Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] Against the background of positive news about the likely preservation of Russian military bases in Latakia and Tartus, positive news is coming from Sudan, where the topic of a Russian naval base in Port Sudan has again come to life.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry reported that Russia and Sudan have agreed on all the parameters of the agreement on the creation of a Russian naval base in Port Sudan. The topic has been discussed for several years, even preliminary agreements were concluded, but then, under pressure from the West, everything fell through and the negotiations continued.
Now, according to statements, the courts have again been able to renegotiate and if there are no breakdowns, then the base in Port Sudan will be. In the long term, this will seriously expand the capabilities of the Russian Federation on the African continent, and also ensure a permanent presence in the area where key trade flows pass.
Sudan and Russia have reached a mutual understanding on an agreement to establish a Russian naval base in the country. This was announced on February 12 following talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by the country's Foreign Minister Ali Yousef Sharif.
"The question is quite simple. I have nothing to add. We agreed, we agreed on everything," the head of the foreign policy department noted.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in November 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the government's proposal to sign an agreement with Sudan to create a logistics support point for the Russian Navy. It is assumed that Russian sailors will use this point to repair ships, replenish supplies and rest.
On April 28, 2021, Al Arabiya reported that Sudan's military leadership had allegedly suspended the agreement with Russia on a naval base in Port Sudan. The Russian embassy in Khartoum called this information unreliable.
In early June 2021, Sudan announced its intention to review the agreement with Russia to establish a military base in the Red Sea. As Sudan's Chief of General Staff Mohammed Usman al-Hussein explained, this agreement was signed under the previous regime of Omar al-Bashir, but it was not ratified by the legislature, as required by the procedure for approving international treaties.
In July 2021, the Sudanese authorities informed the Russian side about the start of the ratification process of the relevant agreement with Moscow.
In February 2023, the Sudanese authorities completed the process of revising this document. According to one of the Sudanese officials, the Russian government "dispelled all the fears" of the republic. However, due to the dissolution of parliament and the internal political crisis in the country, this process was delayed.
That’s what the archive search below reveals, yes.
[BBC] Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her government tried to cling on to power using systematic, deadly violence against protesters that could amount to "crimes against humanity", the UN has said.
UN human rights investigators accused the deposed government of a brutal response to mass opposition last year, in which they said up to 1,400 people had been killed, mostly by security forces.
The UN team said "an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-government protesters" had been directed by political leaders and senior security officials.
Hasina, who had been in office for 15 years, fled by helicopter to India shortly before crowds stormed her residence last August.
#1
The unrest began as student-led protests against quotas in civil service jobs and escalated into a countrywide movement to oust Hasina and her Awami League party following a deadly police crackdown.
[Breitbart] A former Mexican governor sent a series of letters to U.S. President Donald J. Trump, warning him about the alleged cartel connections of Mexico’s new consul in Miami. In the letters, the politician warned Trump to have the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Council properly check the proposed diplomat due to his questionable background.
In the letters, which Breitbart News Foundation received a copy of, former Chiapas Governor Williams Oswaldo (Willy) Ochoa claimed that another former governor, now the newly appointed Mexican consul for Miami, is a danger to the citizens of Florida and Chiapas.
Ochoa, who served as state and federal congressman for the state of Chiapas in Mexico and briefly served as its governor, claimed that allowing Rutilio Escandon Cadenas to serve as a consul would grant diplomatic protection to an individual with concerning ties to organized crime.
In his letter, he claimed that during Escandon’s gubernatorial term from 2018 to 2024, “Chiapas became a lawless land where massive migration overwhelmed the state’s security, unleashing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
Ochoa claimed that during Escandon’s tenure, individuals with ties to the terror groups Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Colombia’s FARC guerrillas were able to transit through Chiapas on their way to the United States.
According to Ochoa, Escandon’s ties and favoritism to criminal organizations helped turn the state into a battleground between the major cartels in Mexico. The violence displaced more than 15,000 individuals who were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shootouts, murders, and kidnappings by drug cartels.
Escandon hails from Mexico’s MORENA Party, the same party as President Claudia Sheinbaum and her predecessor, former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Mexico is currently trying to avoid facing a series of tariffs from the Trump administration over their failure to stop drug cartels and human smuggling.
Earlier this year, the Trump White House accused Mexico’s government of working with cartels as they prepared to impose a 25 percent tariff. The measure was delayed after Sheinbaum promised to send 10,000 National Guardsmen to the border, Breitbart News reported.
[GEO.TV] Tulsi Gabbard has been sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence inside the Oval Office with President Trump in attendance following the confirmation by US Senate.
The Senate voted 52 to 48, mostly along party lines, to confirm Gabbard to the position overseeing the 18-agency intelligence community and acting as Trump's top adviser on intelligence issues.
