Monday, July 28, 2025

Israel's wartime Gaza aid is historically unprecedented - John Spencer

 

by John Spencer

A military must balance its operational objectives with humanitarian imperatives, including the prevention of starvation and the protection of civilian life.

 

Empty UNRWA and World Food Program trucks head to the Kerem Shalom crossing to collect limited humanitarian aid and fuel, in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2025
Empty UNRWA and World Food Program trucks head to the Kerem Shalom crossing to collect limited humanitarian aid and fuel, in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2025
(photo credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)

Many things can be true at the same time.

Flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid is the right, moral thing to do. A military must balance its operational objectives with humanitarian imperatives, including the prevention of starvation and the protection of civilian life. A military can restrict the flow of humanitarian supplies if the enemy is diverting them for its own purposes. And it is also true that civilian populations are routinely moved out of combat zones to reduce harm and ensure more effective delivery of humanitarian assistance.

These are all basic truths of war, well established in both military practice and international law.

But there is another truth that must be acknowledged. One that is rarely said out loud, despite being plain and provable: There is no historical precedent for a military providing the level of direct aid to an enemy population that Israel has provided to Gaza.

This aid has taken place:

Military aid to enemy civilian populations during an active war (credit: John Spencer, SCREENSHOT/X, SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)
Military aid to enemy civilian populations during an active war (credit: John Spencer, SCREENSHOT/X, SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)
While the war is ongoing

While the enemy, Hamas, continues to control territory

And while that enemy is still fighting, launching attacks, and holding hostages

Israel is delivering fuel, food, medicine, and water into territory still under the command of the very group that murdered its civilians on October 7, that continues to fire rockets into Israeli towns, and that openly declares it will repeat those atrocities again and again.

There is no precedent for how this should be done

There is no precedent for this. None.

Throughout history, wars between nations or between governments and insurgent groups have often involved humanitarian disasters. And in most of those wars, the fighting side does not provide relief to the enemy’s population. In World War II, the Allies provided no aid to German or Japanese civilians while those governments were still fighting and in control of their territory. In Vietnam, the United States never delivered humanitarian assistance to North Vietnamese or Viet Cong–held areas. Even during battles against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, U.S.-backed forces facilitated aid only after clearing territory, not while ISIS still held it.

But Israel is doing what no military has done. It is facilitating direct humanitarian aid to the population of a territory governed by a terrorist army that it is still fighting in close-quarters urban combat.

Whether this fact is recognized or not by the international community, it is a historic first.

At the same time, this war has produced another anomaly. One that should deeply trouble anyone who cares about humanitarian norms. There is no historical precedent to a non-warring party with the sole ability to assist, Egypt, not allowing civilians to flee a war zone.

Egypt has refused to open the Rafah border crossing to allow Gazan civilians to escape, even as active combat, food shortages, and humanitarian collapse have worsened. This is not a case of reluctance by a distant country. This is the only nation that borders Gaza besides Israel. It is not a party to the war. And it is not constrained by law, logistics, or inability. It is constrained only by political choice.

In almost every other modern war, neutral countries have opened their borders to civilians seeking safety. Poland did so during the war in Ukraine. Jordan and Turkey took in millions during the Syrian civil war. Tanzania and Congo (then called Zaire) accepted refugees during the Rwandan genocide. Egypt is doing the opposite. It is keeping the gate closed and leaving civilians trapped while the world blames Israel for what happens inside.

This too is without precedent.

It is easy to criticize Israel for the humanitarian costs of its war. It is much harder to hold Hamas accountable for embedding its fighters in schools, hospitals, and civilian neighborhoods. And harder still to acknowledge when a military is doing something not just legal, but extraordinary.

The truth matters. And the truth is that no military in modern history has delivered more aid to an enemy population during active war than the Israel Defense Forces have to Gaza. That fact stands, regardless of whether anyone wants to say it out loud.


John Spencer is the executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute. He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare. Learn more at www.johnspenceronline.com. Substack: https://www.substack.com/@spencerguard 

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-862533

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Trump scores trade deal with EU featuring 15% tariffs, billions in U.S. energy exports - Nicholas Ballasy

 

by Nicholas Ballasy

Trump set a deadline of August 1 for new higher tariffs to be imposed on the European Union

 

President Donald Trump met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday to discuss trade and other issues. 

Trump announced that a trade deal has been reached.

"We are agreeing that the tariff straight-across for automobiles and everything else will be a straight-across tariff of 15%," Trump said.

"They're going to purchase $750 billion worth of energy, so that's going to be great, and $600 billion of investments into the United States over and above what they have," he added.

The deadline of August 1 for new higher tariffs to be imposed on the European Union is fast approaching.

Trump has said the tariff on European imports would be 30% tariff if a trade deal isn't reached.

Trump was on his golf course in Turnberry on Saturday. He will be visiting the Trump Organization's golf course in Aberdeen that is formally opening next month.

The Associated Press reported that Trump and his son Eric will participate in the ribbon-cutting for the new course.

The public tee times are set to start on Aug. 13.


Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/trump-meeting-european-commission-president-tariff-deadline-around-corner

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Hamas's Dream: Turning Palestinians Into a 'Nation of Martyrs' - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Hamad and the Hamas leaders sheltering in Doha and Istanbul should be apologizing to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip... In fact, they should be arrested and put on trial for their crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.

 

  • [Hamas official Ghazi] Hamad made the threat [to carry out more massacres against Israelis... until Israel was annihilated] from Qatar, where he and several other leaders of Hamas have been leading comfortable lives for the past few years.

  • Hamas's leaders do not care if another 50,000 Palestinians are "martyred" in the war they started in 2023. The more bodies pile up, the more they can blame Israel.

  • It is easy for someone well-fed and sitting in a villa or hotel in Doha to talk about the suffering and pain of others in a war far away.

