News of the World

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Special Edition: Middle Eastern Crisis

Ex-Trump National Security Adviser:
Biden’s Ransom to Iran Incentivized Hamas
to Take American Hostages

“While welcoming our Iran hostages home, I said at the time — paying ransom (eg unfreezing $6 billion) is problematic because it incentivizes new hostage taking & gives terrorists money for new operations. I didn’t think we would see these points illustrated so vividly, so quickly,” O’Brien posted on X.

O’Brien served during the Trump administration as the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs from 2018 through 2019 and helped secure the release of American pastor Andrew Brunson from Turkey in 2018. He also helped secure the release of Danny Burch, an American oil worker in Yemen.

O’Brien said he called on President Joe Biden on Saturday to deploy the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and Joint Special Operations Command’s hostage extraction forces to assist Israel.

“We now know [American citizens] have been taken by Hamas,” O’Brien posted. “Those teams should be airborne to the region now to be in a position to rescue our countrymen.”

Biden Slammed for Hosting BBQ
While Hamas Holds Americans Captive

The Biden White House was reportedly in the midst of hosting a barbecue, even as Americans were announced as among those confirmed killed or taken hostage during Hamas’ surprise attack over the weekend.

The White House National Security Council verified Sunday that multiple Americans lost their lives in the unexpected assault by Hamas on Israel.

Meanwhile, on Monday, a memo detailing the scheduled barbeque was revealed.

“The President and First Lady are hosting a barbecue for White House Executive Residence staff and their families,” the memo reads.
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In response, many expressed outrage over the event in light of reports of an unknown number of missing and murdered Americans.

“While Hamas holds Americans hostage, Joe Biden is enjoying a picnic with a live band,” wrote Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.
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“Americans are being held hostage by terrorists, and Biden stopped working before noon,” wrote MAGA Inc. spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. “Having worked in the Trump White House, I can tell you President Trump would have been working in the Oval all day and night.”

“Then again – this would have never happened under his watch,” she added. “Even worse – BIDEN IS HOSTING A BARBECUE. There are no words.”

Mike Pompeo: Appeasement of Iran ‘Will Cause More Death’

Pompeo, who served as former President Donald Trump’s secretary of state when the administration moved to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, shared the Wall Street Journal’s report Monday morning that Iran assisted in coordinating Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The Journal, citing a “senior member of Hamas and Hezbollah,” reported Sunday night that “Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday.”

“We told the Ayatollah and Soleimani: If you plot against or kill an American, we won’t stop by fighting the knucklehead proxies you fund and hide behind. We will hold the Islamic Republic of Iran’s leadership accountable. They did and so we did,” Pompeo wrote in his tweet sharing the article:

“If this article has it right – Iran has now killed Americans. Appeasement will cause more death,” he added.

At least nine Americans were killed in the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, according to the State Department, and the death toll in Israel has surpassed 700 people.

“We have reports that several Americans were killed. We’re working overtime to verify that. At the same time, there are reports of missing Americans and there again, we’re working to verify those reports,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union Sunday morning:

Per the Journal, the plan was devised over multiple meetings in Lebanon between officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard and Hamas in the past couple of months, although a “spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations said the Islamic Republic stood in support of Gaza’s actions but didn’t direct them.”

Blinken told Bash that the Biden administration had “not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there’s certainly a long relationship” between Iran and Hamas.

American Scholar Killed in Israel
After Hamas Found Him Hiding with Neighbors in Closet

An American scholar was killed in Israel during the violent terror attacks when the Palestinian terror group Hamas found him hiding in a closet with his neighbors, his mother revealed.

Thirty-two-year-old American-born Dr. Hayim Katsman was one of at least 11 Americans killed during the violent terror attacks.

“As we continue to account for the horrors of the appalling terrorist assault against Israel this weekend and the hundreds of innocent civilians who were murdered, we are seeing the immense scale and reach of this tragedy,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Monday. “Sadly, we now know that at least 11 American citizens were among those killed — many of whom made a second home in Israel.”

Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel from Gaza over the weekend on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the final day of the annual High Holy Day cycle. The attack has resulted in over 900 deaths and at least 2,500 wounded, according to the latest reports.

Katsman was living in a Jewish commune in Israel conducting research. The Association for Israel Studies described Katsman as “an emerging scholar in the field of Israel studies, who was “deeply committed to community service,” the Daily Mail reported.

Katsman’s mother revealed he was killed when Hamas militants broke into his home and found him hiding in a closet with one of his neighbors, according to ABC News. One of Katsman’s neighbors was released, but he and a female neighbor were immediately shot dead, his mother said.

