TV News LIES

The Biden administration unleashed a torrent of criticism against Israel’s polarizing finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, on Friday after he referred to cease-fire negotiations with Hamas as a “dangerous trap.”

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said a lengthy statement posted by Smotrich to the social platform X made “ridiculous charges” regarding his opposition to a cease-fire deal to end the fighting in Gaza.

“Some critics, like Mr. Smotrich, for example, have claimed that the hostage deal is a surrender to Hamas or that hostages should not be exchanged for prisoners. Mr. Smotrich essentially suggests that the war ought to go on indefinitely without pause and with the lives of the hostages of no real concern at all,” Kirby said.

An Israeli airstrike hit two schools in Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 30 people, Palestinian officials said, while the Israeli military said it struck a Hamas military compound embedded in the schools.

Hamas' top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed Wednesday in an apparent assassination at his residence in Tehran, drawing reprisal pledges from the militant group and Iran and fueling deeper concern that Israel's war in Gaza could rapidly expand across the Middle East.

Haniyeh and his bodyguard were killed after attending an inauguration ceremony for the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced.

Hamas and Iran immediately blamed Israel, which has pledged to take down Hamas leaders responsible for the Oct. 7 attack that left almost 1,200 people dead and about 250 taken hostage.

Speaking to the nation in Hebrew, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not address Haniyeh's death but said, according to a translation: "We are not going to be silent. We'll make everyone pay the price, everyone that murders us, anyone that takes our children.''

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At least 30 people have been killed and over 100 injured in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Deir-al Balah, central Gaza, where thousands were sheltering, Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli military said it had launched the strike in order to destroy a Hamas command and control center inside the compound.

Most of the victimFootage filmed by CNN inside the hospital morgue showed dead bodies on the floor and people coming in to identify their loved ones, with children among the deceased.

The emergency room is seen to be overwhelmed by casualties and has no more space for patients. One young man was seen receiving medical treatment on the floor.

Most of those brought to the hospital with injuries are children, including one young boy who was receiving treatment and soon after died with the word “unidentified” written on his stomach.

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• More than 180,000 Palestinians have fled fierce fighting around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis in four days, the United Nations says, after an Israeli operation to extract captives’ bodies from the area.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited former United States President Donald Trump for talks in Florida as Trump denied there were tensions between the pair.

• Clashes have taken place in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank between the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian fighters during an attempt to arrest Mohammed Jaber, a commander of an armed group who is wanted by the Israeli military.

• At least 39,175 people have been killed and 90,403 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 is estimated at 1,139 with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.

Ukraine has struck a deal with international bondholders to restructure about $20bn of debt, boosting Kyiv’s drive to use private capital to finance its war effort against Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government said on Monday that it won support from investors to reduce the face value of the debt by more than a third, paving the way for a formal restructuring in the coming weeks.

The agreement will replace a two-year moratorium on bond payments that was granted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but was due to expire next month.

Ukraine sought debt relief as part of its conditions for continuing bailout loans from the IMF, which said it had endorsed Monday’s deal alongside backing from the US, UK and other allies that are financing Kyiv’s war effort.

Ukraine finalised terms last week during talks with a committee of bondholders, as well as other investors, which together own about a quarter of the debt.

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