  • Hamad and the Hamas leaders sheltering in Doha and Istanbul should be apologizing to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip... In fact, they should be arrested and put on trial for their crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.

  • Hamas also has no problem lying to Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff, as they have probably already figured out.

  • After months of direct and indirect negotiations with Hamas, Trump and Witkoff have finally understood that Hamas is not acting in good faith and, as Trump put it, "want to die." To be more accurate, it is not Hamas's leaders who want to die. Instead, they want ordinary Palestinians to die so that the leaders can stay in power forever and remain wealthy -- some are, or were, billionaires.

  • Since its establishment in the late 1980s, Hamas has been consistent and clear about its goals: the elimination of Israel through jihad. That is the real reason Hamas has never accepted any peace process with Israel. That is also the real reason Hamas views as traitors those Palestinians who recognize Israel's right to exist and are willing to make peace with Israel.

  • Meanwhile, Hamas's leaders evidently do not mind if dozens of Palestinians are killed and wounded every day, because the international pressure is directed against Israel.

If Hamas leaders really cared about the suffering and pain of their people, they would have released all the hostages, disarmed and relinquished control of the Gaza Strip long ago. Hamas leaders, however, seem determined to turn all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip into a "nation of martyrs." Pictured: Hamad is interviewed on October 24, 2023 on Lebanon's LBC TV. (Image source: MEMRI)

On October 24, 2023, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad threatened that his Iran-backed terror group would carry out more massacres against Israelis -- time and again until Israel was annihilated. Referring to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel that resulted in the murder of more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, Hamad said:

"The Al-Aqsa Flood [the name Hamas uses to describe its October 7 slaughter] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.... Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs."

Hamad, whose group continues to hold captive 50 Israeli hostages (only 20 of whom are believed to be alive) repeated Hamas's call for the elimination of Israel:

"The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears."

Hamad made the threat from Qatar, where he and several other leaders of Hamas have been leading comfortable lives for the past few years. Qatar and Turkey are among the few countries that continue to host and protect the leaders of the Palestinian terror group whose members committed the worst crimes against Jews since the Holocaust. Hamad and other Hamas leaders have no problem boasting about the October 7 massacres and threatening to launch similar attacks against Israel from their villas and hotel suites in Doha and Istanbul. The Hamas leaders feel safe because they know they enjoy the luxurious support of governments far away from the fighting in Gaza.

On July 25, 2025, Hamad gave an interview to an Arab television station from Qatar. This time, however, he sounded different. Asked about the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip because of the war Hamas launched nearly two years ago, Hamad said that his group's primary goal now was to end the war with Israel. "This is a painful and horrific war," he remarked. "We fully understand the pain and suffering of our people in Gaza." Hamad went on to praise the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for their "steadfastness and patience" during the war.

The Hamas leader's recent statements came as Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to complain about death, destruction and lack of food. According to Hamas sources, more than 55,000 Palestinians have died since the beginning of the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Hamad's statements also came shortly after US President Donald J. Trump announced that Hamas does not want to release the Israeli hostages and reach a ceasefire deal.

"I think they [Hamas] want to die, and it's very, very bad," Trump said. "It got to be a point where you're gonna have to finish the job."

Hamad and the Hamas leadership are in no rush to release the hostages or reach a ceasefire agreement with Israel because they would like to see more Palestinians sacrificed as "martyrs." As Hamad said two years ago, "We are called a nation of martyrs."

Hamas's leaders do not care if another 50,000 Palestinians are "martyred" in the war they started in 2023. The more bodies pile up, the more they can blame Israel. Hamas's leaders seem convinced that the international community is on their side. Hamas tells the international community that Israel is killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In response, many in the international community rush to condemn Israel. Buoyed by the condemnations, Hamas then calls on Palestinians to display more "patience and steadfastness" and encourages them to continue sacrificing themselves as "martyrs."

Hamad has the wakkaha (effrontery) to tell the Palestinians who have fallen victim to the death and destruction brought upon them by their October 7 atrocities that Hamas "understands" their pain and suffering. It is easy for someone well-fed and sitting in a villa or hotel in Doha to talk about the suffering and pain of others in a war far away.

Hamad and the Hamas leaders sheltering in Doha and Istanbul should be apologizing to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip instead of praising them for their "patience, resolve and steadfastness." In fact, they should be arrested and put on trial for their crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.

If Hamas leaders really cared about the suffering and pain of their people, they would have released all the hostages, disarmed and relinquished control of the Gaza Strip long ago. Hamas leaders, however, seem determined to turn all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip into a "nation of martyrs." Hamas wants more October 7-style attacks because it wants to see more Palestinians sacrificed as "martyrs" in its jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel.

Hamas leaders are selling illusions to their people that they are winning the war and that it is not impossible to exterminate Israel. They are telling the Palestinians that, thanks to their patience and steadfastness, as well as daily attacks on Israeli troops in Gaza, Israel will soon be defeated.

Hamas also has no problem lying to Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff, as they have probably already figured out.

After months of direct and indirect negotiations with Hamas, Trump and Witkoff have finally understood that Hamas is not acting in good faith and, as Trump put it, "want to die." To be more accurate, it is not Hamas's leaders who want to die. Instead, they want ordinary Palestinians to die so that the leaders can stay in power forever and remain wealthy -- some are, or were, billionaires.

Those who actually know Hamas have always been aware that the terror group never acted in good faith. Hamas's leaders have never hesitated to murder anyone who stands in their way, whether Israelis or Palestinians.

Since its establishment in the late 1980s, Hamas has been consistent and clear about its goals: the elimination of Israel through jihad. That is the real reason Hamas has never accepted any peace process with Israel. That is also the real reason Hamas views as traitors those Palestinians who recognize Israel's right to exist and are willing to make peace with Israel.

The only reason Hamas's leaders might want a ceasefire is to allow their members to rearm and regroup. The leaders want to ensure that after the war with Israel, they will continue to hold onto power in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Hamas's leaders evidently do not mind if dozens of Palestinians are killed and wounded every day, because the international pressure is directed against Israel.

