[Breitbart] The Trump administration was blocked by a federal appeals court from banning almost 30 transgender-identifying individuals from being able to serve in the United States military.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that 28 transgender individuals — who had filed a lawsuit when the Trump administration barred transgender individuals from serving in the military — are allowed to “continue serving while the case proceeds,” the New York Times reported.
While the court’s ruling “applies only to 28 plaintiffs,” the plaintiffs have called for the court “to extend the protection to all transgender troops,” according to the outlet.
“In the beginning days of his second term in office, President Trump issued an Executive Order proclaiming that persons ‘expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,'” Judge Robert L. Wilkins wrote in the majority opinion. “Exec. Order No. 14183, 90 Fed. Reg. 8757 § 1 (Jan. 27, 2025). The President, and later Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (now redesignated as Secretary of War), also declared that persons affiliated with gender dysphoria are unfit for military service, because among other things, the character of such persons (in the President’s and Secretary’s words) is ‘inconsistent’ with the ‘high standards . . . [of] honesty, humility, . . . and integrity.'”
“In this litigation, the government has not attempted to defend or provide any factual basis for these disparaging characterizations of American citizens,” Wilkins continued. “Indeed, the government has not contested that the Plaintiff-Appellees who are currently serving (and who have collectively earned more than 80 recommendations) have served honorably and pose no threat to national security, even though they happen to be transgender and have suffered from gender dysphoria.”
The decision from the court comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January 2025, stating that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
“Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the executive order continued. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
In February 2025, the U.S. Army announced that, along with no longer allowing transgender-identifying individuals to serve in the U.S. military, the U.S. Army would also stop performing medical procedures “associated with gender transition.”
Battle Damage Assessment: How US- Nigerian Airstrikes Killed Scores of ISWAP, Dismantling Logistics Networks in Lake Chad
By: Zagazola Makama
The Nigerian Military under Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK), in collaboration with United States Africa Command (US AFRICOM) partners, has… pic.twitter.com/W8LoYtVtbt
Battle Damage Assessment: How US- Nigerian Airstrikes Killed Scores of ISWAP, Dismantling Logistics Networks in Lake Chad
By Zagazola Makama
The Nigerian Military under Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK), in collaboration with United States Africa Command (US AFRICOM) partners, has sustained multiple intelligence-driven airstrikes on ISWAP terrorist enclaves in the Lake Chad region, resulting in significant battlefield degradation, destruction of logistics hubs and neutralisation of scores of fighters.
Security sources told Zagazola Makama that the operations, which began on May 15, 2026, formed part of a coordinated campaign to dicapitate the leadership of the terrorists and dismantle their identified strongholds in the North East.
Battle damage assessment indicated that four major enclaves were effectively neutralised around Metele in Guzamala Local Government Areas, out of about 15 identified operational positions used by the insurgents across the axis.
The affected locations included Garin Abu Bilal (also known as Sahel), Garin Ba Bunu (west of Mangari), Satir-Kanama and Kwatan Fulani.
At Garin Abu Bilal (Sahel), assessment reports confirmed the neutralisation of a high-profile ISWAP figure identified as Abu Bilal Al-Minuki, otherwise known as Abbor Mainok, who reportedly arrived in the area less than two weeks prior to the strike, alongside three other foreign fighters described as Arab nationals.
One additional fighter, Abu Sariya, reportedly survived as he was not present during the strike window.
Further assessment indicated that approximately nine prominent operatives, including the foreign fighters, were eliminated in the strike, while about 20 others sustained varying degrees of injuries, severely degrading command presence in the enclave.
The strike also destroyed five operational vehicles loaded with newly acquired weapons and concealed logistical supplies, effectively disrupting ongoing resupply efforts.
BREAKING: Additional details are emerging regarding the events that preceded the IRGC Aerospace Force's ballistic missile strike against Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.
According to local reports from Sirik County in Hormozgan Province, residents heard multiple explosions at… pic.twitter.com/E6sZU4ilSf
— Babak Taghvaee - The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) June 1, 2026
Text:
BREAKING: Additional details are emerging regarding the events that preceded the IRGC Aerospace Force's ballistic missile strike against Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.
According to local reports from Sirik County in Hormozgan Province, residents heard multiple explosions at approximately 04:00 and again at 04:25 local time. Initial eyewitness reports indicated that a base of the IRGC Navy near the village of Goruk had been struck.
The IRGC later issued a statement claiming that U.S. forces attacked a telecommunications tower in Sirik. According to the statement, the IRGC Aerospace Force subsequently targeted the air base from which the attack allegedly originated.
[IsraelTimes] Defense Ministry pans ‘disgraceful’ move by Paris to prohibit Israeli firms from showing offensive systems and ban government participation, amid growing strain between two nations
La Belle France has barred Israel from participating in this month’s Eurosatory defense exhibition in Gay Paree, the Defense Ministry said Monday, preventing the ministry from establishing a national pavilion or sending government representatives to the event.
Eurosatory is one of the world’s leading defense expos, showcasing military systems and other security innovations from across the globe.
According to the ministry, French authorities will only permit Israeli companies to display air defense systems, while prohibiting the exhibition of offensive weapon systems.
In a sharply worded statement, the ministry condemned the move as a "disgraceful decision" driven by "political and commercial calculation," accusing La Belle France of applying discriminatory restrictions to Israel that are not imposed on other participating countries "in direct violation of the established norms governing international defense exhibitions."
La Belle France is "acting in direct contradiction to the principles it claims to uphold," the Defense Ministry added, arguing that Israeli offensive systems have demonstrated their effectiveness against "terrorist organizations and regimes threatening not only Israel, but regional and global stability on the lam."
Similarly, French authorities initially banned Israeli defense firms from exhibiting at the 2024 Eurosatory, before later reversing the decision. Organizers erected black partition walls around Israeli company exhibits displaying offensive weapons systems at the 2025 Gay Paree Air Show.
The most recent ban came amid growing tensions between Jerusalem and Gay Paree. In April, the Defense Ministry halted all defense procurement from La Belle France in response to French measures that it said "harmed Israel’s security," including prohibiting Israeli aircraft from using French airspace during the US-led war on Iran.
The US also claimed that La Belle France refused it the use of its airspace for military purposes during the war.
Further straining La Belle France’s relationship with Israel is its exclusion from mediating direct talks between Israel and Leb ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade.... in Washington.
The absence is not for lack of interest, with French President Emmanuel Macron offering in March for his country to host direct talks between Israel and Lebanon, and telling President Isaac Herzog over the phone that "La Belle France is working to promote this goal."
