Trump Watch

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All United Nations Security Council members, except the United States, on Wednesday said the famine in Gaza was a “manmade crisis” and warned that the use of starvation as a weapon of war is banned under international humanitarian law.

In a joint statement, the 14 council members called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, a substantive surge of aid throughout Gaza, and for Israel to immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on aid delivery.

“Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately,” they said.

“Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course.”

Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread,

a global hunger monitor determined

 on Aug 22.

<b>Israeli forces demolish 1,000 buildings in Gaza City – Palestinian officials — RT World News</b>- <i> www.rt.com</i>
<b>Israel begins invasion of Gaza City after calling up 60,000 troops to finally wipe out terror group Hamas</b>- <i> www.thesun.co.uk</i>

Israel begins invasion of Gaza City after calling up 60,000 troops to finally wipe out terror group Hamas – thesun.co.uk

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ISRAEL has begun its full invasion of Gaza City as it aims to completely wipe out Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Wednesday.

IDF troops now control the outskirts of the besieged city, one of the terror group’s last strongholds, Israeli military spokesperson Brig Gen Effie Defrin said.

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Israeli troops repelled Hamas’s large-scale attack on a military position in southern Gaza, eliminating at least ten terrorist infiltrators. Around 20 terrorists emerged from nearby underground tunnels in a coordinated attempt to kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers, news reports say.

“Assessments indicate the terrorists emerged simultaneously from several adjacent shafts,” the Israel National News/Arutz Sheva reported. “According to the military, the attackers likely intended to abduct soldiers, as they were carrying stretchers during the assault. However, no kidnapping attempt was successful.”

Two IDF soldiers were reportedly killed in the sneak terror attack. “Three Kfir soldiers were wounded in the unusual incident — one seriously and two moderately,” the news website added.

<b>Netanyahu Says If Israel Wanted Genocide in Gaza “It Would Have Taken Exactly One Afternoon” | The Gateway Pundit</b>- <i> www.thegatewaypundit.com</i>

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Credit: U.S. Department of State

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

“If we had wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon,” Netanyahu said, as quoted in Times of Israel.

The remark was part of a heated defense against claims that Israeli forces are deliberately starving the Gaza Strip into submission, an accusation Tel Aviv has dismissed as outright false.

<b>Four Al Jazeera journalists killed in Israeli strike in Gaza</b>- <i> www.yahoo.com</i>

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Four Al Jazeera journalists including prominent reporter Anas al-Sharif have been killed in a targeted Israeli strike near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.

Sharif and another correspondent, Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal were in a tent for journalists at the hospital’s main gate when it was struck, the broadcaster said.

Two other freelance journalists were killed: Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed al-Khaldi.

The “targeted assassination” on Sunday was “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, the news outlet said. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was appalled by the attack.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had targeted Sharif, alleging he had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”.

New US plan for Gaza starting to emerge despite sanitised tour for Trump peace envoy | World News– news.sky.com
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We’ve seen this many times before.

Highly anticipated talks and meetings with America, Israel’s closest ally and the one country with the power to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course, then nothing changes.

We need to give Steve Witkoff time to report his assessments back to the White House before we can give a complete verdict on this visit but what we’ve seen and heard so far has offered little hope.

The pressure on Donald Trump to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is mounting after a small but vocal contingent of his base expressed outrage.

Even one of his biggest supporters in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green, has referred to it as a genocide.

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“The humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza must end now,” Sir Keir Starmer said in a joint statement with German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French president Emmanuel Macron.

The three leaders held discussions on the crisis in Gaza amid growing fears of mass starvation in the area.

In their statement they said: “The most basic needs of the civilian population, including access to water and food, must be met without any further delay,”

“Withholding essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.

“We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and urgently allow the UN and humanitarian NGOs to carry out their work in order to take action against starvation. Israel must uphold its obligations under international humanitarian law.”

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The leaders of Britain, France and Germany will hold an emergency call Friday about the growing hunger crisis in Gaza, after French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country will become the first major Western power to recognize a Palestinian state.

