JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
THE LUNATIC,RETARDED IDIOT NUTCASE LIBERALS-DEMOCRAPS IN AMERICA GO AFTER MUSK, TRUMP.
DANIEL 2:37-45
37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
38
And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and
the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made
thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.
39 And after
thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third
kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
40 And
the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh
in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these,
shall it break in pieces and bruise.
41 And whereas thou sawest the
feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom
shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron,
forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
43
And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle
themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to
another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
44 And in the days of
these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never
be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it
shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand
for ever.
45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of
the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the
brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known
to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is
certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
DANIEL 7:17-26
17 These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.
18 But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.
19
Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from
all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his
nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue
with his feet;
20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of
the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn
that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was
more stout than his fellows.
21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;
22
Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of
the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.
23
Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,
which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole
earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the
ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and
another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first,
and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words
against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High,
and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his
hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
26 But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.
THE WORLD IN 10 WORLD TRADE BLOCS LEAD BY THE EUROPEAN UNION THE WORLD LEADER, NOT AMERICA.I PREDICT.
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND REVIVED ROMAN WORLD GOVERNMENT
DANIEL 2:31-33,36-43, DAN 7:3-8,17
First From Daniel Chapter 2
1 EGYPT
2 ASSYRIA
3 BABYLON (HEAD OF GOLD) DAN 2:31-32,36-38, DAN 1:1
4 MEDO-PERSIANS (CHEST & ARMS OF SILVER) DAN 2:32,39, DAN 9:1
5 GREECE (WAIST & HIPS OF BRONZE) DAN 2:32,39, DAN 11:2
6 ROME (2 LEGS OF IRON) DAN 2:33,40, ROM 1:6
7 REVIVED ROME (EU) (FEET IRON & CLAY) DAN 2:33,41-43,10 TOES
Now From Daniel Chapter 7
1 EGYPT
2 ASSYRIA
3 BABYLON (LION WITH EAGLES WINGS) DAN 7:4, DAN 1:1
4 MEDO-PERSIANS (BEAR ON HIND LEGS) DAN 7:5, DAN 9:1
5 GREECE (LEOPARD 4 WINGS, 4 HEADS) DAN 7:6, DAN 11:2
6 ROME (HUGE IRON TEETH) DAN 7:7 (10 HORNS), ROM 1:6
7 REVIVED ROME (EU) DAN 7:8,19-20,23-25 10 HORNS, 10 KINGS
REV
17:9,12, 10 HORNS, 10 KINGS, 7 HILLS ROME. REV 13:1 BEAST WITH 7 HEADS.
THE E.U LEADER OF WORLD GOVERNMENT DAN 2:40-45, 7:7-8,23-25,27, 8:23,
REV 13:3,7,8,12,14,16
REVELATION 17:10-12
10 And there are
seven kings (7TH WORLD EMPIRE IN HISTORY) five are fallen, (EGYPT,
ASSYRIA, BABYLON,:MEDO-PERSIAN,GREECE and one is,(IN POWER IN JOHNS
DAY-ROME) and the other is not yet come; and when he
cometh,(FUTURE-REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE-EUROPEAN UNION TODAY) he must
continue a short space.(7 YEARS OF WORLD DOMINATION-BUT 3 1/2 YEARS OF
NEW WORLD ORDER OR ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT)
12 And the ten horns (10
WORLD TRADE BLOCS OR REGIONS) which thou sawest are ten kings, which
have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour
with the beast.
REVELATION 17:12-13
12 And the ten horns (10
WORLD TRADE BLOCS-NATIONS) which thou sawest are ten kings, which have
received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the
beast.
13 These have one mind,(WORLD SOCIALISM) and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
We
shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only
question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or
consent.James Paul Warburg appearing before the Senate on 7th February
1950
Like a famous WWII Belgian General,Paul Henry Spock said in
1957:We need no commission, we have already too many. What we need is a
man who is great enough to be able to keep all the people in subjection
to himself and to lift us out of the economic bog into which we threaten
to sink. Send us such a man. Be he a god or a devil, we will accept
him.And today, sadly, the world is indeed ready for such a man.
DICK
MORRIS-This truly creates a global economic system. From now on, don’t
look to Washington for the rule making, look to Brussels.
THE CLUB OF ROME FOUNDER AURELIO PECCEI WANTS THE WORLD IN 10 REGIONAL TRADING BLOCKS
HERES WHAT THE WORLD WOULD LOOK LIKE (SINCE THERE WILL BE WORLD GOVERNMENT IN THE FUTURE)-UPDATED VERSION
01 CANADA, U.S.A, MEXICO
02 EUROPEAN UNION,WESTERN EUROPE
03 JAPAN
04 AUSTRALIA,NEW ZEALAND, S AFRICA, ISRAEL AND PACIFIC ISLANDS
05 EASTERN EUROPE
06 SOUTHERN, CENTRAL AND LATIN AMERICAS
07 NORTH AFRICA, AND MIDEAST (MOSLEMS)
08 CENTRAL AFRICA
09 SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
10 CENTRAL ASIA
THE
CLUB OF ROME WANTS A WORLD CHARISMATIC DICTATOR (EITHER RELIGIOUS,
POLITICAL OR SCIENTIFICAL) TO HEAD THIS WORLD GOVERNMENT. REV 13:3,7-8,
DAN 7:23-24
WORLD POWERS IN THE END TIME
NORTH - RUSSIA EZEK 38:1-2, 39:1-2
SOUTH - EGYPT DAN 11:42
EAST - CHINA DAN 11:44,REV 16:12
WEST - EUROPEAN UNION DAN 7:23-24 (NOT THE U.S.A)
http://israel7777777.blogspot.ca/2012/03/10-world-trade-blocs-one-world.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2006/09/how-eu-takes-world-control.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2012/05/one-world-religion-crislam.html
THESE
LIBERAL DEMOCRAPS IN AMERICA ARE IDIOT, NUTS IN THE HEAD RETARDED
LUNATICS. PROTESTING EVERY THING TRUMP AND MUSK DO. THESE RETARDS KNOW
THEIR LUNATIC SINS WILL BE EXPOSED. AND THESE BRAIN-DEADS WILL BE THE
ONES ENDING UP IN JAIL. AS A BUNCH OF CORRUPT THIEVES, LIARS AND
RETARDED IDIOTS.THEN THANK GOD THE LAKE OF FIRE AWAITS ALL THESE
LIBERAL, DEMOCRAP NAZI, RETARD, IDIOT NUTCASE CRIMINALS..
Karoline Leavitt: Trump, Elon Musk's DOGE team are doing what Democrats promised 'for decades'
White House press secretary points back to words of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama
By Fox News Staff Fox News
Published February 18, 2025 10:17am EST
Karoline Leavitt: Musk is best to 'shake up' Washington swamp
White
House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sets the record straight on how
DOGE will 'identify fraud' in social security numbers on 'Hannity.'
White
House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Democrats' hypocritical
position ahead of DOGE's Social Security audit. Leavitt defended
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's objectives on "Hannity" Monday,
pointing out that former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton
championed rooting out waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
ELON MUSK SAYS MILLIONS IN SOCIAL SECURITY DATABASE ARE BETWEEN AGES OF 100 AND 159
KAROLINE
LEAVITT: If you just watched that video, but shut your eyes and listen
to the words from those Democrat politicians, you would think you are
listening to President Trump, Elon Musk and our entire administration,
who are saying the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised
the American people they would do for decades. President Trump is just
the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it. And now you see
the Democrat Party and the mainstream media spiraling out of control
about a very simple promise: rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our
federal bureaucracy. This is a promise President Trump campaigned on.
He is now delivering on it.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks.
I've
been fighting fake news reporters all day long here in the Washington,
D.C. swamp who are trying to fearmonger the American people into
believing that this administration is going after their hard-earned tax
dollars and their hard-earned Social Security checks. So I want to set
the record straight on your show tonight, Sean, and I'm very grateful
for the opportunity to do so. President Trump has directed Elon Musk and
the Doge team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration.
They haven't dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are
tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social
Security payments and so their goal in going into the Social Security
Administration is to identify three things: Number one, to identify
duplicate payments and to end them, Number two, to identify payments
that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no
longer be receiving that money and number three, to protect the
integrity of the system for hardworking Americans who have been paying
into it their entire lives. So rest assured to all of the people
watching your show tonight, if you paid into the system, honestly, you
will continue to receive your Social Security checks. Do not buy into
the lies from the legacy fake news media, who are trying to fear you and
scare you into believing otherwise. This is what we've seen them do
about President Trump for years with every promise that he has made, and
he's going in there to protect your hard-earned money. That is the
ultimate goal."Not My President's Day" protest-Democrats have ramped up
their attacks on the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader,
billionaire Elon Musk, over the past week, arguing that Trump’s project
is a violation of the Constitution and filing several lawsuits in an
effort to bring the new department’s momentum to a halt.The White House
is taking aim at Democratic critics of DOGE, highlighting that the new
agency’s work was once championed by prominent Democrats, including
former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama."We hope to be instilling
an entire new culture, that not only our administration, but every
succeeding administration will in fact pursue," Biden says at one point
in the video."What should be easy is getting rid of the pointless waste
and stupid spending that doesn’t benefit anybody," Obama says during
another point of the video from the Oval Office, where the
then-president is seated next to a large stack of papers. "No amount of
waste is acceptable, not when it’s your money."Recent polling shows
Americans may side with Trump and Musk on DOGE. In one poll conducted by
the Trafalgar Group, 49% of respondents said they approve of DOGE's
efforts compared to 44% who indicated they disapprove.Trump and Musk
will sit down with Sean Hannity for an exclusive interview, airing
Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel.Fox News' Michael Lee
contributed to this report.This article was written by Fox News staff.
Internal feud rages over unvetted DOGE access to federal IT systems-Feb 19, 2025, 2:29 pm EST | Anthony Kimery
Behind
the scenes, tensions are rising between the White House and
Intelligence Community (IC), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency (CISA), and other federal agencies over whether Elon Musk and
employees of the White House Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
have been given statutorily required security clearances before being
turned loose inside sensitive and classified federal IT systems.These
are IT systems that contain data that if compromised would harm or
gravely damage U.S. national security and put at risk the personal
information – including sensitive financial, medical, tax, and biometric
data – of untold millions of Americans.DOGE employees are said to be
being provided unprecedented access without proper security clearances
and vetting to the IT systems of the Departments of Treasury and Energy,
Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service, Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid, Office of Management and Budget, Office of
Personnel Management (OPM), and General Services Administration, among
others, according to sources.“We’re talking about Social Security
numbers, we’re talking about banking information, we’re talking about
addresses, biometric information,” said Connecticut Attorney General
William Tong, who, along with the state attorney generals of 19 states
filed suit against Musk and DOGE to prevent them from accessing
sensitive Treasury Department records.A separate proposed class-action
lawsuit by federal employees claims Treasury and OPM failed to protect
government workers’ privacy by disclosing their Social Security numbers,
personal health information, addresses and other sensitive data to
“non-governmental employees and private citizens.”“Defendants’ failure
to protect government employees’ privacy is the biggest breach of
American trust by political actors since Watergate,” the workers said,
adding that “the individuals granted access to the [personal sensitive
information] are, essentially, hackers who have been given access to the
data by the government itself … They are individuals who lack
authorization to access such information; they are non-government
employees who do not have proper security clearances and are uninhibited
by the restrictions required by law and placed on federal government
employees.”Alarms over unvetted access, unqualified
personnel-Revelations during the last several weeks about DOGE employees
have escalated concerns about security, privacy, and insider threats,
according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation interviewed
by Biometric Update on condition of anonymity.According to these
sources, the CIA, National Security Agency, Defense Counterintelligence
and Security Agency (DCSA), and CISA have all expressed deepening
concerns over Musk and DOGE employees having not been subjected to the
required security vetting for the clearances they need to access the IT
systems they have been given access to, which in the case of clearances
for classified systems can take up to a year or longer to obtain.“It
doesn’t appear that anyone at DOGE has any such clearance; as there
hasn’t been enough time to do any background checks for any level of
clearance,” an IC counterintelligence source said.“Anyone who thinks
these kids would pass a [DSCA-level] background check, even for a
[Non-Sensitive Public Trust (NSPT) position] is out of his mind,” a
senior IC official said, adding they would “never be granted a secret or
TS clearance.”“Based on what’s been reported about them – they would
never pass” NSPT vetting, let alone a clearance for classified access.
They just wouldn’t,” an IC official said.The officials explained to
Biometric Update that all DOGE employees, including Musk, would be
required to have at minimum a NSPT-level clearance. Individuals vetted
for NSPT positions are part of the “trusted federal workforce” and are
subject to DSCA Continuous Vetting in real-time. While some DOGE
employees may not be accessing classified systems, they are still
accessing systems that contain highly sensitive federal and personal
financial and other records which require public trust vetting.NSPT
vetting is for federal positions that do not require access to
classified information but still demand trust due to the highly
sensitive nature of their work. These roles typically involve access to
sensitive but unclassified information or IT systems that impact the
integrity and security of federal operations. They include program and
IT support specialists, network administrators, budget analysts,
accountants, auditors, and personnel security assistants.Heather Green,
Principal Deputy Assistant Director of Adjudication and Vetting Services
at DCSA, explained to Biometric Update last fall that “the NSPT
population refers to those individuals who hold non-national security
roles but still pose a risk to the integrity or efficiency of the nation
through misconduct. These positions include … you know, protection of
government information systems. I mean, there’s multiple different roles
that the NSPT population may fall into.”“Monitored data categories that
we get lots of questions on, are criminal history, violent extremists,
terrorists, and then unlawful subversive activities,” Green said.“If
[security clearance investigations] were being done, they would
disqualify Musk and all of [the DOGE] kids if the reporting on them is
accurate,” a senior IC official said about several of the young men
reportedly employed by DOGE, one of whom reportedly was fired for
leaking an employer’s secrets and for having ties to a
cyberattack-for-hire service.Sensitive diplomatic data at risk-One of
the DOGE employees in question is 19-year-old Edward Coristine, who,
according to reports, is a “senior adviser” in the State Department’s
Bureau of Diplomatic Technology (DT), a relatively new agency within the
U.S. Department of State created to modernize and enhance the
technological capabilities of American diplomacy.Launched in 2023, DT
was formed by merging the Bureau of Information Resource Management with
the Office of the Chief Information Officer. The restructuring aims to
streamline the department’s tech functions and to improve its ability to
handle cybersecurity threats, emerging technologies, and digital
diplomacy initiatives.Key functions and responsibilities include
protecting the State Department’s sensitive information and diplomatic
communications from cyber threats, including foreign adversaries and
malicious actors, and upgrading outdated systems and infrastructure to
support the evolving needs of diplomatic missions worldwide. This
includes implementing cloud technologies, enhancing secure communication
channels, and improving digital workflows.It’s unclear whether this
involves the department’s classified communications, backchannels, and
cable messaging systems used by the Secretary of State, ambassadors, and
foreign missions to transmit top secret information such as the
intelligence products produced by the department’s Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR). INR is a member of the Intelligence
Community that produces the Secretary’s Morning Summary, which is the
equivalent of the President’s Daily Brief, and generally far more
comprehensive and contains intelligence derived from America’s most
secret sources and methods of intelligence collection.The DT also
explores and integrates new technologies like AI, blockchain, and data
analytics to improve diplomatic efforts and policymaking.Coristine
reportedly was fired from an internship at Path Network after an
internal probe found he leaked sensitive information to a competitor.
The network monitoring company has employed “reformed blackhat hackers.”