On Sunday, Macron said that "nothing justifies the major escalation underway in south Lebanon," following La Belle France’s request for an emergency meeting of the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Security Council after Israeli forces seized the medieval Beaufort castle in Lebanon.
Macron also criticized Israel’s defense establishment during the 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... war, openly condemning the scale of the US-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Theocratic Republic, and urging a diplomatic solution to the conflict and a halt to fighting in Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
[IsraelTmes] Former Syrian intel officer Khaled al-Halabi and ex-police chief Musab Abu Rukbah are charged with committing slew of crimes against Assad’s opponents in Raqqa between 2011 and 2013
An ex-Syrian general and a former senior Syrian police officer pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." on Monday to torturing opponents of ousted president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... as their trial started in Vienna.
The two face charges including torture, aggravated coercion, sexual coercion and inflicting serious bodily harm. Prosecutors accused them of "having, on numerous occasions, ordered or failed to oppose the mistreatment of members of a protest movement."
Brigadier General Khaled al-Halabi, 63, a former Syrian intelligence officer who has been in pre-trial detention since 2024, and Lieutenant Colonel Musab Abu Rukbah, a 54-year-old former police chief, are said to have committed the crimes in the city of Raqqa between April 2011 and March 2013.
Both pleaded not guilty.
Several similar cases relating to crimes committed during the Syrian civil war have been tried in other countries, including Germany, La Belle France and Sweden.
Halabi — a Druze, who fled Raqqa in 2013, just before 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.... group overran the city — denied that torture took place while he was in command.
"There were no instructions" from the government to use violence, he told the court through a translator as masked, armed police stood watch.
He added that his unit just took down the personal details of those held and did not conduct any investigations.
Abu Rukbah did not testify. His lawyer, Philipp Wolm, said there was no evidence against him.
’STANDARDIZED TORTURE METHODS’
The prosecution said Halabi got "direct instructions" from the Damascus government and violence was used "systematically" with "standardized torture methods," including beatings and being hosed down.
The two Syrians applied for asylum in Austria in 2015.
At the time of Halabi’s indictment, activists considered him the highest-ranking Syrian official responsible for abuses present in Europe.
He is charged with torture, aggravated coercion, sexual coercion and multiple counts of serious bodily harm. Abu Rukbah is accused of serious bodily harm, aggravated coercion and sexual coercion. Both face up to 10 years in prison.
"Twenty-one individuals detained in prisons were tortured and abused as part of the crackdown on a civilian protest movement," Austrian prosecutors said in their statement ahead of the trial.
The 10-year statute of limitations that would ordinarily apply was lifted, the indictment said.
International treaties, including the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Convention Against Torture and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, meant prosecutors were obliged to bring charges, it said.
Austrian law provides for the jurisdiction of local courts over certain offenses committed abroad.
ALLEGED VICTIMS TO TESTIFY
The Vienna court has jurisdiction because the defendants reside there. The trial is scheduled to last until June 30, with alleged victims residing in Syria and Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... expected to testify.
Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian lawyer based in Germany who himself spent five years in Syrian prisons and was present for Monday’s trial opening, said the general should have faced additional charges.
He called the trial "important" but told AFP: "I don’t know really why they don’t charge him with crimes against humanity."
Senior Austrian officials suspected of having protected the former brigadier general were acquitted in 2023.
Prosecutors had accused them of helping him obtain protection in the Alpine country, referencing an agreement allegedly concluded in May 2015 with Israel’s Mosssd ...sees all, knows all, gets 'em all in the end... intelligence agency.
Mossad is said to have brought the Syrian military officer to Austria from La Belle France, where he was at the time, according to local media.
When asked in court, Halabi said relatives helped him.
In 2016, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a group that gathers evidence for alleged war criminals, informed Vienna of Halabi’s alleged crimes.
According to Austrian news agency APA, the purported agreement with Mossad, code-named "White Milk", had been overseen by Martin Weiss, then head of the Austrian intelligence service (BVT).
Weiss is on the run in Dubai and wanted for supposed links to runaway Austrian spy Jan Marsalek, who is suspected of being protected by Moscow.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Fedot Streletsky
[REGNUM] Last weekend, the French capital was gripped by unbridled jubilation, which escalated into mass riots. The event was the victory of PSG over London's Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League final.
Incidentally, exactly one year ago, PSG also won the same tournament, which also sparked mass unrest. So now the local police are much better prepared, taking into account previous experiences and drawing the appropriate conclusions. At least, that's what French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez claimed, mobilizing 22,000 officers across the country to ensure security.
But in reality this time everything was at least no better.
In 2025, two people were killed, 192 were injured, and 559 were arrested during wild celebrations. Yes, there were no casualties in 2026, as of now. But the number of arrests rose to nearly 900, and the number of police injuries alone reached 180.
And that's not counting the damage to private and public property. Burned-out vehicles, looted stores—this is the price that, for the second year in a row, some French citizens have been paying for the joy of others. And not only in Paris, but in other cities as well. Acts of looting were recorded in a total of 15 cities, including Rennes, Strasbourg, and Grenoble.
President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the entire PSG team at the Elysée Palace on Sunday evening, condemned the incident, stating bluntly and unequivocally: "Enough. We're fed up with this. This isn't football, it's not sport, it's not what we love."
It's worth noting that he made similar statements a year ago. Back then, Macron described the outrage as "unacceptable" and promised that those responsible would certainly be found and punished.
Meanwhile, one of the main political opponents of the current leader of the Fifth Republic, former head of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, sadly noted that "only in France does a football club's victory provoke unrest." And only in France do "people have to lock themselves in their homes on such a happy evening to avoid violence."
Who's to blame for all this? French government spokesperson Maud Brejon asks the same question. She even coined a term to describe the atrocities regularly committed by someone in France: "endemic violence." She offers no explanation, merely stating that such violence is perpetrated by a minority (whom, exactly, she doesn't specify), and urging everyone to think carefully about its origins.
In her personal opinion, the problem may lie in the lack of education "of some children." Maud Brejon again remained silent on which children, and where this problem originated. She added only that responsibility must in any case be shared collectively. She also called for education issues to be brought back to the center of political debate.
Meanwhile, the current leader of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, is more specific in his comments regarding the unrest—both football-related and otherwise. On BFMTV, he condemned the current authorities for their inability to combat the wave of violence and identified an "obvious link" between the unrest and the immigrant population.
"They're destroying everything in their path, smashing stores, smashing bus stops, setting cars on fire, and looting," he noted. He then issued a fiery appeal: "I say to the French people: wake up!"
