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Blinken in Israel in Last Big Ceasefire Push Before US Election
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is welcomed by US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Director General for North America Lior Hayat, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday in the first big US push for a Middle East ceasefire since Israel killed the leader of Hamas last week — and the last attempt before a presidential election that could upend US policy.
Blinken began his meetings in Israel as Hezbollah launched rockets into Tel Aviv and Haifa and Israeli air strikes pummeled parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Repeated diplomatic efforts have failed to bring an end to both the year-long war in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave of Gaza and to its spillover conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Iran-backed armed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Blinken, on his 11th trip to the region since the Gaza war erupted, faces a daunting mission.
Hezbollah said on Tuesday there would be no negotiations while fighting continues and it claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Netanyahu’s holiday home on Saturday.
Washington hopes the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — Israel‘s most wanted man, blamed for triggering the year of warfare by planning the deadly attack on Oct. 7 last year on Israeli territory — will provide a new opportunity for peace.
But Israel has so far shown no sign of relenting in its military campaigns even after assassinating several leaders of Iran’s allies Hamas and Hezbollah, which lost its powerful leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Sept. 27 airstrike.
In Gaza on Tuesday, the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA called for a temporary truce to allow civilians to leave areas in the north of the enclave where Israeli forces were hunting down Hamas terrorists.
SIRENS IN TEL AVIV
Blinken was meeting Netanyahu and other officials at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Jordan and Qatar. US officials say he is exploring plans for rebuilding and governing Gaza after the war, key to reaching a ceasefire.
Iran and its terrorist allies — Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, armed groups in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza — have said that their “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests will emerge victorious.
The Houthis said on Tuesday they had targeted an Israeli military base in Tel Aviv using ballistic missiles in solidarity with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Hours before Blinken landed, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and other areas of central Israel after Hezbollah fired missiles at what it said were Israeli military targets near Haifa and Tel Aviv. The missiles were an apparent demonstration that Hezbollah’s capabilities have survived Israel‘s biggest operation in decades of hostilities.
The conflict has spread to Lebanon over the past month, with Israel launching a ground campaign and intensified air assaults against Hezbollah, which had been firing across the frontier for a year in solidarity with the Palestinians.
During a night of heavy strikes on south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, Israel struck the area near Beirut’s Rafik Hariri hospital, Lebanon’s main state medical facility. Lebanese authorities said 13 people were killed.
The Israeli military said the hospital itself had not been targeted and was not affected. Director Jihad Saadeh said the hospital was damaged because of an Israeli attack near it.
Hamas, which is still holding scores of hostages in Gaza seized in its Oct. 7, 2023 raid on Israel, refuses to release them without an Israeli pledge to end the war.
Israel says it will not halt fighting until the Islamist terrorist group is completely destroyed in the enclave, which has been largely reduced to ruins during Israel’s military campaign.
Washington and other allies hope Israel‘s killing of Sinwar in a firefight last week could provide a breakthrough by making it easier for Netanyahu’s government to assert that its objectives have been achieved in Gaza.
But diplomats and other sources say Israel is pressing to lock in a strong position before a new US administration takes over following the Nov. 5 election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
ISRAELI RETALIATION AGAINST IRAN
State Department officials said Blinken intended to raise the issue of what happens in Gaza when the war ends, focusing on security, governance, and reconstruction. Washington has long said it ideally wants Gaza reunited with the West Bank under a government run by the Palestinian Authority, which now exercises limited self-rule.
Blinken will also discuss Israel‘s anticipated retaliation for a ballistic missile attack launched by Iran on Oct. 1, a senior State Department official said.
Allies are worried that Israel‘s response could disrupt oil markets and ignite a full-blown war between the arch-enemies.
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7 last year, killing around 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.
The post Blinken in Israel in Last Big Ceasefire Push Before US Election first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany’s Halt to Arms Exports to Israel Is Response to Gaza Expansion Plans, Chancellor Says
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
Germany’s decision to curb arms exports to Israel comes in response to Israel’s plan to expand its operations in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.
“We cannot deliver weapons into a conflict that is now being pursued exclusively by military means,” Merz said. “We want to help diplomatically, and we are doing so.”
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s plans to expand military control over the enclave have pushed Germany to take this historically fraught step.
The chancellor said in the interview that the expansion of Israel’s operations in Gaza could claim hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and would require the evacuation of the entire city of Gaza.
“Where are these people supposed to go?” Merz said. “We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”
Nevertheless, the principles of Germany’s Israel policy remain unchanged, the chancellor said.
“Germany has stood firmly by Israel’s side for 80 years. That will not change,” Merz said.
Germany is Israel’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the US and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, principally because of its historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
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Newsom Calls Trump’s $1 Billion UCLA Settlement Offer Extortion, Says California Won’t Bow
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a press conference, accompanied by members of the Texas Democratic legislators, at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, California, U.S., August 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Saturday that a $1 billion settlement offer by President Donald Trump’s administration for UCLA amounted to political extortion to which the state will not bow.
The University of California says it is reviewing a $1 billion settlement offer by the Trump administration for UCLA after the government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over pro-Palestinian protests.
UCLA, which is part of the University of California system, said this week the government froze $584 million in funding. Trump has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over anti-Israel student protests.
“Donald Trump has weaponized the DOJ (Department of Justice) to kneecap America’s #1 public university system — freezing medical & science funding until @UCLA pays his $1 billion ransom,” the office of Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post.
“California won’t bow to Trump’s disgusting political extortion,” it added.
“This isn’t about protecting Jewish students – it’s a billion-dollar political shakedown from the pay-to-play president.”
The government alleges universities, including UCLA, allowed antisemitism during the protests and in doing so violated Jewish and Israeli students’ civil rights. The White House had no immediate comment beyond the offer.
Experts have raised free speech and academic freedom concerns over the Republican president’s threats. The University of California says paying such a large settlement would “completely devastate” the institution.
Large demonstrations took place at UCLA last year. Last week, UCLA agreed to pay over $6 million to settle a lawsuit by some students and a professor who alleged antisemitism. It was also sued this year over a 2024 violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters.
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Trump Nominates State Dept Spokeswoman Bruce as US Deputy Representative to UN
FILE PHOTO: U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce speaks during her first press briefing at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations.
Bruce has been the State Department spokesperson since Trump took office in January.
In a post on social media in which Trump announced her nomination, the president said she did a “fantastic job” as State Department spokesperson. Bruce will need to be confirmed for the role by the US Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority.
During press briefings, she has defended the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions ranging from an immigration crackdown and visa revocations to US responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, including a widely condemned armed private aid operation in the Palestinian territory.
Bruce was previously a political contributor and commentator on Fox News for over 20 years.
She has also authored books like “Fear Itself: Exposing the Left’s Mind-Killing Agenda” that criticized liberals and left-leaning viewpoints.
In a post after Trump’s announcement, Bruce thanked him and suggested that the role was a “few weeks” away. Neither Trump nor Bruce mentioned an exact timeline in their online posts.
“Now I’m blessed that in the next few weeks my commitment to advancing America First leadership and values continues on the global stage in this new post,” Bruce wrote on X.
Trump has picked former White House national security adviser Mike Waltz to be his U.N. envoy. Waltz’s Senate confirmation for that role, wherein he will be Bruce’s boss, is still due.
Waltz was Trump’s national security adviser until he was ousted on May 1 after he was caught up in a March scandal involving a Signal chat among top Trump national security aides on military strikes in Yemen. Trump then nominated Waltz as his U.N. ambassador.