When Coristine worked for the company, an individual using a Telegram
handle linked to him reportedly sought out cyberattack-for-hire
services.One of a handful of companies Coristine reportedly created,
Tesla.Sexy LLC, managed numerous web domains, including at least two
registered in Russia. One active Russian domain hosts Helfie, an AI bot
designed for Discord servers and aimed at the Russian market.Financial,
tax records systems at risk-Aside from the State Department, another
potentially serious compromise of sensitive federal IT systems occurred
at the Department of Treasury, where DOGE employees reportedly were
given access to highly sensitive payment systems that are crucial to the
nation’s financial infrastructure. These systems manage everything from
federal disbursements to debt payments and are designed with robust
security protocols to safeguard against fraud, cyber threats, and
operational risks, including insider threats.These systems are vital for
maintaining the financial integrity of the U.S. government and ensuring
smooth and secure financial operations domestically and
internationally. Disruptions or breaches could have far-reaching
implications for the economy, national security, and public trust. They
also are subject to strict regulatory frameworks like the Federal
Information Security Management Act and National Institute of Standards
and Technology guidelines.Musk DOGE hire Marko Elez reportedly was
granted administrator-level access to critical U.S. Treasury payment
systems, including the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and the Secure
Payment System (SPS). Elez resigned after being linked to a deleted
social media account containing racist content and advocacy for
eugenics, but Musk promptly rehired him.The Payment Automation Manager
automates the issuance of federal payments, including direct deposits
and checks for Social Security, tax refunds, and federal salaries,
making it a critical and sensitive system. PAM handles massive volumes
of daily transactions and sensitive financial data, making security
clearances essential for employees interacting with it.The Secure
Payment System is a web-based application that allows federal agencies
to certify and submit payment schedules to the Treasury securely and
includes strong encryption and authentication protocols.A High-Risk
Public Trust Tier 4 NSPT Investigation is said to be required for both
systems because they involve broad control over payment processes or
system administration where errors or misuse could have significant
financial or reputational consequences. A Confidential or Secret
clearance is required for roles involving integration with classified
systems or information.Despite concerns of Treasury officials and
lawmakers about his lack of prior government or finance experience,
Elez’s access would have allowed him to modify essential financial
infrastructure. In early February, Elez reportedly visited a Treasury
facility in Kansas City to meet with staff to gain deeper insight into
federal payment processing systems. His access to these systems was
restricted on February 5, 2025, according to the White House.Following
graduation from Rutgers University in 2021, where Elez focused on
software development and distributed systems, he worked at SpaceX,
contributing to vehicle telemetry, Starship software, and satellite
systems. He later joined X where he specialized in search AI and
software development. His professional experience prior to DOGE was
exclusively at Musk’s companies.Five former U.S. Treasury secretaries
warned in a New York Times Op-Ed on Monday that DOGE employees have put
“America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to
the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries. And our critical
infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is
not handled with due care. That is why a federal judge this past weekend
blocked, at least temporarily, these individuals from the Treasury’s
payments system, noting the risk of ‘irreparable harm.’”The former
secretaries said “the nation’s payment system has historically been
operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In
recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these
nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the
so-called Department of Government Efficiency. One has been appointed
fiscal assistant secretary — a post that for the prior eight decades had
been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and
public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.”Another
young man Musk reportedly hired as a “special DOGE adviser” who has
been assigned at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is Gavin Kliger, who
has been called out for amplifying extremist viewpoints, including
reposting content from white supremacist Nick Fuentes and misogynistic
influencer Andrew Tate. His actions have only exacerbated the concerns
of national security officials, lawmakers, and civil liberties groups
about the vetting process for DOGE appointments.Kliger reportedly is a
DOGE senior adviser to Acting IRS Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell for 120
days and has been given access to the IRS’ Integrated Data Retrieval
System (IDRS), another critical federal IT system that operates under
strict data security regulations. Only authorized IRS personnel can
access the system, and there are strict controls to prevent unauthorized
use.IDRS is an internal database system used by the IRS to retrieve,
update, and process taxpayer information. It enables real-time updates
to taxpayer accounts, ensuring that changes such as payments, penalties,
or adjustments are reflected promptly. It is also used to monitor
taxpayer compliance, issue notices, track payment histories, and helps
in initiating enforcement actions, including tax liens and levies.Kliger
ostensibly is to provide engineering assistance and IT modernization
consulting to the IRS. According to the Washington Post, Kliger is
required to keep tax return information confidential, protect data from
unauthorized access, and to destroy any information shared with him
while he is at the IRS.On Wednesday, Sens. Ron Wyden, Ranking Member of
the Senate Committee on Finance, and Elizabeth Warren, Ranking Member of
the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, reminded
O’Donnell in a letter that “violations of … taxpayer privacy laws,
including unauthorized access to or disclosure of tax returns and return
information, can result in criminal penalties, including
incarceration.”The two lawmakers added that, “Section 6103 of the tax
code prohibits any unauthorized disclosure of tax returns or information
contained in tax returns,” and that “Section 7213A also makes it
unlawful for any federal officer, employee, or authorized viewer to
willfully inspect a return or return information for a purpose other
than one specifically authorized by law, with inspection defined
expansively, to include ‘any examination of a return or return
information.’ Therefore, improper inspection of tax return information
is illegal, even if it has not been made public or disclosed to any
unauthorized recipients.”Wyden and Warren said, “It appears … DOGE team
members [have been given] access to the IDRS, raising serious concerns
that Elon Musk and his associates are seeking to weaponize government
databases containing private bank records and other confidential
information to target American citizens and businesses as part of a
political agenda.”The two lawmakers told O’Donnell, “The IRS must
immediately disclose to the Senate Committee on Finance the full extent
of the potential access to IRS systems and data granted to DOGE team
members so that the Committee can address any efforts by DOGE personnel
to gain access to taxpayer records at the IRS, which may constitute
criminal violations of federal privacy laws.”In response to lawsuits
filed in federal courts challenging Musk and DOGE’s legitimacy and legal
standing to access sensitive government IT systems, DOGE has been
temporarily barred from further access to Treasury systems. Another
court will soon take up whether to bar Musk and DOGE from accessing all
federal IT systems and whether they meet statutory requirements to even
be doing what they are doing.Intelligence and national security
officials are “increasingly alarmed” about “what damage [to national
security] may already have been done,” sources told Biometric Update,
noting that their concerns have been made known to top Democrat and
Republican Congressional leaders.
Lapid: 'Cowardly' statement is
'utter lie' from PM's office-Netanyahu panned after ‘senior source’
claims security chiefs botched hostage talks-As PM places confidant
Dermer at head of negotiating team, moves Barnea and Bar aside, ‘senior
source’ lauds him for expedited hostage releases, ‘negotiations instead
of concessions’
By ToI Staff and Lazar Berman-Today, 4:10 pm-FEB 19,25
A
“senior source familiar with the details” released a statement on
Wednesday claiming that the upcoming release of four dead hostages on
Thursday and six living hostages on Saturday is a direct result of
changes made to Israel’s negotiating team.The statement drew swift
condemnation, from both unnamed sources in the security establishment
and elected politicians, some of whom directly attributed the statement
to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who is known to make comments to
the media on condition they are attributed this way.On Tuesday it
emerged that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a longtime confidant
of Netanyahu, will lead talks on phase two of the hostage
release-ceasefire deal with Hamas, rather than Mossad chief David
Barnea, who has led previous rounds.Keep Watching-Phase two, per the
original three-phase deal, would see Hamas return the remaining living
hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war.Netanyahu pushed
aside Barnea, as well as Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, and the military’s
hostage talks point man, Nitzan Alon. The security chiefs have long felt
that a deal could and should have been reached earlier but that
political considerations in Israel hampered those efforts.According to
the “senior source” statement on Wednesday, “The achievement of the
agreement to release six of our living hostages in one fell swoop,
alongside the return of four dead hostages tomorrow, is the result of
the prime minister’s decision to change the composition of the
negotiating team.”“The new team changed the dynamic and led negotiations
instead of concessions. It also stopped the practice of regular and
biased briefings against the prime minister and the political echelon,
which only caused Hamas to entrench its position and add demands,” the
statement said.The assertion came into response from comments other
members of the Israeli negotiating team earlier this week revealing that
Hamas had been the side that initiated the proposal for an expedited
release of the six hostages.A senior Israeli official and a senior Arab
diplomat confirmed this account to The Times of Israel.Security
officials: ‘It’s the same agreement’A statement carried by Ynet and
attributed to “senior officials in the security establishment” blasted
the statement from the “senior official,” saying: “The claim is not
true. It’s a disgrace, but it’s not surprising.”“Everything that is
happening in the deal was drawn up by the original negotiating team. The
team, in advance, set up the possibility to shorten the releases at the
end,” the security officials said.“There are two more releases,
regardless: living hostages on Shabbat, and after that bodies. It’s the
same agreement. The one who wanted to move everything up was Hamas, who
understands that Netanyahu doesn’t want stage two, and wants to leverage
the achievements of the first phase, quickly,” they added.Lapid:
Statement an ‘utter lie’ from PM’s office-Opposition Leader Yair Lapid
also attacked the “cowardly statement and complete and utter lie” from
the “senior official,” saying in a statement, “The announcement from the
Prime Minister’s Office raises concerns about the stability of his
judgment.”“This is a cowardly statement and also a complete and utter
lie. Netanyahu continues to blame others for his failures, and continues
to abuse the families of the hostages for political purposes,” Lapid
said.“Everyone who works for [Netanyahu] should know that sooner or
later they will be publicly sacrificed for half a headline,” he
charged.“This is a matter of conscience and he’s looking for credit. He
should stop hiding behind anonymous briefings and make sure to bring all
the hostages home,” the opposition leader added.Gantz: PM ‘breaking us
apart from within’National Unity Leader Benny Gantz wrote on X: “Shin
Bet chief Ronen Bar is an upright security man, ethical and strong, who
has contributed much to the return of the hostages.“He bears
responsibility both for the disaster on October 7, as well as for the
fighting and activities that came after, and I support him and back him,
as well as all the heads of the security services who have taken part
in the negotiations for the return of our hostages.“When the prime
minister attacks the heads of the security establishment time and time
again, he is tearing us apart from the inside, and weakening us, amid
turbulent days that require us to be as strong and united as possible in
the face of our enemies,” Gantz said.Hostage families forum: ‘Stop this
behavior immediately!’The Hostages and Missing Families Forum also
issued a statement on Wednesday amid the fracas, declaring, “While
officials are issuing statements against other officials, we, the
families of the hostages, are losing our minds with worry for our loved
ones.“The fate of the hostages, the living and the fallen, is on the
table, and those who are supposed to be turning the world upside down to
secure it are having confrontations with each other.“Stop this behavior
immediately! We saw the exact same pictures you did. We heard the exact
same testimonies from returnees that you did,” the forum said.The
families demanded that by the time troops withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt
border on Day 50 of the agreement, “it will be clear that by the Holiday
of Freedom [i.e., Passover, on April 12] all the hostages will be
released from Hamas hell in Gaza.”Seventy of the 251 hostages abducted
by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least
35 confirmed dead by the IDF.Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians
who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF
soldier who was killed in 2014.Israeli and Hamas officials said Tuesday
that all six remaining living hostages slated to be released in the
first phase of the ceasefire deal will be freed Saturday, among them the
two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014.Jacob Magid
contributed to this report.
Trump labels Zelensky a ‘dictator’ as
tensions rise over Russian war against Ukraine-President claims
Ukrainian leader ‘talked’ US into providing aid for ‘war that couldn’t
be won,’ after blaming Kyiv for Putin’s invasion-By Stephany Matat and
AAMER MADHANI Today, 8:22 pm-FEB 19,25
MIAMI (AP) — US President
Donald Trump on Wednesday called Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator without
elections,” lashing out after the Ukrainian president said Trump was
being influenced by Russian disinformation as he moves to end the
Kremlin’s war against Ukraine on terms that Kyiv says are too favorable
to Moscow.“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr
Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion
Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to
start, but a War that he, without the US and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able
to settle,” Trump said of Zelensky, who was popular television star in
Ukraine before running for office.Trump added in his social media post
that Zelensky is “A Dictator without Elections!!”Zelensky was elected
president in 2019 after a career as an entertainer. He resisted pressure
to leave the country when Russia invaded in 2022, mounting a defense
that protected the capital, Kyiv.Because of the war, Ukraine has delayed
elections that were scheduled for April 2024.Zelensky, who met Trump’s
Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, in Kyiv on Wednesday, said he would like
Trump’s team to have “more truth” about Ukraine, a day after Trump said
Ukraine “should never have started” the conflict with Russia.The
Ukrainian leader said Trump’s assertion that his approval rating was
just 4% was Russian disinformation and that any attempt to replace him
would fail.“We have evidence that these figures are being discussed
between America and Russia. That is, President Trump … unfortunately
lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky told Ukrainian TV.The
latest poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, from
early February, says 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelensky.Trump used his
post to accuse Zelensky of misusing American aid to Ukraine for the war
effort and taking advantage of the Biden administration.Less than a
month into his presidency, Trump has upended US policy on Ukraine and
Russia, ending Washington’s bid to isolate Russia over its invasion of
Ukraine with a Trump-Putin phone call and talks between senior US and
Russian officials.Trump said he may meet Putin this month. The Kremlin
said such a meeting could take longer to prepare but Russia’s sovereign
wealth fund said it expected a number of US companies to return to
Russia as early as the second quarter.Wednesday’s sharp back-and-forth
came after senior US and Russian officials met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
on Tuesday and agreed to negotiate a settlement to an end to the war.
Ukrainian and European officials were not included despite Zelensky’s
insistence that they should be part of any such discussions.But Trump,
who campaigned on a pledge to quickly bring the war to a close,
reaffirmed his position that Zelensky should have negotiated an end
earlier.“Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country
left,” Trump said.“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an
end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the
Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to
bring Peace, and Zelensky probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’
going.”Reuters contributed to this report.
Iraqi airlines adds
Beirut flights as tickets sell out ahead of Nasrallah
funeral-Shi’a-majority Iraq to send delegation to Lebanon for burial of
slain terror leader and his would-be successor; Beirut airport to be
closed for 4 hours on Sunday during funeral By AFP and ToI Staff Today,
7:37 pm-FEB 19,25
Flights from Baghdad to Beirut are nearly at
capacity as airlines increase services ahead of Hezbollah’s terror
leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral, officials said.The Iran-backed terror
group has called for a huge turnout when Nasrallah, killed in a
September Israeli strike, is laid to rest in the Lebanese capital on
Sunday.“Iraqi Airways will increase its flights to Beirut from one
flight a day to two, starting on February 20,” said transport ministry
spokesperson Maytham al-Safi, citing heightened demand ahead of the
funeral.An Iraqi airline official told AFP that “all seats on Iraqi
Airlines flights from Baghdad to Beirut are booked.”A source from
Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines (MEA) reported increased flights between
Baghdad and Beirut from Friday to Tuesday.The airlines’ websites show
that Iraqi Airways flights are fully booked until Sunday, with MEA
nearly sold out.Iraqi lawmakers and officials are expected to attend
Nasrallah’s funeral privately, an Iraqi official said. Representatives
from pro-Iran Iraqi factions, Hezbollah’s longstanding allies in the
Tehran-led “axis of resistance,” are also expected to participate.Beirut
airport will be closed for four hours during the funeral.Hezbollah has
said 79 countries would be involved in the commemoration, either
officially or through “popular” support.Sunday’s funeral will also honor
Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah figure who had been chosen to
succeed Nasrallah before he was killed in an Israeli strike in
October.After decades at the helm of the group once seen as invincible,
the killing of the charismatic Nasrallah sent shock waves across Lebanon
and the wider region.Since Nasrallah’s death, portraits of him, either
alone or alongside other slain pro-Iran terror commanders, have been
displayed throughout Baghdad and other areas of the Shiite-majority
country.On Sunday afternoon, thousands are expected to attend a
“symbolic” procession for Nasrallah in Baghdad’s northwestern
neighborhood of Kadhimiya, which is home to a Shiite shrine.Nasrallah
was killed in a huge Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on
September 27, 2024, as Israel scaled up its campaign against the
Iran-backed terror group following almost a year of cross-border
attacks.Hezbollah began near-daily attacks on northern Israel one day
after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally
Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza. Some 60,000 Israeli residents of
the north were displaced by Hezbollah’s attacks, with rocket fire
eventually spreading to the center of the country.Israel intensified its
campaign against Hezbollah in September, launching a series of
devastating blows against the group’s leadership and killing its
longtime chief Nasrallah before launching a ground invasion in southern
Lebanon aimed at securing the border and enabling the return of
displaced Israelis.
WHO says campaign to vaccinate Gazan children
against polio set to resume Saturday-Vaccine drive to start back up
again after virus detected in wastewater; UN body says some 7,000
children from north Gaza weren’t inoculated in last round due to intense
fighting By ToI Staff and Reuters Today, 6:47 pm-FEB 19,25
The
World Health Organization said on Wednesday that a mass campaign to
vaccinate children against polio in the Gaza Strip would resume on
Saturday, with over half a million children targeted.The campaign will
run from February 22 to February 26 and aim to vaccinate 591,000
children under the age of 10 against the disease.The WHO statement said
the decision to restart the vaccination campaign, which first ran in
September and October 2024, was made after “the recent detection of
poliovirus in wastewater samples in Gaza. ”Around 95% of children
eligible for the polio vaccines were inoculated during the previous mass
vaccination campaigns, the WHO said, but “pockets of individuals with
low or no immunity provide the virus an opportunity to continue
spreading and potentially cause disease.”“The current environment in
Gaza, including overcrowding in shelters and severely damaged water,
sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, which facilitates fecal-oral
transmission, create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus,”
the WHO cautioned.Furthermore, it noted that the ongoing ceasefire and
hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in
January could inadvertently cause the disease to spread further, due to
“extensive population movement.”Poliovirus, most often spread through
sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause
deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects
children under the age of five.The first polio vaccination drive was
launched after an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby from central Gaza
contracted polio and suffered partial paralysis in August, the first
case of the disease in the enclave in 25 years.More than 1.1 million
vaccines were administered during the two previous campaigns, conducted
by the WHO and UNICEF, and in coordination with the Coordinator of
Government Affairs in the Territories, a Defense Ministry agency that
coordinates the provision of humanitarian aid into Gaza.COGAT said at
the time that it had facilitated humanitarian pauses in the fighting in
Gaza to allow the distribution of the vaccine.While no further polio
cases have been reported in Gaza since, the WHO said that recently
collected environmental samples from Deir al-Balah in the center of the
Strip and Khan Younis in the south confirmed polio transmission.The
samples were collected in December 2024 and January 2025, and tests
showed that the strain was “genetically linked to the poliovirus
detected in the Gaza Strip in July 2024,” the WHO said.“The upcoming
vaccination campaign aims to reach all children under 10 years of age,
including those previously missed, to close immunity gaps and end the
outbreak,” the international body said. “The use of the oral polio
vaccine will help end this outbreak by preventing the spread of the
virus.Among those in need of vaccination are roughly 7,000 children from
areas in northern Gaza that healthcare workers could not safely reach
during previous rounds, despite coordinated humanitarian pauses, due to
intensified fighting in the Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya
areas.“The recent ceasefire means health workers have considerably
better access now,” the WHO said.An additional polio vaccination drive
is scheduled to take place in April.