Eric Zemmour, leader of the far-right Reconquista party, was even more specific. He blamed the "Arab-Muslim youth from the suburbs flooding Paris." Therefore, he said, it was necessary to immediately "crush the enemy within."
MEP François-Xavier Bellamy shares a similar view, but he sees the root of all these problems elsewhere: the state's loss of authority. And until that authority is restored, "the French will be deprived of these great public holidays that mean so much to the life of the country." This is the opinion of the official, who works in the European Parliament specifically on tightening migration policy.
But there's also an alternative theory. For example, Clémence Goetté, Vice President of the French National Assembly and a member of the left-wing party "France Insubordinate," believes that everything would have been fine if the gendarmes had done their job properly. She began vigorously promoting this position even before Paris descended into hell.
Immediately after the match, she published a post on her social media in which she appealed to Laurent Nunez with a strong request “not to ruin the celebration” and to refrain from any reprisals, because “last year’s catastrophe must not be repeated.”
The very next day, when last year's disaster "unexpectedly" repeated itself, Goette lashed out at law enforcement agencies that "detained people who had not committed any crimes" and "shot grenades at families, at young people - simply because they had gathered together.
The conclusion followed: "The French doctrine of public order must be completely revised, especially with regard to mass events." And again, characteristically, without details. However, Clémence Goette did not fail to take a jab at the aforementioned Jordan Bardell.
"Mr. Bardella, you know nothing about maintaining order and you certainly weren't on the streets of Paris during yesterday's events. Tens of thousands of people were prevented from celebrating yesterday," she wrote in a separate, angry post. She also called all those affected victims of an "absurd government strategy."
In the comments under her post, concerned citizens point out the author's inaccuracy. Mr. Bardella himself also spoke out, accusing Ms. Goette of "unconditionally supporting those who destroy other people's property," violating French laws, and desecrating French public holidays.
The parties have yet to reach a consensus. Ultimately, this latest outbreak of uncontrolled aggression, which spilled onto the streets under the pretext of celebrating the football team's success, became just another excuse for French politicians to hurl arguments in defense of their political agendas.
[IsraelTimes] Blue Square polling finds that majority of US public is not familiar with deadly attacks on Jews, in line with other findings showing widespread ignorance about Holocaust, Israel
US Jews on Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the Molotov cocktailing attack in Boulder, Colorado, in which an anti-Zionist attacker hurled gasoline bombs at a rally for Israeli hostages, killing an elderly woman and wounding more than a dozen.
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhooder Mohammed Sabry Soliman, 45, waited a year, until his eldest child graduated from high school, to execute his evil plan. Disguised as a gardener, he had planned to kill all of the roughly 20 participants in the pro-Israel demonstration and had 18 Molotov cocktails, but he threw just two while yelling "Free Palestine," police said. Mr. Soliman, wife Hayam El Gamal, and their five children had been living and working in the U.S. illegally for three years after arriving from Kuwait on tourist visas, after which they separately applied for asylum. The fam was twice picked up for ICE preparatory to deportation, and twice judges ordered their release. The tragedy is that their bright and hardworking daughter has lost all her college scholarships…
"Karen Sorin Diamond, an 82-year-old mother and grandmother, did not survive," Susan Rona, the Mountain States regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a column mourning the attack. "I have spent the past year carrying that and thinking about that. I think many of us have."
The attack came weeks after the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC.
They were among 20 Diaspora Jews murdered in 2025, the most deadly year for Diaspora Jewry in decades.
While the killings in Washington and Colorado were an earthquake for the US Jewish community, most Americans are unaware of the deaths and other incidents of violence against Jews, according to data shared with The Times of Israel.
The Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, a US nonprofit that monitors and fights antisemitism, polled Americans on violent mostly peaceful antisemitic attacks late last year. The data have not been previously reported.
For the Colorado attack, 62 percent of respondents had never heard of the incident, and 13% said they knew of the attack, but "it’s not important to me."
For the Washington, DC, shooting, 56% had never heard of the killings, and 12% said it wasn’t important.
The Kantar and Research Narrative independent research groups polled 5,000 US adults for the survey in November and December 2025 on behalf of the Blue Square Alliance. The margin of error was 1.39 percentage points, the Blue Square Alliance said.
In a separate survey, conducted in February and March, a majority of Americans were unfamiliar with other violent mostly peaceful attacks targeting Diaspora Jews.
The survey found that 73% of Americans were not very or not at all familiar with the murder of two Jews at a synagogue in Manchester, England, in October 2025.
For the killing of 15 Jews at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia, in December 2025, the figure was 53% — the highest level of awareness for any of the eight antisemitic incidents on the survey.
Sixty-six percent were unaware, or not very familiar, with an arson attack against a synagogue in Mississippi in January 2026.
That survey, carried out by the SSRS and Research Narrative polling groups on behalf of the Blue Square Alliance, surveyed 7,053 US adults, the Blue Square Alliance said.
The findings were not all bleak for US Jews — the poll on the Boulder and Washington, DC, attacks, found that 74% of respondents believed the attacks were "important," whether they had heard of the incidents or not.
"We’re finding that broad unawareness of antisemitic violence and vitriol across the country continues to be the status quo," Steven Fransblow, chief data and technology officer at the Blue Square Alliance, told The Times of Israel last week. "To meaningfully overcome antisemitism, Americans first have to acknowledge the hate that continues to exist across our society."
The Blue Square, formerly called the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, was established by philanthropist and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft in 2019 after he won Israel’s prestigious $1 million Genesis Prize.
The group’s polls were in line with other studies that have shown Americans lack familiarity with issues that are common knowledge in the Jewish community.
A 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of American adults did not know that approximately six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. A 2020 poll by the Claims Conference said that 63% of young Americans were unaware of that fact.
The issue is not limited to the US — a poll this year in Ireland found that half of Irish adults did not know the Holocaust corpse count.
Other surveys have found widespread confusion, among both Jews and non-Jews, about the meaning of the term "Zionism."
A report last year by the Attune Now consulting group, conducted among non-Jewish focus groups in Texas, described a "vast knowledge gap" between the public and Jewish communities.
Many focus group participants did not know Israel was a Jewish state, confused Israelis and Paleostinians, and only around half knew about Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... ’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which the terror group slaughtered 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to 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... The author of the report, Toba Hellerstein, argued that Jewish community representatives should alter their messaging in light of the public’s ignorance about Jewish issues.