‘Today It’s Israel, Tomorrow It’s Us’:
After Israel Attack, GOP Warns of Terror in U.S.
Due to Joe Biden’s ‘Asinine’ Open Border Policy

Highlighting Israel’s costly failure to secure its border over the weekend, Republicans are speaking out on the increasing threat of terrorism on U.S. soil due to poor border security that has already seen an unprecedented amount of people on the terrorist watchlist caught attempting to cross the southern border, leading to concerns of untold amounts of others who have managed to successfully infiltrate the country.

“Now is the time for bold action,” declared former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “Here’s how America must meet the moment:"
1. Rescue all American hostages
2. Provide full support for our ally Israel
3. Confront Iran and the new Axis of Evil
4. Focus on securing our own open border
5. Condemn antisemitism in the United States.

“We should wake up ourselves. We could have the same thing happen next week to us,” McCarthy noted. “We caught more people on the terrorist watchlist in February than we caught in the entire administration. We could have cells sitting inside of America right now.”

“The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers,” former President Donald Trump wrote. “Are they planning an attack within our Country? Crooked Joe Biden and his BOSS, Barack Hussein Obama, did this to us!”
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Calling to cut off any and all types of foreign aid flowing to Hamas, Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called on America to “immediately shut down America’s wide-open southern border to ensure we are in a position to better protect Americans here at home from these real threats.”

Harvard Responds to Terror Attack in Israel
After Students Publicly Support Terrorists

“Dear Members of the Harvard Community,” the statement began. “We write to you today heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend, and by the war in Israel and Gaza now under way.”

The statement continued:

The violence hits all too close to home for many at Harvard. Some members of our community have lost family members and friends; some have been unable to reach loved ones. And, even for people at Harvard who have not been affected directly by the fighting, there are feelings of fear, sadness, anger, and more that create a heavy burden. We have heard from many students, faculty, and staff about the emotional toll that these events are taking.

The statement — signed by Harvard President Claudine Gay, Provost Alan M. Garber, Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick, and 15 deans — did not push back in any way against the scores of student groups that issued a statement expressing their support for terrorists and blaming Israel for Hamas killing hundreds of Israelis.

“Across Harvard, we will continue providing as much support to our students and colleagues as possible,” the statement read. “We have also heard an interest from many in understanding more clearly what has been happening in Israel and Gaza.”

Muslims Chant ‘Gas the Jews’ in Sydney, Australia

Hamas supporters chanted, “Gas the Jews,” beside the world-famous Sydney Opera House in Australia, according to a video shared by the Australian Jewish Association.
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The event was held to celebrate Hamas’ massacre of Jews and its simultaneous attacks on Israeli security forces.

The shouters waved their home country flags, including the flags of Turkey and Lebanon. Some waved the flag adopted by people who identify as Palestinians.

Masked men chant “Fuck The Jews” at pro-Palestine rally on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Completely despicable anti-semitic hatred, I can’t believe we are seeing this on the streets of Sydney.

Hamas supporters held many similar celebrations in the Arab world, as well as in Europe and the United States.

I was raised as a Muslim, I was taught religiously to hate Jews, the majority of Muslims around the world are raised to do the same. The ones who didn’t are the exception not the norm. It’s embedded, it’s horrible, it’s time to address it boldly. This is not an isolated incident.

The Australian government has imported roughly 800,000 Muslims to help local employers, real estate investors, and retailers. About one in every 33 Australians are Muslim. The giveaway to businesses has hurt Australian families by spiking the cost of housing and by expanding diversity to create Muslim enclaves, such as Lakemba Station.

Many Muslim immigrants likely object to the hatred — but have not yet organized any resistance.

The crowd at Sydney Hall also burned an Israeli flag.

Latin America’s Leftists Embrace Hamas
as Region’s Dead and Abducted Toll in Israel Grows

Latin American leftists, including the leaders of the region’s three authoritarian regimes, openly expressed support or justification for the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas’s killing spree in Israel this weekend.

The vocal leftist voices justifying the killing, torturing, abducting, and desecrating of corpses beginning in Israel this weekend continued as reports have grown of missing and/or dead Latin Americans in Israel.

Young Israeli woman named Noa who was attending a music festival promoting peace near the Gaza border has been kidnapped by Hamas militants and driven away on a motorcycle.

At press time, there are several reports of dead Latin American citizens among the over 800 killed by Hamas. The number of injured or missing Latin Americans continues to grow, though it remains fluid and unconfirmed.

Some of the confirmed reports include four Argentine citizens dead as a result of Hamas’ terrorist attacks and four more missing. Two Chilean nationals have also been confirmed dead. Authorities at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of their nationals was injured by the attacks and three Brazilian men remain missing as of Sunday.
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A Colombian couple attending the Supernova music festival in southern Israel is also reported missing. At least two confirmed Mexican nationals are being held hostage by Hamas, according to the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Bárcena.
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While a Paraguayan husband-and-wife couple were reported dead by local Paraguayan media over the weekend, the nation’s Foreign Minister stated on Monday that Paraguay has not yet received official confirmation from Israeli authorities.