West Bank terror crackdown
sees largest displacement of Palestinians since 1967-More than 40,100
have fled their homes amid Operation Iron Wall, according to UNRWA; many
say they were told to leave by IDF, which denies issuing evacuation
orders By Agencies and ToI Staff Today, 6:07 pm-FEB 19,25
By car
and on foot, through muddy olive groves and snipers’ sight lines, tens
of thousands of Palestinians in recent weeks have fled Israeli military
operations across the northern West Bank — allegedly the largest
displacement in the territory since the Six Day War in 1967.It comes
amid an Israel Defense Forces crackdown, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, on
local terror groups in the West Bank, launched on January 21, days after
a ceasefire agreement was reached in the Gaza Strip, and following
recent activity against terror groups by the Ramallah-based Palestinian
Authority.The operation began in the terror hotbed of Jenin, which has
seen dozens of raids since the Hamas October 7, 2023, invasion of
southern Israel from Gaza, which sparked the ongoing war in that
territory, as well as a renewed effort to combat terror groups in the
West Bank. Israeli forces have since pushed deeper and more forcefully
into several other nearby towns, including Tulkarem, Far’a and Nur
Shams.Humanitarian officials say they haven’t seen such displacement in
the West Bank since the Six Day War, when Israel — under threat from
Jordan, Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries — captured the West Bank,
along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, displacing 300,000
Palestinians.“This is unprecedented. When you add to this the
destruction of infrastructure, we’re reaching a point where the camps
are becoming uninhabitable,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West
Bank affairs for UNRWA, the UN agency created in 1948 to assist
Palestinian refugees, which still takes responsibility for those
refugees’ descendants — and classifies them as refugees themselves —
many generations later.“This is our nakba,” said Abed Sabagh, 53, using
the Arabic word, meaning “catastrophe,” that Palestinians use to refer
to the mass displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians in Israel’s 1948
War of Independence. Sabagh bundled his seven children into the car on
February 9 as sound bombs blared in Nur Shams camp, where he was born to
parents who fled that war.More than 40,100 Palestinians have left their
homes since the launch of Operation Iron Wall, according to UNRWA.
Israel recently banned the agency from operating inside the country,
amid revelations that Hamas operatives, including senior commanders, had
been employed by the agency in Gaza and its buildings had been used as
command centers.Last week, the IDF said troops have killed more than 60
Palestinian terror operatives and detained more than 210 amid the major
ongoing counter-terrorism operation. The IDF has also acknowledged
mistakenly killing several civilians during the operation, including a
toddler and a pregnant woman, and is probing both incidents.Meanwhile,
US President Donald Trump’s calls for the mass transfer of Palestinians
out of Gaza has emboldened Israel’s far right to renew calls for
annexation of the West Bank.“The idea of ‘cleansing’ the land of
Palestinians is more popular today than ever before,” said Yagil Levy,
head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at
Britain’s Open-University.The army denies issuing evacuation orders in
the West Bank. It said troops secure passage for those wanting to leave
on their own accord.Seven minutes to leave home-Over a dozen displaced
Palestinians interviewed by the Associated Press in the last week said
they did not flee their homes out of fear, but on the orders of Israeli
security forces. AP journalists in the Nur Shams camp also heard Israeli
soldiers shouting through mosque megaphones, ordering people to
leave.Some displaced families said soldiers were polite, knocking on
doors and assuring them they could return when the army left. Others
said they were ruthless, ransacking rooms, waving rifles and hustling
residents out of their homes despite pleas for more time.“I was sobbing,
asking them, ‘Why do you want me to leave my house?’ My baby is
upstairs, just let me get my baby please,’” Ayat Abdullah, 30, recalled
from a shelter for displaced people in the village of Kafr al-Labd.
“They gave us seven minutes. I brought my children, thank God. Nothing
else.”Told to make their own way, Abdullah trudged 10 kilometers (six
miles) on a path lit only by the glow from her phone as rain turned the
ground to mud. She said she clutched her children tight, braving
possible snipers that had killed a 23-year-old pregnant woman just hours
earlier on February 9.Her 5-year-old son, Nidal, interrupted her story,
pursing his lips together to make a loud buzzing sound.“You’re right,
my love,” she replied. “That’s the sound the drones made when we left
home.”Hospitality, for now-In the nearby town of Anabta, volunteers
moved in and out of mosques and government buildings that have become
makeshift shelters — delivering donated blankets, serving bitter coffee,
distributing boiled eggs for breakfast and whipping up vats of rice and
chicken for dinner.Residents have opened their homes to families
fleeing Nur Shams and Tulkarem.“This is our duty in the current security
situation,” said Thabet A’mar, the mayor of Anabta.But he stressed that
the town’s welcoming hand should not be mistaken for anything more.“We
insist that their displacement is temporary,” he said.Staying put-When
the operation started on February 2, Israeli bulldozers ruptured
underground pipes. Taps ran dry. Sewage gushed. Internet service was
shut off. Schools closed. Food supplies dwindled. Explosions
echoed.Ahmad Sobuh could understand how his neighbors chose to flee the
Far’a refugee camp during the military’s 10-day incursion. But he
scavenged rainwater to drink and hunkered down in his home, swearing to
himself, his family and the Israeli soldiers knocking at his door that
he would stay.The soldiers advised against that, informing Sobuh’s
family on February 11 that, because a room had raised suspicion for
containing security cameras and an object resembling a weapon, they
would blow up the second floor.The surveillance cameras, which Israeli
soldiers argued could be exploited by Palestinian terrorists, were not
unusual in the volatile neighborhood, Sobuh said, as families can
observe street battles and army operations from inside.But the second
claim sent him clambering upstairs, where he found his nephew’s water
pipe, shaped like a rifle.Hours later, the explosion left his nephew’s
room naked to the wind and shattered most others. It was too dangerous
to stay.“They are doing everything they can to push us out,” he said of
the IDF, which, according to the UN, has demolished hundreds of homes
across the four camps this year.The army has described its ongoing
campaign as a crucial counterterrorism effort to prevent attacks like
October 7, and said steps were taken to mitigate the impact on
civilians.A chilling return-The first thing Doha Abu Dgehish noticed
about her family’s five-story home 10 days after Israeli troops forced
them to leave, she said, was the smell.Venturing inside as Israeli
troops withdrew from Far’a camp, she found rotten food and toilets piled
with excrement. Pet parakeets had vanished from their cages. Pages of
the Quran had been defaced with graphic drawings. Israeli forces had
apparently used explosives to blow every door off its hinges, even
though none had been locked.Rama, her 11-year-old daughter with Down
syndrome, screamed upon finding her doll’s skirt torn and its face
covered with more graphic drawings.AP journalists visited the Abu
Dgehish home on February 12, hours after their return.Nearly two dozen
Palestinians interviewed across the four West Bank refugee camps this
month described army units taking over civilian homes to use as
dormitories, storerooms or lookout points. The Abu Dgehish family
accused Israeli soldiers of vandalizing their home, as did multiple
families in Far’a.The Israeli army blamed terror operatives for
embedding themselves in civilian infrastructure. Soldiers may be
“required to operate from civilian homes for varying periods,” it said,
adding that the destruction of civilian property was a violation of the
military’s rules and does not conform to its values.It said “any
exceptional incidents that raise concerns regarding a deviation from
these orders” are “thoroughly addressed,” without elaborating.For Abu
Dgehish, the mess was emblematic of the emotional whiplash of return. No
one knows when they’ll have to flee again.“It’s like they want us to
feel that we’re never safe,” she said. ”That we have no control.”Broad
crackdown on terror groups since October 7Tensions ratcheted up in the
West Bank after the Hamas terror group invaded southern Israel from the
Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly
civilians, and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual
assault, sparking the ongoing war.Since then, troops have arrested some
6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than
2,350 affiliated with Hamas. In that time, the IDF have carried out more
than 100 airstrikes in the West Bank, using drones, attack helicopters,
and fighter jets.According to the Palestinian Authority health
ministry, more than 900 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that
time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in
exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists
carrying out attacks.During the same period, 48 people, including
Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel
and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were
killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
timesofisrael.com-UAE
tells Rubio it rejects displacement of Palestinians from Gaza-By
Agencies and ToI Staff Today, 2:38 pm-FEB 19,25
United Arab
Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told visiting US
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday that Abu Dhabi opposes the
displacement of Palestinians, official media reported.Sheikh Mohammed
“affirmed the UAE’s firm position rejecting any attempts aimed at
displacing the Palestinian people from their land,” the WAM news agency
said.Nahyan’s comments came after US President Donald Trump proposed a
US takeover of Gaza and the resettling of its Palestinian inhabitants in
Jordan and Egypt, prompting widespread opposition among Arab countries
and Western allies.Nahyan told Rubio during a meeting in Abu Dhabi that
it was important to link the reconstruction of Gaza to a path leading to
“a comprehensive and lasting peace based on the two-state solution” to
the Israel-Palestinian conflict.Rubio departed Abu Dhabi after a brief
stop in the UAE, the final leg of his first Middle East tour in office,
which included discussions on Trump’s proposal for Gaza.The UAE’s stance
on the conflict is important because it is one of four Arab countries
that normalized ties with Israel during the first Trump administration
and because it has played a role in financing reconstruction work after
previous conflicts.Arab diplomacy on Gaza is aimed at developing an
alternative to Trump’s plan for the territory, most of which lies in
ruins after 15 months between Israel and Hamas that began when the
Palestinian terror group that rules the Strip led an invasion of
southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted
251 people who were taken as hostages to Gaza.A fragile, three-phase
ceasefire was reached in January but the war has left nearly all the 2.3
million inhabitants of Gaza homeless.The Trump administration, which
rejects any future role for Hamas in the Palestinian territory, has
called on the Arab countries, which are firmly opposed to any
displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, to propose alternatives to the US
president’s plan.The leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE,
and Qatar are expected to discuss an Egyptian proposal for Gaza in
Riyadh this month before it can be presented to an Arab League summit in
Cairo in March.Netanyahu said he spoke with Rubio about Trump’s “bold
vision for Gaza, for Gaza’s future, and how we can work together to
ensure that future becomes a reality.”Rubio also praised the plan as
“something that is new, something that frankly took courage and vision
in order to outline. It may have surprised and shocked many, but what
cannot continue is the same cycle to repeat over and over again and wind
up in the exact same place.”In Saudi Arabia on Monday, Rubio met with
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, emphasizing “the importance of an
arrangement for Gaza that contributes to regional security,” according
to a statement.It's not (only) about you.Supporting The Times of Israel
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timesofisrael.com-Trump
and Putin could meet this month, Kremlin says, as US envoy lands in
Ukraine-By Agencies Today, 1:44 pm-FEB 19,25
Russian President
Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump could meet this month,
although the first face-to-face encounter between a Russian and a US
leader since 2021 could take longer to prepare, the Kremlin said on
Wednesday.Trump said on Tuesday he would probably meet Putin this month
and dismissed Ukraine’s concern about being left out of US-Russian talks
in Saudi Arabia, also asserting that Kyiv started the war and could
have reached a deal with Russia earlier to end it.Zelensky canceled his
planned Wednesday trip to Saudi Arabia, criticizing the US-Russia talks,
to which he was not invited, about the future of his country.Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the meeting in Riyadh was focused
mostly on Russian-US bilateral ties but that it was also a “very, very
important step” toward reaching a settlement on the Ukraine war, nearing
the end of its third year.“But this is the first step… Naturally, it’s
impossible to fix everything in one day or a week. There is a long way
to go,” Peskov said.Asked if a meeting between Putin and Trump could
take place this month, Peskov was quoted by Interfax as saying:
“Possibly. And possibly not.”Putin and Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden
held a summit in Geneva in June 2021. That was the most recent time a US
and Russian leader met face to face, though Biden and Putin had a call
in February 2022 and messages were passed via intermediaries.Trump has
upended Western policy on Russia and Ukraine, ordering talks with Russia
without Ukraine or European powers, speaking to Putin, and talking
about bringing down the price of oil — of which Russia is a major
exporter.Trump says he wants to end the war and that he thinks Putin
wants to do a deal. But he has yet to spell out his plan for halting a
conflict that has left swaths of Ukraine destroyed, killed or injured
hundreds of thousands of people and raised fears of a direct
confrontation between Russia and the United States, the world’s two
biggest nuclear powers.The talks in Riyadh were the first that the US
and Russia have held to seek an end to the war, the deadliest in Europe
since World War II.No Ukrainian or European officials were invited. Kyiv
has said it will not accept any deal imposed without its consent.US
Secretary of State Marco Rubio (C), US National Security Advisor Mike
Waltz (R) and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff attend an interview
after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, at
Diriyah Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on February 18, 2025. (EVELYN
HOCKSTEIN / POOL / AFP)The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014
after a Russia-friendly president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan
Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist
forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.In 2022, Putin sent his army into
Ukraine in what he called a “special military operation.” He said it
was needed to protect Russian-speakers in Ukraine and counter what he
said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian membership in
NATO.Ukraine and the West cast the war as an imperial-style land grab
that threatens European security, and say that Russia could go further
and attack NATO one day. Kellogg visits Kyiv to meet with
Zelensky-Meanwhile, Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and
Russia, arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday for talks with Zelensky and
military commanders.The battlefield has brought grim news for Ukraine in
recent months. A relentless onslaught in eastern areas by Russia’s
bigger army is grinding down Ukrainian forces, which are slowly but
steadily being pushed backward at some points on the 1,000-kilometer
(600-mile) front line.Kellogg said his visit was “a chance to have some
good, substantial talks.”American officials have signaled that Ukraine’s
hopes of joining NATO in order to ward off Russian aggression after
reaching a possible peace agreement won’t happen. Zelensky says any
settlement will require US security commitments to keep Russia at
bay.“We understand the need for security guarantees,” Kellogg said in
comments carried by Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne Novyny on his
arrival at Kyiv train station.“It’s very clear to us the importance of
the sovereignty of this nation and the independence of this nation as
well… Part of my mission is to sit and listen,” the retired three-star
general said.Kellogg said he would convey what he learns on his visit to
Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “and ensure that we get
this one right.”Zelensky, in Turkey, criticizes US-Russia talks-Zelensky
on Tuesday criticized US-Russia talks for excluding Kyiv, saying
efforts to end the war must be “fair” and involve European countries
including Turkey.His remarks came after Washington and Moscow said they
would name teams to negotiate a path to ending the war in Ukraine,
during their first high-level official talks since Russia invaded nearly
three years ago.The Ukrainian leader spoke after a nearly three-hour
meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkish
capital Ankara.“Ukraine, Europe in a broad sense — and this includes the
European Union, Turkey, and the UK — should be involved in
conversations and the development of the necessary security guarantees
with America regarding the fate of our part of the world,” Zelensky
said.“You can talk about anything, but no decision can be made without
Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine.”Any efforts to broker an end
to the conflict should be “fair,” he said, slamming the US-Russia talks
in Riyadh earlier on Tuesday and reiterating his opposition to
“decisions without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine.”Standing
beside Zelensky, Erdogan offered Turkey as the “ideal host” for any
talks on ending the conflict, recalling how the sides had met in
Istanbul back in 2022, just weeks after Russia invaded.“Turkey will be
an ideal host for the possible talks between Russia, Ukraine and America
in the near future,” he added, saying the Istanbul talks had been “an
important reference point and the platform where the parties came
closest to an agreement”.It was Zelensky’s third visit to Turkey since
the Russian invasion, with the Ukrainian leader seeking to shore up
Kyiv’s position following US Trump’s outreach toward Moscow.NATO member
Turkey has sought to maintain good relations with its warring Black Sea
neighbors, with Erdogan pitching himself as a key go-between and
possible peacemaker between the two.Ankara has provided drones for
Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow.Alongside
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Turkey has played a role in
brokering several prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine.Those deals
have seen hundreds of prisoners returning home despite the ongoing
conflict.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
timesofisrael.com-Fiji
to open embassy in Jerusalem, becoming 7th country to do so-By Emanuel
Fabian, AFP and ToI Staff-FEB 19,25 By Lazar Berman is The Times of
Israel's diplomatic reporter.
Fiji has decided to open an embassy
in Jerusalem, the Pacific country’s Foreign Ministry announced on
Tuesday.“Necessary risk assessments will be undertaken by the [Ministry
of Foreign Affairs] and the Ministry of Defence, in consultation with
relevant agencies, prior to and during the establishment process,” wrote
the Fijian Foreign Ministry on X.Currently, six countries have
embassies in Jerusalem — the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New
Guinea and Paraguay.Last week in Munich, Fiji’s Prime Minister and
Foreign Minister Sitinevi Rabuka told Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that
he will bring to his government this week his proposal to move the
Fijian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, according to Sa’ar’s office.“I
commend the Republic of Fiji’s government for its historic decision to
open an embassy in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people,”
Sa’ar wrote on X.In 2023, Rabuka told Israel’s Ambassador Roi
Rosenblit: “My personal feeling is that Jerusalem should be the location
of our new Fiji embassy, but I will have to sell this to our coalition
partners.”Rabuka came to power in late 2022 as the head of a three-party
government that includes the right-wing Christian Sodelpa party, one of
whose leader’s demands was that Fiji open an embassy in
Jerusalem.Fiji’s decision on the embassy followed a decades-long
campaign by the Jerusalem-based International Christian Embassy of
Jerusalem, which preaches support for Israel at churches across the
Southern Pacific.It's not (only) about you.
timesofisrael.com-Top
Netanyahu adviser Ron Dermer to lead talks on phase two of hostage
deal-By Emanuel Fabian, AFP and ToI Staff-FEB 19,25
Strategic
Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a longtime confidant of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, will lead talks on phase two of the hostage
release-ceasefire deal with Hamas, according to Hebrew media reports on
Tuesday.Mossad chief David Barnea has led previous rounds.Netanyahu
pushed aside Barnea, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, and IDF hostage point man
Nitzan Alon, with whom he has sparred throughout the negotiations. The
security chiefs have long felt that a deal could and should have been
reached earlier but that political considerations in Israel hampered
those efforts.Bar revealed in a recent conversation that he is no longer
part of Israel’s hostage negotiating team, the Kan public broadcaster
reported. His apparent ouster follows reports that Netanyahu is looking
to fire him entirely.Barnea and Bar were also not invited to a crucial
security discussion in Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday evening, Channel 13
reported, as Israel’s leadership formulates its position on talks
regarding phase two.An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that
Netanyshu has not yet given approval for an Israeli negotiating team to
head to Qatar for the talks.Yet momentum is slowly building, with US
pressure. Dermer is slated to meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff to
discuss the second phase in the coming days, the Walla news site
reported.Channel 12 reported that some of the hostage families are
concerned about Netanyahu’s decision to place Dermer at the head of
Israel’s hostage negotiating team.The families pointed to remarks Dermer
made in recent meetings with them during which he said he would not
support any hostage deal that brings about an end to the war before
Hamas has been fully dismantled.Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on
Tuesday that Israel would in the coming days begin negotiations on the
second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, including an exchange of the
remaining Israeli hostages for more Palestinian security prisoners, and
added that Israel is demanding a complete demilitarization of the
enclave.It is believed that another 24 living hostages could be released
under phase two of the deal.Sa’ar told foreign journalists in Jerusalem
that the talks would begin “this week.”“We had a security cabinet
meeting last night. We decided to open negotiations on the second phase.