Hellerstein said that Jewish representatives should cease arguing based on history and jargon and should instead adopt simpler, more raw narratives driven by human stories.
The wife and children of the Boulder firebombing suspect were freed from federal custody for the second time in three days late Saturday, after two judges halted immigration authorities’ attempt to deport them.
Hayam El Gamal and her five children were rearrested in Denver on Saturday morning and flown to Michigan, on a plane the family’s attorneys said was set to remove them from the country.
Instead, the plane ended up reversing course after leaving Michigan on the second leg of its journey, after U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio issued an emergency order halting the deportation.
A second judge, Nina Wang of U.S. District Court in Denver, also intervened Saturday with an order barring the family from being deported, according to screenshots of their orders posted to X by the family’s attorneys.
The plane ultimately returned to Denver, and El Gamal and her children were released about 11 p.m., their lead attorney, Eric Lee, said on X. In a series of social media posts, he called the episode a “kidnapping,” likening it to the “extraordinary rendition” flights that U.S. authorities used to transport terror suspects in the wake of the Sept.11, 2001, attacks.
“What took place today can only be described as an extraordinary rendition,” Lee said. “5 kids/mom kidnapped by feds in violation of multiple court orders as punishment for crimes committed by someone else.”
El Gamal and her children had been free for two days after spending nearly 10 months in custody at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, southwest of San Antonio, while awaiting deportation proceedings.
At a hearing in San Antonio on Thursday, Judge Biery ordered that El Gamal and her children, ages 5 to 18, be released from detention and allowed to return to their Colorado Springs home under supervision as they awaited action on an asylum petition. The judge required El Gamal and her 18-year-old daughter, Habiba, to wear electronic monitors and said the family must comply with any “reasonable” reporting requirements to immigration authorities.
In a separate order before the hearing, the judge had also halted a last-minute attempt to deport the family before their scheduled appearance in his courtroom for a hearing to consider their release.
According to supporters of the El Gamal and her children, the family had been in Colorado for a matter of hours before they were rearrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
They were taken into custody in Denver, while complying with a required check-in at an ICE field office.
In updates on X on Saturday, Lee described how ICE put the family on a plane headed for Detroit’s Willow Run Airport, with plans to move them “outside the United States to an unknown location.”
The attorney posted the deportation flight’s tail number, allowing supporters to monitor the plane’s course on the flight tracking website Flight Aware.
At 12:52 p.m. Saturday, Lee posted a screenshot of Biery’s emergency order that read, “This court hereby ORDERS that the removal of the petitioners from the United States and from the District of Colorado is STAYED.”
Flight Aware showed the plane stopped in Michigan before again taking off headed east. But it reversed course over Lake Erie and landed at the same airport it departed from, touching down at 3:32 p.m. Mountain Time. The plane remained on the runway for several hours until it began its return flight to Denver, the website showed.
Lee posted a screenshot of the second order by Wang at 6:43 p.m.
Attorneys for El Gamal and her children say the attempt to deport them was made in violation of Biery’s prior court orders.
“The rights of the entire population and the most basic constitutional principles of separation of powers are at stake,” they said in a statement on X. “The legal team urges the population to exercise its free speech rights to stop this unlawful deportation from taking place.”
The family had been detained in Dilley since last June, when the father, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was charged with murder and hate crimes, among other charges, in the attack on mostly Jewish protesters outside the Boulder County courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall.
Family members of Soliman have repeatedly said they had no advance knowledge of the attack, and the FBI said it had no evidence they were involved.
Yes, but Mrs. El Gamal knew she was in the country illegally, despite work permits and US Social Security numbers all around, even if the children did not. And surely she knew her husband was a Muslim Brotherhooder, making her part of the colonization effort. Why else would they leave their comfortable situation in Kuwait — after 17 years there — the wilds of America? Still, each of these frustrating cases is another cobblestone in the Roman road of precedents that will make future deportations swift and sure.
A Department of Homeland Security official issued a statement Saturday evening defending the latest attempt to deport El Gamal and her children, saying they received “full due process” before an immigration judge issued a final order of removal Dec. 29, 2025.
A federal immigration board of appeals upheld the order of removal Wednesday, the statement said.
“Despite receiving full due process, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets AGAIN,” said Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Bis did not address why federal officials attempted to deport the family Saturday, despite Biery’s order Thursday that they be allowed to remain in the U.S. pending the outcome of their asylum case.
She added: “Under President Trump, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country — especially terrorists and their associates. We are confident the courts will ultimately vindicate us.”
The family immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt and had a pending asylum case. They were working and going to school in Colorado Springs, where they have lived since 2022.
About 60 people gathered at City Hall in Colorado Springs on Saturday to draw attention to the family’s rearrest and demand their release.
The same rabid anti-Israel activists who have harassed Jews at synagogues in recent weeks in violent protests, flown the flag of Hamas and Hezbollah and stomped on the Israeli flag are returning to the streets tonight at Time Square in midtown Manhattan to rage-bait Israelis and Jews attending a "Jerusalem Real Estate Expo" at Times Square.
The protest underscores how anti-Israel activist groups are continuing to escalate their pressure campaigns against pro-Israel and Jewish events across the city, despite mounting criticisms of antisemitism. Earlier this week, Jewish and Muslim leaders led a protest at Mayor Zohran Mamdani's residence at Gracie Mansion, asking that he address the growing antisemitism in the city.
Of course — how else? These are the hero Lions of Palestine.
[IsraelTimes] May conference confirms influence of hundreds released in deals for Gaza hostages – including many who were serving life sentences for deadly attacks – allowing them to cast ballots and win seats on bodies that guide the PA.
A recent conference held to elect new figures to leadership roles within the Paleostinian political party Fatah was also a showcase of the growing power and influence of ex-prisoners, including many serving life sentences who were released from Israeli jails under deals that freed hostages held by terror groups 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... The May 14 convention, the first such gathering in a decade, saw the party led by 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....> extend voting rights to 388 ex-prisoners, representing some 15 percent of the approximately 2,500 party members eligible to cast ballots, according to Raed Abu al-Humus, who heads the Paleostinian Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, which operates under the PA.
The group included 30 former prisoners who ran for seats on Fatah’s Central Committee and Revolutionary Council, a number of whom had spent decades in jail for their roles in deadly terror attacks on Israelis. The two top leadership bodies have significant roles guiding the party, which dominates West Bank politics and largely controls the Western-backed PA and Paleostine Liberation Organization.
According to the Prisoners’ Authority, the decision to extend voting rights to hundreds of former prisoners as a bloc was pushed by Abbas and other Fatah leaders in recognition of their growing numbers and influence.
