TV News LIES

Nearly two years after launching the surprise attack that sparked the war with Israel, Hamas finds itself up against a wall.

Its fighting force has been pummeled by Israel, its charismatic leadership has been all but assassinated and its ceasefire negotiators face unprecedented pressure from Arab governments to give up its weapons and its rule.

"Hamas is facing its worst crisis yet," said Esmat Mansour, a West Bank-based Palestinian political commentator and former militant, who is in touch with figures close to Hamas. "Hamas faces pressures from all directions: from Israel, from the street, from the West and from Arab countries."

The most immediate pressure comes from Israel's latest threat: to besiege Gaza City, after displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the city, and sending soldiers inside to fight in what Israel considers to be one of Hamas' last major strongholds.

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With both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war preparing for further fighting, Ukraine was test-launching a new long-range cruise missile, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine’s president announced the huge missile, known as Flamingo, could strike targets as far as 3,000km (1,864 miles) away. “The missile has undergone successful tests. It is currently our most successful missile,” Zelenskyy told reporters. Mass production could begin by February, he added.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that large Russian attacks in various parts of Ukraine showed Moscow was avoiding negotiations about ending the more than three-year-old war. The latest offensive included 574 drones and 40 missiles, said Ukraine’s president, and was one of the largest yet.

A missile strike on the US-owned electronics firm Flex in Ukraine’s far-west Zakarpattia region was a “telling” indicator of Russian intentions in peace initiatives led by Donald Trump, Zelenskyy said. “Now the signals from Russia are simply, to be honest, indecent. They are trying to back away from the need to hold meetings. They don’t want to end the war. They carry on with massive strikes.”

“We believe [the Flex attack] was a deliberate strike precisely on US property here in Ukraine, on American investment,” Zelenskyy said. “A very telling strike … at the very time when the world waits for a clear answer from the Russians on their move in talks to bring an end to the war.” Nineteen people were injured in the attack. Zelenskyy said both sides were preparing for further fighting, citing Russian troop build-ups and Ukraine’s own preparations including the Flamingo missile rollout.

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The Israeli military says it has begun the "preliminary actions" of a planned ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City and already has a hold on its outskirts.

A military spokesman said troops were already operating in the Zeitoun and Jabalia areas to lay the groundwork for the offensive, which Defence Minister Israel Katz approved on Tuesday and which will be put to the security cabinet later this week.

About 60,000 reservists are being called up for the beginning of September to free up active-duty personnel for the operation.

Hamas has accused Israel of obstructing a ceasefire deal in favour of continuing a "brutal war against innocent civilians", Reuters news agency reported.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City are expected to be ordered to evacuate and head to shelters in southern Gaza as preparations for Israel's takeover plan get under way.

Many of Israel's allies have condemned its plan, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning on Wednesday that it "can only lead to disaster for both peoples and risks plunging the entire region into a cycle of permanent war".

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Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans has said his country is sending 300 troops and Patriot air defence missile systems to Poland to “defend NATO territory, protect supply to Ukraine, and deter Russian aggression”.

The Netherlands’ announcement on Wednesday came as Polish officials said that an object that fell in a cornfield in Poland’s east on Tuesday night may have been a Russian version of the Shahed drone.

The explosion from the drone broke windows in several houses in the village of Osiny, near Poland’s border with Ukraine, but no injuries were reported, according to an official cited by Poland’s state news agency PAP.

Brekelmans told Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Wednesday that the military support to Poland came alongside other countries providing similar assistance to the NATO-member country, which borders Ukraine.

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Australia lashes Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu after he said the country’s prime minister was weak, with a top minister saying strength is more than “how many people you can blow up.”

For decades Australia has considered itself a close friend of Israel, but the relationship has swiftly unravelled since Canberra announced last week it would recognize a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu drastically escalated a war of words on Tuesday night, calling his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese a “weak politician who betrayed Israel.

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As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.

As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.

Russia has rejected demands for the children to be returned, with an official accusing Ukraine of “staging a show on the topic of lost children” during ceasefire talks in Turkey this month.

Speaking to the Guardian, one mother has described her own dramatic rescue of her two teenage sons who were held in a camp in Russia for almost six months.

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