President Donald Trump warned Israel would lose its crucial backing from the United States if it annexes the occupied West Bank, as visiting Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced confidence that a US-backed ceasefire in Gaza would hold.
Trump's remarks were made to Time magazine by telephone on 15 October - just days after the Gaza truce plan he spearheaded took effect - but were only published on Thursday.
"It won't happen," Trump said when asked about calls in Israel to annex the Palestinian West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967. "It won't happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries."
He added: "Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened."
https://www.newarab.com/news/trump-us-will-cut-all-ties-if-israel-annexes-west-bank
Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday advanced two bills paving the way for West Bank annexation, leading to condemnation Thursday from US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Israel at the time and who echoed Trump's comments.
When asked on Thursday if he was concerned by the votes, Trump told reporters at the White House: "Don't worry about the West Bank. Israel's not going to do anything with the West Bank."
The United States remains Israel's most important military and diplomatic supporter.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party boycotted and criticised the vote, though members of his ruling coalition support annexation.
Arab and Muslim countries, which the US has been courting to provide troops and money for a stabilisation force in Gaza -- a key element of Trump's ceasefire plan - have warned that annexation of the West Bank is a red line.
Trump threatens to 'cut all ties with Israel' if West Bank annexed
In Gaza, a mass burial offers little closure and new questions
Maybe one day, they will be able to put a name to the Palestinians buried side by side this week in the Gaza soil.
Palestinian health authorities told NBC News that each plot at the mass burial site in Deir-al-Balah would be clearly marked, so that a rebuilt health system might eventually help identify the remains — decomposing and in some cases apparently mutilated — that were returned by Israel as part of the ceasefire with Hamas.
The 54 unidentified bodiesBut for hundreds of families who had flocked to Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, where the remains were delivered, the mass burial brought little closure in their quest to confirm whether missing loved ones were indeed killed. were laid carefully in a long line of white shrouds as Palestinians gathered around the grave site.
But for hundreds of families who had flocked to Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, where the remains were delivered, the mass burial brought little closure in their quest to confirm whether missing loved ones were indeed killed.
Israel said all the returned bodies belonged to combatants in Gaza, without providing evidence to support the claim.
“Their loved ones’ bodies were so deformed and beyond recognition that they couldn’t even identify them and lay them to rest,” Moureen Kaki, a Palestinian American aid worker from the medical nongovernmental organization Glia, said in an interview Thursday.
Russian missile and drone attacks kill 4 in Ukraine as Zelenskyy pleads for air
Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight into Saturday killed at least four people and wounded 20, officials said, and prompted fresh pleas from Ukraine’s president for Western air defense systems.
In the capital, Kyiv, two people were killed and 13 were wounded in a ballistic missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, Kyiv’s police said.
A fire broke out in a non-residential building in one location, while debris from intercepted missiles fell in an open area at another site, damaging windows in nearby buildings, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service wrote on the message app Telegram.
“Explosions in the capital. The city is under ballistic attack,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram during the onslaught.
The White House movie theater demolition ends a storied era in presidential history
It was, on occasion, used by presidents to rehearse important speeches such as the State of the Union address; and at other times, as a spot for visitors to dump their hats, bags and coats. But for more than 80 years, the White House movie theater was mostly a place where the first family and their guests went for entertainment.
Demolition began this week of the White House Family Theater — along with the rest of the White House's East Wing where the snug, shoe-box-shaped auditorium was located — to make way for a new $300 million ballroom. It marks the end of an era in American movie theater history.
Since its conversion from a cloakroom by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942, the private, 40-ish-seat theater has screened everything from newsreels and documentaries to westerns and musicals. It has been through several facelifts, most recently ditching cream and red floral curtains, and beige walls and seating for all-round "movie-palace red" ornamented with goldSince its conversion from a cloakroom by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942, the private, 40-ish-seat theater has screened everything from newsreels and documentaries to westerns and musicals. It has been through several facelifts, most recently ditching cream and red floral curtains, and beige walls and seating for all-round "movie-palace red" ornamented with gold molding and dark wood trim following a renovation overseen by first lady Laura Bush in 2004. molding and dark wood trim following a renovation overseen by first lady Laura Bush in 2004.