"This is the first time the membership of released prisoners has reached such large numbers, and therefore they must appear in a manner worthy of the scale of struggle and sacrifices represented by the hundreds and thousands of years ’burned’ inside prisons and detention centers," Abu al-Humus said in a Facebook post ahead of the conference.
In general, Fatah extends voting rights based on criteria such as age, seniority and and geographic representation. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... this time it also opened up voting rights to Fatah-affiliated former prisoners who served at least 20 years in Israeli prisons.
In one sign of prisoners’ central place in the conference, voting was held not only in the West Bank but also in Cairo, where many former prisoners have been deported.
According to Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, the move to grant ex-prisoners voting rights was an expression of the esteem Fatah and Paleostinian society in general hold for those involved in armed opposition to Israel who "paid the price" for their actions.
"In Fatah’s view, and in the broader Paleostinian view, the murderous Moslems are the fighting sector of Paleostinian society. That’s how these people are seen," said Kuperwasser, a former head of research for military intelligence. "They are role models, and of course they should be given respect and integrated into Paleostinian political frameworks."
Fatah forswore armed resistance to Israel as part of the grinding of the peace processor, but terror groups continued to operate under its direct authority until the mid-2000s, particularly the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which operated as Fatah’s armed wing, and the more grassroots Tanzim.
The party’s ties with gangs dissipated following the 2000-2005 Second Intifada, though veterans of terror groups remain members of Fatah. At the same time, many Paleostinians continue to support violent mostly peaceful struggle. Polling by the Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that as of late 2024, around half of all Paleostinians surveyed supported armed resistance as the best way to achieve independence.
Kuperwasser noted that during the conference, a brief mention of the prisoners by Abbas prompted loud applause from the audience.
"It’s important to remember that Fatah was founded as an organization carrying out a jihadist and terrorist campaign against Israel," Kuperwasser said. "The narrative of struggle against Israel is still the dominant narrative among Paleostinians. From Fatah’s perspective, the struggle needs to be managed wisely — not to constantly enter into confrontation like Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... does. But in any case, the fighters implementing that struggle should be appreciated."
KILLERS ON THE COMMITTEE
The Paleostinian Prisoners’ Affairs Authority did not publish the names of all 388 former prisoners granted voting rights, releasing only the names of the 30 individuals who ran in internal elections for Fatah’s Central Committee and its Revolutionary Council. The 20-member Central Committee is Fatah’s top decision-making body, while the Revolutionary Council’s roughly 80 members are considered the movement’s "parliament," tasked with overseeing the committee’s work.
Due to Abbas’s long dominance over Fatah, both bodies are widely viewed as subordinate to him rather than independent centers of power. Membership in them can nevertheless translate into political influence within the Paleostinian Authority, as Fatah remains the dominant faction governing the PA.
With Abbas, 90, expected to exit the political stage in the coming years, if not sooner, those in Fatah’s Central Committee are viewed by Israel and the international community as potential successors.
A review by The Times of Israel found that all the 30 former prisoners who ran for positions in the movement’s institutions — including one candidate who did not appear on the published list for an unknown reason but was elected to the Revolutionary Council — had been sentenced to 75 life terms altogether.
All but one were released in hostage deals following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, during which Israel freed some 5,000 prisoners in exchange for many of the 251 people kidnapped from southern Israel in the onslaught, as well as two civilians and the bodies of two soldiers held in Gaza for around a decade. Over 400 of those prisoners were serving life terms, though it’s unknown how many were member of Fatah.
The 30th candidate was released in the 2011 deal in which Israel freed 1,027 prisoners in exchange for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Several of the former prisoners had served multiple life sentences for planning and carrying out attacks in which Israelis were killed, primarily during the Second Intifada as members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.
Fatah’s grassroots field organization Tanzim was also responsible for numerous attacks during the uprising and earlier. Today the group is considered defunct.
Zakaria Zubeidi, who headed the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Jenin during the Second Intifada, was one of two released prisoners who were elected to the Central Committee, along with Taysir Bardini, who was released in the 2011 Shalit deal. Zubeidi, from the Jenin refugee camp, was accused of involvement in planning and carrying out attacks against Israelis, but was given amnesty in 2007 when he renounced violence, as part of a deal between Israel and the PA.
In 2019, he was arrested and charged with taking part in two shooting attacks against Israeli buses in the West Bank, thereby violating the deal, with additional allegations dating back to the early 2000s added to the charge sheet. After his escape from prison in 2021, five more years were added to his sentence. He was released in a January 2025 hostage deal.
Bardini, from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, was imprisoned in 1993 and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder carried out during hostile activity, though the specific attack or operation for which he was convicted has not been publicly identified. He was released to the West Bank in 2011.
Released terror convict Yasser Abu Bakr was the lone candidate from among the released prisoners to win a seat on Fatah’s Revolutionary Council. A member of Fatah’s military wing during the Second Intifada, Abu Bakr was handed three life sentences for involvement in a 2002 attack in Netanya in which two Israelis were killed, including a 9-month-old baby, as well as for the killing of a Border Police officer during an armed clash near Baqa al-Gharbiya the same year.
Another released terrorist involved in the same Netanya attack was Ahmed Abu Khdeir, a senior al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades operative who failed to win a seat on the Revolutionary Council. Aside from involvement in the Netanya murders, Abu Khdeir was also convicted of dispatching a gunman who opened fire on a Hadera bat mitzvah in January 2002, killing six. He was sentenced to 11 life terms for his role in those and other attacks, but was released in January 2025 and deported abroad, and now resides in Egypt.
Several other senior murderous Moslems also fell short of winning seats on the councils, including:
Majed al-Masri, who served as commander of Fatah’s military wing in the West Bank during the Second Intifada. He was sentenced to 10 life terms for planning attacks in which numerous Israelis were killed, but was let go in October 2025 and deported abroad
Mansour Shreim, a senior Tanzim figure based in Tulkarem who was sentenced to 14 life terms for involvement in multiple attacks, including a May 2002 attack on a yeshiva in Itamar in which three students were killed. He was released in the second hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, in January 2025, and deported abroad.
Omar Mardawi, a Tanzim operative who was sentenced to life imprisonment for involvement in the abduction and murder of an Israeli, Yuri Gushchin, in 2001. He was released in February 2025 and was slated for deportation to Gaza, but Israeli media reported that he initially refused release because he feared Hamas would harm him due to his affiliation with Fatah and was ultimately allowed to return to the West Bank.
