TV News LIES

Ramiz Alakbarov briefed on conditions in the battered enclave and the occupied West Bank, before touching on developments in Lebanon and Syria.

“Today we meet at a moment of renewed hope,” he said, speaking from Jerusalem. 

“While progress on the ground is fragile and deep uncertainty persists, we must seize the opportunity before us to chart a better future for Palestinians, Israelis and the wider region.”

Last month, Israel and Hamas reached agreement on the first phase of a ceasefire and hostage release following a plan put forward by United States President Donald Trump.  

However, recent Israeli airstrikes on populated areas have caused numerous casualties and destruction, while Palestinian militant attacks on Israeli soldiers have resulted in fatalities.

“This violence is jeopardizing the fragile ceasefire,” Mr. Alakbarov said, urging all parties “to exercise restraint and fulfill their commitments under the agreement.”

The Security Council “has also taken an important step in the consolidation of the ceasefire” with the adoption of resolution 2803 (2025), he added.

The text endorses the US plan and the deployment of a temporary international force for Gaza.

“While still facing unbearable living conditions and seemingly insurmountable destruction, the people in Gaza have experienced at least the first glimmers of respite from the near constant bombardment of the last two years,” he said.

More...

The United States-proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan now has fewer points following negotiations in Switzerland to try to make the draft proposal more acceptable to Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official close to the matter.

The initial 28-point peace plan now has 19 points, according to the official. It is unclear what points were removed.

The updated proposed peace agreement does not include a strict limit on the size of the Ukrainian army, a source briefed on the matter told ABC News. Under the initial proposal, the army would have been limited to 600,000 personnel.

The issue of amnesty for acts committed during the Russia-Ukraine war will not be included in the new version of the draft peace proposal, the source added. The initial plan had stated that all parties involved in the conflict "will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war."

U.S., European and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss the contentious proposal put to Kyiv last week, with terms critics say would constitute a Ukrainian capitulation.

More...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials reiterated their intention to block future Palestinian statehood ahead of the United Nations Security Council vote to authorize the U.S. plan for post-war Gaza on Monday.

There are three remaining deceased hostages in Gaza. Israeli authorities have been releasing the bodies of Palestinians in exchange for the return of hostage remains.

The ceasefire is broadly holding in Gaza, with Israeli forces inside the strip having pulled back to the so-called "yellow line." Still, renewed Israeli strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians in the past week.

Elsewhere, Israel is continuing strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and on Sunday launched an airstrike in the capital Beirut. The Israel Defense Forces is also continuing raids in parts of the occupied West Bank.

More...

The world's biggest economy will be conspicuously absent from a meeting of the globe's 20 richest nations this weekend, as the U.S. boycotts the G20 Leaders' Summit hosted by South Africa.

The Trump administration is snubbing the event over false race-based claims and what it considers the summit's DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion -- agenda. Since returning to office Trump has accused the South African government of confiscating white-owned land and allowing the killing of white Afrikaners.

"You know we have a G20 meeting in South Africa, South Africa shouldn't even be in the Gs anymore, because what happened there is bad," Trump said earlier this month.

The government here has repeatedly tried to correct the U.S. administration, to no avail.

Ramaphosa has kept his cool and was taciturn this week, saying: "Their absence is their loss."

Still, it's a huge blow to South Africa on the global stage.

More...

Brazil's federal police on Saturday arrested former president Jair Bolsonaro over suspicion he was plotting to escape and avoid starting a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.

In a dramatic and unexpected twist in the final stage of a long and divisive criminal trial, federal agents entered Bolsonaro's house early Saturday under the order of a Supreme Court Justice to take the former president to the headquarters of the country's federal police in the capital, Brasilia.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case on Bolsonaro's attempt to keep the presidency after his defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, ordered the preemptive arrest after saying the far-right leader's ankle monitor was violated at 12:08 a.m. on Saturday. His lawyers claimed in a statement that did not take place.

Bolsonaro, 70, who had been under house arrest, was ordered to wear the device after being deemed a flight risk. His aide Andriely Cirino confirmed to The Associated Press that the arrest took place around 6 a.m. on Saturday.

More...

Ofer Bronchtein was brought to tears as French President Emmanuel Macron delivered his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, recognizing a Palestinian state for the first time.

"Honestly, I cried," he told NPR in an interview in his Paris apartment after his return from New York. "I see it happening in front of me and I see the full room of the General Assembly and everyone is applauding."

Bronchtein says his only regret is that the Israeli delegation walked out of the General Assembly. The Israeli and U.S. governments opposed the move. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said world leaders who recognized Palestinian statehood were granting a "tremendous reward" to the Palestinian militant group Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Bronchtein refutes this, arguing it is no reward for a group that never sought a peaceful coexistence alongside Israel.

"I strongly believe that if there had been a Palestinian state before the 7th of October, if the Palestinians had been sovereign to run their lives as they wanted, the 7th of October [attack in Israel] would not have happened," he says.

More...