access a manifest for the earlier flight, so it couldn’t verify that the five Russian specialists booked on it actually made the trip.
Denis Kalko, 48, and Vadim Malov, 46, were among the five Russian weapons experts whose seats were booked as a group on the April flight, the records showed.
Kalko worked at the defense ministry’s Academy for Military Anti-Aircraft Defence, tax records for 2021 show. Malov worked for a military unit that trains anti-aircraft missile forces, according to car ownership records for 2024.
Andrei Gusev, 45, Alexander Antonov, 43, and Marat Khusainov, 54, were also booked on the April flight. Gusev is a lieutenant colonel who works as deputy head of the faculty of General Purpose Rockets and Artillery Munitions at the Russian defense ministry’s Penza Artillery Engineering Institute, according to a 2021 news item on the institute’s website. Antonov has worked at the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the defense ministry, according to car registration records from 2024, while bank data shows Khusainov, a colonel, has worked at the Kapustin Yar missile-testing range.
One of the two passengers onboard the second flight to Tehran in September was Sergei Yurchenko, 46, who has also worked at the Rocket and Artillery Directorate, according to undated mobile phone records. His passport number had the prefix "22"; Rooters was unable to determine what that signified, though, according to the government edict on passports, it isn’t used for private citizens or diplomats.
The other passenger on the September flight was 46-year-old Oleg Fedosov. Residence records give his address as the office of the Directorate of Advanced Inter-Service Research and Special Projects. That is a branch of the defense ministry tasked with developing weapons systems of the future.
Fedosov had previously flown from Tehran to Moscow in October 2023, according to Russian border crossing records viewed by Rooters. On that occasion, as he did for the September 2024 flight, Fedosov used his passport reserved for official state business, the records showed.
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