It will happen this week,” he said of the talks, which were originally
supposed to start on February 3.Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas
official, said in a statement that Hamas is prepared to immediately
begin negotiations regarding phase two of the deal.Sa’ar said Israel
will not accept any scenario in which Gaza terror groups retain
weapons.A “Hezbollah model” in Gaza would not be acceptable to Israel
“and therefore we need a total demilitarization of Gaza and no presence
of the Palestinian Authority,” he said in a press conference.Israel will
not support a plan that would see civilian control of Gaza transferred
from Hamas to the Palestinian Authority, Sa’ar specified.The ceasefire
stipulates that the parties must begin negotiations regarding phase two
of the deal no later than the 16th day of the first phase, which was on
February 3, but talks have yet to begin. The second phase provides for
the end of the war and the withdrawal of all IDF troops from Gaza.Hamas
has so far released 24 hostages — 19 Israeli civilians and female
soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during the current ceasefire, which
began on January 19. The terror group also freed 105 civilians during a
weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released
before that.Seventy captives remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 35
confirmed dead by the IDF.Eight hostages have been rescued by troops
alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including
three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape
their captors.Hamas is also holding al-Sayed and Mengistu, the two
Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the
body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF
soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.It's
not (only) about you.
timesofisrael.com-PM said to condition deal’s 2nd phase on end of Hamas presence in Gaza, no PA rule-ToI Staff-FEB 19,25
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet ministers during a recent
meeting that Israel’s conditions in upcoming negotiations on the terms
of the second phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal are for
the Hamas terror group to disarm and have no presence in Gaza, and for
the Palestinian Authority to be barred from the post-war management of
the enclave, Israeli television reported Tuesday.The Channel 12 news
report came after the security cabinet met Monday night to discuss
negotiations for the second stage of the ceasefire agreement, which have
yet to begin despite originally being expected to start on February 3.
Kan news said Netanyahu is also demanding the demilitarization of the
Strip.Following the meeting, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Tuesday
that the talks on the second phase — which is expected to provide for
the release of all remaining hostages, the withdrawal of all IDF troops
from Gaza and the end of the war — would begin “this week.”Hinting at
the stance Israel is expected to adopt in the upcoming negotiations,
Sa’ar warned that Jerusalem “will not accept the continued presence of
Hamas or any other terrorist organization in Gaza.”But, he added, if the
negotiations are constructive, Israel will remain engaged and may
prolong the ceasefire.“If we will see there is a constructive dialogue
with a possible horizon of getting to an agreement (then) we will make
this timeframe work longer,” he said.It is unclear how Netanyahu’s
reported demands regarding the ousting of Hamas, which reflect his
public insistence that the terror group must be completely destroyed,
can be reconciled with his pledge to secure the release of all remaining
Israeli captives. Many analysts have assessed that the only way to
enable the release of all the hostages would be for Israel to agree to
end the war with the terror group functional in Gaza in some form, a
scenario Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.Although Sa’ar said that the
security cabinet had agreed to begin phase two talks later this week, an
Israeli official told the Times of Israel that the negotiating team was
still awaiting approval to head to Qatar for the talks.A protest tent
calling for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip,
outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, February 18, 2025.
(Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)To that end, Netanyahu told cabinet ministers
that there would be a separate meeting held regarding the phase two
negotiations before the Israeli delegation departs for Doha.He also
asked ministers not to leak what was discussed during Monday night’s
meeting, Channel 12 said, and explained that doing so would risk the
lives of the hostages.Citing unnamed Israeli sources, the Kan public
broadcaster reported that Israel’s delegation will not depart for Doha
before US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff returns to Israel later this
week.Dermer at the helm-When it does depart, the delegation will be
headed by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s longtime
confidant, after the premier pushed aside the heads of the Shin Bet,
Mossad and IDF hostage point man Nitzan Alon, with whom he sparred
throughout the negotiations.The security chiefs have long felt that a
deal could and should have been reached earlier but that political
considerations in Israel hampered those efforts.Some families of the
hostages are concerned about Dermer’s appointment to head the
negotiating team, Channel 12 reported, due to his ostensible hardline
views.The families pointed to cited Dermer made in recent meetings with
them, in which they cited him saying that he would not support any
hostage deal that brings about an end to the war before Hamas has been
fully dismantled.Since the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage
release deal came into effect on January 19, Hamas has released 19
Israeli civilians and female soldiers, along with five Thai
nationals.All six remaining living hostages slated to be released in the
first phase of the deal are to be freed this Saturday, in a surprise
move reportedly linked to growing worries that the deal could collapse.
Hamas will also return the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, and
another four the following Thursday.Fifty-nine Israelis will remain in
captivity after the completion of phase one of the deal, 24 of whom are
believed to be alive. The other 35 have been confirmed dead by Israeli
authorities.All at once?Unlike the first phase of the deal which
required Hamas to release several hostages each week over the course of
six weeks, Kan reported on Tuesday that the terror group submitted an
offer to Israel via mediators to release all the hostages in phase two
at once, instead of a gradual process.The offer stems from the terrorist
organization’s desire to prevent Israel from resuming the war, the
report said, and as a way for it to prioritize its own survival, even
over the issue of the Palestinian security prisoners who are also slated
to be released in phase two.Even as Israel readies for negotiations
regarding phase two, it is also preparing for the potential resumption
of fighting in the event that the deal collapses, with large amounts of
troops and equipment being amassed along the Gaza border, Channel 12
reported.The report added that the return to fighting, should it occur,
will be substantial but complex, given that roughly two dozen living
hostages are still being held throughout Gaza.Amid the ongoing ceasefire
in Gaza, the IDF has continued to take action against Palestinians it
deems to be posing a threat to troops or violating the terms of the
truce agreement.On Tuesday, it said it fired warning shots at
Palestinian suspects who approached troops and “posed a threat” in
several areas of the Strip.In one incident in southern Gaza, the IDF
said forces opened fire directly on a suspect who did not withdraw after
warning shots.Additionally, the military said that a drone strike was
carried out as a warning in central Gaza to prevent a vehicle from
driving to the Strip’s north via an unapproved route.Vehicular traffic
is only permitted on the Salah a-Din road, where a private company is
inspecting Palestinian cars heading north.“The IDF calls the residents
of Gaza to follow its instructions and avoid approaching the troops
deployed in the area,” the military warned.Agencies contributed to this
report.
Hamas said to offer to free phase two hostages all at
once-PM said to condition deal’s 2nd phase on end of Hamas presence in
Gaza, no PA rule-Israel reportedly readying for potential resumption of
war if ceasefire collapses, amassing troops and equipment along Gaza
border; delegation yet to depart for latest Doha talks By ToI Staff and
Emanuel Fabian-19 February 2025, 1:01 am
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu told cabinet ministers during a recent meeting that Israel’s
conditions in upcoming negotiations on the terms of the second phase of
the ceasefire and hostage release deal are for the Hamas terror group to
disarm and have no presence in Gaza, and for the Palestinian Authority
to be barred from the post-war management of the enclave, Israeli
television reported Tuesday.The Channel 12 news report came after the
security cabinet met Monday night to discuss negotiations for the second
stage of the ceasefire agreement, which have yet to begin despite
originally being expected to start on February 3. Kan news said
Netanyahu is also demanding the demilitarization of the Strip.Following
the meeting, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Tuesday that the talks
on the second phase — which is expected to provide for the release of
all remaining hostages, the withdrawal of all IDF troops from Gaza and
the end of the war — would begin “this week.”Hinting at the stance
Israel is expected to adopt in the upcoming negotiations, Sa’ar warned
that Jerusalem “will not accept the continued presence of Hamas or any
other terrorist organization in Gaza.”But, he added, if the negotiations
are constructive, Israel will remain engaged and may prolong the
ceasefire.“If we will see there is a constructive dialogue with a
possible horizon of getting to an agreement (then) we will make this
timeframe work longer,” he said.It is unclear how Netanyahu’s reported
demands regarding the ousting of Hamas, which reflect his public
insistence that the terror group must be completely destroyed, can be
reconciled with his pledge to secure the release of all remaining
Israeli captives. Many analysts have assessed that the only way to
enable the release of all the hostages would be for Israel to agree to
end the war with the terror group functional in Gaza in some form, a
scenario Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.Although Sa’ar said that the
security cabinet had agreed to begin phase two talks later this week, an
Israeli official told the Times of Israel that the negotiating team was
still awaiting approval to head to Qatar for the talks.To that end,
Netanyahu told cabinet ministers that there would be a separate meeting
held regarding the phase two negotiations before the Israeli delegation
departs for Doha.He also asked ministers not to leak what was discussed
during Monday night’s meeting, Channel 12 said, and explained that doing
so would risk the lives of the hostages.Citing unnamed Israeli sources,
the Kan public broadcaster reported that Israel’s delegation will not
depart for Doha before US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff returns to
Israel later this week.Dermer at the helm-When it does depart, the
delegation will be headed by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer,
Netanyahu’s longtime confidant, after the premier pushed aside the heads
of the Shin Bet, Mossad and IDF hostage point man Nitzan Alon, with
whom he sparred throughout the negotiations.The security chiefs have
long felt that a deal could and should have been reached earlier but
that political considerations in Israel hampered those efforts.Some
families of the hostages are concerned about Dermer’s appointment to
head the negotiating team, Channel 12 reported, due to his ostensible
hardline views.The families pointed to cited Dermer made in recent
meetings with them, in which they cited him saying that he would not
support any hostage deal that brings about an end to the war before
Hamas has been fully dismantled.Since the first phase of the ceasefire
and hostage release deal came into effect on January 19, Hamas has
released 19 Israeli civilians and female soldiers, along with five Thai
nationals.All six remaining living hostages slated to be released in the
first phase of the deal are to be freed this Saturday, in a surprise
move reportedly linked to growing worries that the deal could collapse.
Hamas will also return the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, and
another four the following Thursday.Fifty-nine Israelis will remain in
captivity after the completion of phase one of the deal, 24 of whom are
believed to be alive. The other 35 have been confirmed dead by Israeli
authorities.All at once? Unlike the first phase of the deal which
required Hamas to release several hostages each week over the course of
six weeks, Kan reported on Tuesday that the terror group submitted an
offer to Israel via mediators to release all the hostages in phase two
at once, instead of a gradual process.The offer stems from the terrorist
organization’s desire to prevent Israel from resuming the war, the
report said, and as a way for it to prioritize its own survival, even
over the issue of the Palestinian security prisoners who are also slated
to be released in phase two.Even as Israel readies for negotiations
regarding phase two, it is also preparing for the potential resumption
of fighting in the event that the deal collapses, with large amounts of
troops and equipment being amassed along the Gaza border, Channel 12
reported.The report added that the return to fighting, should it occur,
will be substantial but complex, given that roughly two dozen living
hostages are still being held throughout Gaza.Amid the ongoing ceasefire
in Gaza, the IDF has continued to take action against Palestinians it
deems to be posing a threat to troops or violating the terms of the
truce agreement.On Tuesday, it said it fired warning shots at
Palestinian suspects who approached troops and “posed a threat” in
several areas of the Strip.In one incident in southern Gaza, the IDF
said forces opened fire directly on a suspect who did not withdraw after
warning shots.Additionally, the military said that a drone strike was
carried out as a warning in central Gaza to prevent a vehicle from
driving to the Strip’s north via an unapproved route.Vehicular traffic
is only permitted on the Salah a-Din road, where a private company is
inspecting Palestinian cars heading north.“The IDF calls the residents
of Gaza to follow its instructions and avoid approaching the troops
deployed in the area,” the military warned.Agencies contributed to this
report.
Arab plan for Gaza could involve up to $20 billion
regional contribution-Officials hope financial support from Arab and
Gulf states toward reconstruction of the war-torn enclave could bring
Trump around to their alternative plan-By Reuters and ToI Staff 18
February 2025, 9:10 pm
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is
expected to travel to Riyadh on Thursday, two Egyptian security sources
said, where he is due to discuss an Arab plan for Gaza that may include
up to $20 billion from the region for reconstruction.Arab states are
expected to discuss a post-war plan for Gaza to counter US President
Donald Trump’s recent proposal to redevelop the strip under US control
and permanently displace Palestinians, a prospect that has angered
regional leaders while being welcomed by Israel, although it has
insisted that any relocation of Palestinians would be voluntary.Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are set to
review and discuss the Arab plan before it is presented at a scheduled
Arab summit that is slated to take place in Cairo on March 4, four
sources with knowledge of the matter said.On Friday, a gathering of Arab
state leaders, including Jordan, Egypt, the UAE and Qatar, was expected
in Saudi Arabia, which is spearheading Arab efforts against Trump’s
plan, although some sources said the date had not been confirmed
yet.Arab states were dismayed by Trump’s plan to “clean out”
Palestinians from Gaza and resettle most of them in Jordan and Egypt to
create a “Riviera of the Middle East.” The idea was immediately rejected
by Cairo and Amman and seen in most of the region as deeply
destabilizing, with rights groups saying that it would amount to forced
expulsion, a potential war crime.The Arab proposal, mostly based on an
Egyptian plan, involves forming a national Palestinian committee to
govern Gaza without Hamas involvement and international participation in
reconstruction without displacing Palestinians abroad. The committee
would also not be aligned with the Palestinian Authority, according to
Egyptian officials involved in the efforts.A $20 billion contribution
from Arab and Gulf states toward the fund, cited by two sources as being
a likely figure, may be a good incentive for Trump to accept the plan,
Emirati academic Abdulkhaleq Abdullah said.“Trump is transactional so
$20 billion would resonate well with him,” Abdullah said. “This would
benefit a lot of US and Israeli companies.”The PA’s cabinet said in a
statement on Tuesday that the first phase of the plan under discussion
would cost approximately $20 billion over three years.The Palestinian
Authority’s estimate was matched by an assessment released by the United
Nations, European Union and World Bank on Tuesday, which estimated that
more than $50 billion would be required to rebuild Gaza and areas of
the West Bank.The Interim Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment said that
$53.2 billion is needed for recovery and reconstruction over the next
ten years, with $20 billion needed in the first three.Egyptian sources
told Reuters that discussions are still underway as to the size of the
financial contribution by the region.The plan sees reconstruction taking
place over a three-year timeframe, sources said.“My conversations with
Arab leaders, most recently King Abdullah [of Jordan], have convinced me
they have a really realistic appraisal of what their role should be,”
US Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters in Tel Aviv during a visit
to Israel on Monday.Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Israel was
waiting to evaluate the plan as it comes together but warned that any
plan in which Hamas continued to have a presence in Gaza was not
acceptable.“When we hear it, we will know how to address it,” he
said.The 16 months of war in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Hamas-led
invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has
devastated the Palestinian enclave.Around a quarter million housing
units have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN estimates. More
than 90 percent of the roads and more than 80% of health facilities have
been damaged or destroyed. Damage to infrastructure has been estimated
at some $30 billion, along with an estimated $16 billion in damage to
housing.
Top Iranian general warns Tehran will strike Israel
again at ‘appropriate time’-IRGC deputy Ali Fadavi’s hints at future
attacks after Netanyahu said Israel ‘can and will finish the job’
against Iranian ‘axis of terror’By ToI Staff 18 February 2025, 7:45 pm
A
senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general warned Monday that
Iran would carry out a third wave of missile strikes against Israel at
the “appropriate time,” after Tehran previously launched two rounds of
direct attacks on Israel in April and October 2024.“The True Promise 3
will be carried out in appropriate time,” said deputy commander-in-chief
of the IRGC Brigadier General Ali Fadavi at Tehran’s Amirkabir
University of Technology, in remarks carried by Iran’s Mehr news
agency.Fadavi also briefly touched on the war in Gaza, which was sparked
by the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7,
2023, claiming that the ongoing ceasefire and hostage release deal was
proof that Israel “lost” against the Palestinian terror group.“Zionist
regime officials themselves admit that Hamas won and they lost,” Fadavi
claimed.He was joined at the university, which was marking the 46th
anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, by representatives of Hamas,
Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, as well as representatives of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Iraqi Hezbollah al-Nujaba militia.Over
the past year, Iran twice fired massive barrages of missiles and drones
at Israel, in operations it dubbed True Promise 1 and 2, in a spillover
from the war in the Gaza Strip and the fighting with Hezbollah in
Lebanon.Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel in April
2024, firing some 300 attack drones and missiles in response to the
killing of several IRGC members in an airstrike near Tehran’s consulate
in Damascus.Months later, in October, it launched some 200 ballistic
missiles at Israel in retaliation for the assassinations of former Hamas
Hezbollah leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Hasan Nasrallah.In both instances,
the Iranian assaults were largely thwarted by Israel’s air defenses in
cooperation with the US and its regional allies. Israel twice bombed
Iran in response, the second time destroying much of its air defense
systems as well as some rocket and drone manufacturing sites.While
Fadavi did not clarify what prompted his threat on Monday, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week that Jerusalem “can
and will finish the job” against Tehran’s “axis of terror.” His comments
prompted Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei to retort
that Israel “cannot do a damn thing” to harm Iran.Earlier this month The
Washington Post reported that US intelligence assessments showed Israel
is considering strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, and that the attacks
could come as soon as mid-year.Iran, whose leaders are sworn to Israel’s
destruction, has formally rejected nuclear weapons. However, it has
continued to advance its nuclear program, accelerating the enrichment of
uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90% needed to
assemble a nuclear warhead. Critics say there are no civilian purposes
for such highly enriched uranium.Responding to the report, Iranian
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran’s enemies may be able to strike
the country’s nuclear centers but cannot deprive it of its ability to
build new ones.