The vote was another victory for Trump as he pushes to secure quick Senate approval for all of his nominees for administration positions.
The Senate's Republican majority leader, John Thune, scheduled a procedural vote on Robert F Kennedy Jr, who also faced fierce opposition to his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services, immediately after the Gabbard confirmation vote.
Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democrat, had faced bipartisan questions about past statements seen as supporting US adversaries, and lack of experience.
She neither worked at a spy agency nor served on an intelligence committee during her four House of Representatives terms.
Gabbard will now oversee an agency created by Congress in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the country's sprawling intelligence apparatus, one of the most important national security positions in the US government.
"The selection of a DNI is a very big deal," said Emily Harding, director of the Intelligence, National Security and Technology Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, noting the DNI's broad access to classified material and role as the president's main intelligence adviser.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas calls for worldwide “solidarity marches” over the weekend to protest a US plan endorsed by Israel to resettle Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
“We… call on the masses of our people, our Arab and Islamic nation, and the free people of the world to go out in massive solidarity marches” from Friday through Sunday to denounce “the plans to displace our Palestinian people from their land,” Hamas said in a statement.
[IsraelTimes] Jerusalem responsible for 85 of record-setting 124 journalists killed last year, Committee to Protect Journalists claims; IDF rejects accusation, says it doesn’t target journalists
Last year was the deadliest for journalists in recent history, with at least 124 news hounds killed — and Israel responsible for nearly 70 percent of that total, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed Wednesday.
Shortly after the report was released, the Israel Defense Forces responded by insisting that it does not intentionally target journalists in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, while noting that many on the list are members of terror groups.
The uptick in killings, which marks a 22% increase over 2023, reflects "surging levels of international conflict, political unrest and criminality worldwide," the CPJ said.
It was the deadliest year for news hounds and media workers since CPJ began keeping records more than three decades ago, with journalists murdered across 18 different countries, it said.
A total of 85 journalists died in the Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... -instigated Gaza war, "all at the hands of the Israeli military," the CPJ charged, adding that 82 of them were Paleostinians.
CPJ accused Israel of attempting to stifle investigations of incidents, shift blame onto journalists, and ignore its duty to hold people to account for the killings.
"The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists," CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement.
THE ISRAELI MILITARY REJECTED THE REPORT.
"The IDF takes all possible measures to minimize harm to civilians, including journalists. The IDF has never, and never will, intentionally target journalists," the military said in response to a query by The Times of Israel.
"In light of the ongoing exchange of fire, being in an active combat zone carries risks. The IDF will continue to combat threats while making an ongoing effort to minimize harm to civilians. The IDF only directs its attacks toward military targets and gunnies and does not attack civilian sites or civilians, including media and journalists," the statement continued.
"Under international humanitarian law, a member of an organized gang [such as the military wing of Hamas], or a person directly participating in hostilities, is considered a lawful target. As it seems, many on the published list include members of the military wing of Hamas and are therefore lawful targets under international law," the IDF added.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas following its October 2023 onslaught in which 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 taken hostage. Hamas is still holding 73 of the hostages, and its leaders have vowed to repeat the October 7 slaughter and destroy Israel.
More than 48,000 Paleostinians have been killed in the ensuing war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed 21,000 Hamas fighters since the war began.
The number of journalists and media workers killed in 2024 is up sharply over recent years — 102 were killed in 2023, and 69 were killed in 2022, according to CPJ. The previous record high of deaths was in 2007, when 113 journalists bit the dust, almost half due to the Iraq War, said the committee.
Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... and Pakistain recorded the second-highest number of journalists and media workers killed in 2024, with six each.
In Mexico, which has a reputation as one of the most dangerous countries for news hounds, five were killed, with CPJ reporting it had found "persistent flaws" in Mexico’s mechanisms for protecting journalists.
And in Haiti, where two news hounds were murdered, widespread violence and political instability have sown so much chaos that "gangs now openly claim responsibility for journalist killings," the report said.
Other deaths took place in countries such as Myanmar, Mozambique, India and Iraq.
"Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s history," said Ginsberg.
CPJ, which has kept records on journalist killings since 1992, said that 24 of the news hounds were deliberately killed because of their work in 2024.
Freelancers, the report said, were among the most vulnerable because of their lack of resources, and accounted for 43 of the killings in 2024.
The year 2025 is not looking more promising, with six journalists already killed in the first weeks of the year, CPJ said.
[IsraelTimes] Germany’s cabinet has decided in principle to deploy police forces for a European Union civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, a government source tells Reuters.
The exact timing as well as the size of Germany’s contribution to secure the key entry and exit point for the Palestinian territory has yet to be decided, the source adds.
The European Union last month restarted the civilian mission with personnel from Spain, Italy and France to secure the crossing, which is also the main passage for humanitarian aid.