June Lockhart, beloved mother figure from 'Lassie' and 'Lost In Space,' dies at 100
June Lockhart, who became a mother figure for a generation of television viewers whether at home in "Lassie" or up in the stratosphere in "Lost In Space," has died. She was 100.
Lockhart died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, family spokesman Lyle Gregory, a friend of 40 years, said Saturday.
"She was very happy up until the very end, reading the New York Times and LA Times everyday," he said. "It was very important to her to stay focused on the news of the day."
The daughter of prolific character actor Gene Lockhart, Lockhart was cast frequently in ingenue roles as a young film actor. Television made her a star.
How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 prevail
There are many ways to characterize Proposition 50, the single ballot initiative that Californians will be voting on this election season.
You could say it’s about redrawing congressional district lines outside the regular once-a-decade schedule. You could say, more precisely, that it’s about counterbalancing Republican efforts to engineer congressional seats in their favor in Texas and elsewhere with a gerrymander that favors the Democrats. You could, like the measure’s detractors, call it a partisan power grab that risks undermining 15 years of careful work to make California’s congressional elections as fair and competitive as possible.
\The way California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Democrats are selling it to voters, though, boils down to something much simpler and more visceral: it’s an invitation to raise a middle finger to Donald Trump, a president fewer than 40% of Californians voted for and many loathe – for reasons that extend far beyond his attempts at election manipulation. For that reason alone, the yes campaign believes it is cruising to an easy victory.
Texas officers heroically rescue baby pinned under car after overturn crash
A baby is expected to make a full recovery and two Fort Worth police officers are being hailed as heroes after saving the infant, who was pinned under an overturned car after a crash on Texas’s Interstate 30 on Thursday morning.
Fort Worth police said in a social media post that Sgt R Nichols and officer E Bounds responded to a crash around 9.30am where a woman and an infant had been in a collision that caused the infant to be ejected from the vehicle.
Body camera footage shared Friday on social media by the Fort Worth police department shows an officer running toward the overturned car and beginning to search for the child as a distraught woman can be heard in the background yelling for her baby.
“Hey, we need to move the car. I think the baby’s under there,” the officer can be heard saying.
The officer rallied other motorists who had stopped at the scene to help him lift the car.
“Hey, we need to move the car. I think the baby’s under there,” the officer can be heard saying.
American Child Details Abuses in Israeli Prison as Democrats Demand His Release
A group of Democrats is demanding Israel release 16-year-old Mohammad Ibrahim after the Palestinian American child has described the horrific abuses he’s facing at the hands of Israeli officers in military prison.
On Tuesday, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) shared testimony from Mohammad. Israel has held Mohammad in pre-trial detention for eight months, during which Israel has barred him from seeing his family. He has lost a significant amount of weight and contracted scabies in that time.
The boy, who faces charges of rock throwing from Israeli authorities, detailed overcrowding and deprivation in Ofer military prison.
“[My] section consists of 19 rooms, each equipped with four bunk beds,” Mohammad told DCIP. “In each room, eight children occupy the beds, while the remaining children sleep on mattresses on the floor.”
“The mattresses, whether on the beds or on the floor, are extremely light and inadequate. Each prisoner receives two blankets, yet we still feel cold at night. There is no heating or cooling system in the rooms. The only items present are mattresses, blankets, and a single copy of the Quran in each room,” he said.
Portland judge rejects Trump request to allow national guard deployment
A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift her order blocking the deployment of federalized national guard troops to the city, saying that she would decide the matter by Monday.
The hearing in Portland and one in Washington DC are the latest in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Troop deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see whether the US supreme court intervenes to allow it.
The Portland district court judge, Karin Immergut, had previously issued two temporary restraining orders blocking the deployment of national guards troops there, in response to a persistent but small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.
Her first order, blocking the deployment of 200 troops from the Oregon national guard, said that Donald Trump had exceeded his authority by taking federal control of the troops based on his claim that the city was in a state of war-like rebellion. Trump’s assessment, Immergut ruled, was “simply untethered to the facts”.
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