 

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21786/hamas-palestinians-nation

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Deflect, Distract, but Game’s Up! - Clarice Feldman

 

by Clarice Feldman

Tuesday, DNI head Tulsi Gabbard released a report that declassified reams of material gathered by the House Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which detailed how the Obama Administration -- at Obama’s direction -- manufactured the hoax that Trump colluded with Russia to gain the presidency.

 

The great Satchel Paige once said, “Don’t look back -- something may be gaining on you.” Well, I think for Barack Obama and his cohort, something is gaining on them, and so, too, I believe it is happening now for those who engaged with Jeffrey Epstein in his illicit activities. Stuff kept hidden by the wrongdoers in the Obama and Biden administrations is coming to light, and you can expect they will amp up their deflection and distraction moves to keep the focus off what they did. Surely, many people with the concentration span of a few minutes and the critical thinking abilities of a Lego piece will fall for it. You shouldn’t.

Tuesday, DNI head Tulsi Gabbard released a report that declassified reams of material gathered by the House Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which detailed how the Obama Administration -- at Obamas direction -- manufactured the hoax that Trump colluded with Russia to gain the presidency.  I don’t see much coverage of this in the legacy press, but online accounts have summarized the most salient portions in case you aren’t up to reading and analyzing the entire report.

The top distillations I found are by attorney Jeff Childers, Matt Taibbi, and Professor Margot Cleveland.

Matt, who’s been saying for years that Russiagate was a hoax, details how Russiagate was built on bogus, even “ridiculous” information that was contradicted by professionals in the intelligence community whom John Brennan ignored:

It was worse than we thought. 

The January 6, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin “developed a clear preference” for Donald Trump and “aspired to help his chances of victory” is revealed in a report released this morning by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to have been based on four pieces of evidence. One was the Steele Dossier. The surprise is that the other three were even less credible, each included over objections of the report’s CIA authors. 

The first item was a “scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment” of one sentence that the report’s five CIA authors read “five ways” and initially left out, only to have Director John Brennan order it back in. The second item was an email with “no date, no identified sender, no clear recipient, and no classification.” The third was supposedly backed by “liaison,” diplomatic, and press reporting, as well as signals intelligence (SIGINT), except the “SIGINT” didn’t mention Trump, the “liaison reporting” didn’t mention Trump and was from 2014, and the “diplomatic and media” reporting was a post-election review by a U.S. Ambassador citing a Russian pundit who said Putin and Trump should “work together like businessmen.” This was “evidence” that Putin “developed a clear preference” for Trump. 

All three reports weren’t just unsourced and unreliable, but discarded fictions pulled out of the CIA’s trash heap. “They manipulated the manipulations,” is how ODNI Deputy Chief of Staff Alexa Henning put it. 

The Assessment was written by just five CIA analysts hand-picked by Brennan, but even these most favored lieutenants couldn’t accept the key pieces of evidence. Two of the five went to Brennan to say, “We don’t have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected,” only to be overruled. The same thing happened when members of the group objected to the Steele material, saying it didn’t meet even “basic tradecraft standards.” When confronted on this point, Brennan reportedly said, “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?”

According to Margot Cleveland:

Someone asked me my top take-aways: 1) Corruption of creating 3 new reports to back up fake conclusions re Russia; 2) SOOOO much more dirt on Hillary that Russia had (and that we didn't know of) that Putin didn't release; 3) evidence contradicting Putin backing Trump was overwhelming and yet excluded from ICA; 4) Obama-Brennan planned this not just for fake news but for fake Congressional briefings.

The information Russia had on Hillary was this:

"As of September 2016, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service had DNC information that President Obama and Party leaders found the state of Secretary Clinton’s health to be ‘extraordinarily alarming,’ and felt it could have ‘serious negative impact’ on her election prospects," the report states. "Her health information was being kept in ‘strictest secrecy’ and even close advisors were not being fully informed." 

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service also allegedly had DNC communications that showed that "Clinton was suffering from ‘intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.'" 

"Clinton was placed on a daily regimen of ‘heavy tranquilizers’ and while afraid of losing, she remained ‘obsessed with a thirst for power,’" the report states.

The Russians also allegedly had information that Clinton "suffered from ‘Type 2 diabetes, Ischemic heart disease, deep vein thrombosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.’"

The Russians also allegedly possessed a "campaign email discussing a plan approved by Secretary Clinton to link Putin and Russian hackers to candidate Trump in order to ‘distract the American public’ from the Clinton email server scandal."

Here's Childers’ analysis: a day after Gabbard’s presser and document release, the President openly accused former President Obama of Treason. Childers explains this was like Caesar crossing the Rubicon -- there’s no turning back from such a bold, unprecedented action, and then he expresses astonishment at Obama’s weak response:

Barack Obama’s office responded to Trump’s Oval Office treason accusation by calling it… a “distraction.”

Not defamation. Not libel. Not even baseless. Just a distraction.

“Distraction” is a bizarre word to choose when a sitting president has just accused you of the most serious crime in the Constitution, on camera, from the Oval Office, with foreign heads of state watching and evidence allegedly in hand.

Where’s the angry denial? The threats of legal action? The righteous fury? You’d expect Obama’s office -- following Trump’s example, a perfect setup -- to unload both barrels, to drop the full weight of prestige, moral clarity, and legal firepower. But nope. Instead, we got Obama spokesweasel Patrick Rodenbush blinking in the sunlight and muttering something about a distraction.

How oddly underwhelming.

And… what about the media? In a normal political reality, this would be a constitutional earthquake. Instead, corporate media is treating the story like an unflattering wardrobe malfunction -- awkward, barely publishable, and not worth looking at too closely.

Trump accused a former U.S. president of treason -- a capital offense -- and they went with Obama’s distraction. They even headlined it. Where are the emergency panels? Where are the breathless editorials about Trump’s Hitler-like authoritarianism?