Germany, which holds federal elections on February 23, has previously said some of its ministries had consulted on their role in the mission.
[IsraelTimes] Qatar announces it would send an additional 15 million liters of fuel to the war-battered Gaza Strip, where a fragile ceasefire has halted the Israel-Hamas war.
The small energy-rich Gulf country would be “supplying the Gaza Strip with 15 million liters of fuel, bringing total Qatari fuel support to 30 million liters,” the official Qatar News Agency says.
A truce agreement brokered by Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators came into force on January 19, pausing fighting in the 15-month war that has devastated the Palestinian territory.
[IsraelTimes] Defense Minister Israel Katz issues a warning to organizations and individuals involved in delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip against smuggling prohibited goods.
“An attempt to smuggle goods or transfer merchandise/equipment that was not pre-approved into the Gaza Strip constitutes grounds for the seizure and confiscation of the property used in the smuggling attempt, grounds for the seizure and confiscation of the truck that transported the goods, as well as grounds for imposing sanctions on the drivers,” reads a message from the Defense Ministry’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF).
The ministry says organizations or individuals found to be involved in smuggling attempts to Gaza may face financial sanctions.
“The State of Israel will continue to act with determination to prevent the financing of terror and to maintain strict oversight over the transfer of goods while ensuring the safe passage of humanitarian aid in accordance with security directives and international law,” the ministry adds.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told yesterday’s cabinet meeting that there was no point in discussing the second phase of the hostage deal at the moment, while the fate of the first phase was still up in the air.
“There is no point in discussing the second phase because it is just a hypothetical issue at the moment,” Channel 13 quoted Netanyahu as saying in leaked remarks from the closed-door meeting.
The report says the meeting did indeed not discuss the second phase, which is expected to see Hamas release all the remaining living hostages in return for an end of hostilities.
Also, during the meeting, ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Struk from the far-right Religious Zionism party demanded that if Hamas fails to release the three hostages scheduled to go free on Saturday, Israel should round up and re-arrest the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners it has freed so far under the deal, Channel 12 reports.
The report says security officials balked at the demand, saying such a move was hasty and could endanger the lives of the hostages.
The proposal was rejected by the cabinet, the report says.
[IsraelTimes] US intelligence warns that Israel is likely to launch a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear program by midyear, the Washington Post reports, citing multiple intelligence reports.
The Washington Post report comes hours after the Wall Street Journal reported similar findings.
Such an attack would set back Iran’s nuclear program by weeks or months while escalating tension in the region and risking a wider conflict, according to multiple intelligence reports from the end of the Biden administration and start of the Trump administration, the newspaper reports.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. The White House declined to comment. The Post says the Israeli government, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, tells the Post that US President Donald Trump “will not permit Iran to get a nuclear weapon.”
“While he prefers negotiating a resolution to American’s long-standing issues with the Iranian regime peacefully, he will not wait indefinitely if Iran isn’t willing to deal, and soon,” Hughes tells The Post.
The most comprehensive of the intelligence reports came in early January and was produced by the intelligence directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Post says.
It warns that Israel was likely to attempt an attack on Iran’s Fordo and Natanz nuclear facilities.
Current and former US officials familiar with the intelligence said Israel has determined its bombing of Iran in October in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack, degraded Iran’s air defenses and left the country exposed to a follow-on assault, says the Post, which did not name the officials.
An intelligence analysis produced during US president Joe Biden’s final month in office concluded that Israel is weighing major strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities this year, with Jerusalem seeking to press its advantage against Tehran after the latter’s recent setbacks, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Citing officials familiar with the analysis, the newspaper says US intelligence agencies produced another report in the initial days of the Trump administration that reached the same conclusion.
Two of the US officials say that the analysis also concluded that Israel believes US President Donald Trump is more likely than Biden to join in such strikes — which according to American military officials would likely require US support and armaments — and fears it has a narrowing window to prevent Iran’s development of an atomic bomb.
#4
My spidey sense says post Trump et al, leaks may have deception content and/or markers to identify leakers. Somehow I think the entire toolbag or counter-intelligence operators has been unpacked. The Wapo, NYT, NBC, ABC, CNN all are undoubtedly pegged for leaker tripwires.
[IsraelTimes] Kamal Adwan hospital director beaten with ‘batons and electric shock sticks’ while detained at Sde Teiman, alleges Palestinian rights group; IDF doesn’t immediately respond
Lawyers for a Gazook hospital director claimed Tuesday that he was subject to repeated physical abuse during his ongoing detention in Israel.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Paleostinian rights group representing detained doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, said that his lawyer visited him in Ofer Prison on Tuesday afternoon, for the first time since his December arrest.
The group claimed that the Israel Defense Forces held Abu Safiya at the Sde Teiman detention facility before transferring him to his current location in Ofer Prison on January 9, where he was reportedly placed in solitary confinement for 25 days.