Israel raids UNRWA job center, shuts schools in
East Jerusalem after agency banned-UN refugee body says police,
Jerusalem officials storm Qalandiya vocational training facility with
tear gas and sound grenades; two schools said to defy order to shutter
By ToI Staff and Agencies 18 February 2025, 6:49 pm
Israeli
forces raided a vocational center and shuttered three East Jerusalem
schools, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday.The
actions, which the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said affected
some 600 students, were the latest move by Israeli authorities to banish
the body from operating in its territory.According to UNRWA, police and
Jerusalem municipality staff entered the Kalandia Training Centre by
force Tuesday morning, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering
its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during
the raid on the job-training facility, which is located just outside the
Qalandiya refugee camp bordering East Jerusalem.Police and city
officials also ordered the closure of three other schools in East
Jerusalem attended by around 250 children, UNRWA said. Two of the
schools, which were not named by UNRWA, reportedly continued operating
despite the order.A spokesperson for the Israel Police said officers
were carrying out an order from Jerusalem City Hall. A spokesperson for
the municipality could not be reached.In a statement, UNRWA head
Philippe Lazzarini called the moves “a violation of the basic right to
education as well as of United Nations privileges and
immunities.”“Children’s access to education must be preserved and United
Nations facilities must be protected and respected at all times
wherever they are,” he said.Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the
West Bank and East Jerusalem, said the raids were “unacceptable” and a
“denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”Israel last
month severed all ties between its officials and UNRWA and barred the
agency from operating in Israeli territory.The ban was passed by the
Knesset in November with a wide majority, with the support of opposition
parties, amid a series of revelations about employees of the agency who
were actively involved in terror groups in the Gaza Strip,
participation of some of its staff in the October 7, 2023, Hamas
invasion and slaughter, and repeated use of UNRWA infrastructure for
terror activities. Israel has also provided evidence that the agency’s
schools incited hatred of Israel and glorification of attacks against
Israelis.UNRWA has for decades run schools and clinics in East Jerusalem
for tens of thousands of registered refugees there.The agency was
established in 1949 following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. It
provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza,
the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries — Syria, Lebanon and
Jordan.Some 5.9 million people are registered as Palestinian refugees by
UNRWA because they are descended from Arabs displaced in the 1948
war.Israel has long argued that UNRWA perpetuates the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict by using this definition of refugee, the
only case in which the status is passed down generationally.The
hostility between Israel and the UN body intensified in the wake of
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst
across the border, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251
hostages.Israel has provided evidence that a dozen UNRWA employees were
involved in the deadly 2023 attack and insists that other agencies can
pick up the slack to provide essential services, aid and reconstruction —
something the UN and many donor governments dispute.A series of
investigations, including one led by former French foreign minister
Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, but
claimed Israel had not provided evidence for its headline
allegation.Charlie Summers contributed to this report.
Heavy
construction equipment said to begin rolling into Gaza-Mobile homes also
expected to be delivered to enclave as demanded by Hamas; FM Sa’ar says
talks for second stage of ceasefire to start this week-By ToI Staff and
Agencies 18 February 2025, 6:43 pm
Heavy construction equipment
was said to begin entering the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, in a step toward
bolstering the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.Egypt’s
Al-Ghad TV reported that the equipment crossed from Egypt into Gaza
through the Rafah crossing.The entry of mobile homes and construction
equipment into Gaza has been a sticking point, with the terror group
last week threatening to halt the release of hostages under the
ceasefire deal unless the items were allowed in.The report came as
Tuesday statements from Israeli and Hamas officials said six living
Israeli hostages will be released on Saturday from Hamas captivity in
Gaza. The six are all the remaining living captives set to go free in
the ongoing first phase of the deal with the terror group.Israel will
allow mobile homes and heavy construction equipment into Gaza in a
controlled manner as it seeks to expedite the release of the six living
hostages, a senior Israeli official said earlier.“Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is making immense efforts to secure the release of
the six living hostages that remain as part of phase one [of the
hostage-ceasefire deal], and also four hostages who are not alive,” the
official said.“Under the agreement, Israel agreed to allow mobile homes
and construction equipment into Gaza after stringent inspections. In
accordance with the negotiations and on condition Hamas upholds the
agreement, Israel will begin allowing this in a controlled and phased
way.”Hamas is set to release four bodies on Thursday.According to
reports, the ceasefire and hostage release agreement explicitly states
that supplies and equipment can be brought into Gaza to establish at
least 60,000 temporary living facilities. The details of the deal have
not been published in full. Hamas has also said it wants hundreds of
heavy construction machines while alleging that only a handful have
arrived so far.Earlier this week Netanyahu reportedly refused to approve
the entry of mobile homes and heavy equipment into the Gaza Strip.A
political official told the Kan public broadcaster that during a
security consultation chaired by the prime minister “it was decided that
the issue of caravans will be discussed in the coming days. Israel is
fully coordinating with the United States.”The three-stage ceasefire
agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting
triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when
terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.The deal
requires the terror group to release all its hostages and Israel to
release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds
serving life sentences — and halt the fighting in the Strip, followed
by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the
enclave.Of the 33 hostages set to be freed under phase one of the deal,
19 have already been released and Israel says eight are dead. That
leaves just six living hostages slated for release in the current
stage.Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Tuesday Israel will in the
coming days begin negotiations on the second phase of the deal,
including an exchange of the remaining Israeli hostages for Palestinian
security prisoners, while adding that Israel demands a complete
demilitarization of the enclave.“We had a security cabinet meeting last
night. We decided to open negotiations on the second phase. It will
happen this week,” he said of the talks, which were originally supposed
to start on February 3.“We will not accept the continued presence of
Hamas or any other terrorist organization in Gaza,” Saar said.But he
noted that if the negotiations are constructive, Israel will remain
engaged and may prolong the first phase of the ceasefire, which is meant
to last six weeks.Israel had given mixed signals in the past few weeks
over its engagement in the talks over the next stage of the three-phased
ceasefire, which came into effect on January 19 with the stated goal of
permanently ending the Gaza war.The ceasefire deal has remained on
track despite a series of setbacks and accusations of violations that
had threatened to derail it.But negotiations over the second stage are
expected to be tough because they include issues like the administration
of postwar Gaza, on which large gaps between the sides appear to
persist.
Welcome to the era of the buffer zone-Whereas, in the
past, Israel has semi-occupied adjacent territory, now it’s creating
sterilized strips that potentially redefine its borders-By Amir
Ben-David-18 February 2025, 2:59 pm
The IDF is completing its
withdrawal from Lebanon today, transferring responsibility for
maintaining the ceasefire along the northern border to the Lebanese army
while retaining control over five strategic positions.Defense Minister
Israel Katz addressed the IDF’s withdrawal this morning, stating:
“Starting today, the IDF will remain in a buffer zone in Lebanon at five
key outposts along the border to ensure the protection of all Israeli
communities and maintain deterrence.”Following the 1982 Lebanese war,
Israel retained some 10% of Lebanon as a security zone, before
withdrawing to the international border in 2000. This time around, it is
settling for carefully placed outposts close to the Israeli border.Katz
added that “many outposts have also been established along the Israeli
side of the border. At the same time, the IDF will continue enforcement
actions against any Hezbollah violations.”The IDF outposts will remain
on Lebanese soil in coordination and agreement with the United States.
The following are the new names worth getting to know, as the buffer
zone era begins:
• Al-Labouna Outpost – The westernmost outpost,
located on the ridge above Shlomi. It is intended to control the hills
overlooking the Western Galilee.
• Jabal Balat Outpost – Situated
above Zar’it. Known to veterans of the Lebanon War and the subsequent
years as “Karkum Outpost.” It will protect the area around Shtula and
Zar’it.
A map showing the locations of five IDF posts in southern
Lebanon that troops will remain deployed to after a February 18, 2025,
deadline. (Times of Israel; OpenStreetMap)
• Jabal al-Deir Outpost –
Overlooking Avivim and Malkia. It dominates the area of Bint Jbeil,
Maroun al-Ras, and Wadi Saluki – names well-remembered by Israelis who
fought in previous Lebanon wars, carrying both traumatic memories and
explosive devices.
• Markaba-Khulta Outpost – High above Margaliot in the Galilee Panhandle.
•
Al-Hamas Outpost – The northernmost and easternmost outpost, protecting
Metula and overlooking the Lebanese towns of al-Khiam and Kila from
above.
The IDF reiterated that the forces now assigned to defend
northern communities will be significantly larger than those that were
protecting the northern border before October 7, 2023. Yedioth Ahronoth
military correspondent Yossi Yehoshua estimates that the current troop
deployment is three times the size of what it was before the
war.“Meanwhile, the Northern Command has observed an improvement in the
Lebanese army’s actions against Hezbollah — certainly compared to the
period before the war and even the years leading up to it,” Yehoshua
wrote this morning.“However, despite [the Lebanese army’s] searches in
villages for weapons, these steps are still considered limited and
insufficient. Thus, the responsibility to prove that the reality has
changed still rests with the State of Israel and its military,” he
added.Amir Bar-Shalom, the military analyst for Zman Israel, quotes a
military source this morning who clarifies that the IDF is preparing for
a prolonged stay at the five outposts.“We will remain there until we
determine that the necessary situation — one where Hezbollah is absent
south of the Litani river — has been achieved. That is our
recommendation,” the source said. “We don’t know how long that will
take, so for now, we are there and are preparing for a long stay,
subject to the government’s directives.”The northern choice-In light of
these developments, the government insists that Israel’s northern
residents can safely return to their homes in communities adjacent to
the Lebanese border starting March 1. Under relentless rocket and
missile attack by Hezbollah, more than 70,000 northern residents were
uprooted at the beginning of the war.There’s just one small problem:
Many of these residents no longer have intact homes to return to.This
has become a central issue in local elections that are being held for
northern residents today, after a delay of 15 months due to the war.
Residents are voting today to elect the leadership of their towns or
cities, even though they have not lived in them since October
2023.Metula Regional Council head David Azoulay is demanding that the
state exclude his town — which endured hundreds of anti-tank missile
strikes and remains unfit for habitation — from the planned return. He
requests that the return to Metula be postponed until at least July
1.Property tax damage claims reveal that out of 650 homes in Metula, 460
have sustained damage from attacks — 120 of them severe damage. Public
buildings in the town have also been heavily damaged.The IDF’s Northern
Command chief Uri Gordin “made a terrible decision,” Azoulay tells
Haaretz this morning. “I would love for him to come live here on March 1
with his entire family, along with the officers and ministers who made
this decision. As long as they don’t move here themselves on the date
they set [for locals to return], they shouldn’t expect any other human
being to.”Syria also has a new buffer zone-Newly released satellite
images reveal seven new IDF outposts established beyond the
international border with Syria.The names of some of these new bases
will sound familiar to veteran Israelis who remember not only past
Lebanon wars but also the Yom Kippur War in 1973: Mount Hermon (Syrian
side), Hader, Jubbata al-Khashab, al-Hamidiya, Quneitra, al-Qataniyah,
and Tel Kodna.For now, there is no set date for the withdrawal of IDF
forces from Syrian territory. In the meantime, housing structures for
soldiers, command buildings, clinics, showers, and restrooms have
already been built.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently visited
the Syrian Hermon outpost, reminding those who had forgotten that he
himself fought there in the past.“The strategic importance of this
location for Israel’s security has only grown in recent years,
especially after the dramatic events in Syria,” Netanyahu stated. “We
will determine the best arrangement to ensure our security.”With the IDF
having carved out a border security area for Gaza, too, it appears that
on most every front, the convenient arrangement is the magic term:
buffer zone. Whereas, in the past, Israel semi-occupied territory
adjacent to its borders, now it’s creating sterilized strips that
potentially redefine its borders.Another wave of murders among Arab
citizens-Within one hour this morning, two people were murdered. A man
was shot to death in Lod, and another was killed in a bomb explosion in
Tayibe, at the very same location where his brother was murdered in
almost identical circumstances three years ago.Yesterday, three men were
murdered – in Tel Aviv, Lod, and I’billin. According to the Abraham
Initiatives organization, an NGO that tracks violent crime in the Arab
society, 38 Arab citizens have been murdered in Israel since the
beginning of 2025. In the same period last year, there were 21 murder
victims in Arab society.Lod Mayor Yair Revivo, whose city has seen two
murders in the past 24 hours, tweeted bitterly this morning on X that
the State of Israel has evidently decided to implement US President
Donald Trump’s Arab migration plan [for Gazans] by simply reducing the
[Israeli] Arab population“Instead of transfer, which is a big headache,
let’s just let them kill each other. That way, we’ll get rid of the
Arabs,” Revivo wrote sarcastically. “We are on track for over 300
murders a year in the Arab sector, and literally no one cares except
me.”It is unclear whom Revivo is blaming. After all, he himself is a
member of Likud, the ruling party, and has hosted former national
security minister Itamar Ben Gvir in his city several times in recent
years.In fact, when it was announced that Ben Gvir would be appointed as
the national security minister, responsible for the Israel Police,
Revivo wrote to him: “We all hope that the new Knesset and government
will put governance and addressing gun and shooting crimes at the top of
the agenda.”Well, not all hopes come true.
Israel confirms troops to remain at 'five positions' in south Lebanon-by AFP Staff Writers.
Jerusalem
(AFP) Feb 18, 2025-Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed on
Tuesday that troops remain at five positions in southern Lebanon past a
pullout deadline, vowing action against any truce violation by militant
group Hezbollah.The Israeli military "will remain in a buffer zone in
Lebanon with five control positions, and will continue to act forcefully
and uncompromisingly against any Hezbollah violation," said Katz in a
statement shortly after an extended deadline expired for Israel to
withdraw from Lebanon under the November 27 truce deal.Israel had
announced hours before the pullout deadline that it would keep troops in
"five strategic points" near the border.A Lebanese security source
earlier confirmed to AFP that "the Israeli army has withdrawn from all
border villages except for five points."The ceasefire between Israel and
the Iran-backed militant group has been in effect since late November,
following more than a year of hostilities, including two months of
all-out war in which Israel launched ground operations.Katz said the
decision to remain inside Lebanese territory was made "in accordance
with the decision of the political echelon... to ensure the protection
of all Israeli communities and deterrence against threats from
Lebanon".The minister also said that forces had been reinforced on the
Israeli side of the border."Hezbollah must fully withdraw beyond the
Litani River, and the Lebanese army must enforce and disarm it under the
supervision of the mechanism established by the United States," Katz
said, referring to the terms of the ceasefire deal."We are determined to
provide full security to all communities in the north," he added.Under
the ceasefire, brokered by Washington and Paris, Lebanon's military was
to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army
withdrew over a 60-day period that was extended to February 18.Hezbollah
was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20
miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure
there.Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at US think tank the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies and a former Israeli military spokesman,
told AFP that troops would "remain deployed in key locations overlooking
Israeli communities" from the Lebanese side."When the Lebanese Armed
Forces will be fully deployed in all of southern Lebanon, the IDF (army)
will likely complete its withdrawal from Lebanon, as long as Hezbollah
continues to adhere to the agreement," he said.
IDF withdraws
from Lebanon border villages, keeps ‘buffer zone’; Lebanese army
deploys-Israeli troops remain in 5 strategic outposts inside southern
Lebanon; Katz warns Israel will ‘forcefully’ enforce terms of truce;
Lebanon to seek UN’s help on ‘Israeli violations’By Emanuel Fabian-and
Agencies 18 February 2025, 10:49 am.
