TV News LIES

The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a $142bn arms deal touted by the White House as the “largest defence sales agreement in history” in the first stop of Donald Trump’s four-day diplomatic tour to the Gulf states aimed at securing big deals and spotlighting the benefits of Trump’s transactional foreign policy.

During the trip, the White House also confirmed that Trump would meet with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel commander whose forces helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad in 2024. The informal meeting will be the first face-to-face meeting between a US president and a Syrian leader since 2000, when Bill Clinton met with the late leader Hafez al-Assad in Geneva.

Speaking at an investment forum on Tuesday, Trump said that he planned to lift sanctions on Syria after holding talks with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump said.

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Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff didn’t mince his words. In a meeting late on Sunday with former hostages and relatives of those still held in Gaza, he told them Israel is drawing out a war the US wants to end, local media reported.

On the eve of the release of Edan Alexander, the last living American being held by Hamas, Witkoff spelt out the gulf between his boss and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We want to bring the hostages home, but Israel is not willing to end the war. Israel is prolonging it – despite the fact that we don’t see where else we can go and that an agreement must be reached,” Witkoff told the meeting, according to Channel 12 Television, quoting sources who were present.

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Donald Trump’s social media post insisting Ukraine must immediately start peace talks with Russia has set back, and possibly jeopardised, Europe’s carefully laid plans to persuade the US to impose sanctions on Moscow for refusing the US president’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, European diplomats have said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy had no choice but to accept Vladimir Putin’s invitation to talks in Istanbul on Thursday for fear of offending Trump, diplomats said. Putin made the offer in a bid not to alienate the US president, and avoid the growing European pressure on Trump to impose harsher sanctions. Western diplomats say they have no reason to believe that Trump acted in collusion with the Russian leader.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland had for the first time gone together to Kyiv at the weekend to underline the call for a 30-day ceasefire that they said should start on Monday.

The aim of the visit by Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk was to put pressure on Trump to admit that Putin was stalling, and that the US had no political option but to put swingeing economic sanctions on Russia.

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Hamas announced on Sunday that it will release the last living American hostage in Gaza, Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American soldier who was kidnapped on 7 October 2023.

Donald Trump confirmed the news in a social media post, writing that Alexander, 21, “is coming home to his family”.

“This was a step taken in good faith towards the United States and the efforts of the mediators — Qatar and Egypt — to put an end to this very brutal war and return ALL living hostages and remains to their loved ones,” the US president added.

The captive’s release is set to take place on Tuesday, Reuters reports, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Trump begins a trip to the Middle East the same day, although there is no stop in Israel on his schedule as of yet. The president is set to visit Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

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The lack of food entering Gaza is one of the most severe problems the strip is facing, according to aid workers.

Osama As, the lead for quality, evidence and learning with the Mercy Corps Gaza Emergency Response Program, said the situation "is getting worse day after day, especially in relation to food" because most people in Gaza depend on humanitarian aid and community kitchens for food.

He said most families survive on one meal a day, and that most food available is canned food and bread.

"I never imagined that we would reach this point. Most people cannot afford the remaining items, which are either like canned foods and few quantities of vegetables which are produced locally here in Gaza," As, who is based in Gaza, said. "The prices are very high, so I think most people cannot afford these kinds of items to buy from the local market."

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