Muhammad Naifeh, a Tanzim operative in Tulkarem serving 13 life sentences for involvement in and planning of several attacks, including an October 2002 attack in Hermesh in which three women were killed, and an attack the next month on Kibbutz Metzer in which five Israelis were murdered, including a mother and her two children. He was released in February 2025.
Adnan Obeiyat, a senior Tanzim operative sentenced to eight life terms for involvement in attacks in which Israelis were killed, including two deadly shootings in October 2000. He was released in October 2025 and deported abroad.
The top vote-getter in the election was Marwan Barghouti, the former head of Tanzim who is serving five life terms for direct involvement in three attacks: a March 2002 shooting attack at the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv in which three Israelis were killed; the January 2002 killing of Yoela Chen in Givat Ze’ev; and a June 2001 shooting attack near Ma’ale Adumim in which a Greek monk was killed.
Though his influence over decision-making is hampered by his ongoing incarceration, he is considered among the most popular Palestinian politicians and would rival Abbas for leadership were he released, opinion polls show. He says he has reformed and no longer supports violent resistance. The election marked the third time Fatah has returned him to the Central Committee since he was first elected to the body in 2009. He is the only currently serving inmate to sit on the panel. Following the elections, Zubeidi posted a photograph on Facebook alongside Barghouti’s wife and several other released prisoners, with a large portrait of Barghouti in the background.
“To our brother commander Marwan Barghouti,” he wrote, “we believe that patience and steadfastness are the path to dignity and freedom for all our people.”
According to Kuperwasser, the vote was a sign of the extent to which those involved in armed resistance, and their support for terrorism, will continue to play an important role within Palestinian leadership.
“All of Abbas’s potential successors are committed to the idea of struggle against Israel,” he said. “His son Yasser, even though he is a businessman, is committed to it. Hussein al-Sheikh [vice president of the PA] and Jibril Rajoub [head of the Palestinian Football Association] are committed to it as well, and Marwan Barghouti is deeply committed to that narrative.”
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/02/2026 8:21 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Some good news for a change
🚨Report: The United Nations is facing one of the most severe financial crises in its history, with officials warning the organization could run out of cash by mid-August. pic.twitter.com/cD55yOvRaJ
— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) June 1, 2026
[IsraelTimes] Arab diplomats tell ToI negotiators considering alternatives to initial framework for implementing Trump’s Gaza plan in bid to jumpstart process stalled by Hamas intransigence and Israeli ceasefire violations
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... mediators were set to renew disarmament talks with Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... in Egypt on Thursday and were considering alternatives to US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... ’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war, two Arab diplomats involved in the process told The Times of Israel.
The talks have largely hit a wall, with Hamas refusing to accept the Board of Peace’s disarmament proposal, arguing that Israel should first be held to the terms of the first phase.
Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of repeated violations of the ceasefire that ended two years of devastating warfare. Hamas is refusing to disarm, while Israel has continued carrying out near-daily strikes throughout Gaza since the ceasefire, justifying them by saying it is striking "imminent" threats to its forces.
While the US-led Board of Peace tasked with overseeing the postwar management of Gaza has not given up completely on the possibility that talks with Hamas might go somewhere after months of little progress, the panel was increasingly considering alternatives to Trump’s plan, the two diplomats said.
Most prominent of those alternatives are ones that would see reconstruction allowed to begin in Gaza areas still occupied by Israel. Those parts were supposed to make up some 53% of the Strip, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that he’d ordered troops to expand that to 70%, squeezing some 2 million Paleostinians, mostly living in tents, into what is left of the war-ravaged Strip.
The idea of the alternative proposal was to encourage Paleostinians to move outside of Hamas-controlled areas by providing temporary housing, but it’s unclear whether Gazooks will want to live under Israeli occupation and whether Hamas will try to block those people from doing so.
The model was previously shelved by the Trump administration after it faced pushback from potential donor countries concerned that it would lead to the permanent division of the Gaza Strip. But with Hamas barely budging in disarmament talks, ideas once dismissed have been brought back to the fore, one of the Arab diplomats said.
Another issue still dragging out the talks has been Hamas’s leadership elections — an opaque process that has been taking place for over a month. Hamas has argued that no final decision on disarmament can be made before a new leader of the group has been selected.
The race is seen as a close contest between the more Gaza-connected Khalil al-Hayya and the more 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... -connected Khaled Mashaal.
Both are hardliners, but Mashaal is seen as willing to take more practical steps to preserve Hamas as a political entity in the long-run, while Hayya wants Hamas to remain a dominant force in Gaza, rather than entering a period of dormancy while the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) takes over civil affairs in the Strip.
The NCAG has yet to enter Gaza since its establishment in January, with the Board of Peace preferring to resolve the disarmament issue first.
In May, a document obtained by The Times of Israel showed that the Board of Peace won’t hold Israel to the terms of the ceasefire if Hamas does not accept the international panel’s framework for the terror group’s disarmament.
While the Board of Peace’s High Representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, warned that refusal from Hamas to disarm could lead to the resumption of the war, he went much further in the document, and said that Israel would not be expected to halt attacks in Gaza or ensure humanitarian aid enters the Strip.
In Gaza last week, Israel killed the newly appointed head of the terror group’s military wing, Mohammed Odeh, after he had assumed the top role in Gaza just 11 days after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, earlier in May.
Any chance the Haredi parties will have less influence after the next election, Grom? This is unacceptably selfish.
[IsraelTimes] Eight people arrested after rioters forced open the gate to the compound and set fire to nearby brush
A large group of Haredi protesters broke into a cop shoppe compound in Beit Shemesh, rioting and clashing with coppers overnight Sunday, following the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox draft evader in the city.
The rioters threw stones, attempted to block a main highway, and set fire to nearby brush, as footage shared on social media showed a crowd of jeering ultra-Orthodox men hurling debris at the cop shoppe as others forced open the gate, allowing them to push their way in.
While the military and police have made no move to arrest all 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged 18-24 believed to be eligible for service, the detainment of even a small number of draft evaders has ignited anger and occasionally violence in the country’s Haredi enclaves.
In another video, police were seen pushing back a crowd of men who tried to force their way through another entrance to the compound.
The crowd began chanting "murderer! murderer!" as one police officer appeared to punch several protesters as he moved them away from the entrance.
Officers from the Israel Police Jerusalem District were deployed to the scene along with Border Police soldiers, forcibly dispersing the protesters, including with stun grenades and batons, Hebrew media reported.