Some regional governments began to initiate on Monday proceedings towards providing assistance to the hundreds of Latin American nationals currently in Israel and arranging for their eventual return to their respective countries. Out of the roughly 14,000 Brazilians currently living in Israel, some 1,000 Brazilians currently in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have requested Brasilia’s aid to facilitate their safe return home.
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Venezuela’s socialist regime was among the first to justify Hamas’s terrorism through a statement issued by its Foreign Ministry on Saturday. The regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro expressed its “profound concern” about the events and blamed them on the “impossibility of the Palestinian people to find in the multilateral international law a space to assert their historical rights.”

Cuba’s communist Castro regime, through its Foreign Ministry, avoided condemning Hamas’s attack, opting to refer to the incident as an “escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine.” While Hamas is a Palestinian terrorist organization, the Palestinian Authority is the current ruling entity in Gaza and the West Bank. the Castro regime blamed Hamas’ unilateral assault on Israeli civilians on “75 years of permanent violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and of Israel’s aggressive and expansionist policy.”

In Nicaragua, communist dictator Daniel Ortega issued a statement via state-owned media in which he refused to condemn Hamas while expressing his regime’s “solidarity with the Palestine cause.”

“The Government of Reconciliation and National Unity, and the people of Nicaragua, always in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, always fraternal, always close, condemning the barbarism unleashed again between two brotherly peoples, from our own experiences of imposed wars,” the statement reportedly read.

In a post on Twitter on Sunday morning, Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 guerrilla organization, claimed that he had studied the Israeli-Palestine conflict since he was “very young” and asserted that he knows the “immense injustice that the Palestinian people have suffered since 1948. Just as I know about the immense injustice that the Jewish people suffered from the Nazis in Europe since 1933.”
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Local media reported that the Colombian government had initially issued a statement where it condemned the terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. While the original statement saw the Colombian government express its solidarity with the victims and their families, it failed to directly mention Hamas.

The statement disappeared from the Colombian Foreign Ministry’s website and replaced with a new version that removed the word “terrorism,” replacing it with “attacks on civilians.” While the original statement is now inaccessible, it can still be read through Google’s cache at press time.

Brief Open Editorial on Some Morons That Have Forgotten How to Interpret World Events

Content Hidden

 The Colombian president ignores the suffering of his fellow Colombians that have lost relatives during the attacks, and who knows if some group of them are being held hostage right now. Then he claims that the Palestinians are the victims. How so? They killed civilians just because!  They might have even thought they all were Israelis, even if several of them were Americans, Germans or Latin Americans!

Please get it. This is not a battle between 2 armies but a bunch of terrorists against the average joe living in Israel or working there or visiting the country.

The Jews didn't raise their weapons against the Nazis back in the pre-WWII period like the Palestinians did now against Israel. There's no point of comparison, this is just another attempt of exterminating another ethnic group just because they hate it.

No Palestinians in the Judea and Samaria regions are being bothered or attacked by Israeli army or police. This proves that Israel is not after any ethnic group but just focused on actual terrorists as any independent nation that strives to survive would do around the world. And yes, the US should be looking for them in the southern border and in many other states right now...

Oh but it's important to replace a previously posted statement just because it could make Petro look guilty of being a terrorist himself.  Not like anybody could get that wrong any time soon.

Anyway, why don't we take a look a Palestinian's point of view now?

El Salvador’s Palestinian President Nayib Bukele
on Hamas: ‘Get Rid of Those Animals’

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, categorically condemned the ongoing terrorist rampage by the Hamas jihadist group in Israel, writing on social media on Sunday that, as someone of Palestinian heritage, he hoped to see the region “get rid of those animals and let the good people thrive.”

Bukele compared Hamas to the various violent gangs that controlled his country for many years – most prominently, the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 – and described the Palestinian terrorists as “savage beasts” who are not representative of the Palestinian people. Just as his administration has, most experts agreed, eradicated the dominant presence of gangs in his country, Bukele urged the eradication of jihadist terrorists from Israel.

“As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians,” Bukele wrote in a post published to Twitter on Sunday night. “Anyone who supports the Palestinian cause would make a great mistake siding with those criminals.”

“It would be like if Salvadorans would have sided with MS13 terrorists, just because we share ancestors or nationality,” he continued. “The best thing that happened to us as a nation was to get rid of those rapists and murderers, and let the good people thrive.”

“Palestinians should do the same: get rid of those animals and let the good people thrive,” he advised. “That’s the only way forward.”

Israel Announces ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza Strip
Cutting Off Water, Food, and Electricity
Vows to Destroy Military Capability of Hamas

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said following a situation assessment with Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Southern Command the military will enact a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, preventing supplies such as water, food and electricity from entering the region.

The Defense Minister said, according to The Times of Israel: “I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed.