Where are the calls for Trump to be impeached for abuse of authority? Why aren’t they opportuning this to wind up a whole new scandal cycle?

The material Gabbard released shows how confident the plotters were that they could keep this all secret -- the report is full of emails -- leaving an irrefutable and very damaging paper trail.

A name you know -- I won't say who -- many years ago advised that whenever you need to discuss something important that could be misconstrued by people out to get you, always do it over the phone. Never, they told me, put it in an email or a text message. They warned me never to put anything sensitive in writing -- no emails, no texts. Paper trails get people burned. And if what you’re discussing wouldn’t need to be twisted to land you in hot water? All the more reason to keep it off the record.

Heh. 

Going a bit further, anybody who's ever watched a mobster movie knows that even over the phone, it's best to speak in code.

So what to make of high-ranking Democrats emailing one another about Hillary's daily regimen of "heavy tranquilizers," former Obama intel chiefs discussing how to bolster the Biden campaign, or Obama Himself ordering the intel community to alter its Russiagate findings to hamstring the incoming Trump administration?

I'm not 100% certain what to make of it, but Gabbard releasing the paper trail for all to see is just as revealing about Deep State hubris as it is about their schemes and methods.

The conclusion I'm forced to draw -- keeping in mind that this is purely speculative -- is this.

The Swamp failed to keep Trump from winning the White House in 2016. They redoubled their efforts to tilt the playing field in 2020 and 2024 -- and never expected, due to Trump's first-term failure to drain the Swamp, that they'd get caught.

But Trump 2.0 the DGAF Edition isn't messing around.

Gabbard is doing the difficult and risky work that Trump just didn't have the right people in place to do during his first term.

If the Democrats thought they could deflect and distract by promoting another lie -- that Trump was somehow involved with Jeffrey Epstein’s wrongdoings and was hiding his involvement -- that’s not going to work either. The grand jury testimony that led to Epstein’s conviction is under seal by the judge who heard the case, and that same judge denied Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s request to release it. But, wait -- look what’s coming down the pike!! The first (and very lengthy) interview of Ghislaine Maxwell by a federal official, and here’s why that’s something that’ll be gaining on a lot of people.

After years of Biden Administration stonewalling (and file padding), Ghislaine Maxwell got a two-day DOJ interview. [snip] They sent Trump’s former personal defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General -- the DOJ’s second in command.

Comparing it to a deposition, two days of DOJ interviews requires at least four days of prep time. In other words, DOJ’s number two cleared his calendar for this. It wasn’t an interview; it was a mission.

Democrats, who ten minutes ago were pounding podiums demanding full transparency of the carefully curated Biden FBI files, were shocked to discover that Trump has another untainted source of information -- Ghislaine Maxwell, chilling in a Florida prison like a long-forgotten, sealed box in the bottom of the evidence locker.

Now Democrats are suddenly sweating like an OnlyFans producer in church.

“The Blanche-Maxwell discussion,” the Times soberly reported, “has stoked concerns from critics of Mr. Trump that he may grant Ms. Maxwell a reprieve.” (Unnamed critics, of course.)

 🔥 Ghislaine is unspoiled evidence. Astonishingly, no one had ever bothered interviewing her before. Not during the original Epstein investigation, not during her trial, not during five years of media blackout, strategic amnesia, and hot-potato footwork with the Epstein client list. And now, after she spilled the tea for ten hours over two days to Trump’s former lawyer turned top DOJ official, suddenly it’s a constitutional crisis.

Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, said DOJ officials had “asked about every possible thing imaginable.” Todd Blanche asked Maxwell about over 100 named individuals, and she dished the dirt. Markus said his client “answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half.” Uh oh.

It was the most hilariously ironic twist yet. Late yesterday, reporters (obviously primed by someone) demanded to know whether Trump would pardon Maxwell in exchange for her testimony. President Trump, classically noncommital, replied, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.”

🔥 Democrats are losing their minds. Senate minority leader Chuck “Chuckie” Schumer wildly speculated it was “some kind of a corrupt deal so that she can exonerate Donald Trump [snip]

So let’s add this up. First, Democrats demand full transparency. Then, as soon as Trump sends DOJ’s second-in-command to find the facts, they started rioting like caged rhesus monkeys who just found out the banana shipment got rerouted to El Paso and incinerated. A pardon would be a travesty of justice!

Reporters sure have short memories. What about Biden’s pardons? That was what, less than 12 months ago? [snip] 

🔥 Apart from Epstein himself -- who is currently unavailable due to an unfortunate mishap of being suicided in a poorly run, high-security federal facility in New York -- there is no better witness on Earth than Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell might even be better than Epstein.

As Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown has said many times, man-baby Epstein never did anything for himself. No. Maxwell did it for him.

Epstein was the front of the house. Maxwell was the kitchen, the accounting department, and the security system. She holds the map, the manifest, and --most importantly -- the motive. This is exactly why the political class is panicking. Because it wasn’t just an airy, high-level interview. This was an authorized data download from the last living hard drive, carefully preserved in a Florida (not New York) prison.

As to why the Democrats are frantically waving the pardon issue, Childers nails it:

They’re desperately trying to discredit Ghislaine Maxwell before her testimony surfaces. It’s narrative preemption -- classic information warfare. If she names someone inconvenient, say, Chuck Schumer, the response is already baked into the narrative custard: She only said that to get herself out of prison!

But it won’t work. The reason will become clear in a couple more paragraphs.

The FBI’s years-long non-investigation of Epstein is backfiring spectacularly. In a sane world, by now Maxwell would have sat for thousands of hours of interviews, if only to get herself out of ‘the hole’ and be assigned to laundry duty.

The Times insinuated (not very subtly) that Trump is dangling a pardon to get Maxwell to clear his name. But… what is he supposed to do? Not question the best living witness? And as recently as yesterday’s edition, the Times demanded all the Epstein evidence come out.