The Israel Defense Forces
pulled out of southern Lebanese villages but remained in five key
positions Tuesday morning, around an hour before the deadline for the
withdrawal expired under the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.The IDF did
not officially confirm completing the pullout, but the matter was
confirmed by observers on both sides. Defense Minister Israel Katz said
the IDF was remaining in “a buffer zone,” with “five strategic
outposts,” and would enforce the ceasefire “against any violation by
Hezbollah.”“The Israeli army has withdrawn from all border villages
except for five points, while the Lebanese army is gradually deploying
due to the presence of explosives in some areas and damage to the
roads,” a Lebanese security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
told AFP.The Lebanese Armed Forces said Tuesday morning that it had
deployed overnight to several villages and towns in southern Lebanon
after the IDF withdrawal.LAF troops entered Aabbasiyyeh, Majidieh, Kafr
Kila, Marjaayoun, Odaisseh, Markaba, Houla, Mays al-Jabal, Blida,
Mahbib, Maroun al-Ras, Yaron, Bint Jbeil, and several other locations
near the Israeli border, the Lebanese military said in a statement.The
deployment was being carried out in coordination with a US-led committee
supervising the November 27 ceasefire with Israel and the UN observer
force UNIFIL, the LAF added.The LAF said engineering units were
surveying the areas, opening roads, and safely removing unexploded
ordnance left behind from the fighting.Several local authorities,
including Mays al-Jabal’s municipality, have called on displaced
residents to wait for the LAF to deploy there before coming back, so as
to guarantee their “safe” return.Israel said it would meet the February
18 deadline to withdraw under a ceasefire but remain deployed in five
strategic positions in southern Lebanon.A spokesperson for the Lebanese
presidency said late Tuesday morning that Beirut would consider any
remaining Israeli presence on its lands an occupation and has the right
to use all means to ensure an Israeli withdrawal, without mentioning the
five posts.After a meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun,
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, the three
leaders said the Lebanese army was ready “to assume all its duties
along the… borders,” according to presidency spokeswoman Najat
Charafeddine.She added that Lebanon would also seek the UN Security
Council’s help to “address Israeli violations and compel Israel to
immediately withdraw.In a statement earlier on Tuesday, Katz said the
IDF would “forcefully” enforce the terms of the ceasefire deal in
Lebanon and act against any Hezbollah threat.“Starting today, the IDF
will remain in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five strategic outposts and
will continue to enforce [the deal] forcefully and without compromise
against any violation by Hezbollah,” he said.“Hezbollah must withdraw
fully beyond the Litani River line and the Lebanese army must enforce
and disarm it under the supervision of the mechanism established under
the leadership of the US,” Katz added. “We are determined to provide
full security to all northern communities.”Under a ceasefire deal
brokered by the United States in November, Israeli troops were granted
60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, where they had waged a ground
offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group since
early October.Hezbollah operatives were to leave the zone and Lebanese
troops were to deploy in the area within the same period. The original
deadline was January 26, but was extended until February 18 as Israel
argued Lebanese army deployment was not happening quickly enough.Last
week, the US authorized the IDF to remain in the five points, though it
was not clear how long troops would stay there.The military said on
Monday that it was prepared to stay at the posts for a lengthy period,
until Hezbollah fully withdraws beyond the Litani River and the Israeli
political leadership instructs it to leave.At the five positions, the
IDF constructed military posts that will be manned by troops.The IDF
also ramped up its defenses on the Israeli side of the border, with
several new posts, one in front of every Israeli border community;
better surveillance capabilities, including more cameras, radars, and
sensors; and triple the number of troops compared to before the war.The
ceasefire deal ended two months of full-scale war that followed months
of lower-intensity exchanges.Hezbollah began near-daily attacks on
northern Israel one day after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by
its Palestinian ally Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza. Some 60,000
Israeli residents of the north were displaced by Hezbollah’s attacks,
with rocket fire eventually spreading to the center of the
country.Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah in September,
launching a series of devastating blows against the group’s leadership
and killing its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah before launching a
ground invasion in southern Lebanon aimed at securing the border and
enabling the return of displaced Israelis.Should the ceasefire continue
to hold after the IDF withdrawal, tens of thousands of displaced
residents of northern Israel will begin to return to their homes on
March 2.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Egypt
developing plan to rebuild Gaza as counter to Trump’s call to depopulate
area-Scheme envisions establishing ‘secure areas’ where Palestinians
can live, and an administration not aligned with either Hamas or PA to
oversee territory during reconstruction By AP and ToI Staff 18 February
2025, 9:08 am
CAIRO — Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza
without forcing Palestinians out of the Strip, in a counter to US
President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate the territory and for
Washington to take it over.Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the
proposal calls for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza where
Palestinians can live initially while Egyptian and international
construction firms remove and rehabilitate the Strip’s
infrastructure.Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with
European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates, according to two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western
diplomats. They are also discussing ways to fund the reconstruction,
including an international conference on Gaza reconstruction, said one
of the Egyptian officials and an Arab diplomat.The officials and
diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal is still
being negotiated.The plan comes after an international uproar over
Trump’s call for the removal of Gaza’s population of some 2 million
Palestinians. Trump suggested the United States would take over the Gaza
Strip and rebuild it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” though
Palestinians would not be allowed back.Palestinians have widely said
they will not leave their homeland, while Egypt, and Jordan, backed by
Saudi Arabia, have refused Trump’s calls for them to take in Gaza’s
population. Rights groups have widely said the plan amounts to forced
expulsion, a potential war crime. European countries have also largely
denounced Trump’s plan. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
praised the idea and says Israel is preparing to implement it.US
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday in a
tour of the region, has said the United States was up for hearing
alternative proposals.“If the Arab countries have a better plan, then
that’s great,” Rubio said Thursday on the US radio program “Clay and
Buck Show.”Egypt’s Al-Ahram said the proposal is designed to “refute
American President Trump’s logic” and counter “any other visions or
plans that aim to change the geographic and demographic structure of the
Gaza Strip.”Gaza is nearing a critical juncture, with the first phase
of a ceasefire with Israel due to run out in early March. Israel and
Hamas must still negotiate a second phase meant to bring a release of
all remaining hostages held by the terrorists, a full Israeli withdrawal
from Gaza, and a long-term halt to the war.The three-stage ceasefire
agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting
triggered by the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when
Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.The
deal requires Hamas to release all its hostages, Israel to release
thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving
life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by
negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the
enclave.Any reconstruction plan will be impossible to implement without a
deal on the second phase, including an agreement on who will govern
Gaza in the long term. Israel demands the elimination of Hamas as a
political or military force in the territory, and international donors
are unlikely to contribute to any rebuilding if Hamas is in
charge.Central to Egypt’s proposal is the establishment of a Palestinian
administration that is not aligned with either Hamas or the Palestinian
Authority to run the Strip and oversee the reconstruction efforts,
according to the two Egyptian officials involved in the efforts.It also
calls for a Palestinian police force mainly made up of former
Palestinian Authority policemen who remained in Gaza after Hamas took
over the enclave in 2007, with reinforcement from Egyptian- and
Western-trained forces.Asked about the possibility of deploying an
outside Arab force in Gaza, one Egyptian official and the Arab diplomat
said Arab countries would only agree if there were a “clear path” for
the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu has
rejected any Palestinian state as well as any role for Hamas or the
Western-backed Palestinian Authority in governing Gaza, though he has
not put forward any clear alternative.Hamas has indicated it is willing
to give up power in Gaza. Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou told The
Associated Press on Sunday that the group has accepted either a
Palestinian unity government without Hamas’s participation or a
committee of technocrats to run the territory. The Palestinian
Authority, which governs pockets of the West Bank, has so far opposed
any plans for Gaza that exclude it.The Western diplomat said France and
Germany have backed the idea of Arab countries developing a
counterproposal to Trump’s plan, and that Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah el-Sissi discussed his government’s efforts with the French
president in a phone call earlier this month. Egyptian Foreign Minister
Badr Abdelatty also briefed the German foreign minister and other EU
officials on the sidelines of last week’s Munich security conference,
one of the Egyptian officials said.Officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan will discuss Egypt’s proposal
at a gathering in Riyadh this week, before introducing it to the Arab
summit later this month, according to the two Egyptian officials and the
Arab diplomat.The 16 months of war in Gaza devastated the
territory.Around a quarter million housing units have been destroyed or
damaged, according to UN estimates. More than 90 percent of the roads
and more than 80% of health facilities have been damaged or destroyed.
Damage to infrastructure has been estimated at some $30 billion, along
with an estimated $16 billion in damage to housing.Egypt’s plan calls
for a three-phase reconstruction process that will take up to five
years, without removing Palestinians from Gaza, the Egyptian officials
said.It designates three “safe zones” within Gaza to relocate
Palestinians during an initial six-month “early recovery period.” The
zones will be equipped with mobile houses and shelters, with
humanitarian aid streaming in.More than two dozen Egyptian and
international firms would take part in removing the rubble and
rebuilding the strip’s infrastructure. The reconstruction would provide
tens of thousands of jobs to Gaza’s population, the officials said.The
plan is largely the same as that which Arab countries have been working
on for the past year, but Israel has long rejected the idea of giving
any role to the PA, leaving many of those proposals dead on arrival.Most
critical will be Egypt’s effort to convince Trump to get behind the
plan, because if Washington does, it will be easier to get Israel on
board as well.Al Arabiya reported that the Egyptian plan will also
include a clause requiring various stakeholders to serve as guarantors
that Israel will not resume fighting in Gaza for at least 10
years.Jerusalem is likely to resist any limits to its ability to use
military force against future threats from Gaza.
Katz announces
new panel tasked with advancing ‘voluntary’ emigration of Gazans-Defense
minister’s office says initial plan drawn up by COGAT calls for
providing ‘extensive assistance’ to ‘any Gaza resident who wants to
emigrate to a third state’By Emanuel Fabian-18 February 2025, 6:41 am
Defense
Minister Israel Katz announced the establishment of a new directorate
in the Defense Ministry tasked with enabling Palestinians to
“voluntarily” leave the Gaza Strip, in the wake of US President Donald
Trump’s stated plans for the relocation of all Gazans and the
transformation of the strip into a Middle East “Riviera.”Katz held an
assessment Monday on the subject of Palestinians leaving Gaza, during
which the new directorate was decided upon, his office said.The new
directorate will include representatives from various government
ministries and defense bodies.Also during the assessment, the ministry’s
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)
presented Katz with an initial plan on the subject.“The plan includes
extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wants to
emigrate to a third state, to receive support that includes special
departure arrangements through the sea, air, and land, among other
things,” Katz’s office said.Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered
the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza,
adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large
portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the
world.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he was
“committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a
different Gaza,” also promising that after the war sparked by the
Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, “there will be neither Hamas nor
the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.Trump’s repeated
proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of
Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail
but has triggered widespread international outrage and prompted efforts
to craft a counter to the American president’s plan.Agencies and Times
of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Katz announces new
panel tasked with advancing ‘voluntary’ emigration of Gazans-Defense
minister’s office says initial plan drawn up by COGAT calls for
providing ‘extensive assistance’ to ‘any Gaza resident who wants to
emigrate to a third state By Emanuel Fabian-18 February 2025, 6:41 am
Defense
Minister Israel Katz announced the establishment of a new directorate
in the Defense Ministry tasked with enabling Palestinians to
“voluntarily” leave the Gaza Strip, in the wake of US President Donald
Trump’s stated plans for the relocation of all Gazans and the
transformation of the strip into a Middle East “Riviera.”Katz held an
assessment Monday on the subject of Palestinians leaving Gaza, during
which the new directorate was decided upon, his office said.The new
directorate will include representatives from various government
ministries and defense bodies.Also during the assessment, the ministry’s
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)
presented Katz with an initial plan on the subject.“The plan includes
extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wants to
emigrate to a third state, to receive support that includes special
departure arrangements through the sea, air, and land, among other
things,” Katz’s office said.Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered
the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza,
adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large
portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the
world.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he was
“committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a
different Gaza,” also promising that after the war sparked by the
Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, “there will be neither Hamas nor
the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.Trump’s repeated
proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of
Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail
but has triggered widespread international outrage and prompted efforts
to craft a counter to the American president’s plan.Agencies and Times
of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Zelensky critical of U.S.-Russia peace talks, meets with Turkey's Erdogan by Mike Heuer.
Washington
DC (UPI) Feb 18, 2025-As officials in Washington, D.C., and Moscow
prepare to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky is critical of negotiations that exclude his
nation.Zelensky on Tuesday said efforts to end the war must involve
European nations, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and must include
Ukrainian negotiators to ensure a "fair" negotiations process, France 24
reported."Ukraine, Europe in a broad sense, and this includes the
European Union, Turkey and the U.K., should be involved in conversations
and the development of the necessary security guarantees with America
regarding the fate of our part of the world," Zelensky said.He
criticized preliminary peace talks between the United States and Russia
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to end the war that began when Russia invaded
Ukraine in February 2022.Zelensky met with Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Turkey, on Tuesday to open a new Ukrainian
Embassy and discuss possible prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and
Russia and other matters, the Kyiv Post reported.Turkey is a member of
NATO and has continued its diplomatic ties with Ukraine and Russia
during the Ukraine war.Turkey also has supplied Ukraine with drones
while Erdogan has acted as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia,
including negotiating prior prisoner exchanges between the two
combatants.Following Tuesday's talks with Erdogan, Zelensky was
scheduled to travel to Riyadh on Wednesday for matters unrelated to the
talks between the United States and Russia.He postponed the trip to
Riyadh to March 10 and said he was not invited to participate in the
Riyadh peace talks.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Riyadh on Tuesday as officials in
the Kremlin attempt to re-establish diplomatic ties with the United
States.The meeting between Rubio and Lavrov has raised concerns with
Zelensky and leaders in Europe regarding the potential for the United
States and Russia concluding a deal to end the war in Ukraine without
input from Ukrainian officials or the European Union.The concerns
largely are focused on the possibility of President Donald Trump forcing
Ukraine to end the war on terms established by Russian President
Vladimir Putin and others in the Kremlin.Erdogan said Turkey is the
ideal location for peace talks and previously hosted talks between
Ukrainian and Russian officials in Istanbul weeks after Russia invaded
Ukraine."Turkey will be an ideal host for the possible talks between
Russia, Ukraine and America in the near future," Erdogan said, adding
that the prior talks in Istanbul so far have come the closest to ending
the war.
Delta jet flips upon landing on snowy Toronto runway;
all 80 aboard survive-18 passengers taken to hospital with relatively
minor injuries; unclear why plane ended up on its roof-By JOHN WAWROW
and Michael Casey 18 February 2025, 10:48 am
TORONTO (AP) — A
Delta Air Lines jet flipped onto its roof while landing Monday at
Toronto’s Pearson Airport, but all 80 people on board survived and those
hurt had relatively minor injuries, the airport’s chief executive
said.Snow blown by winds gusting to 40 mph (65 kph) swirled when the
flight from Minneapolis carrying 76 passengers and four crew attempted
to land at around 2:15 p.m. Communications between the tower and pilot
were normal on approach and it’s not clear what went so drastically
wrong when the plane touched down.Peter Carlson, a passenger traveling
to Toronto for a paramedics conference, said the landing was “very
forceful.”“All the sudden everything just kind of went sideways and then
next thing I know it’s kind of a blink and I’m upside down still
strapped in,” he told CBC News.Canadian authorities held two brief news
conferences but provided no details on the crash. Video posted to social
media showed the aftermath with the Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR overturned,
the fuselage seemingly intact and firefighters dousing what was left of a
fire as passengers climbed out and walked across the tarmac.“We are
very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,”
Deborah Flint, CEO of Greater Toronto Airports Authority, told
reporters.Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement that “the hearts of
the entire global Delta family are with those affected.”Videos shared on
social media showed the moment of the crash as well as the scramble by
passengers to exit the inverted aircraft.Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd
Aitken said 18 passengers were taken to the hospital. Earlier in the
day, Ornge air ambulance said it was transporting one pediatric patient
to Toronto’s SickKids hospital and two injured adults to other hospitals
in the city.Emergency personnel reached the plane within a few minutes
and Aitken said the response “went as planned.” He said “the runway was
dry and there was no cross-wind conditions.”The crash was the fourth
major aviation accident in North America in the past three weeks. A
commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near Reagan National
Airport in Washington, DC, on January 29, killing 67 people. A medical
transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on January 31, killing the
six people on board and another person on the ground. And on February 6,
10 people were killed in a plane crash in Alaska.The last major crash
at Pearson was on August 2, 2005, when an Airbus A340 landing from Paris
skidded off the runway and burst into flames amid stormy weather. All
309 passengers and crew aboard Air France Flight 358 survived the
crash.On Monday, Pearson was experiencing blowing snow and winds of 32
mph (51 kph) gusting to 40 mph (65 kph), according to the Meteorological
Service of Canada. The temperature was about 16.5 degrees Fahrenheit
(minus 8.6 degrees Celsius).The Delta flight was cleared to land at
about 2:10 p.m. Audio recordings show the control tower warned the
pilots of a possible air flow “bump” on the approach.“It sounds to me
like a controller trying to be helpful, meaning the wind is going to
give you a bumpy ride coming down, that you’re going to be up and down
through the glide path,” said John Cox, CEO of aviation safety
consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.“So
it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle
that,” Cox said. “The pilots are trained and experienced to handle
that.”The plane came to a rest at the intersection of Runways 23 and
15L, not far from the start of the runway. Just after the crash, tower
controllers spoke with the crew of a medical helicopter that had just
left Pearson and was returning to help.“Just so you’re aware, there’s
people outside walking around the aircraft there,” a controller
said.“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the
medical helicopter pilot responded.Carlson was among those outside the
aircraft. He said when he took off his seat belt he crashed onto the
ceiling, which had become the floor. He smelled gas, saw aviation fuel
cascading down the cabin windows and knew he needed to get out but said
his fatherly intuition and paramedic skills kicked in. He looked for
those he could help.Carlson and another man assisted a mother and her
young son out of the plane and then Carlson dropped onto the tarmac.
Snow was blowing and it “felt like I was stepping onto tundra.”“I didn’t
care how cold it was, didn’t care how far I had to walk, how long I had
to stand — all of us just wanted to be out of the aircraft,” he
said.Cox, who flew for US Air for 25 years and has worked on US National
Transportation Safety Board investigations, said the CRJ-900 aircraft
is a proven aircraft that’s been in service for decades and does a good
job of handling inclement weather.He said it’s unusual for a plane to
end up on its roof.“We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where
airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare,” Cox said.Among
the questions that need to be answered, Cox said, is why the crashed
plane was missing its right wing.“If one wing is missing, it’s going to
have a tendency to roll over,” he said. “Those are going to be central
questions as to what happened to the wing and the flight data recorder
and cockpit voice recorder. They will be found, if not today, tomorrow,
and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will read them out and
they will have a very good understanding of what actually occurred
here.”The US Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that
the Transportation Safety Board of Canada would head up the
investigation and provide any updates. The NTSB in the US said it was
sending a team to assist in the Canadian investigation.Endeavor Air,
based in Minneapolis, is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines and the world’s
largest operator of CRJ-900 aircraft. The airline operates 130 regional
jets on 700 daily flights to over 126 cities in the U.S., Canada, and
the Caribbean, according to the company’s website.The CRJ-900, a popular
regional jet, was developed by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier.
It’s in the same family of aircraft as the CRJ-700, the type of plane
involved in the mid-air collision near Reagan National Airport on
January 29.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
A FALSE PROPHET COMES FROM THE VATICAN ALSO AT THIS TIME.
ISAIAH 23:15-17
15
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten
seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of
seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
16 Take an harp, go
about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody,
sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
17 And it shall
come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit
Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with
all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.(COULD THIS BE
70 YEARS AFTER ISRAEL BECAME A NATION IN 1948)(IF SO THIS SATANIC ONE
WORLD WHORE CHURCH WILL MINGLE TOGETHER BY 2018)(AND NOW ISLAM AND
CHRISTIANITY AND ALL RELIGIONS ARE MINGLING AS ONE PEACE-LOVE-JOY-GET
ALONG RELIGION LEAD BY THE VATICAN RIGHT NOW 4 YEARS FROM THE 70 YEAR
TIME WHEN ISRAEL BECAME A NATION).AND IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM.
