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A large Russian drone and missile barrage on Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil killed at least 25 people, including three children, authorities said Wednesday, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to Turkey in search of diplomatic support for his fight against Russia’s invasion.

The nighttime attack hit two nine-story apartment blocks in Ternopil, located around 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the Polish border, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. At least 73 people, including 15 children, were injured, emergency services said.

At least 19 among those killed were burned alive, including three children aged 5, 7 and 16, Klymenko said. Two dozen people are still unaccounted for, he said on national television, and rescuers expect to work at least two more days to complete the search of rubble.

Russia fired 476 strike and decoy drones, as well as 48 missiles of various types, at Ukrainian targets overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. The bombardment included 47 cruise missiles, with air defenses intercepting all but six of them, the air force said. Western-supplied F-16 and Mirage-2000 jets intercepted at least 10 cruise missiles, it said.

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Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.

Almadi, 75, was sentenced to 19 years of incarceration in the kingdom in 2021 after he wrote 14 tweets critical of the Riyadh government. Two years later, the charges were reduced to so-called “cyber crimes” and he was sentenced to a 30-year ban on leaving Saudi Arabia.

The announcement that Almadi, a dual citizen and retired engineer who had lived in the US since the 1970s, would be free to leave the country came after the US president delivered a speech touting US-Saudi ties, including arms sales and investment deals, during a second day of public events in Washington.

“Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!” the Almadi family said in a statement.

“This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr Sebastian Gorka and the team at the national security council, as well as everyone at the state department,” it added.

The statement by Almadi’s son, Ibrahim Almadi, also thanked various non-profit organizations, including the James Foley Fund and Hostages America, and House speaker Mike Johnson for supporting the elder Almadi’s cause. He later posted on X that his father was on his way to the US.

TVNL Comment: Why has Trump ignored the pleas to release the 16 year old American boy accused of throwing a rock to protecct his home from settler attacks in the West Bank?

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Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), who served on the National Security Council (NSC) in the first Trump administration, called on President Trump to release the transcript of a “shocking” phone call that took place with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman around the time of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination.

Vindman — who played a key role in exposing details of Trump’s infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 — said a second phone call exists with the Saudi crown prince that rivals the first as “the most problematic.”

“During my tenure on Trump’s White House National Security Council staff, I reviewed many of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders. Of all the calls I reviewed, two stood out as the most problematic: The first, we all know, it was between President Trump and President Zelensky, which resulted in President Trump’s first impeachment,” Vindman said in a floor speech Tuesday.

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The U.N. Security Council has backed the United States’ ambitious plan for the future of the Gaza Strip. How and when it will be carried out remain largely unknown.

In a twist unimaginable across the tumultuous history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the plan would mean U.S. President Donald Trump becomes the de facto ruler of Gaza. The territory remains devastated by Israel’s campaign to eliminate Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

An international body known as the Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is to govern Gaza and oversee reconstruction under a 2-year, renewable U.N. mandate. An armed International Stabilization Force is to keep security and ensure the disarming of Hamas, a key demand of Israel.

Major questions hang over nearly every part of the plan and the timeframe for implementation. In the meantime, nearly all Palestinians remain displaced and dependent on humanitarian aid, Hamas retains significant control over nearly half of Gaza and the rebuilding of the territory has barely begun.

Some talks over the next steps have taken place behind the scenes among the U.S., Israel, Qatar, Egypt and other countries. But serious negotiations have not begun because Israel and Hamas remain in the first phase of the ceasefire deal that came into effect in October. The militant group is still required to hand over the bodies of the last three hostages.

The U.N. resolution passed Monday gave the plan international legitimacy. That opens the door for Arab and Muslim-majority nations to participate, particularly by contributing troops to the ISF. The U.S. is hoping that the more those countries are involved, the more palatable the international rule will be for Gaza’s more than 2 million people.

But the Palestinian public’s acceptance is far from certain. Without it, the Board of Peace risks becoming seen as a foreign occupation working on behalf of Israel, further thwarting their dream of self-determination and statehood.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the move as "historic", after signing the letter of intent with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at an air base near Paris.

Deliveries of the Rafale F4s are planned to be completed by 2035, while the joint production of interceptor drones is starting this year.

"This is a strategic agreement which will last for 10 years starting from the next year," Zelensky said at a joint briefing with Macron on Monday.

Ukraine will also get "very strong French radars", eight air defence systems and other advanced weaponry, he added.

Zelensky stressed that using such advanced systems "means protecting someone's life... this is very important".

Russia has in recent months increased its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, targeting energy and rail infrastructure and causing massive blackouts across the country.

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Genocide is a process, not an event. When genocide happens, its roots, and the conditions that allowed it, often become visible only in retrospect. If those conditions remain unchanged and there is no accountability, there’s every reason to believe the violence will return, perhaps even worse, especially if it was never fully halted. This is exactly what we are seeing in the case of Gaza. Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence.

A strange kind of calm has settled over Israel in the weeks since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. The sirens stopped. The hostages who survived the 7 October attack and nearly two years in captivity came home. But this calm – which has not been extended to Gaza, where more than 200 civilians have been killed since the ceasefire supposedly went into effect is built around an unclear plan by Donald Trump that does not address the root causes of the violence, and is merely a mirage. Nothing has changed in the violent political system that Palestinians and Israelis live under. The machinery behind the violence remains intact. The logic of domination still rules.

For nearly two years, Israel waged a campaign in Gaza that meets the clearest definition of genocide: a systematic, often openly declared attempt to destroy a group of people, the Palestinians in Gaza, through killing, starvation, forced displacement, and the destruction of life-sustaining conditions. Genocide is not a metaphor here. It is the only term that fits.

Our organization, B’Tselem, published a report last July titled Our Genocide. We chose this name because we are not observers but part of this horrific story. Israeli and Palestinian researchers, investigators and fieldworkers worked together to document events in Gaza, the West Bank and within Israel. Our conclusion confirms what Palestinians and international experts have long said: this is genocide – a direct assault on a population aiming to destroy the group.

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