Seriously, you just can’t please these people.

🔥 They thought they had Trump right where they wanted him, dead to rights, with a compromised FBI file. But one news cycle later, the press, the Democrats, and the entire institutional ecosystem are flailing like they just realized the ground they’ve been standing on might be made of quicksand.

For over a decade, Obama and Biden controlled the White House and managed a compliant press. They repeatedly used their powers in office to try to destroy Trump. They nearly succeeded when they advanced defamatory claims about him and Russia. But for such an outrage, they had to rely on using corrupt officials so stupid that they left a paper trail of their perfidious conduct. For years, evidence of this conduct that a House Committee uncovered was forcibly bottled up by the same malefactors. Now the evidence is out in the open. Trying to distract attention from this, they then implied a nonexistent Trump-Epstein connection to rape and other criminality by accusing the administration of lacking transparency on Epstein. But what prior administrations hid or refused to examine is in the process of being revealed. The Democrats asked for transparency, and they’re going to get it good and hard. Some things are gaining on them. 


Clarice Feldman

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/07/deflect_distract_but_game_s_up.html

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The Graveyard of Progressive Misadventures - Victor Davis Hanson

 

by Victor Davis Hanson

Progressive overreach alienated the middle class, replacing working-class roots with elite dogmas—and now the Democrats are reaping the whirlwind they sowed.

 

 

Sometime after the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the American Left began exploring, then embracing, and finally enacting agendas that proved not only unhinged and unworkable but also fatal to the left-wing project itself.

How did the party so alienate the middle classes when it once professed it was the sole party and protector of those in-between? How did the Democratic Congress sink to a 16 percent approval rating in a current liberal Quinnipiac University poll? How could 63 percent of registered voters view the Democrats unfavorably in a recent Wall Street Journal poll?

In sum: despise the middle class, then lose elections.

At the turn of the millennium, globalization generated massive wealth by opening a 6-billion-person consumer market to the rising global powers of Silicon Valley, media, academia, law, finance, and transnational corporations. The result was a Democrat Party increasingly dominated by a new and different sort of “committed” left-wing billionaire.

The Democrat Party, by the turn of the century, had become a home for the ultra-rich, the upscale professional classes, and the subsidized poor. And its new initiatives reflected the values, ideas—and pretensions—of the globalized bicoastal elites, from reimagining a sustainable green economy to “diversity” and apologetics for America’s culpability abroad.

In the ancient days of the 1990s, Bill Clinton ensured that the Democrat party was for strong borders, legal-only immigration, and protection of union jobs from cheap imported labor. Abortion was to be safe, legal—and “rare.” Now, abortion is often praised and worshipped by the left, as if it is integral to saving a warming planet.

Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 Democrat Party platforms would have been written off as racist and xenophobic.

Once illegal immigration began spiking under Obama, and the old union lunch bucket classes were nearly rendered inert by globalization, the mainstream party began pivoting to open borders.

It assumed that impoverished illegal aliens would soon become new progressive constituents to replace vanishing American working-class voters. “Demography is Destiny” and “The New Democratic Majority” became party mantras.

By 2020, the party was controlled by open-borders radicals. Illegal immigration was seen as an adjunct to new Diversity/Equity/Inclusion obsessions. Suddenly, an entire array of racialist compound nouns appeared—white privilege, white rage, white guilt, white supremacy—without any consideration that whites, in total numbers, comprise the largest group of poor people, or that poor white people usually have zero in common with elite white progressives.

In the Democrat bizarro world, the operating assumption seemed to be that if an illegal alien from southern Mexico set foot into the U.S., then he was immediately branded as a “minority” with legitimate grievances deserving of reparatory treatment from a country he scarcely knew and with which he had no prior experience, good or bad. It became so moral to break the law to welcome in illegal aliens and amoral to enforce the law and try to return the unlawful to their homes.

In response, colleges began granting reduced tuition to foreign nationals unlawfully residing in-state, while charging out-of-state American citizens the full costs.

Joe Biden’s open borders that had allowed somewhere from 10–12 million illegal entries were the final manifestations of the Democrat embrace of illegal immigration, as the foreign-born residing in the U.S. reached all-time highs, both in real numbers and percentages of the population. It was a suicidal party transformation—offending the middle classes and alienating minority Democrats who were left to cope in underserved communities with vast influxes of foreign nationals, half of whom originated outside of Mexico.

The Democrat Party had always claimed credit for landmark civil rights legislation that had morphed into affirmative action. And under Obama, it went further into equality-of-result “diversity/equity/inclusion.”

But in the process, the original paradigm of affirmative action—reparatory treatment for black Americans dealing with the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and what was increasingly now called “systemic racism”—devolved into claiming all who were not so-called “white” or “male” merited racial, ethnic, or gender-based preferences in hiring, promotions, and admissions. Caricature followed as the antebellum racist 1/16 one-drop rule returned, and fakers like Elizabeth Warren gamed the admittedly corrupt system.

The old relationship between class and race was forgotten. DEI quickly became an albatross around the New Democrat Party’s neck when the richest ethnic group in America, Indian-Americans (such as Zohran Mamdani, the “African-American” college applicant), professional women, upscale gays, and the transgendered were seen as making up the new victimized majority who had suffered from the victimizing minority of white males (many of whom were poor).

In short, under Democrat auspices, there were now too few victimizers for the increasing array of victims. Affirmative action had sunk into an absurd tribal caricature of civil rights that was not logical, fair, or popular. Certainly, the entire binary idea of Marxist oppressed versus oppressors was unworkable in a multiracial democracy.

Stranger still, as an offshoot of DEI, the left transformed the ancient recognition of gender dysphoria (a rare biological condition by traditional medical accounts affecting about .1% of the population) into the new civil rights cause célèbre. For the elites, the trans cause emerged as the unquestioned successor to civil rights, women’s lib, and gay marriage—as if to assume in Soviet style, “Give me a new liberal crusade, and then I’ll find an oppressed group.”