“We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” Gallant added.

The Israel Defense Forces has also said it is currently waging “widespread” air strikes against Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip.

The IDF’s top spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the military has mobilised 300,000 reservists over the past 48 hours, saying: “We have never drafted so many reservists on such a scale… We are going on the offensive.”

The chief military spokesman went on to say that Israeli troops have regained control over the border towns but that some clashes with Hamas terrorists are continuing, saying: “We are now carrying out searches in all of the communities and clearing the area.”
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[Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan] Conricus went on to say that one of the chief goals of the military operation will be to ensure that “Hamas will no longer be able to govern the Gaza Strip,” adding that the situation is “fundamentally different than what it was two days ago.”

“At the end of this war, we will change the situation for the better… for Israeli civilians and it will be better for the Palestinians as well,” he said.

According to the latest estimates, over 800 people in Israel have been killed by Hamas terrorists, including approximately 260 who were massacred at a music festival in Southern Israel on Saturday. More than 2,500 have also been wounded in the fighting, and over 100 are believed to have been taken hostage by the Palestinians.

According to RAdm. Hagari, at least 4,400 rockets have rained down on Israel since the start of the fighting on Saturday morning, which coincided with the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the final day of the annual High Holy Day cycle. The Palestinians, meanwhile, have claimed that 493 people have died in Gaza, with a further 2,751 wounded.

And just in case you ever think the Israeli government is exaggerating here, please read the following article.

Hamas Terrorists Steal Victims’ Phones to Torment Families
Post Dead Bodies Online

The families of several kidnap and murder victims from the savage Hamas attack on Saturday have reported the terrorists using the cell phones and social media accounts of their victims to send them graphic photos and taunting text messages.

In one of several similar incidents, Hamas terrorists broke into a grandmother's home in Nir Oz, near Gaza, took her phone, logged into her Facebook, and live streamed himself murdering her. That’s how her granddaughter found out she was murdered.
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The woman referenced in the above incident, Mor Bayder, said Hamas uploaded a graphic photo of her grandmother’s corpse to her own Facebook account on Saturday morning. The photo was taken with her slain grandmother’s phone.

“A terrorist came home to her, killed her, took her phone, filmed the horror and published it on her Facebook wall. This is how we found out,” Bayder said.

“The purest thing in the world, the light of my life, my whole world, my grandmother, can’t make it real,” she mourned.

A woman named Tamar David received a taunting phone call from a Hamas terrorist on Saturday, informing her that her daughters Hodia and Tair, 25 and 27 years old respectively, had been kidnapped from a music festival and dragged back to Gaza as prisoners.
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Friend of the family Tal Hezekiah took the phone from Tamar as she wailed in anguish, and said he could hear the terrorist laughing on the other end.

“Then the terrorist laughed and said to me in broken Hebrew: ‘Do you want to marry her?’ And hung up,” he told reporters.

Hezekiah said one of the sisters was able to call home during the savage assault on the Tribe of Nova music festival. He said one of them “may have been injured” during the attack.

And nope, they're not isolated events at all...

Hamas Threatens To Execute Hostages ‘Broadcast with Video and Audio’

The Palestinian terror group Hamas has threatened to execute Israeli hostages, one-by-one, “with video and audio,” for every time that Israel launches an airstrike against a Palestinian target in Gaza without warning.

The threat came via a Hamas spokesman, and was reported by the Times of Israel:

The Hamas terror group is threatening to begin executing hostages in response to Israeli strikes in Gaza carried out without warnings, the spokesperson for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades says, according to Gaza’s Shehab news outlet.

“From this hour, any targeting of our people in the safety of their homes, without warning, will be met with the execution of civilian hostages, which will be broadcast with video and audio,” says the spokesperson, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida.

In past conflicts, Israel has often warned the civilian occupants of buildings that are also Hamas targets to flee, by dropping dummy bombs on building a few minutes before they are attacked with live bombs.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declared that the goal of Israel’s attack on Gaza is to remove Hamas as a military and governing force.

Hamas appears to be taking a page from the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, which infamously broadcast executions of hostages.

Oil Prices Jump Following Hamas Attack on Israel

The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose by around four percent to close to $88 a barrel. Brent prices are most closely associated with the price of gasoline in the U.S.

The price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, rose by just over four percent to around $86 a barrel.

Israel has announced a “complete siege” of the Gaza strip following Hamas’s massive attack on the Jewish state. The death toll has risen to 800 people as of Monday morning and more than 2,500 are reported wounded.

Oil traders are speculating what the war could mean for global oil supplies. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Iran was involved with planning the attack. Oil traders believe this could result in increased enforcement on exports of Iranian oil.

Prolonged fighting could also complicate efforts by the Biden administration to convince OPEC+ to increase production to lower the price of oil. Iran is a member of the oil cartel.