REVELATION 13:11-18
11
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth;(FALSE VATICAN
POPE) and he had two horns like a lamb,(JESUS IS THE LAMB OF GOD) and he
spake as a dragon.(HES SATANICALLY INSPIRED,HES A CHRISTIAN DEFECTOR
FROM THE FAITH)
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast
before him,(WORLD DICTATOR) and causeth the earth and them which dwell
therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.(THE
WORLD DICTATOR CREATES A FALSE RESURRECTION AND IS CROWNED LEADER OF THE
NEW WORLD ORDER).
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those
miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to
them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the
beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had
power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the
beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the
image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth
all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a
mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the
beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
REVELATION 17:1-18
1
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and
talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the
judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:(VATICAN)
2
With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,(VATICAN IN
POLITICS) and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with
the wine of her fornication.(THATS PEDOPHELIA-FORNICATION IS SINGLES
HAVING SEX OUT SIDE OF MARRIAGE)(AND SINCE PREISTS CAN NOT MARRY IN THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THIS FALSE CHURCH GOES AGAINST THE
BIBLE.THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BECOMES A HOMOSEXUAL HAVEN OF PEDOPHILIAS
FACTORY).
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the
wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of
names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the
woman (FALSE CHURCH) was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour,(VATICAN
COLOURS)(ANOTHER REASON WE KNOW THE FALSE POPE COMES FROM THE VATICAN)
and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup
in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:(THE
VATICAN GOES AGAINST A PRIEST MARRING A WOMAN-LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS-AND
WHATS AN ABOMINATION AGAINST GOD-HOMOSEXUALITY AND PEDOPHILIA JUST LIKE
THIS SCRIPTURE SAYS-FORNICATION IS THE SINGLE HOMOSEXUAL PRIESTS IN THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVING UNMARRIED FORNICATION OR SEX WITH SINGLES-IN THIS
CASE ITS SEX WITH CHILDREN OR PEDOPHILIA)
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great
admiration.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou
marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that
carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
8 The beast
that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall
wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the
foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is
not, and yet is.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven
heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.(THE VATICAN IS
BUILT ON 7 HILLS OR MOUNTAINS)
10 And there are seven kings: five are
fallen,(1-ASSYRIA,2-EGYPT,3-BABYLON,4-MEDO-PERSIA,5-GREECE) and one
is,(IN POWER IN JOHNS AND JESUS DAY-6-ROME) and the other is not yet
come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.(7TH-REVIVED
ROMAN EMPIRE OR THE EUROPEAN UNION TODAY AND THE SHORT SPACE IS-THE
EUROPEAN UNION WILL HAVE WORLD CONTROL FOR THE LAST 3 1/2 YEARS.BUT WILL
HAVE ITS MIGHTY WORLD POWER FOR THE FULL 7 YEARS OF THE 7 YEAR
TRIBULATION PERIOD.AND THE WORLD DICTATOR WILL BE THE BEAST FROM THE
EU.AND THE VATICAN POPE WILL BE THE WHORE THAT RIDES THE EUROPEAN UNION
TO POWER.AND THE 2 EUROPEAN UNION POWER FREAKS WILL CONTROL AND DECIEVE
THE WHOLE EARTH INTO THEIR DESTRUCTION.IF YOU ARE NOT SAVED BY THE BLOOD
OF JESUS.YOU WILL BE DECIEVED BY THESE TWO.THE WORLD POLITICIAN-THE
EUROPEAN UNION DICTATOR.AND THE FALSE PROPHET THAT DEFECTS
CHRISTIANITY-THE FALSE VATICAN POPE.
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
12
And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received
no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
14
These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them:
for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him
are called, and chosen, and faithful.
15 And he saith unto me, The
waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and
multitudes, and nations, and tongues.(VATICAN-CATHOLICS ALL AROUND THE
WORLD OVER 1 BILLION)
16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the
beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) these shall hate the whore, and shall make her
desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.(GOD
HIMSELF GIVES THE OK TO NUKE THE VATICAN)
17 For God hath put in
their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom
unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.(VATICAN)
PEDOPHILIA IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Mdd56mx3o
WELL
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD. THE VATICAN IS ASKING FOR PRAYER FOR THE POPE.
WELL THERES NO WAY POPE FRANCIS IN HOSPITAL. THIS FALSE POPE HAS TO BE
ALIVE FOR AT LEAST 7 YEARS YET. POPE FRANCIS HAS TO LEAD THE ONE WORLD
FALSE CHURCH DURING THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION PERIOD. SO DON'T EXPECT THIS
FALSE POPE TO DIE ANY TIME SOON. ITS NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
Pope Francis Is Alert In Hospital, Says Vatican-Edited By-Tripti Nath -Feb 19 2025, 19:23
Pope
Francis, who is spending his sixth day in hospital for treatment of a
respiratory infection, is alert and ate breakfast on Wednesday, the
Vatican said in its latest update on the pontiff’s fragile
health.Francis has the onset of double pneumonia, the Vatican said on
Tuesday, complicating treatment for the 88-year-old Pope who was
admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14.Double pneumonia is a
serious infection that can inflame and scar both lungs and makes
breathing more difficult.The Vatican had said previously that the pope
had a polymicrobial infection, which occurs when two or more
micro-organisms are involved, adding that he would stay in hospital as
long as necessary to tackle a “complex clinical situation”.A Vatican
official, who did not wish to be named because he was not authorised to
speak about the pope’s condition, said on Wednesday Francis was not on a
ventilator and was breathing on his own.The official said the Pope had
been able to get out of bed and sit in an armchair in his hospital room,
and was continuing to do some work.The Vatican is expected to give a
further update on the Pope’s condition later on Wednesday.A wave of
messages of support for Francis had come in from across the world, the
Vatican’s official media outlet reported.Pilgrims at the Vatican on
Wednesday for the Pope’s cancelled weekly audience expressed hope for
his recovery.“We will pray for him so that he can recover as soon as
possible,” said Gianfranco Rizzo, a pilgrim from Bari, Italy.The Pope
has been plagued by ill health in recent years, including regular bouts
of flu, sciatica nerve pain and an abdominal hernia that required
surgery in 2023.As a young adult he developed pleurisy and had part of
one lung removed.Nitin A Gokhale WhatsApp Channel-All the Pope’s public
engagements have been cancelled through Sunday and he has no further
official events on the Vatican’s published calendar.Gemelli hospital,
Rome’s largest, has a special suite for treating popes, and is known
especially for often treating the late Pope John Paul II during his long
papacy.Francis spent nine days at Gemelli in June 2023, when he had
surgery to repair an abdominal hernia.Outside the hospital on Wednesday,
people were leaving flowers and small personal notes under a famous
statue of John Paul II, wishing a speedy recovery for Francis.Victoria
Darmody, a tourist from England, said she came to the hospital just to
be near the Pope. “We were hoping to go to the papal audience today but
felt this was the right place to be instead,” she said.Andrea Vicini, a
Jesuit priest and medical doctor, said it was notable that the Vatican’s
statement on Tuesday referred to the pontiff as having the onset of
pneumonia and not bronchopneumonia.The latter would indicate an
infection that is more widespread, he said.“It (sounds like) it’s more
localized and has not spread,” said Vicini, a professor at Boston
College, who said he did not have details of the pope’s case beyond the
Vatican’s public statements.“If they identified the pathogen, as I
expect they would have done, they will have a very targeted therapy,” he
said. “I am optimistic. It seems they are controlling what is
happening.”Work at the Vatican was continuing as the Pope was in
hospital.One senior official, Cardinal Michael Czerny, was still
expected to depart on Wednesday for a five-day visit to Lebanon.(With
inputs from Reuters)
Egypt unveils first ancient royal tomb
discovered since Tutankhamun-Tomb uncovered near Valley of the Kings
belonged to King Thutmose II; antiquities ministry hails find as ‘one of
the most significant archaeological breakthroughs in recent years’By
AFP Today, 6:50 pm-FEB 19,25
CAIRO — Egypt’s antiquities
authority said Tuesday that it has found the ancient tomb of King
Thutmose II, the first royal burial to be found since the famed
discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.The tomb, discovered near the
Valley of the Kings in Luxor in southern Egypt, belonged to King
Thutmose II of the 18th dynasty, who lived nearly 3,500 years
ago.Thutmose II was an ancestor to Tutankhamun himself, and his
half-sister and queen consort was Pharaoh Hatshepsut.Her giant mortuary
temple stands on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor a few kilometers
from where the tomb of Thutmose II was found.Although preliminary
studies suggest its contents were moved in ancient times — leaving the
tomb without the iconic mummy or gilded splendor of the Tutankhamun find
— the antiquities ministry on Tuesday called the discovery “one of the
most significant archaeological breakthroughs in recent years.”It has
been excavated by a joint Egyptian-British mission, led by the Supreme
Council of Antiquities and the New KingdomResearch Foundation.This
handout picture released by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities on
February 19, 2025 shows artifacts uncovered during archaeological
excavations that discovered the tomb of King Thutmose II in Luxor in
southern Egypt. (AFP Photo/Handout/Egyptian Ministry Of Antiquities)-The
tomb’s entrance was first located in 2022 in the Luxor mountains west
of the Valley of the Kings, but was believed at the time to lead to the
tomb of a royal wife.But the team then found “fragments of alabaster
jars inscribed with the name of Pharaoh Thutmose II, identified as the
‘deceased king’, alongside inscriptions bearing the name of his chief
royal consort, Queen Hatshepsut,” confirming whose tomb it was, the
ministry said.Shortly after the king’s burial, water flooded the burial
chamber, damaging the interior and leaving fragments of plaster that
bore parts of the Book of Amduat, an ancient mortuary text on the
underworld.Some funerary furniture belonging to Thutmose II has also
been recovered from the tomb in “the first-ever find” of its kind,
according to the ministry.It quoted mission chief Dr Piers Latherland as
saying the team will continue its work in the area, hoping to find the
tomb’s original contents.
EU lawmakers warn Europe cannot 'rely on' US-by AFP Staff Writers.
Brussels,
Belgium (AFP) Feb 18, 2025-EU lawmakers on Tuesday demanded Europe
"double down" on bolstering its defences and supporting Ukraine after
the United States launched efforts with Russia to stop the war."Europe
can no longer fully rely on the United States to defend our shared
values and interests, including continued support for Ukraine's
sovereignty and territorial integrity," said a statement from the
European People's Party, Socialists and Democrats, Renew and Greens."We
must face this new reality and double down on our joint European effort
in defence of Ukraine and European security as a whole by establishing a
credible and strong deterrence against any aggression."The call for
action came after top US officials met Russian negotiators in Saudi
Arabia to lay the ground for talks on ending Moscow's three-year war on
Ukraine.US President Donald Trump has sidelined Washington's allies and
upended Western efforts by reaching out to Russia's Vladimir
Putin.Lawmakers said the EU must "ensure that Ukraine is in the
strongest possible military position" and should enact legislation
allowing it to seize over 200 billion euros ($210 billion) of Russian
assets frozen in the bloc."There can be no negotiation about Ukraine
without Ukraine and the European Union at the table. There can be no
negotiation about European security without the European Union," they
said.The head-spinning moves from Washington has been coupled with
suggestions from US officials that American troops could be redeployed
out of Europe."The European Union and its Member States have no choice
but to take immediate action, with NATO and likeminded non-EU allies, to
invest in a more efficient and integrated European security and defence
architecture," the lawmakers said."Our Groups recognise the sense of
urgency and the need to act swiftly to secure the necessary funding for
our defence policy."European nations have ramped up defence spending
since Russia launched its war on Ukraine in 2022 but admit they must
move much faster to face the threat from Putin.The EU fears that if
Trump cuts a bad deal behind their backs with the Kremlin then it will
leave them facing an emboldened and heavily armed Russia.
Europe ready for Trump-style shift, says Project 2025 chief-by AFP Staff Writers.
Washington
(AFP) Feb 18, 2025-The architect of the populist conservative agenda
guiding Donald Trump's policy blitz said Tuesday that Europe was ripe
for a similar lurch to the political right.Kevin Roberts, who heads the
Heritage Foundation that fashioned Project 2025 -- a 900-page wishlist
for a second Trump White House term -- told reporters that conservatives
had "never been more enthusiastic about the future.""Everyday people
are tired of elites telling them what to do," he said."They want their
lives back, they want -- particularly in Europe -- they want their
religious freedom back."Roberts's comments came after US Vice President
JD Vance launched a scathing attack against European leaders at a
security conference in Munich, lambasting their policies on immigration,
populist parties, and free speech, and criticizing their levels of
defense spending."The opportunity is not just for us at Heritage, but
for the American institutional right to be engaged in Europe," Roberts
said.- 'Reality check' -Roberts said Vance's criticism of Europe's
defense spending had been something of a "reality check" for leaders
long used to American support."We can be great friends to any ally who
wants to pull its own weight, which frankly too many European countries
-- particularly the French and the Germans -- have not done," he
said.Trump, he said, "will be the greatest ally you could ever have in
your imagination if your country pulls its weight. But if a country
doesn't pull its weight, stop counting on America to save you."Roberts
also addressed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's calls for the
United States to provide a "backstop" to guarantee the security of any
British troops committed to a post-conflict peacekeeping missing in
Ukraine."The United States is the backstop because we're a member of
NATO," he said."It would be nice if other countries...actually put their
money where their big mouth is."
Australia, Papua New Guinea vow to strike defence treaty.
Sydney,
Feb 20 (AFP) Feb 20, 2025-Australia said Thursday it will strike a
defence treaty with Papua New Guinea, bolstering ties with a Pacific
state that has been courted persistently by China.The historically close
Pacific nations said in a joint statement they were committed to
negotiating the treaty to deepen integration of their forces and make it
easier to offer security support."This will enable our two defence
forces to walk down a pathway of increasing integration and increasing
interoperability," Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said."We
live in a world which is increasingly strategically complex," he told
reporters at a press conference with his Papua New Guinea
counterpart."It is really important that we are working with our closest
friends, but in this case, we are working with family and that is very
much how we see our relationship with Papua New Guinea."Few details were
given on the future treaty, which would build on an overarching
security agreement signed between the two countries in 2023.Papua New
Guinea Defence Minister Billy Joseph said the treaty was important "with
the geopolitics and all the different contests that are going on"."We
have consciously made a decision to choose who should be our friends as
far as security is concerned," he said.Papua New Guinea has many friends
but it counts Australia as "very close", Joseph said.Perched less than
200 kilometres (124 miles) from Australia's northernmost border, Papua
New Guinea is the largest and most populous state in Melanesia.Australia
has been signing security deals, dishing out aid funding and ramping up
diplomatic visits to cement its influence in the South Pacific, while
China renews its efforts to woo island nations in the region.Over the
past decade, China has committed billions of dollars to Pacific nations,
funding hospitals, sports stadiums, roads and other public works.It is
an approach that appears to be paying dividends. Solomon Islands,
Kiribati and Nauru have all severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in
recent years in favour of China.
UN watchdog chief visits Fukushima as Japan returns to nuclear power.
Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Japan, Feb 19 (AFP) Feb 19, 2025-The UN
nuclear watchdog chief visited Japan's stricken Fukushima plant on
Wednesday, the day after Tokyo approved an energy plan that marks a
return to nuclear power.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is
monitoring Japan's efforts to decommission the Fukushima Daiichi plant
after a 2011 earthquake-triggered tsunami killed 18,000 people and set
off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.As IAEA head Rafael
Grossi arrived in Japan on Tuesday, the cabinet adopted a plan to
increase reliance on nuclear power to help meet growing energy demand
from artificial intelligence and microchip factories."At a moment where
Japan is embarking on a gradual return to nuclear energy in its national
energy mix, it is important that this is also done in complete safety
and with the confidence of the society," Grossi said after meeting the
foreign minister.Japan had previously vowed to "reduce reliance on
nuclear power as much as possible".But this pledge was dropped from the
latest Strategic Energy Plan -- which includes an intention to make
renewables the country's top power source by 2040.Under the plan,
nuclear power will account for around 20 percent of Japan's energy
supply by 2040, up from 5.6 percent in 2022.- Contaminated soil -The
shift back to nuclear comes as Japan contends with how to remove around
880 tonnes of radioactive debris from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors.So
far, only one tiny sample has been retrieved by a robotic claw.Grossi,
making his fifth visit to Fukushima, viewed the vast "interim"
contaminated soil storage facilities near the plant for the first
time.Around 13 million cubic metres of soil -- enough to fill 10
stadiums -- was scraped from the region to remove harmful radiation.
Around 300,000 cubic metres of ash from incinerated organic material is
also being stored.On Wednesday, AFP reporters saw trucks and
construction vehicles going back and forth between several spots where
hundreds of large soil-filled black bags were stacked, some thinly
covered by snow.Japan plans to recycle roughly 75 percent of the soil --
the portion with low radioactivity -- for building projects such as
road and railway embankments.The remaining material will be disposed of
outside the Fukushima region ahead of a 2045 deadline."In terms of the
timing, which has been, of course, set by law for 2045, we believe that
it is not unrealistic. It can be done," Grossi told reporters on
Wednesday.The IAEA published its final report on the recycling and
disposal of the soil in September, saying that Japan's approach was
consistent with UN safety standards.Stripping topsoil was a "very
effective" way to decontaminate land close to waterways, said Olivier
Evrard, research director at France's Atomic Energy Commission.But the
operation was expensive, "generated a massive amount of waste and still
poses fertility issues" for agriculture, he told AFP.It stands in
contrast to the decision to fence off a large area after the 1986
Chernobyl disaster and more or less "leave it to wildlife", Evrard
said.- Seafood bans -Experts from the IAEA and countries including China
and South Korea also took seawater and fish samples from Fukushima on
Wednesday.This is "so they can check also for themselves that what we
are doing is fully aligned and fully safe", Grossi said.Plant operator
TEPCO began discharging 1.3 million tonnes of treated groundwater,
seawater and rainwater, along with water used for cooling the reactors,
into the sea in 2023.The water release is endorsed by the IAEA and TEPCO
says all radioactive elements have been filtered out except for
tritium, levels of which are within safe limits.However, countries
including China and Russia have criticised the release and banned
Japanese seafood imports.China said in September it would "gradually
resume" importing seafood from Japan but this has yet to begin.