On some campuses, ten to twenty percent of students claim they were open to “transitioning.”

But what followed was incoherent. The transgendered were to be defined as no different from their adopted biological kindred sex. Indeed, transgendered biological males began competing in women’s sports, though transgendered biological women rarely competed in men’s athletics.

Biological men began undressing in female locker rooms, as students and professors began listing their “preferred pronouns.” Few cared that the trans sports movement was antithetical to the landmark efforts of women to attain sports parity. It was transphobic to object to sexually explicit transgender burlesque among audiences of teens and children. Polls showed that 70-80 percent of respondents disapproved of biological men competing in women’s sports and drag shows with underage audiences.

Bill Clinton had also once campaigned on “100,000” new police officers and tough sentences for violent juvenile offenders. But as liberals morphed into progressives and wokesters, crackpot “critical legal theory” and “critical race theory” began to dominate left-wing criminology.

In big blue cities, crime itself was suddenly defined as socially constructed: it was illegal to shoplift sneakers or candy bars only because rich white men did not need to steal either, and therefore shoplifting itself was not really a crime.

Career criminals must not be indicted, convicted, and imprisoned for their most recent violent crimes, given that a violent, racist, and systemically unfair society itself was culpable for making them violent and career criminals in the first place.

One result was a crime wave that hit major blue cities—exacerbated by the COVID lockdowns, the death of George Floyd and the subsequent four-month-long 2020 riots. “Defund the police” became a Democratic mantra—at least until it threatened to wreck the party and alienate the minority base itself.

Democrats used to talk about “ecology” and “conservation” and were noted for “recycling,” saving “endangered species,” spearheading “anti-pollution efforts,” and ensuring “open spaces.” Yet from the Obama era to the end of the Biden administration, all that prior stewardship was seen as little more than boring, so-so half measures.

Instead, civilization itself was now said to be near extinction, requiring Draconian measures from on high to save the planet.

So global warming morphed into “climate change,” as pollution was redefined not as noxious fumes but as heat itself and the release of natural carbon dioxide. And “climate change” demanded that the middle classes would have to curb their appetites, transition to costly wind and solar “renewables,” and forgo the formerly bountiful and cheap power from natural gas, nuclear, and coal generation.

Stranger still, the elite architects of “fundamentally transforming” society were themselves exempt. It was as if their big SUVs, private jets, 5,000-square-foot homes, heated pools, and air-conditioned estates were necessary accoutrements enabling our left-wing elite to hammer out a new era of “limits” for everyone else. The high-flying multimillionaire Al Gore and billionaire John Kerry, along with the usual Hollywood celebrities and nepo babies, needed the old perks of affluence in order to better reduce affluence for everyone else. As a general rule, the most iconic pontificators about rising oceans and a sizzling planet were the most likely to own a seafront estate or an air-conditioned mansion.

Universities were always bastions of liberal ideology. But now they also went with the new hard-left trend and became not protectors of free speech, not refuges for oddball, unpopular, and eccentric thinkers, and not custodians of age-old scholarship, the teaching of the Western canon, and disinterested science. Instead, life was too short in the woke mind to waste such a valuable progressive asset on real research and apolitical instruction.

So rather abruptly, universities became extensions of the new progressive Democrat woke project. Civil rights legislation and eventual Supreme Court decisions were simply ignored as race and gender now defined the identities of students, staff, and faculty. SATs and comparative ranking of high school GPAs were deemed inherently racist and unfair.

“Theme houses” became little more than racially segregated dorms. “Affinity” graduations were unapologetically racially separated.

Israel was no longer a liberal Democrat’s admirable oasis in a sea of Middle East autocracy, terrorism, and religious fundamentalism, but became a “settler colonialist” oppressor. Jews on campus were harassed with impunity and became inseparable from demonized “Zionists,” who themselves were no longer immigrant generations escaping the trauma of the Holocaust to the biblical land of the Jews but Western colonial interlopers and oppressors.

Palestinian terrorists were “freedom fighters.” Foreign students were no longer rare on American elite campuses, where once meritocracy had made room for thousands of rural and small-town high schoolers to enroll in bicoastal elite colleges.

Instead, one million strong foreign students—mostly left-wing and the majority from illiberal regimes, like Communist China and Middle East autocracies—often made up 20-30 percent of top college enrollments, given they were gouged by campuses to pay 110 percent of costs. Some often spearheaded pro-Hamas demonstrations and changed the campus dynamics of protests.

For the new Democrats, the evolving university, like the new media and new corporate boardroom, was seen as an invaluable extension of the party itself, even as their new and woke explicit biases polled terribly and offended the majority of still-silent Americans. It is no surprise that in current polls, the Ivy League now polls as dismally as the media, and its graduates seem to be less impressive to employers year by year.

So, these same Jacobin transformations infected foundations, the media, and corporations, rendering them deeply unpopular embarrassments rather than enablers of the Democrat Party.

In sum, almost every new issue the new Democrat Party embraced proved an anathema to the middle class. Yet the party seemed almost uniquely prescient in foreseeing that progressive policies would bankrupt the country, hopelessly divide it, and leave it unworkable. Being talked down to by neurotic and dysfunctional elites only made the messengers force multipliers of their toxic messages.

If the Democrats were not addicted to woke, they would relegate all these suicidal policies to their graveyard of political misadventures, alongside the failed visions of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

But like all addicts, they can survive neither with nor without their fixes.

 

Victor Davis Hanson

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-862519

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Trump: We know where some hostages are, some of them will die if we go in - Jerusalem Post Staff, Reuters

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff, Reuters

Starmer said Hamas can play no part in any future government of a Palestinian state, as he discussed the need for a ceasefire in Gaza with Trump during a meeting in Scotland.