While in Sde Teiman, Abu Safiya was subject to "severe physical abuse, including beatings with batons and electric shock sticks, as well as repeated blows to the chest," the rights group said.
He also described being "forcibly stripped, having his hands tightly shackled and being made to sit on sharp gravel for approximately five hours by Israeli forces," it added in the statement.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the claims.
Located near the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... border, the Sde Teiman military base has been the focus of several probes amid reports of widespread misconduct and abuse. Earlier this month, an IDF reservist who served as a guard at the facility was sentenced to seven months behind bars for abusing Paleostinian detainees.
Israel detained Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, along with nearly 240 others during a raid on the medical facility in December 2024, alleging that Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... was using it as a command center.
The military said it suspects Abu Safiya of being a Hamas member.
Israel has been at war with Hamas since October 7, 2023, when the terror group that rules Gaza led an invasion of southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to the Strip.
It has long accused Hamas of fighting from within civilian structures, including hospitals.
In January, the IDF confirmed Abu Safiya’s detention, but did not specify where he was being held. Two former Sde Teiman detainees told CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... that month that they had seen him arrive at the facility in "poor condition."
According to Al Mezan’s statement, Abu Safiya was interrogated for 10 consecutive days regarding his alleged ties to Hamas and "firmly denied" the accusations, "stressing that he is a doctor whose sole duty is to provide medical care to patients and the maimed."
There have been several probes of IDF soldiers on suspicion of abusing Paleostinian detainees, including a conviction last week.
[IsraelTimes] Families mostly get info from recently freed hostages; report says signs of life have come in for total of 12 captives, with remaining 2 families not going public
The families of three more hostages announced on Wednesday that they had received signs of life from their captive loved ones, bringing to 10 the total number of abductees for whom signs of life have been announced in recent days.
Only one of these 10 hostages is on the list of the 33 captives that Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... is supposed to release in the first phase of the ceasefire-hostage deal. Sixteen Israeli hostages have been released since the deal took effect on January 19. In all, Hamas is holding 73 of the 251 hostages it kidnapped on October 7, 2023; some 30 of them are believed to be alive.
In addition to the families who have agreed for the signs of life of their loved ones to be made public, additional such signs have been received for two captives whose families have chosen not to go public with the information, Channel 12 news said Wednesday.
The Haaretz daily reported that signs of life have been received for most of the hostages whom Israel had believed were alive, adding that some of them are recent while others are relevant for some point in the past.
Anat Angrest, mother of captive soldier Matan Angrest, 21, said Wednesday that she had received a fresh sign of life from her son.
"We received information that he is alive and held under harsh conditions," Anat told Channel 12.
"He was kidnapped from a tank, covered in burns. He underwent severe interrogations there, we saw it on his face in the video that we decided not to publish yet," she said, referring to a Hamas propaganda video released in September.
Angrest was on duty at the IDF’s Nahal Oz base on the morning of October 7, when some 3,000 holy warriors burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
"We heard that he is being held there in difficult conditions because he is a soldier, and we do not know what the long-term consequences of this injury are," his mother added.
Earlier in the day, the family of Yosef-Haim Ohana, 24, said it had received a "clear" signal that he is still alive but expressed fears for his fate following the release of three Israelis over the weekend, looking emaciated and sickly after 16 months of Hamas captivity.
Ohana was kidnapped from the Nova desert rave as he and a friend attempted to provide aid to injured partygoers amid the terrorist onslaught.
"We have a clear indication that he is alive," Ohana’s aunt Hana Mastronov told the Ynet news site Wednesday. "There are signs showing that he is alive."
On Wednesday evening, the family of hostage Eitan Mor, 23, said they had received a sign of life from him.
In a statement, they wrote that "we pray for the return of all the hostages including our son Eitan."
Mor was a security guard at the Nova rave music festival when he was captured.
His parents are members of the Tikva Forum of hostage families, a more hawkish group who have said that Israel should not reach an exchange deal and instead achieve freedom for the abductees via military pressure. However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster... they have softened their stance in recent days, particularly following the return of three hostages on Saturday in a severely emaciated state.
On Tuesday, the family of twins Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, said it had received signs of life from the brothers.
"We take a deep breath, but we know whose hands they are in and how much danger their lives are in," the family said in a message to the residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, from where they were taken hostage on October 7, 2023.
No further details were given.
Later Tuesday, the family of Hamas hostage Omri Miran, 46, said it received a sign of life from him, via a recently released hostage.
Brothers Boaz and Nadav Miran said that the returned hostage told them he had been held with Omri until July 2024, and at that time he seemed to be physically fine. The two noted, however, that his situation may have since deteriorated in the seven months that have passed.
