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‘Bibi, What the F—k?’ New Book Reveals Details of Biden and Netanyahu’s Strained Relationship
US President Joe Biden, left, pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: Miriam Alster/Pool via REUTERS
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward reveals new details about the strained relationship between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s over the past year in a new book.
Woodward, a prominent investigative journalist, is coming out with a new book titled War on Oct. 15. In it, he reveals just how deep the fracture has become in the relationship between the current leaders of the US and Israel, according to CNN, which obtained an advanced copy of the work.
A striking moment came after Israel killed Fuad Shakr, a top Hezbollah terrorist who was also instrumental in killing hundreds of Americans in the Beirut bombing in 1983, in Lebanon in July. There was a bounty for millions of dollars put on him by the US.
“Bibi, what the f—k?” Biden yelled at Netanyahu after the strike, according to CNN’s reporting of Woodward’s book. “You know the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you’re a rogue state, a rogue actor.”
Netanyahu responded that the target of the strike was “one of the leading terrorists.”
“We saw an opportunity and took it,” Netanyahu said. “The harder you hit, the more successful you’re going to be in the negotiation.”
But the problems started well before July. After Biden pushed hard for Israel not to enter the southern Gaza city of Rafah to fight Hamas terrorists — and Israel conducted major ground operations there anyway — Biden reportedly exclaimed, “He’s a f—king liar,” speaking about Netanyahu.
When discussing the decision about whether to go into Rafah, Biden said to Netanyahu, “What’s your strategy, man?”
Netanyahu reportedly evaded giving specifics, opting instead to say, “We have to go into Rafah” — which prompted Biden to retort, “Bibi, you’ve got no strategy.”
Biden reportedly saw his job as reigning in Israeli responses to attacks from foreign terrorists and countries such as Iran. After Iran launched a large barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles — along with drones — at Israel in April, CNN reported that Biden told Israel: “You don’t need to make another move. Do nothing,” in response to the major attack.
Reflecting on his strategy, he told his advisers, according to Woodward, “I know he’s going to do something, but the way I limit it is tell him to ‘Do nothing.’”
A similar situation is arising again now, in the aftermath of Iran’s major ballistic missile attack on Israel last week, which featured 181 missiles and came in response to Israel assassinating major Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist leaders in Lebanon and Iran.
The United States is worried that Israel’s response could trigger a wider war — particularly if Israel targets Iran’s nuclear facilities. Consequently, Netanyahu and Biden spoke on the phone on Wednesday.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called the call “direct and productive,” but did not give additional details.
This was the first time the two leaders spoke since August, underscoring the worsening relationship between them.
Netanyahu also spoke with former US President Donald Trump. Netanyahu’s team said Trump “congratulated him on the intense and determined operations that Israel carried out against Hezbollah.”
The post ‘Bibi, What the F—k?’ New Book Reveals Details of Biden and Netanyahu’s Strained Relationship first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran FM Meets with Hamas Delegation Headed by Muhammad Darwish
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Photo: Reuters/Raheb Homavandi.
i24 News – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday met with a Hamas delegation in İstanbul, followed by a meeting with his Turkish counterpart.
The Hamas delegation was headed by Muhammad Ismail Darwish, the Head of Hamas Shura Council and included members of the jihadist group’s politburo. A well-placed source told i24NEWS Darwish was the strongest man in Hamas following the assassination of the group’s leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza.
The post Iran FM Meets with Hamas Delegation Headed by Muhammad Darwish first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah Rockets Hit Israel’s North as Israel Strikes Beirut Suburbs
Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Hadath, Lebanon October 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Israeli strikes pummeled Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday as Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah fired salvos of rockets at northern Israel, with one drone directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home, his spokesman said.
Pledges from Israel and its enemies Hamas and Hezbollah to keep fighting in Gaza and Lebanon have dashed hopes that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar might hasten an end to more than a year of escalating war in the Middle East.
Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the Gaza war, was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian enclave on Wednesday.