The surprise announcement exposes differences among the European allies, known as the E3, over how to ease the worsening humanitarian crisis and end the Israel-Hamas war.

All three support a Palestinian state in principle, but Germany said it has no immediate plans to follow France’s step, which Macron plans to formalize at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Britain has not followed suit either, though Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday came closer than ever before, saying “statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people.”

Starmer said he, Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz will speak Friday about “what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need while pulling together all the steps necessary to build a lasting peace.”

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Senate passes Labor motion expressing ‘extreme disapproval’ against Mehreen Faruqi for Gaza sign protest

While the Coalition amendment failed, Labor’s original motion to sanction Mehreen Faruqi passes the Senate.

The Greens opposed the motion along with independent senator Fatima Payman while One Nation and independent senator Tammy Tyrrell teamed up with the two major parties to sanction Faruqi.

While we have been calling it a censure motion, it’s technically a motion to express “profound disapproval” against the senator but also includes that the Senate voted it not “appropriate for Senator Faruqi to represent the Senate as a member of any delegation during the life of this parliament”.

<b>Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as pressure on Israel grows – Middle East crisis live | Middle East and north Africa</b>- <i> www.theguardian.com</i>

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More than 100 aid organisations warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation“ was spreading in Gaza, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than 2 million people face severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict, triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May – in effect sidelining the existing UN-led system.

A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”.

<b>Britain joins 24 nations demanding Israel end war in Gaza claiming bloody conflict has plumbed 'new depths'</b>- <i> www.thesun.co.uk</i>

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BRITAIN joined 24 other nations demanding Israel end its war in Gaza yesterday claiming the bloody conflict had plumbed “new depths.”

The joint statement said it was “horrifying” that more than 800 Palestinians in the strife-torn Hamas terror stronghold have been killed seeking food – including dozens yesterday.

But Israeli forces stepped up action in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah yesterday – despite fears October 7 hostages are being held there.

An unprecedented joint statement condemning the war was signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

It said: “We come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now. The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths.

<b>Israeli military launches first ground operation into central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah</b>- <i> www.euronews.com</i>

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The Israeli military has launched a ground operation on Monday in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, sending in tanks a day after dropping leaflets on neighbourhoods advising people to evacuate.

The ground operation, the first to take place in the city since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted in 2023, is being accompanied by aerial strikes by Israel’s air force.

Eyewitnesses said massive air strikes took place on the city overnight into Monday, one of the last remaining areas of the Strip not to suffer significant damage from the war.

The city is hosting thousands of Palestinians displaced from southern Gaza and is also the main hub for erratic aid deliveries due to its central location.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cautioned against a military operation in Deir al-Balah after the IDF dropped evacuation orders on the city on Sunday.

<b>20 Palestinians killed in Gaza aid site stampede, Israel-backed group says - National</b>- <i> globalnews.ca</i>

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Twenty Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the crush of a crowd at a food distribution site run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip, the group said, the first time it has acknowledged deadly violence at its operations. The deaths came as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.

The Gaza Humanitarian Fund accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.

It said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed at a hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd, inciting a panic. The ministry said that it was the first time people have been killed by a stampede at the aid sites.

It was also the first time that GHF has confirmed deaths at one of its distribution sites, although Palestinian witnesses, health officials and U.N. agencies say hundreds of people have been killed while heading to the hubs to get food.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday for what some analysts have dubbed a “victory lap” following the US joining Israel in strikes against Iran. But as they meet for the third time this year, the outwardly triumphant visit will be dogged by Israel’s 21-month war against Hamas in Gaza and questions over how hard Trump will push for an end to the conflict.

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The talks would focus on conditions for a possible ceasefire, including hostage and prisoner releases, and Hamas would also seek the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing to evacuate the wounded, the official told AFP.

Hamas’s delegation, led by its top negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, was in Doha, the official told AFP. Israel’s public broadcaster said the country’s delegation had left for the Qatari capital in the early afternoon.

Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the indirect negotiations had begun.

‘Enough blood’

Two Palestinian sources close to the discussions told AFP the proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel.

However, they said, the group was also demanding certain conditions for Israel’s withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system.

On the ground, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 26 people were killed by Israeli forces on Sunday.

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New details of the Gaza ceasefire proposal emerged on Sunday as Israel sent a negotiating team to Qatar ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s White House visit for talks toward an agreement. Inside the territory, hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 38 Palestinians.

“There are 20 hostages that are alive, 30 dead. I am determined, we are determined, to bring them all back. And we will also be determined to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said before departing, emphasizing the goal of eliminating Hamas’ military and governing power.

A person familiar with the negotiations shared with The Associated Press a copy of the latest ceasefire proposal submitted by mediators to Hamas, and its veracity was confirmed by two other people familiar with the document. All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.

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President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are set to meet at the White House on Monday. One of the most difficult questions on the table is what Gaza might look like without Hamas.

Experts tell Fox News Digital that while the need for an alternative is clear, almost every proposed solution comes with serious structural, political and security limitations.

John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) and veteran of both Republican and Democratic administrations, said building an alternative to Hamas must happen in parallel with dismantling it.

Hamas terrorists emerge from the shadows as they surround Red Cross vehicles. (TPS-IL)

“Part of how you win is by showing there’s a viable alternative,” Hannah said. “People need to see there’s a future beyond Hamas”

That future, experts believe, lies in a non-Hamas technocratic government – comprised of Palestinians unaffiliated with either Hamas or the PLO – backed by a coalition of key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE.

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Following an AP investigation accusing a US mercenary firm of firing on desperate Gaza aid seekers, the company has released extensive new footage in an attempt at damage control. But the video only further implicates the scandal-plagued operation.

On July 2, the Associated Press released an exposé containing short videos which appeared to show American mercenaries associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opening fire on aid-seekers in Gaza during an incident in southern Gaza this May. The footage was supplied by a former employee of UG Solutions, a firm charged with securing GHF distribution sites.

“I think you hit one,” one soldier of fortune says to another following a loud burst of gunfire.

“Hell yeah, boy!” another exclaims.

<b>Scepticism and hope for end to Gaza war before Trump-Netanyahu meeting | Israel-Palestine conflict News</b>- <i> www.aljazeera.com</i>

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the United States on Monday, a visit analysts expect will focus on celebrating Israel and the US’s self-anointed victory against Iran and discussing a proposal for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza.

This is the third time this year Netanyahu will be meeting US President Donald Trump, who claims the US and Israel “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme during a 12-day war and that he would resume bombing Iran if it restarts nuclear activities.

Last week, Trump said Israel had agreed to conditions for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, which would allow all parties to work towards an end to Israel’s 21-month-long war on the besieged enclave.

On July 4, Hamas gave a “positive” response to Qatari and Egyptian mediators about the latest ceasefire proposal.

<b>Israel to send team to Gaza talks despite Hamas demands, PM says</b>- <i> www.bbc.com</i>

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Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar on Sunday for proximity talks with Hamas on the latest proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had accepted the invitation despite what he described as the “unacceptable” changes that Hamas wanted to make to a plan presented by mediators from Qatar, the US and Egypt.

On Friday night, Hamas said it had delivered a “positive response” to the proposal for a 60-day ceasefire and that it was ready for negotiations.

However, a Palestinian official said the group had sought amendments including a guarantee that hostilities would not resume if talks on a permanent truce failed.

In Gaza itself, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Sunday that 80 people killed in Israeli attacks had arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours.

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An Israeli delegation is heading to Qatar for indirect talks with Hamas on a possible hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza.

The development comes ahead of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump in Washington DC on Monday aimed at pushing forward peace efforts.

The US leader has been increasing pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas to secure a permanent ceasefire and an end to the 21-month-long war in Gaza.