Miran was taken captive from Kibbutz Nahal Oz by holy warriors who drove him across the border in his car. His wife Lishay Miran was left behind with their two daughters, Roni, then aged 2, and Alma, then aged 6 months.
On Monday, the mother of another hostage, Alon Ohel, 24, said the family had received a first sign of life from her son, revealing that he was being held in chains, starved and untreated for shrapnel in his shoulder, arm, and now partially blinded eye.
"We’ve been learning more and more details since Saturday and can no longer remain silent," Idit Ohel told Army Radio, as her hostage son marked his 24th birthday. "The prime minister can’t say he didn’t know, can’t say he didn’t hear and wasn’t notified about the state of the hostages. Every day there is hell."
The family of 20-year-old captive soldier Nimrod Cohen told The Times of Israel this week that a returning hostage had recently said they saw him alive eight months ago, though in poor physical and mental shape.
There hasn’t been a more recent sign of life from him.
On Sunday, the mother of hostage Eliya Cohen, 27, said her son had been held with returning hostages who were chained, gagged, burned with a searing hot object, hung by the feet, and starved.
Sigi Cohen said the hostages testified that her son is being held in a tunnel, has been chained for the entire length of his captivity, gets little food or daylight, and suffers from an untreated bullet wound to the leg sustained during the Hamas onslaught.
Eliya Cohen is the only captive out of the nine who is slated to go free in the current first phase of the deal.
The family of hostage Elkana Bohbot, 34, also said this week that it had recently been told by released hostage Or Levy that their loved one was alive and had been held with Levy for over a year.
Ruhama, his mother, told Israel Hayom: "We waited a long time for this sign. Right now, we know that Elkana is alive and must return. It gave us some breathing room, but we are still worried."
Hamas has so far released 21 hostages — civilians, female soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during the ceasefire.
Seventy-three hostages kidnapped on October 7 remain 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... , including the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued alive by troops, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier killed in 2014 was recovered from Gaza in January.
[IsraelTimes] Orly Gilboa says daughter ‘pleaded for her life’ not to do it, but was forced to be covered in powder and debris to make it look like she was hit in IDF strike in propaganda video
Released soldier hostage Daniella Gilboa has said she was forced by the Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... terror group to record a video faking her death while in captivity, a propaganda clip that had indeed led to rumors that she had been killed, her mother said Wednesday.
Orly Gilboa, Daniella’s mother, told Channel 12 news that "one of the captors simply came to her with a camera and told her, ’Today we are filming you dead."
"She pleaded for her life and asked they don’t do it," she said, describing how they covered her in powder and debris to make it look like she had been hit in an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... .
She said that after her release last month as part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas, Daniella apologized for any part she could have played in her parents thinking she was dead.
"When she saw me and my husband for the first time, she apologized for how she caused us to feel this whole time," she added.
In November, a front man for Hamas’s military wing claimed that "one of the enemy’s female prisoners was killed in an area that is under Zionist aggression in the northern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip."
Alongside the statement, Hamas published a blurred picture of a body it claimed belonged to the slain hostage. While it did not identify the woman, the image quickly led to speculation that it could be Daniella Gilboa since it featured a tattoo identical to one she has.
Hamas has often issued propaganda videos of hostages, in what Israel has said is deplorable psychological warfare.
Gilboa is one of the seven female troops kidnapped from the IDF surveillance unit at the Nahal Oz army base during the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023.
One of the kidnapped surveillance soldiers, Ori Megidish, was later rescued alive, and the body of a second one, Noa Marciano, was recovered after she was murdered in captivity.
Gilboa and the four remaining captive soldiers — Liri Albag, Naama Levy, Agam Berger and Karina Ariev — were freed in January during the current ceasefire-hostage deal.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] The first Arab leader to meet Donald Trump at the White House since the start of the US president's second term was Jordan's King Abdullah II. The meeting was a major test for the Jordanian monarch.
Trump continued to pressure Abdullah and his government to accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza, take control of the Strip and begin rebuilding it to become a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”
The king was forced to defend the position of his country and even the entire Arab world, to prevent the expulsion of the Palestinians, but at the same time not to spoil relations with the American president. And it seems he succeeded.
At the meeting, Trump confirmed that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, and that the Palestinians living there would be relocated elsewhere without the right to return. Arab countries and others have already compared this proposal to ethnic cleansing.
"It's not a difficult task," Trump said on Tuesday. "Because the United States will control this piece of land — this fairly large piece of land — the Middle East will have stability for the first time," the American president noted.
Abdullah II complimented the American president during the talks. For example, he emphasized that a just peace requires US leadership, and President Trump is a man of peace who played a key role in achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Nevertheless, the king made it clear to the American administration that Amman was against the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. He stressed that there was a unified Arab position against displacement and made it clear that the reconstruction of Gaza without displacing its residents should be “a priority for everyone.”