 

US President Donald Trump speaks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland.
US President Donald Trump speaks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland.
(photo credit: CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/POOL VIA REUTERS)

 

US President Donald Trump on Monday said he disagreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "that there is no hunger in Gaza because they look very hungry."

Trump, speaking to reporters at his golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, as he welcomed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said people in Gaza needed to get food and safety right now, and he would discuss the situation with Starmer.

"There are people who are hungry in Gaza - we are helping them, but other countries need to help as well," he continued.

JPost Videos

Trump also mentioned that the fight in Gaza against the Hamas terrorist group would need to be different after talks on a ceasefire and hostage release fell apart last week.

Starmer said Hamas can play no part in any future government of a Palestinian state, as the US president added that Hamas had become difficult to deal with in recent days, but he was talking with Netanyahu about "various plans" to free hostages still held in Gaza.

"We know where the hostages are in some cases, we don't want to go to those exact areas because that means the hostages will be killed," Trump said.

US President Donald Trump meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (not pictured), in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 27, 2025 (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)
US President Donald Trump meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (not pictured), in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 27, 2025 (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)
Regarding Iran, Trump said that the country has been sending out "nasty signals" and any effort to restart its nuclear program will be immediately squashed.

"They've been sending very bad signals, very nasty signals. And they shouldn't be doing that. .. We wiped out their nuclear possibilities. They can start again. If they do, we'll wipe it out faster than you can wave your finger at it," he said.

Pressure from US over Gaza aid

Israeli officials have been under increasing pressure from major allies in Washington in recent days to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, two sources told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“Help us help you,” members of the US Congress and Senate reportedly urged Israeli officials. “We don’t believe the claims of widespread famine in Gaza, but you must take concrete steps to allow aid in.”

The message came from both senior Republican lawmakers in Congress and officials in the White House, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Trump weighed in on the issue, saying, “It’s terrible to see the children, especially in recent weeks. People are stealing food, stealing money, stealing money meant for food. It’s a mess, the whole place is a mess. Gaza.”

Amichai Stein contributed to this report.

This is a developing story.


Jerusalem Post Staff, Reuters

Source: https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-862495

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Gaza ‘starvation’ poster child has genetic condition, left Strip with Israel’s help - JNS Staff

 

by JNS Staff

"Osama suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war," stated the Defense Ministry's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit.

 

Palestinians receive meals distributed by charities in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, Dec. 22, 2024. Photo by Ali Hassan/Flash90.
Palestinians receive meals distributed by charities in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, Dec. 22, 2024. Photo by Ali Hassan/Flash90.

 

A Gaza boy who became the poster child for the alleged famine caused by the war in the Strip suffers from a genetic illness and was evacuated for treatment last month, the Israeli Defense Ministry said on Monday.

A picture of Osama al-Rakab, 5, was “used to falsely depict Israel as responsible for his condition, claiming Israel is starving children,” including in Italian media and on Al Jazeera, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit stated.

“Osama suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war. On June 12, we actively coordinated Osama’s exit from Gaza with his mother and brother through the Ramon airport,” stated COGAT.

The boy is currently being treated in an Italian hospital, it continued.

“Tragic images rightfully stir strong emotions, but when they’re misused to fuel hatred and lies, they do more harm than good,” said COGAT. “Don’t let compassion be exploited for propaganda.

“Check the facts before parroting blame,” the Defense Ministry unit stated, attaching a picture showing Osama in a hospital gown in Italy.

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday morning announced a series of humanitarian measures aimed at refuting “the false claim of deliberate starvation” in Gaza, including “tactical pauses” in the war on Hamas.

While emphasizing that “combat operations have not ceased” across the Strip, the IDF said pauses in military activities would be instituted in Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City “every day until further notice.”

The decision to cease fighting in those areas between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. was coordinated with United Nations officials and other international organizations “following discussions regarding the matter,” it stated.

Humanitarian corridors will be established to enable the movement of U.N. convoys delivering food and medicine to Gazans. The secure aid routes will remain in place permanently between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.

The IDF added that it was prepared to expand the scale of its humanitarian response in the coastal enclave “as required.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told NBC‘s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that since the war started, Jerusalem has supplied over 94,000 truckloads of food, “enough to feed two million people for two years.”

“But Hamas has stolen the food,” Johnson continued. “In fact, in 2024, the numbers are that Hamas profited over $500 million in stolen food aid that was supposed to go to these poor people who needed it.”

Calling the ongoing United Nations-led aid efforts in the Strip a “broken system,” the politician noted the IDF will be “opening new channels of distribution to get it to those people who are desperately in need—that’s Israel’s intention and that is the U.S.’s intention and the U.N. as well.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a gathering of evangelical Christians in Jerusalem on Sunday that “there is no starvation in Gaza … and I assure you that we have a commitment to achieve our war goals.

“We will continue to fight till we achieve the release of our hostages and the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. They shall be there no more.”


JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/gaza-starvation-poster-child-has-genetic-condition-left-strip-with-israels-help/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Armed Marine veteran stops Michigan Walmart stabbing suspect - Stephen Sorace

 

by Stephen Sorace

Derrick Perry held knife-wielding man at gunpoint without firing a shot until authorities arrived



 

An armed bystander was seen on video heroically stopping a knife-wielding man who authorities say stabbed 11 people at a Walmart in Michigan on Saturday.

The man, identified by family as Derrick Perry, is seen in the video pointing a firearm at the suspect in the store’s parking lot in Traverse City as he and other bystanders shout "drop the knife!" Perry is a Marine veteran, the New York Post reported, citing his family.

"What they did was amazing," Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea told reporters during a media briefing on Sunday.

Perry and the other bystanders ended the suspect’s rampage without firing a shot and held him until authorities arrived to take the man into custody without injury. 