Israel has been pounding Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, in what it says is an effort to stop Hamas fighters regrouping.
On Saturday afternoon, Israel carried out heavy strikes on several locations in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, leaving thick plumes of smoke wafting over the city horizon throughout the evening.
It issued evacuation orders for four separate neighborhoods within the suburbs, urging residents to get 500 meters (yards) away, but carried out strikes in other parts as well, Reuters witnesses said.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the southern suburbs – once a densely populated zone that also housed Hezbollah offices and underground installations – since Israel began regularly targeting the zone approximately three weeks ago.
An Israeli air attack there on Sept. 27 killed Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, and other strikes in the zone have killed other top figures within the Iran-backed group.
NEW AREA STRUCK
An Israeli strike on Saturday killed two people as they were traveling on Lebanon’s main highway near the Christian-majority town of Jounieh – the first such attack on the area. A spokesperson for Israel’s military said it was looking into it.
Witnesses described passengers running from a car after a blast, then seeing the charred remains of one passenger after a second blast.
Another strike killed at least four people in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, health authorities said. One of them was the mayor of a nearby town, making him the second mayor of a Lebanese town to be killed this week.
Separately, the Israeli military said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander of the Bint Jbeil area on Friday and that its troops had seized weapons including anti-tank missiles.
Hezbollah by Saturday evening had claimed at least 20 attacks on Israeli military targets that day, all of them with salvos of rockets. There was no immediate comment from it on any drone attacks or attacks targeting Netanyahu’s home.
In northern Israel, some of the rockets were intercepted but one hit a residential building, police said.
One person was killed and at least nine people were injured in different locations, the Israeli ambulance service said. Air raid sirens sent people running to shelters.
Netanyahu’s spokesman said the prime minister was not in the vicinity of his holiday home in Caesarea and there were no casualties.
Later, Israeli media published a video of Netanyahu walking in a park. “Nothing will deter us, we will keep going until victory,” he said in the video filmed by one of his aides.
STALLED TALKS
Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since the war between Israel and Palestinian terror group Hamas began in Gaza last October.
Nearly three weeks ago, Israel launched a ground assault inside Lebanon in an attempt to stabilize the border region for its citizens who had fled the fighting.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them in the last month, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, while 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights, according to Israeli authorities.
More than 10,000 packages of food and medical supplies were airdropped into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday in coordination with the United Arab Emirates, the Israeli military said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that oversees administration in the Palestinian Territories, has stepped up deliveries of aid into Gaza amid international pressure to ease a dire humanitarian crisis.
Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have said Sinwar’s death offered a chance for a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages.
Negotiations for such a deal have been stalled for weeks.
Biden said on Friday that there was a possibility of working towards a ceasefire in Lebanon but it would be harder in Gaza.
The post Hezbollah Rockets Hit Israel’s North as Israel Strikes Beirut Suburbs first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Drops Leaflets Over Gaza Showing Sinwar’s Body and Message to Hamas
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar looks on as Palestinian Hamas supporters take part in an anti-Israel rally over tension in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, in Gaza City, Oct. 1, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza on Saturday showing a picture of the dead Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar with the message that “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza,” echoing language used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The move came as Israeli military strikes killed at least 32 people across the Gaza Strip and tightened a siege around hospitals in Jabalia in the north of the enclave, Palestinian health officials said.
“Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” the leaflet, written in Arabic, read, according to residents of the southern city of Khan Younis and images circulating online.
The leaflet’s wording was from a statement by Netanyahu on Thursday after Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers operating in Rafah, in the south near the Egyptian border, on Wednesday.
In the central Gaza Strip camp of Al-Maghzai, an Israeli strike on a house killed 11 people, while another strike at the nearby camp of Nuseirat killed four others.
Five other people were killed in two separate strikes in the south Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, medics said, while seven Palestinians were killed in the Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
EVACUATION ORDERS
Residents and medics said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic camps, which it encircled by also sending tanks to nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents.
Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied that there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas.
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