In addition, Abdullah II noted that Jordan does not intend to back down from its demands for the creation of a Palestinian state, and a fair peace based on a two-state solution is the only way to achieve stability in the region. Thus, he disavowed Trump's assertion that the transfer of Gaza under American control would allegedly solve all the problems of the Middle East.
According to Abdullah, Jordan's interests, its stability and the protection of Jordanians are above all else for him. And this statement, which seems trivial for any head of state, is especially important in the context of Trump's plans.
In Jordan, Palestinian refugees make up a quarter of the country's population, but overall, Jordanians of Palestinian descent make up more than half of the kingdom's residents. For example, Queen Rania is also a Jordanian Palestinian.
At one time, the Palestinians even tried to overthrow the current king's father during the events known as "Black September." Then the army and the only legal political party in the country at that time, the Muslim Brotherhood*, were able to save King Hussein by joining forces with the military.
In September 1970, at a critical time during the Palestinian PLO uprising in Amman, when the survival of the Jordanian state was at stake, the Muslim Brotherhood* took up arms in support of the ruling house and managed to bring its supporters onto the streets.
But now the conditions have changed: instead of the secular Palestinian organizations that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed, the most influential Palestinian organization is the Muslim Brotherhood's* ally, the Islamic movement Hamas.
Against the backdrop of events in Gaza and the growing popularity of Hamas, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood* has already won the parliamentary elections in September 2024. Therefore, Abdullah II’s agreement with Trump’s plan now will look like complicity in a “second Nakba.” And this means raising almost the entire Jordanian street against the king and provoking a new “Arab Spring.”
In recent days, Jordan has seen constant demonstrations against the "displacement", and Muslim Brotherhood* members of parliament are already proposing to pass the "Bill for the Prevention of Displacement of Palestinians".
“I think we have to remember that Egypt and the Arab countries have a plan,” Abdullah said when President Trump asked him to speak. “[Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman is inviting us to talks in Riyadh. I think the point is how do we make this work in a way that is good for everyone,” the Jordanian king continued.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia is keen to have such an exchange, as Trump's plan already threatens to make relations between Riyadh and Washington even more difficult than they were under Biden, which was then thought to be at its lowest point since the 1970s.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may already be regretting his bet on Trump's return, refusing to deal with the previous administration in the hope of constructive dialogue with the new American leadership.
When Trump revealed his plan to “own and control Gaza” after expelling the Palestinians, he went further and made it clear that the bill for the “cleanup” operation would not be paid by the Americans, but by the Gulf states, by which he meant primarily Saudi Arabia.
This finally threw Riyadh off its emotional balance, as the Saudis had previously tried not to take Trump's statements to heart that the kingdom "must" invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US to maintain good relations. And this figure was brought up to 1 trillion in the American leader's subsequent statements.
Trump, however, boasted on February 5 that Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state, presenting it as his own victory in changing the kingdom's viewpoint. And that was Riyadh's main condition.
It took the Saudis just 45 minutes to respond with what they called a “morning statement” that left little room for maneuver. Specifically, it noted that Saudi Arabia would continue its efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and would not establish relations with Israel unless that demand was met.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added fuel to the fire when he told Channel 14 that the Saudis could create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia: “They have a lot of land there.” This sparked a fresh wave of condemnation of both Israel and Trump’s plans from the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and even the UAE.
The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "categorically rejects any attacks on the inalienable rights of Palestinians and any attempts to transfer them" to other countries.
Saudi Arabia responded even more harshly, calling the Israeli leadership’s mentality “extremist and occupational,” and the connection of the “brotherly Palestinian people to the Palestinian land” as undeniable. It emphasized that Palestinians have a right to their land and “are not criminals or immigrants who can be expelled whenever the brutal Israeli occupation so desires.”
The meeting between Abdullah and Trump comes as the recent ceasefire in Gaza is in danger of collapsing. Israel has already threatened to resume bombing and attacks on Gaza on Saturday unless Hamas releases all prisoners.
Trump also threatened Hamas leaders that if they did not release the remaining Israeli prisoners held in the enclave by Saturday, he would support a new Israeli operation.
"I personally don't think they're going to make it on time," Trump said. " They want to play tough guys. We'll see how tough they are." He added that he would not accept a slower prisoner exchange: "Either they release them by 12 o'clock Saturday or all bets are off."
As Igor Subbotin, an international observer and Middle East specialist, told Regnum, Washington has begun to advance its plans for the future of Gaza without due consideration and in extreme haste, doing nothing to begin the second stage of the humanitarian deal between Israel and Hamas. The need for appropriate negotiations on this issue has remained somewhere on the periphery of general discussions.