SUSPECT ARRESTED IN HORRIFIC NYC RUSH-HOUR SUBWAY STABBING THAT INJURED 2

Derrick Perry

Derrick Perry was identified by family as the armed man who helped detain a knife-wielding suspect who authorities say stabbed 11 people at a Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan, on Saturday, July 26, 2025. (Facebook/Katrina Derrick Perry )

"First of all, I commend them. It's not very often that we have citizens that are willing to step up and take action, and I ask that we grant them the privacy that they need right now," the sheriff said. "If they choose to make a public statement, they will. But I would ask that we all just give them a little space and say, attaboy."

The suspect, identified as 42-year-old Bradford James Gille, of Afton, Mich., acted alone when he entered the store wielding a folding knife with a 3.5-inch blade, the sheriff said. He faces terrorism charges and 11 charges of assault with intent to murder.

bradford-gille

Bradford James Gille, 42, of Afton, Michigan, is accused of committing a mass stabbing attack at a Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan on July 26, 2025. (Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Office)

The 11 victims, ranging in age from 29 to 84-years-old, were all expected to survive, Munson Healthcare officials said. One patient has been released while five were listed in fair condition, two in good condition, one in serious condition and two others were treated and transferred as of Monday morning.

Michigan Knife

The Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Office shared an image of the knife Bradford James Gille, 42, of Afton, Michigan, allegedly used while committing  a mass stabbing attack at a Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan on July 26, 2025. (Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Office)

The Overheard in Traverse City Facebook group wrote a post recognizing the brave actions of Perry.

"This is Derrick Perry!" read the post. "He is the hero from today’s stabbing at Walmart, he is the man that took his gun out and risked his own life to save many lives! Thank you so much Derrick."

ARMED GUNMAN SHOT DEAD AFTER OPENING FIRE AT SUNDAY CHURCH SERVICE

Perry’s daughter replied to the post, describing her father’s heroic life-saving actions as a "proud daughter moment." His daughter-in-law wrote in a separate post that Perry is a "true hero."

law enforcement officers responding outside Walmart

This image provided by Steven Carter shows law enforcement officers responding to a stabbing attack at a Walmart in Traverse City, Mich, Saturday July 26, 2025. (Steven Carter via AP)

The National Association for Gun Rights called Perry a "good guy with a gun" whose courage "deserves recognition" in a post on X.

Meanwhile, authorities have said that the motive for the stabbing remains unknown.

 

Stephen Sorace

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/armed-marine-veteran-stops-michigan-walmart-stabbing-suspect

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Trump 'disappointed' in Putin, says he'll reduce 50-day deadline - Caitlin McFall

 

by Caitlin McFall

President Donald Trump issues new deadline to Russian President Vladimir Putin 10-12 days from Monday



 

 

President Donald Trump on Monday said he was "very disappointed" in Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he will "reduce" the original 50-day deadline he set earlier this month to 10–12 days from today. 

"I’m going to make a new deadline, of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today," Trump told reporters from Scotland. "There’s no reason for waiting. It was 50 days. I wanted to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made."

Trump originally set a 50-day deadline for Putin to reach a peace deal on July 14 while meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Washington, D.C. However, by moving up the deadline to 12-days from Monday, he cut the overall end date in half. 

Trump meets with Starmer and his wife in Scotland

President Donald Trump, center, meets with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, and his wife Victoria Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on Monday, July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

TRUMP MEETS WITH UK PRIME MINISTER STARMER ON HEELS OF EU TRADE DEAL

"I'm not so interested in talking anymore," Trump told reporters while sitting next to British Prime Minister Kier Starmer after he said Moscow and Washington "might make a deal" ahead of the secondary sanctions set to be implemented now in less than two weeks.

 "He talks – we have such nice conversations, such respectful and nice conversation. And then, people die the following night," Trump added on Monday.

Trump told reporters earlier in the day that he was "very disappointed" in Putin

"So we're going to have to look, and I'm going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number, because I think I already know the answer."

Trump’s comments came just hours after Russia unleashed more than 300 drones and missiles across Ukraine, prompting not only Kyiv to scramble its air force, but Poland’s Operational Command said it too had deployed fighter jets to the sky.

 "I would have said five times we would have had a deal. I've spoken to President Putin a lot," Trump told reporters, echoing his previous frustration that speaking with Putin has yielded little to no results. "But we've had discussions…we thought we had that settled numerous times. 

"And then President Putin goes out and such, launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street," Trump continued. "And I say, that's not the way to do it. So we'll see what happens."

No deaths have yet been confirmed from the early morning strikes that hit the capital city of Kyiv, wounding at least five, including a 2-year-old girl. The other strikes targeted the Khmelnytskyi region to the west of Kyiv and the Kirovohrad region to the south of Kyiv. 

A Russian airstrike hits a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine.

A police officer at the site of a Russian air strike which hit a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FROM TALK TO TACTICS: TRUMP PIVOTS ON RUSSIA STRATEGY TO END WAR

Additional casualties have not been reported. 

The Ukrainian air force reported on Monday that 324 Shahed-type attack and decoy drones were fired along with four Kh-101 cruise missiles and three Kh-47M2 Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles.

Ukraine’s air defense systems reportedly shot down 309 UAVs and two Kh-101 cruise missiles.

Two of the cruise missiles and 15 drones hit targets in three locations, while three of the Kinzhal missiles apparently failed to reach their intended targets.

Ukraine military

Ukrainian servicemen of the 21st Separate Mechanized Brigade fire a Leopard 2A6 tank during a military exercise, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near a front line in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on May 12, 2024. (REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/ File Photo)

"Our unmanned defenses delivered strong results against ‘Shaheds’ – dozens of Russian drones were shot down. Several missiles were also intercepted overnight," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a message on X. "Unfortunately, not all of them – there were also hits. 

"But we are constantly strengthening Ukraine’s air shield, and it is vital to maintain clear understanding among partners of how exactly they can help," he added. "Step by step, we are closing the funding gap for drone production, and I will be holding new talks with partners on this task later this week."

 

Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/trump-disappointed-putin-says-hell-reduce-50-day-deadline

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter