Israel War

Blurb:

The Israeli army launched a barrage of attacks in Gaza on Tuesday as tensions with Hamas grew two weeks into a fragile ceasefire, and the militant group responded by saying it would delay handing over the body of a hostage. At least seven Palestinians were killed, health officials said.

The flare-up of violence presented one of the biggest tests so far for the truce and had international mediators scrambling to prevent it from collapsing. U.S. Vice President JD Vance attempted to play down the fighting, saying he expected “skirmishes” to quickly die down.

The order from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch “powerful strikes” came after an Israeli official said its forces were fired upon in southern Gaza and after Hamas handed over body parts on Monday that Israel said were the partial remains of a hostage recovered earlier in the war.

Netanyahu called the return of these body parts a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement, which requires Hamas to return the remaining hostages in Gaza as soon as possible. Israeli officials also accused Hamas of staging the discovery of these remains on Monday, sharing a 14-minute edited video captured by a military drone in Gaza.

Blurb:

An Israeli military official told Fox News that the terrorist group Hamas has violated the ongoing Gaza ceasefire by attacking Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in Rafah.

Tuesday’s incident comes after two IDF soldiers were killed by terror operatives in Rafah in mid-October.

Israeli soldiers enter Gaza at the border as seen from Israel on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025.  (Reuters/Amir Cohen)

Blurb:

Israel has said it will not allow Turkish troops to take part in an international force proposed by the US to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza.

The deal brokered by US President Donald Trump earlier this month calls for a temporary stabilisation force to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after two years of war, but does not mention which countries would provide armed forces.

The US plan said the force would train and support “vetted Palestinian police forces” and will “consult with Jordan and Egypt, who have extensive experience in this field”.

Speaking to journalists during a visit to Hungary, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday that Israel opposes the participation of Turkish troops in Gaza.

“Countries that want or are ready to send armed forces should be at least fair to Israel,” Sa’ar said at a press conference in Budapest.

Blurb:

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, warned Israel on Wednesday against annexing the West Bank, saying steps taken by parliament and settler violence threatened a Gaza deal.

Israeli lawmakers voted on Wednesday to advance two bills on annexing the occupied West Bank, barely a week after President Donald Trump pushed through a deal aimed at ending a two-year Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that was retaliation for a Hamas attack.

“I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we can be supportive of right now,” Rubio said of annexation as he boarded his plane for a visit to Israel. Annexation moves are “threatening for the peace deal,” he told reporters.

Blurb:

Vice President JD Vance expressed alarm on Thursday about the Israeli legislature’s vote that would claim sovereignty over swaths of the West Bank, calling the move an “insult” to the Trump administration because it could threaten peace in the region.

Before departing for the United States at the end of his two-day trip to the Jewish state, Vance denounced the Knesset’s vote as a “very stupid political stunt.”

“I personally take some insult to it,” he said at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. “The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”

Blurb:

The U.S. increased pressure on Hamas on Tuesday to disarm in the next phase of an already fragile Gaza ceasefire as President Donald Trump pushed to cement an end to the devastating conflict.

In a visit to Israel, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the ceasefire plan was going better than expected but warned the Palestinian militant group it would be obliterated if it did not cooperate, echoing a Trump threat earlier in the day of “fast, furious and brutal force”.

Blurb:

The United Nations’ top legal body, the International Court of Justice, on Wednesday gave an advisory opinion saying that Israel is under the obligation to ensure the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met. The panel of 11 judges added Israel is forced to support relief efforts provided by the United Nations in the Gaza Strip and its entities, including UNRWA, the United NationsRelief and WorksAgency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

“As an occupying power, Israel is obliged to ensure the basic needs of the local population, including the supplies essential for their survival,” presiding judge Yuji Iwasawa said.

Blurb:

Vice-President JD Vance arrived in Israel as the ceasefire in Gaza entered its eleventh day. He is expected to shore up President Donald Trump’s peace agreement amid sabotage attempts by Hamas.

“Vance was meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials and is expected to stay in the region until Thursday,” the Associated Press reported. “White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, arrived Monday and Vance met with them upon landing.”

Blurb:

Hamas has rejected disarmament and security control surrender under President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan, following the October 9, 2025, ceasefire in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which ended two years of conflict and released the last Israeli hostages. Saudi Arabia, with UAE and Bahrain, warned the U.S. administration of withholding $50 billion in reconstruction aid if Hamas retains arms or power, criticizing Qatar and Turkey’s mediation for emboldening the group. Gulf states propose a neutral Western-led mission for demilitarization to ensure lasting stability.

Blurb:

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have arrived in Israel on Monday to shore up the shaky Israel-Hamas ceasefire, a day after the fragile deal faced its first flareup with Israel threatening to halt aid transfers after it said Hamas militants had killed two of its soldiers.

The Israeli military later said it continued enforcing the ceasefire and an official confirmed that aid deliveries would resume on Monday.

By early afternoon, it was not immediately clear if the flow of aid had restarted.

More than a week has passed since the start of the US-proposed truce aimed at ending two years of devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Blurb:

The fragile truce in Gaza faced its first major test on Sunday after Israel alleged Hamas had violated the ceasefire and hit back with air and artillery strikes.

An Israeli security official told The Associated Press, on the condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement, that the transfer of aid into Gaza is halted “until further notice.”

Earlier Sunday, Israel’s military said it hit multiple targets in the Gaza Strip using aircraft and artillery, after it accused Hamas of shooting at Israeli soldiers. Military officials later said two soldiers were killed.

An Israeli military official told CBS News that Hamas had targeted its soldiers with a rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.

Blurb:

Israel restricted aid into Gaza and kept the enclave’s border shut on Tuesday while re-emergent Hamas fighters demonstrated their grip by executing men in the street, darkening the outlook for U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.

Israel told the United Nations it will only allow 300 aid trucks into Gaza – half the agreed daily number – from Wednesday, and that no fuel or gas will be allowed in, except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the United Nations.

Blurb:

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks for more detail of what the UK is doing to help ensure more aid gets into Gaza.

He says all the bodies of dead hostages need to be returned.

And he asks what the UK is doing to ensure that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank stops.

Starmer thanks Davey for the “content and tone” of his response. (He is making a contrast with Badenoch’s.)

On aid, he says there is a need for more trucks be admitted to Gaza.

On the bodies of hostages, Starmer says he agrees with Davey.

He says, when the media are finally admitted to Gaza, he thinks there will be ‘“quite some debate” in the Commons about “the full horror” of what happened.

Blurb:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said he believes there is little chance a Palestinian state could exist as a completely autonomous, sovereign state side by side with Israel.

Pointing to historical precedent, Netanyahu argued a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would leave a security vacuum in the region, allowing radical groups to assert military power. His justification for a long-term Israeli military presence comes as Gazan clans or local militias opposed to Hamas’s rule have been rounded up and executed by the terrorist group after Israel withdrew some forces to make way for phase one of President Donald Trump’s peace deal.

Blurb:

Some Palestinians fear Hamas will not honor President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan as footage emerged of the terrorists executing civilians in Gaza’s streets, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

Hamas began rounding up alleged Israeli collaborators and killing them as soon as the country’s military withdrew from Gaza after a ceasefire was announced Oct. 8, an anonymous Gazan activist told NYP. The broader 20-point peace agreement requires Hamas to permanently disarm, but video evidence of its brutality toward Palestinians shows it continues to terrorize Gaza.

Blurb:

Aid trucks rolled into Gaza on Wednesday and Israel resumed preparations to open the main Rafah crossing after a dispute over the return of the bodies of dead hostages that had threatened to derail the fragile ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Israel had threatened to keep Rafah shut and reduce aid supplies because Hamas was returning bodies too slowly, showing the risks to a truce that has stopped two years of devastating conflict in Gaza and freed all living hostages held by Hamas.

New Yorkers have been betrayed': can Zohran Mamdani become the ...

Blurb:

Jihadi Zohran Mamdani ran for Gaza on the day the hostages were released -the UNRWA 5K for Gaza. UNRWA, the organization UNRWA whose employees took part in the October 7th massacre and subsequently kept the hostages in captivity. This is who Mamdani is raising money for.

The federal government has already cut off funding to this terror linked organization last year.

Mamdani wants to keep the refugee status of Palestinians into perpetuity to help with his cause of the eliminating Israel.

https://twitter.com/CampusJewHate/status/1977510662575411336

Blurb:

Tearful reunions were captured on video Monday as the last 20 living Israeli hostages were released from Hamas captivity in Gaza and reunited with their families.
Family members shed tears of unimaginable joy as they embraced their loved ones for the first time in more than two years.

Video clips released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) depict the emotional moments when Guy Gilboa-Dalal (24), Matan Zangauker (25), Matan Angrest (22), and Eitan Mor (25), and Alon Ohel (24) were reunited with their parents at the IDF’s Re’im base in southern Israel.

Zangauker can be heard asking his mother if his dog was still alive.

Blurb:

CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour snidely guessed on Monday morning that Israeli hostages were “probably being treated better than the average Gazan” on Monday, hours after Hamas released the last 20 living hostages. PBS actually simulcasts this woman’s nasty takes.

Fifty years ago, an Amanpour type would have greeted American POWs coming out of Vietnam by suggesting our tortured POWs were “probably treated better than the average Vietnamese.”

In a CNN News Central special, anchor Kaitlan Collins asked about Western journalists being denied access to covering Gaza, which cued Amanpour to lecture:

AMANPOUR: Kaitlan, you can imagine that’s a question that I’m asking every day. And surely all of my colleagues, it is unconscionable that us, we have not been able to go in and help our Gaza colleagues tell the full story to the world  That is just something that I’ve never seen any democratic nation forbid, outside journalists, and I’ve asked every Israeli official who I’ve interacted with over the last two years, publicly and privately, to open the doors and let us in. And I pretty much can assure you that one, that once those I those doors are opened, it will be a scene of absolute, abject horror.

Blurb:

In the shadows of the joy sweeping Israel over the return of 20 living hostages taken by Hamas, outrage erupted over the failure of Hamas to return the bodies of all those who died since they were taken after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists.

Only four of 28 bodies held by Hamas in Gaza were being returned on Monday, according to ABC News.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the action a “failure to meet commitments,” of the first phase of the ceasefire deal brokered by President Donald Trump.

“Any delay or deliberate avoidance will be considered a blatant violation of the agreement and will be responded to accordingly,” Katz said in the statement.

Blurb:

A man who spent his presidency alienating Israel and coddling its enemies just proved he hasn’t learned a thing.

In a post published Thursday to the social media platform X, former President Barack Obama managed such a mealy-mouthed comment on news of a cease-fire in the Israeli-Hamas war that he managed to infuriate partisans on all sides.

But most of all, he proved just how petty a former president can really be.

Blurb:

Monday was a day of rejoicing, of gratitude. For the families and friends of the 20 last living hostages freed after two years of hell, it was a day of fully breathing once again. The hostage release came as a very good sign that Hamas, the genocidal monsters responsible for the devastating two-year war with Israel, could at least come through on a principle term in a long sought ceasefire.

“This is the day the Lord has made known to us, and we will rejoice in it,” Zvika Mor, father of Eitan Mor, said after reuniting with his hostage son, according to reporting by the Times of Israel.

Peace is suddenly a real promise for this war-ravaged portion of the Middle East.

Blurb:

Monday was a momentous, joyful day — after two years, finally, a ceasefire in the Middle East.

A somber one, yes — it marked a ceasefire that ended hostilities between Israel and Hamas that had claimed thousands of innocent lives (as well as quite a few not-so-innocent ones, mostly fighting under the aegis of the terror organization that has run the Gaza Strip for 19 years now). But it was a happy day, a day which saw peace for the good guys, looming justice for the bad guys, and a well-deserved comeuppance in a moment of brief levity for pusillanimous ones.

Blurb:

Longtime CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour offered a lengthy apology for comments comparing the treatment of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the plight of the residents in the Gaza Strip.

Amanpour was reporting on the historic peace deal negotiated by President Donald Trump for Hamas to return hostages to Israel, both living and the remains of the dead. Even critics of the president have had to acknowledge his efforts to secure peace.

‘I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips.’

Blurb:

It’s been a very busy 36 hours for President Donald Trump. He brought peace to the Middle East. Once again, he trounced his doubters, ended the war in Gaza, and got Hamas to release the rest of the Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack two years ago. The remains of captives murdered by Hamas will also be returned.

The president addressed the Knesset and later flew to Egypt to make this ceasefire agreement, which Trump pitched at the end of September, official. As with anything relating to the president of the United States, he wasn’t on schedule, though this was intentional. Trump stuck around a little longer to meet with the families of the hostages.