Eight people were arrested on suspicion of rioting and assaulting coppers, the reports said.
The police later issued a statement saying they had regained control over the compound and were continuing to disperse protesters gathered in the surrounding streets.
The Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... chairman Yair Golan blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for the violent mostly peaceful incident.
"The violence directed last night against the cop shoppe in Beit Shemesh is the consequence of the draft evasion law. When Netanyahu and Ben Gvir turn refusal to serve into a pillar of their coalition, the message to the streets is clear: draft dodgers matter more than coppers," declared Golan.
For [Ben Gvir], and for Netanyahu, Israel Police officers are pawns that can be sacrificed in order not to upset ultra-Orthodox political wheeler-dealers. The rioters understand that they have political backing, and that attacking and assaulting those in uniform is permissible," Golan said.
The incident occurred less than a day after a planned anti-conscription demonstration in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak by the Haredi Jerusalem Faction was postponed after the hardline group claimed that contacts with the IDF aimed at securing the release of incarcerated draft evaders were bearing fruit.
The IDF denied the Jerusalem Faction’s statement on Sunday, telling The Times of Israel that "contrary to what is being claimed, there are no negotiations taking place regarding the release of deserters and draft evaders from military prison."
According to the Jerusalem Faction, six yeshiva students were arrested for draft evasion on Friday, three of whom were later freed, while the authorities attempted to arrest a seventh.
"If sufficient breakthroughs are not achieved, the protest actions will resume at full strength," the hardline Haredi group said in a statement.
In a statement on Sunday evening, Agudat Yisrael MK Meir Porush appeared to call on police to refuse orders to arrest yeshiva students who disobey draft orders.
Last week, MK Moshe Gafni, the leader of the Degel HaTorah party, sent a letter instructing local party representatives on regional councils across the country to halt all cooperation with law enforcement.
The Israel Defense Forces recently warned of a steadily worsening shortage of combat soldiers in the standing military, high burnout among troops, and fears that the reserve army could "collapse" if necessary legislation to solve personnel shortages is not advanced by the government.
[IsraelTimes] Hezbollah keeps attacking north despite declaration of ceasefire, which US president reportedly demanded PM agree to: ‘I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel’
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... indicated on Monday that Washington brokered a fresh truce between Israel and Hezbollah after the one reached in April unravelled in recent days, though the Iran-backed terror group continued to target northern communities into early Tuesday morning and Lebanese media reported fresh IDF strikes.
Following Trump’s announcement, an Israeli source said Jerusalem agreed to postpone planned strikes on Beirut, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said they instructed the military to strike Hezbollah targets in the capital.
In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump wrote that he had a "very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way, have already been turned back."
"He turned his Troops around. Thank you Bibi!" Trump said, describing Israel’s attack plans as "a major raid of Beirut."
Israeli military sources however said no troops were actually en route to Beirut, contrary to Trump’s claim.
"Likewise — through highly placed representatives — I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop — that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel," Trump added, without specifying with whom he spoke, while also claiming Hezbollah consented to not target Israeli troops.
"Let’s see how long that lasts — Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY!"
Prior to a phone call Monday with Netanyahu, Trump told CNBC that he would ask the Israeli premier, "What’s going on with Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... Trump reportedly went on to lash out at Netanyahu during the call, calling him "fucking crazy" as he demanded that Israel agree to the ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Axios cited a US official
Oh. Axios plus an unnamed, anonymous American official suggests someone is making things up…
summarizing Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: "You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."
While US officials told the news site that Trump was aware Hezbollah has been firing repeatedly at Israel and that Jerusalem has a right to respond, he believes the IDF responded disproportionately in recent days, risking Washington’s efforts to secure a ceasefire extension with 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... — which is conditioning a deal on a truce in Lebanon.
Trump "steamrolled" Netanyahu on the call, and "Bibi said, ’OK, OK, just make sure everything is taken care of,’" a US official told Axios.
US officials were also quoted saying that Trump told Netanyahu that he has kept him out of prison, a reference to Trump’s repeated public demand that President Isaac Herzog pardon the prime minister, who is in the midst of a lengthy corruption trial.
Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Why bother? Israel-haters want to believe the worst.
TRUCE TERMS REMAIN UNCLEAR AS FIGHTING CONTINUES
Washington’s push for a new ceasefire came as the previous ceasefire brokered on April 16 has largely evaporated, with Hezbollah keeping up its relentless rocket and drone attacks and the Israel Defense Forces pushing ahead with an expanded ground operation and widening Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s.
Trump did not clarify the exact terms of his apparent ceasefire, and there were conflicting indications as to what it entails from Washington, Jerusalem, Beirut and Hezbollah, with the latter claiming the truce not only prevents Israel from strikes in the Lebanese capital but the entire country.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri
...perennial Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, head of the Amal Shiite party aligned with Hezbollah, a not very subtle sock puppet of the Medes and Persians... reportedly informed the US that Hezbollah was ready to sign a full ceasefire with Israel, with the bigwig in Beirut pledging to guarantee the truce’s implementation.
I don’t doubt that someone said it. But whether they can make Hezbollah actually follow through is a separate question.
"I called the US ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa, on Sunday and told him on behalf of Speaker Berri that Hezbollah will be ready to totally commit to a comprehensive ceasefire and we are ready to guarantee it," Berri’s aide Ali Hamdan told the Axios news site.
Oh? And what will yu do when they start acting up again the next day if not sooner?
Axios said the ceasefire that Hezbollah is willing to accept would still allow Israel to keep its large buffer zone in south Lebanon.
That’s nice, since they have no choice in the matter.
Berri has close ties to Hezbollah, but it is far from clear that the senior politician can ensure the terror group’s compliance with a ceasefire.
Q.E.D.
Hamdan confirmed that the US proposed a partial ceasefire over the weekend that would require Hezbollah to stop striking northern Israel in return for the IDF committing to not striking Beirut.
A US official told Axios that Berri’s response to Washington’s proposal was "evasive and disappointing" — a charge rejected by Hamdan.
"The proposal we received was no Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel and that in return Israel will not bomb Beirut and then gradually the ceasefire will expand to other areas. Speaker Berri’s reply was, ’Why a partial ceasefire? Let’s have a full ceasefire," Hamdan said.
Berri instead proposed a full ceasefire on the ground, air and sea that would also include a cessation of Israeli home demolitions in southern Lebanon.
Hamdan told Axios that Berri has been able to exchange messages with Hezbollah’s secretary-general Naim Qassem ... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies... , who is believed to be in hiding.
