TV News LIES

Thousands of protesters demonstrated around Capitol Hill voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who addressed a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday.

With tensions over Israel’s nine-and-half-month war on Gaza running high, police mounted a huge security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters.

Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself was ring-fenced off.

“Shut it down,” a large group of protesters chanted as they marched toward the Capitol after blocking a nearby intersection, adding “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done!” Capitol police deployed pepper spray at protesters they claimed had crossed the police line.

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The European Union on Tuesday said it would step in after Hungary and Slovakia accused Ukraine of threatening their oil supplies with its partial ban on Russian crude exports passing through the country.

Kyiv last month adopted sanctions blocking the transit of pipeline crude sold by Moscow’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, to Central Europe, sparking fears of supply shortages in Budapest and Bratislava.

On Monday, Hungary and Slovakia sent a letter to the European Commission asking the EU’s executive to begin talks with Ukraine, a precursor to legal action, arguing the measure violated a 2014 association agreement between Brussels and Kyiv.

Commission spokesperson Olof Gill told POLITICO that the EU executive was “currently studying the contents of this letter,” while adding that it “stands ready to support the impact of [EU] member states in finding a solution together with Ukraine.”

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Doctors in the largest hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis pleaded for supplies from a facility overwhelmed by wounded people, as Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and fighting on the streets continued for a second day.

“There’s no space for more patients. There’s no space in the operating theatres. There is a lack of medical supplies, so we cannot save our patients,” Mohammed Zaqout, the director of Nasser hospital, told AFP.

The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said the hospital was facing “a new mass casualty influx, amid a dire lack of blood units, medical supplies and hospital beds”.

Palestinian health officials said more than 70 people have been killed and more than 200 injured since Israeli forces launched a new ground invasion of Khan Younis, the enclave’s second city.

TVNL Comment: Why have the US media totally ignored the carnage going on every day in Gaza?

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Ukraine has struck a deal with international bondholders to restructure about $20bn of debt, boosting Kyiv’s drive to use private capital to finance its war effort against Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government said on Monday that it won support from investors to reduce the face value of the debt by more than a third, paving the way for a formal restructuring in the coming weeks.

The agreement will replace a two-year moratorium on bond payments that was granted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but was due to expire next month.

Ukraine sought debt relief as part of its conditions for continuing bailout loans from the IMF, which said it had endorsed Monday’s deal alongside backing from the US, UK and other allies that are financing Kyiv’s war effort.

Ukraine finalised terms last week during talks with a committee of bondholders, as well as other investors, which together own about a quarter of the debt.

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The Israeli military has launched a fresh attack on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people according to medics, after ordering Palestinians to leave several neighbourhoods including areas that had been designated by the military as part of a humanitarian zone.

Palestinian civil defence in the territory estimated that 400,000 people sheltering in the city were affected by the order, which included the eastern part of Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip of land without infrastructure where Palestinians have sought shelter in tent encampments in recent months.

The military claimed Hamas militants in Khan Younis and part of Al-Mawasi were using the area to launch rockets at Israel.

“We were displaced from the eastern regions, they called us to evacuate, we took our children and left,” Osama Qudeih told the Associated Press (AP). “There was no safe place left in the Gaza Strip … We went out walking in the streets, not knowing where to go.”

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