According to the analyst, the US essentially demonstrated that the extradition of the remaining prisoners to Israel should happen on its own, while the problem of extending the ceasefire in Gaza lies precisely in Trump's plans to evict the Palestinians from the sector, which convinced Hamas that they simply wanted to raze them to the ground after the deal was implemented. In turn, as the expert notes, there were also enough reasons for Hamas to refuse to resume the prisoner exchange process.
Subbotin believes that by demanding that Israel fulfill the terms of the deal in exchange for continued prisoner transfers, Hamas decided to retain its levers of control over the political process.
Recall that Hamas accused Israel of continuing shelling and preventing the return of refugees to the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Also, according to the movement, the delivery of agreed humanitarian aid is being blocked. In connection with this, Hamas decided to postpone the transfer of prisoners who were supposed to be released on Saturday, February 15, until the Israelis fulfill their obligations.
Thus, the Arab summit on Gaza, scheduled for February 27, which was initiated by Egypt in response to Trump's proposals and at which an alternative plan for the reconstruction of Gaza is to be announced, is in question. Now everything depends on whether the ceasefire in Gaza can be maintained or whether the parties will again enter into armed confrontation, worsening the humanitarian crisis.
***
It is clear that Trump’s hasty and premature steps were poorly thought out and could lead the Middle East into a new crisis. The US President has returned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the center of international discourse, and now, in the event of a renewed war in Gaza, Hamas will have a serious psychological advantage and support from Arab countries.
Other narratives will prevail, centered not on the humanitarian catastrophe, but on the resilience of the Palestinians, who in the latest round of confrontation are fighting not only Israel, but also the United States. Trump has done everything to ensure that no one has any doubts that Washington is complicit in the actions of the Israeli army against the Palestinians.
And, as Israeli experts themselves note, Trump has already contributed to the formation of a new sense of Arab unity – not only to protect the Palestinians, but also, first and foremost, to protect Arab states from the conflict spilling over into their territory.
#6
Qatar is the sponsor of Hamas. Relocate the Gazans to Qatar. You can't blame Jordan for not wanting them. They already caused trouble for Jordan the last time they were there.
[IsraelTimes] Israel had reportedly asked to stay for an additional 10 days; Lebanese president insists Israel stick to existing date; IDF again warns Lebanese not to return to homes in south
The United States has reportedly authorized a "long-term" Israeli troop presence in southern Leb ...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , as Israel is said to be seeking an extension to a February 18 deadline to withdraw its forces.
Under a truce deal brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s gang Hezbollah since early October.
Hezbollah operatives were to leave the zone and Lebanese troops were to deploy in the area within the same period.
The initial deadline was already extended from January 26 until February 18. A Lebanese official and a foreign diplomat in Lebanon told Rooters on Wednesday that Israel has asked to remain in five posts in the south for a further 10 days, until February 28.
The Kan public broadcaster later cited bigwigs in Israel’s security cabinet as saying that the US had granted Israeli troops permission to stay "in several locations" in Lebanon beyond February 18. It did not specify a new deadline.
Kan said that the IDF has begun establishing the five outposts where it would like to remain after receiving approval from Washington.
The request to remain in those five outposts came after the US rejected previous requests for the IDF to extend the deadline, Kan said.
While establishing the new outposts, IDF forces are withdrawing from nearby Shiite villages, including in southeast Lebanon and the Mount Dov area, according to Kan.
The withdrawals come as the Israeli security establishment has identified efforts by Hezbollah to reestablish its intelligence-gathering capabilities in southern Lebanon, the network said.
The US, Israel’s closest military ally, chairs a committee that oversees the implementation of the Lebanon ceasefire.
Later on Wednesday, Israel’s military jets broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital, Beirut, for the first time since the ceasefire was agreed.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, but the head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command said he believed the terms of the deal would be executed.
"I think we will indeed reposition ourselves next week, and the agreement will be implemented," Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin said during a conference in memorial of those killed in the 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster on Wednesday, according to Army Radio.
The IDF’s Arabic-language front man, Col. Avichay Adraee, said in a post on X on Wednesday that Israeli troops remained in Lebanon after the first extension and ordered Lebanese citizens not to return to their homes in the country’s south "until further notice." Adraee has published the same message every few days since the extension to the ceasefire began.
In a written statement, Lebanon’s presidency denied reports that Beirut had agreed to a second extension and said President Joseph Aoun had "repeatedly stressed Lebanon’s insistence on the complete withdrawal" of Israeli troops by February 18.
Israeli forces have remained in parts of southern Lebanon, and its air force has continued to carry out strikes across the country on what it says are Hezbollah weapons stores or attempts by the group to smuggle arms.
Hezbollah has said it does not accept Israel’s justifications for staying in Lebanon and has urged Lebanon’s government to ensure the troops leave. The group has not explicitly threatened to resume fighting.