Which doesn’t mean Israel doesn’t know exactly where he is and has the site wired six ways from Sunday
"We are sure Hezbollah will commit to a total ceasefire. We think it will be more productive. We know time is running out," Hamdan said.
Are sure and think? So indefinite and unreassuring.
The same US official quoted earlier by Axios told the news site that he stood by his earlier characterization of Berri’s response.
Without a name, O Axios reporter, how are we to judge whether he is making stuff up, or you are, like so many of your previous sources?
While the US has, for months, urged Israel not to strike Beirut, officials have refrained from doing so publicly, or even anonymously in the press.
"The US does not expect Israel to absorb ongoing attacks on its civilians by a terrorist organization," the US official told Axios, suggesting that Washington’s opposition to strikes in Beirut could soften.
There was no immediate response from Israel to Trump’s announcement, but after around two hours, Netanyahu said Israel would proceed with its earlier plans to strike Beirut, should Hezbollah not halt its attacks on northern Israel.
"I spoke this evening with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop attacking our cities and civilians, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut. This position remains unchanged," Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language statement.
"At the same time, the IDF will continue operating in southern Lebanon as planned," Netanyahu said.
Separately, an Israeli source told the Ynet news site that Israel had postponed the planned strikes on Beirut at the request of the US, which had asked it to hold off as it worked to advance the ceasefire initiative announced by Trump.
Earlier on Monday, an Israeli official had told the news outlet that the now-postponed Beirut strikes had been coordinated with Washington. The outlet noted the possibility that the purpose of ordering the attack was to pressure Hezbollah into agreeing to the ceasefire proposal.
Shortly after Netanyahu’s statement, sirens sounded in the border community of Metula, which the IDF said were triggered by a rocket launched by Hezbollah that struck near Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon. Sirens were also activated early Tuesday morning in communities across the north, including the Upper Galilee city of Safed, where the IDF said it intercepted two Hezbollah rockets launched toward the area. In the Western Galilee, an apparent Hezbollah drone struck a military position close to the border with Lebanon.
There were no injuries in any of the attacks.
Lebanese media meanwhile reported several Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon in the wake of Trump’s announcement, though there was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Trump’s announcement of a fresh ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came after Tehran reportedly threatened to bolt talks with the US if the IDF didn’t cease its strikes in Lebanon. Then, following his announcement, he declared that talks were "continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran."
Trump later explicitly linked the two, telling ABC News that he believed a deal to extend the US-Iran truce and reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached "over the next week" after fixing "a little glitch" that he said was Iranian anger over Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.
The sequence of events would appear to undercut US efforts to try to separate the war in Lebanon from its conflict with Iran. Tehran has insisted on tying the two, as it seeks to protect its Hezbollah proxy and continue influencing events in Lebanon. While the US and Israel have pushed back against such linkage, Washington’s effort to secure another Lebanon truce announcement just hours after Tehran threatened to abandon talks with the over the issue indicated that it the Trump administration was not as committed to separating the two fronts as Jerusalem is.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the US and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran. Since then, 26 IDF soldiers and one Defense Ministry civilian contractor have been killed in southern Lebanon, 14 of them since a ceasefire was introduced on April 16. Two civilians were also killed by Hezbollah rockets, and an Israeli civilian was mistakenly killed in the north by Israeli artillery shelling.
In Lebanon, the Israeli military has said that it has killed over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, since early March.
During the attack, shortly after noon, two explosive-laden first-person view (FPV) drones launched by Hezbollah struck an armored vehicle in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, according to an IDF probe. The explosion from the drones killed Silvester and wounded the seven other soldiers.
In one incident on Monday evening, an explosive-laden FPV drone launched by Hezbollah struck an Israeli military position near the border community of Rosh Hanikra, according to the IDF. Earlier in the day, a rocket launched at the Kiryat Shmona area was intercepted, and two others struck near Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. There were no injuries in either incident.
In Lebanon, the IDF has been carrying out widespread airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in addition to its expanding ground offensive. On Monday evening, the military said that a Hezbollah missile commander was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon the previous day. The strike carried out by the Israeli Air Force in the Nabatieh area killed Mohammed Mousa Mteirek, a unit commander in Hezbollah’s missile array, according to the IDF. The military said Mteirek was responsible for the launches of hundreds of rockets and drones targeting Israeli civilians and IDF troops, including soldiers of the Golani Brigade operating at the Beaufort Castle.
The Golani soldiers directed the IAF strike, the military added.
Separately, Lebanon said an Israeli strike hit near a hospital in the southern city of Tyre on Monday, as the health ministry shared footage showing heavy damage to the facility. The state-run National News Agency said a strike targeting an intersection near the Jabal Amel hospital “hit a building and the parking lot, resulting in several wounded.”
The health ministry shared two videos showing damage inside a hospital ward, with rubble and debris on the ground, blown-out ceilings, blood on the floor and shattered glass, while smoke could be seen billowing from a fire at what appeared to be a heavily damaged adjacent car park. The IDF told The Times of Israel that it had targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in the Tyre area, and the reports of a hospital being hit were under review.
Ynet Global reports that Iranian civilians, trained by the Mossad in Israel, returned to Iran, resumed ordinary lives, and waited for activation.
On the opening night of Operation Rising Lion, they reportedly helped neutralize Iranian air-defense systems, supported IAF strikes, and played a role in operations against IRGC missile and command infrastructure.
The key point:
Israel did not just strike Iran from the air.
It had people inside Iran, trained, equipped, synchronized with the IAF, and ready to move when the order came.
#1
Sun Tzu taught, “Rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.” This is why we train and prepare ourselves to meet any attack.
The United States faces an increasingly complex and unpredictable terrorism landscape. Unlike during the period immediately after 9/11 or the heyday of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate, there is no clear paramount threat. Instead, the United States faces a variety of formal groups, loose networks, and lone actors who intend to kill Americans and spread fear in the United States or otherwise threaten important U.S. security interests.
In the Middle East and Africa, al Qaeda affiliates and Islamic State provinces pose the greatest threat. Many formal groups, especially those in Africa, are growing in strength. Even if they do not currently intend to attack the U.S. homeland, there is little guarantee that their intentions will remain the same in the next few years. In the United States itself, the threat arises primarily from lone actors and loose networks, often motivated by niche or blended ideologies that are a poor fit for traditional counterterrorism analysis. At the same time, the United States is reducing its investment in counterterrorism as other priorities come to the fore in U.S. national security thinking.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade....
...sees all, knows all, gets 'em all in the end...
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...every time you hear the phrase 
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