France sets new plasma record in hunt for nuclear fusion.
Paris,
Feb 18 (AFP) Feb 18, 2025-French scientists on Tuesday announced that
they had reached a "crucial milestone" in the long road towards nuclear
fusion by managing to maintain raging-hot plasma for a record 22
minutes.Nuclear fusion has the much-vaunted potential to provide the
world with clean, safe and nearly inexhaustible energy -- but the
scientific holy grail has remained stubbornly elusive over decades.The
idea is to recreate the process that occurs at the heart of stars by
fusing two atomic nuclei. This would be the opposite of fission -- which
splits the atom -- that is used in nuclear power plants.Among other
things, the process requires temperatures of more than 100 million
degrees Celsius to create and maintain plasma.This hot, electrically
charged gas easily becomes unstable, which can lead to lost energy and
limit the efficiency of a possible future nuclear fusion reactor.The
WEST tokamak machine in southern France managed to maintain plasma for
1,337 seconds on February 12, France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)
said in a statement.This "smashed" the previous record set in China last
month by 25 percent, said the CEA, which runs the tokamak machine.The
CEA's head of fundamental research Anne-Isabelle Etienvre told AFP that
achieving plasma for that long shows "that we control its production,
but also its maintenance".But there are still many "technological
barriers" to overcome before thermonuclear fusion can "produce more
energy than it consumes", she added.In the coming month, the WEST team
is aiming to achieve even longer plasma durations -- "up to several
hours combined" -- as well as higher temperatures, according to the
CEA.In doing so, the researchers hope to approach the conditions
"expected in fusion plasmas", the statement said.The scientists will
also observe the effect that such "intense plasma" has on the inside of
their tokamak machine, Etienvre said.The goal is to prepare the ground
for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being
built in France, she added.First set in motion in 1985, the ITER brings
together China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia
and the United States.It had been scheduled to go online this year, but
repeated setbacks, delays and spiralling costs have postponed operations
until at least 2033.
Putin, Xi to visit each other for events marking WWII end.
Moscow,
Feb 19 (AFP) Feb 19, 2025-The leaders of Russia and China will visit
each other to mark events commemorating the end of World War II,
Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday.Vladimir Putin and Xi
Jinping have deepened their alliance during Russia's offensive on
Ukraine, with the two men seeking to align their positions and often
referring to each other as "dear" friends.Xi has "timed his next visit
to Moscow to coincide with events marking victory in the Great Patriotic
War on May 9", Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told lawmakers on
Wednesday.Putin has elevated the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi
Germany in what Russia calls the "Great Patriotic War" to one of
Russia's most important national holidays, marked by a giant military
parade on Moscow's Red Square.Putin will also visit China at the end of
August and beginning of September "in conjunction with the 80th
anniversary of victory over Japanese militarism at the end of the World
War II", Lavrov said.Besides Xi, Putin has invited US President Donald
Trump to the May 9 parade in Moscow.
UN nuclear chief to view contaminated Fukushima soil.
Tokyo,
Feb 18 (AFP) Feb 18, 2025-The UN nuclear watchdog chief will visit
storage facilities for vast quantities of soil contaminated in the 2011
Fukushima disaster for the first time this week.Japan's government must
decide what to do with the soil -- enough to fill 10 baseball stadiums
-- scraped from the wider Fukushima region as part of efforts to remove
harmful radiation.That is on top of the monster task of decommissioning
the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which went into meltdown after being hit by
a tsunami in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.Rafael Grossi,
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will tour the
plant on Wednesday. He will also be shown some of the 13 million cubic
metres of soil and 300,000 cubic metres of ash from incinerated organic
material.For comparison, the capacity of the Tokyo Dome arena, where pop
superstar Taylor Swift performed last year, is 1.24 million cubic
metres.Japan plans to recycle roughly 75 percent of the removed soil --
the portion found to have low radioactivity levels.If this material is
confirmed safe, authorities want to use it for building road and railway
embankments among other projects.The remaining soil will be disposed of
outside the Fukushima region ahead of a 2045 deadline.The central
government has said it intends to confirm the disposal site this year,
with Fukushima's regional governor reportedly urging it to come up with a
plan quickly.The IAEA published its final report on the recycling and
disposal of the soil in September, saying that Japan's approach was
consistent with UN safety standards.- Chernobyl contrast -The Fukushima
plant on Japan's northeast coast was hit by a huge earthquake-triggered
tsunami in March 2011 that killed 18,000 people.Although almost all
areas of the Fukushima region have gradually been declared safe for
residents, many evacuees have been reluctant to return because they are
worried about persistent radiation or have fully resettled
elsewhere.Stripping topsoil from the land was "very effective" to
decontaminate areas close to waterways, said Olivier Evrard, research
director at France's Atomic Energy Commission."However, it also has many
disadvantages. It had an enormous cost, it generated a massive amount
of waste and still poses fertility issues" for agriculture, said Evrard,
an expert on the Fukushima decommissioning process.It stands in
contrast to the decision to fence off a large area after the 1986
Chernobyl disaster and more or less "leave it to wildlife", he told
AFP.On Tuesday evening, Grossi met Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, who
said Japan would give 14 million euros ($14.6 million) to the IAEA for
initiatives in Ukraine and other countries including improving cancer
diagnosis."At a moment where Japan is embarking on a gradual return to
nuclear energy in its national energy mix, it is important that this is
also done in complete safety and with the confidence of the society,"
Grossi told reporters.- Water testing -The IAEA has been monitoring the
decades-long clean-up of the region and the plant itself.But the most
dangerous part -- removing around 880 tonnes of radioactive fuel and
rubble from the reactors -- has only just begun, with one tiny sample
removed by a robotic claw so far.Plant operator TEPCO began discharging
1.3 million tonnes of collected groundwater, seawater and rainwater,
along with water used for cooling the reactors, into the sea in August
2023.The water release is endorsed by the IAEA and TEPCO says all
radioactive elements have been filtered out except for tritium, levels
of which are within safe limits.However, countries including China and
Russia have criticised the release and banned Japanese seafood imports
over safety concerns.Experts from the IAEA and countries including China
and South Korea will take seawater and fish samples during Grossi's
visit, his fifth to Japan in the role.This is "to further increase the
transparency" of the water release process, a Japanese energy agency
official said.China said in September it would "gradually resume"
importing seafood from Japan but this has yet to begin.kh-cg/kaf-nf/pbt
Operationalizing biometrics for digital economy is a process-Feb 15, 2025, 3:45 pm EST | Chris Burt
From
biometric binding through regulations for payments from digital
wallets, the Biometric Update’s top stories of the week reflect a global
trend of digital transformation for economic growth and financial
inclusion. These kinds of projects are on high on the agenda of
lawmakers, regulators and businesses around the world, from developing
nations to the largest economies. Digital wallets are the primary
vehicle of change, but digital public infrastructure and platforms
connecting the various tools must be put in place first. New
partnerships for FIC Professionals Network in Nigeria and Citra Lab in
Sri Lanka show the market opportunities that come with the
transition.While the digitization process is carried out, technologies
like FaceTec’s UR Codes, readable with a free biometric app launched
this week, can help bridge the gap between physical ID documents and
digital identity.Top biometrics news of the week-FaceTec’s UR Codes are a
biometric technology specifically intended to help ease the transition
to digital identity by enabling high accuracy through the delivery of a
72-byte face template that can be scanned from a digital wallet on a
high-end smartphone, a temporary ID document printed in paper, or
anything in between. The company’s VP of Global Standards Andrew Hughes
discussed the launch of the Scan+Match app and the wide range of
potential applications organizations are finding for UR Codes in an
interview.FIC Professionals Network has been approved as participant in
Nigeria ID4D’s Ecosystem Enrolment Service by NIMC. The company will
bring its experience with financial inclusion initiatives to the project
to enhance service delivery and bring more Nigerians into the digital
economy.Identity fraud plagues America’s disaster relief efforts, as
FEMA relies on legacy identity verification methods in the absence of a
common U.S. digital ID, and its financial sector as well. NIST’s revised
digital ID standards directly address how FEMA could use more modern,
digital methods, a post from Spruce ID points out. But instead of
modernizing the system, the new government is closing the agency charged
with protecting consumers from lax fraud prevention and privacy
breaches.India’s digital public infrastructure is tied into super
wallets that are driving DPI adoption as the country transitions to a
cashless economy. That transition includes the use of the CBDC through
digital identity, and Soulverse CEO Kavitha Kanaparthi tells Biometric
Update the adoption of super wallets also enables a shift towards
decentralized digital ID.Sri Lanka’s is working towards digital public
service delivery, and standing up a national data exchange so they can
be accessed with the national digital ID. The NDX is a joint initiative
of the government’s IT agency and Citra Lab, and is intended to boost
the country’s digital economy.One way to simplify part of the digital
transformation process is seen in Trinidad and Tobago, which is adopting
DPI-as-a-packaged solution. Deloitte, local partner iGovTT, and a
government ministry are collaborating to implement MOSIP and INJI. The
project’s success will surely be closely watched, particularly by other
small nations preparing for digital transformation.Digital wallet use is
up everywhere, with new stats from American Express Israel showing
their popularity for cross-border payments. The Australian Banking
Association wants them added into payments regulation, Thailand is
preparing to distribute public benefits through its digital wallet, and
the Tony Blair Institute says the UK could use its to extend open
banking to other sectors.And in progress on the standards side of the
ledger, the credentials in Europe’s digital wallets will be signed
according to the updated standard for remote signing services, ETSI TS
119 431, which IDnow Senior Architect Sebastian Elfors explains in a
Biometric Update guest post.The security and integrity of digital
credentials is contingent on who has access to them, and in the case of
digital IDs on iPhones, that is only the owner of the device. The UK
government is demanding access to encrypted data held in the cloud by
Apple, however, the BBC reports, raising the prospect of online privacy
eroding just as digital wallets take a new place of prominence in
everyday life. As Tim Bouma notes on LinkedIn: “Time to start thinking
about going beyond the phone.”Please tell if you spot any social media
threads, podcasts or other content we should share with the people in
biometrics and digital identity in the comments below or through social
media.
African speakers at ID4Africa double in reflection of
digital ID progress-ID4Africa 2025 AGM agenda launched-Feb 19, 2025,
4:35 pm EST | Chris Burt
ID4Africa’s annual general meeting
has grown every year, in terms of the size of the program and the number
of attendees. The 2025 AGM, though, stands out in featuring the most
ever speakers from Africa, with the total number more than doubling.
This marked increase mirrors the progressive maturity of legal and
digital identity programs in countries across the continent.The program
is “a reflection of the current reality not only in Africa but in the
development agenda,” ID4Africa Executive Chairman Dr. Joseph Atick tells
Biometric Update in an interview.It is informed by “a level of research
that has not been done before,” Atick says. “Not only by us but by our
development agency partners.”Every speaker was interviewed as ID4Africa
made selections to fill the limited number of spots available from the
huge number of applicants.“There are many different currents,” Atick
says. “There are many different approaches that are competing and vying
and using all sorts of influence to try to push one direction versus the
other. Our position of neutrality creates a responsibility on our
shoulders,” particularly as a big player.Atick describes that
responsibility as entailing both ensuring that all community voices are
represented, but also that each voice is sharing a real and important
story about the progress of the identity for development agenda in
Africa.As in past year’s ID4Africa’s 2025 AGM, May 20-23, 2025 in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia will include the perspectives of African governments,
civil society groups, the development agencies that support their
efforts and the private sector. “Every group has its own interest, but
they need to be brought together towards a common interest,” Atick
explains.ID4Africa worked closely with its 48 country bureaus to capture
a snapshot of the state of legal and digital identity in each.The
research was carried out in part through the Identity Ecosystem
Self-Evaluation Framework (IESEF), developed by ID4Africa in
collaboration with the bureaus. The IESEF consists of 140 indicators
across 12 domains, which collectively reflect the country’s progress on
ID.Part of the end result is a quantitative measure of progress by each
country in each domain, which helped inform speaker selections based on
local success and expertise. The same data can also help development
agencies target their initiatives to the specific areas in particular
countries that need the most work.‘Buzzing with progress’One of the
findings is that there is plenty of success from which to draw lessons.
“Africa is buzzing with progress and activities,” Atick says.There were
speakers from 39 officials from about 20 different African governments
on last year’s program. This year, there will be 84 speakers
representing over 30 African countries, reflecting Africa’s talent, as
well as the diversity of countries’ needs and approaches.The topics,
likewise, are based on “real-world experience” from practitioners who
“can teach the world what we would consider the best practical
experience for implementing digital identity in the most hostile and the
most unforgiving environments,” Atick says. “And its impressive just to
think about the ingenuity that Africa has.”“In a way, this is the year
of coming out.”This emphasis on African leadership also means a shift
from theoretical to applied insights, or as Atick describes it,
“knowledge you can use because it has been proven in the field.”The
program again will last four days, but Atick says that they are
equivalent to seven days, because of the parallel tracks on days two and
three. Day three will feature a symposium on legal identity, another on
digital identity, and a third track on digital public goods and digital
public infrastructure. The latter includes the conclusion of the second
round of hackathons hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Africa’s
Upanzi Network and MicroSave Consulting.The volume of choices for
attendees has led ID4Africa to build an AI tool into its platform to
make suggestions based on their areas of interest and responsibility.
“We have to help people find their way through it,” Atick
says.Collaboration will also be important for each country’s delegation
to maximize the insights they can take from the program.And maximizing
is central part of the event’s overall theme, “Digital Identity at
Scale: Prioritizing Use, Accelerating Impact.”‘Digital Identity at
Scale’“It’s so easy to create pilots. And we have had, in the past five
years, so many pilots.” But many of those fail to advance. So; what are
the differences between those that fail and those that scale up to full
populations? The question will be asked repeatedly at ID4Africa 2025,
Atick says.Prioritizing use is the second part of the theme, reflecting
the interest in using digital identity to enable better delivery of the
services Africans want to improve. Recognizing that interest is part of
ID4Africa’s “bottom-up approach,” according to Atick.“We believe in
stating with the problems that are faced by Africa, looking for
commonalities between them, and then bootstrapping upwards to see if
there are any assets that can be generated from these common problems,
that we can put the right governance round them, and start sharing them
as digital public infrastructure.”DPI is therefore something that
arrives in the later stages of the program, as a methodology that is a
by-product of addressing problems and use cases, rather than a starting
point.The financial services, health and mobility use cases are driving
African interest in legal identity, which means civil registration.
Atick characterizes the continent’s progress on civil registration as
“very good . . . finally.” That progress allows the conversation on
civil registration to move on to thorny topics like
statelessness.Digitalization can sometimes eliminate the workaround that
desperate people use to overcome exclusion, Atick notes.Governance will
be another theme of ID4Africa 2025, and the event will bring together
what Atick calls the largest gathering of African data protection and
privacy authorities for a forum conducted in partnership with the World
Privacy Forum on day three.The AGM will also address a concept Atick
calls “from data to dignity,” which describes an approach to making
digital identity a tool for realizing human rights, rather than a
barrier to them. Doing so means engaging with civil society and other
stakeholders, who Atick calls “partners in progress.” A workshop on the
final day of the 2025 AGM under the same name focusses on this
process.The elimination of vetting in Kenya is an example, and was
prompted by conversations between communities brought together by
ID4Africa in 2023, Atick says.The idea is to create an engagement model
that is more productive than using the courts as a first recourse.“We
find good intentions on everybody’s part,” Atick says, “but they don’t
speak the same language and their motivations are very
different.”Different motivations and political circumstances also pose a
barrier to interoperability, and Atick notes this is a challenge for
efforts led by the African Union to promote free movement across
borders. The AU will be part of the ID4Africa 2025 program, and also
hold a pre-AGM meeting to work on interoperability.Interoperability
cannot simply be prescribed, though, Atick cautions. Countries are more
likely to arrive at similar enough systems that making them
interoperable is a small feat by following best practices.National
agendas for identity still take priority over the pan-African agenda,
which should come from convergence, as the bureaus have made clear. “De
facto” is more likely to be the methodology for arriving at
interoperability than the political approach followed in Europe, Atick
says, since Africa does not have the 30 years eIDAS took to develop and
implement.Along the way, more strategic capacity-building will be
needed. This is another area in which the ID4Africa 2025 AGM agenda is
designed to reflect on-the-ground realities.The overall message from
Atick is a positive one, however, based on real maturation, a sense of
agency, and a desire to collaborate.“What I’m seeing on people’s faces
in Africa is a sense that ideas are flowing,” he says. “Ideas are
generating more ideas.”Stability remains necessary, and politics often
poses an unnecessary hurdle to identity systems in Africa, including
politics in countries outside of Africa that could affect the funding
available for international development.But Africa has reached an
inflection point, Atick says, by moving past the uncertainty and
reliance on assistance toward an embrace of local ingenuity and
sovereignty.“One of the countries that we’ll be featuring on the program
is a country that has made the decision that they’re not going to rely
on external funding. They’re going to rely on new models of, basically,
creating private-public partnerships,” and the agenda will show
“stunning success” with a new approach.Overall, Atick promises
ID4Africa’s 2025 AGM will reflect the realities of the identity for
development agenda more faithfully than any event ever before.Biometric
Update will report on the 2025 ID4Africa AGM on location from Addis
Ababa.