Separately, Wednesday, the Education Ministry said it would reopen schools and educational facilities for residents of northern Israel who were evacuated amid the conflict with Hezbollah.
The ministry said in a statement that schools will be open from March 2, by a government decision to let residents return from the start of the month.
"Every student who will return to the north will be integrated into an educational framework that is suitable to them," the ministry said.
Israel asked the Trump administration on Monday for another extension to the February 18 deadline, a US official told The Times of Israel. The response from Washington was that it was planning to stick to the deadline, said the US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity Tuesday to discuss the matter.
Channel 12 reported similar details, adding that Israel had reiterated to the US its claim that the Lebanese army was not effectively deployed in south Lebanon, as the terms of the ceasefire said it would, and was not preventing Hezbollah from reorganizing. Israel has warned that Hezbollah aims to return to the border area as soon as IDF troops depart.
US deputy Mideast envoy Morgan Ortagus traveled to Lebanon and then Israel over the weekend to survey the progress of the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that ended the war that spiraled from border attacks by the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group. Ortagus told news hounds that the Trump administration views February 18 as a "firm date" for the completion of Israel’s withdrawal.
Israel’s military says its forces have continued to uncover and seize Hezbollah weapons in prohibited areas and that the Lebanese army is not keeping its part of the deal.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is entitled to act against immediate threats posed by Hezbollah but must forward complaints about longer-term threats to an oversight committee composed of representatives from the US, La Belle France, Lebanon, and the international observer force UNIFIL.
The November 27 deal ended two months of full-scale war that followed months of lower-intensity exchanges. Hezbollah began near-daily attacks on northern Israel one day after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by its Paleostinian ally Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... , which triggered the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... . Tens of thousands of Israeli residents of the north were displaced by the attacks, with rocket fire eventually spreading to the center of the country.
[NEWARAB] Syria's new government plans to put on trial hundreds of pro-Assad Algerian soldiers and Polisario Front fighters captured in Aleppo, rebuffing Algeria's calls for their release, French media outlet Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD) reported.
When Algeria's Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf landed in Damascus last week, he carried an urgent request: the release of Algerian military personnel and Algeria-backed Polisario fighters captured in northern Syria during the final days of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's totalitarian rule.
Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa's response was "no," wrote MCD quoting its Damascus news hound.
Among the detainees are around 500 Algerian soldiers and fighters of the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, seized by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) during its November offensive in Aleppo, a battle that delivered the final blow to Assad's forces.
These claims have long been propagated by Moroccan media outlets, but were confirmed on 11 February by the French media outlet MCD.
For years, Algeria had been one of al-Assad's most steadfast supporters, opposing his expulsion from the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... in 2011 and resisting Western calls for regime change.
MCD cited intelligence documents uncovered in Damascus suggest that Algerian and Polisario fighters—trained and backed by Algiers—joined Syrian government forces as early as 2011, their deployment allegedly coordinated through Algeria's Ministry of Defence
Unlike 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... and Hezbollah, which managed to evacuate many of their fighters before Assad's fall, Algeria was apparently caught off guard. The regime's collapse left its troops stranded, forcing Algiers into damage control.
However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... al-Sharaa, Syria's newly installed leader, appears unwilling to accommodate Algeria's plea. Instead, he has signalled that the detainees will stand trial alongside Assad's captured forces, according to MCD.
For Algiers, the crisis is a d j vu of the aftermath of Muammar Qadaffy ...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest...> 's downfall in 2011. When Libya's new leadership took power, one of its first acts was distancing itself from the Polisario Front, furious that the group was allegedly fighting alongside Qadaffy's forces.
The Polisario Front is a separatist movement fighting against Morocco over the illusory sovereignty of Western Sahara. It's strongly backed by Algeria, where its self-proclaimed government in exile is based. It also maintained strong ties with Qadaffy and al-Assad regimes.
Since 1980, Syria has officially recognised "the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)," the state proclaimed by the Polisario Front, establishing formal diplomatic ties with the separatist movement. Though the revelation of Polisario fighters in Assad's ranks could put this relationship at risk under al-Sharaa.
If Syria's new rulers tilt toward regional players hostile to Algiers—particularly Morocco, which has long lobbied against Algerian influence in the region—Algeria could find itself losing another key ally.
Algerian and Polisario officials have so far remained silent on the diplomatic rebuke. However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... Attaf's press statements following his Damascus visit were noticeably vague, a shift from Algeria's usual confidence in its relations with Syria.
Meanwhile,
...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... Morocco has wasted no time in courting Damascus.
King Mohammed VI was the first leader in the Maghreb to congratulate Syria's new government, reaffirming his longstanding support for "the aspirations of the Syrian people"—a gesture that could signal the beginning of a new diplomatic chapter between Rabat and Damascus.
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.
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
