Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued a statement Saturday vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” on Caribbean strikes after a report surfaced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military to “kill everybody” aboard an alleged drug vessel.
Archiv: Washington Post (media)
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
(November 28, 2025)
As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.
Looting, chaos and Israeli gunfire prevent aid from reaching Gazans
(August 1, 2025)
JERUSALEM — Shortly after 5 p.m. local time on Wednesday, trucks carrying food from the U.N. World Food Program passed an Israeli checkpoint and entered the rubble-strewn no-man’s-land of northern Gaza. Immediately, they were overwhelmed.
“Hundreds of thousands” of aid seekers who had been waiting for hours surged to within 100 meters of the checkpoint, and Israeli troops began to fire rifle and artillery rounds, according to an internal WFP mission security report seen by The Washington Post.
Israeli plans for Gaza draw criticism of ‘concentration camps’
In March, in the wake of the collapse of an earlier ceasefire, Katz had issued a warning to Gaza residents that, if they didn’t release the remaining hostages and “remove Hamas” themselves, Israel would act with “unprecedented force.” Other “options” were possible for Gaza’s population, Katz suggested, including “relocation to other countries,” while threatening “complete destruction and devastation.”
At the time, Meron Rapoport, a left-wing Israeli journalist, parsed the statements coming from prominent lawmakers and officials, as well as connected right-wing Israeli journalists, and came up with this somewhat prescient conclusion: “Israel is preparing to forcibly displace the entire population of Gaza — through a combination of evacuation orders and intense bombardment — into an enclosed and possibly fenced-off area,” he wrote on April 1, suggesting the goal was tantamount to the creation of a large “concentration camp.”
More Americans oppose than support a U.S. airstrike in Iran, poll finds
What do Americans think about the possibility of launching U.S. airstrikes against Iran, which President Donald Trump threatened this week unless the country dismantles its nuclear program? The Washington Post texted more than 1,000 people on Wednesday to ask.
The poll finds Americans opposing U.S. airstrikes against Iran by a 20 percentage-point margin — 45 percent to 25 percent — with a sizable 30 percent saying they are unsure.
New Gaza Aid Plan, Bypassing U.N. and Billed as Neutral, Originated in Israel
The New York Times found that the broad contours of the plan were first discussed in late 2023, at private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and business people with close ties to the Israeli government.
The group called itself the Mikveh Yisrael Forum, after a college where members convened in December 2023. Its leading figures gradually settled on the idea of hiring private contractors to distribute food in Gaza, circumventing the United Nations.
Sweeping overhaul of Gaza aid raises questions of morality and workability
The planning documents anticipated public skepticism and preemptively prepared talking points in case the GHF encountered allegations likening its food distribution hubs and residential compounds to “‘concentration camps’ with biometrics” or comparing the organization to Blackwater, a former U.S. mercenary firm implicated in violence against civilians in Iraq.
(…)
In mid-2024, Israeli officials shared their plans with a group of private-sector American consultants led by Phil Reilly, a retired CIA paramilitary officer and former agency station chief in Afghanistan. Reilly’s group, said five of the Israeli and American individuals, took over the planning and determined that a new company led by Reilly, named Safe Reach Solutions, would be the future subcontractor that would provide security and logistics for the hubs.
TOP SECRET AMERICA: National Security Inc.
(July 20, 2010)
The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
It is also a system in which contractors are playing an ever more important role. The Post estimates that out of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. There is no better example of the government‘s dependency on them than at the CIA, the one place in government that exists to do things overseas that no other U.S. agency is allowed to do.
(…)
Contractors kill enemy fighters. They spy on foreign governments and eavesdrop on terrorist networks. They help craft war plans. They gather information on local factions in war zones. They are the historians, the architects, the recruiters in the nation‘s most secretive agencies. They staff watch centers across the Washington area. They are among the most trusted advisers to the four-star generals leading the nation‘s wars.
The United States can’t just stand by as Israel starves northern Gaza
The Biden administration needs to push its ally with more than just empty threats.
Top 5 moments during Trump-Harris presidential debate: ‚I‘m talking now‘
„Do you believe you bear any responsibility in the way that withdrawal played out?“ Harris was asked by a moderator.
„Well, I will tell you, I agreed with President Biden‘s decision to pull out of Afghanistan.“ she said.
„Four presidents said they would and Joe Biden did.“
During the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, 13 U.S. service members were killed in a terrorist attack.
4 takeaways from the first Trump-Harris presidential debate
If Democrats were concerned about anything amounting to a repeat of Biden’s shoddy debate performance in late June, which led to his dropping out, it was quickly erased. Harris returned to the form that made her the runaway winner of the early 2020 Democratic primary debates.
More than that, though, with a premium on Trump defining the lesser-known Harris, she made sure the debate was overwhelmingly about Trump and his less-appealing traits.
Isfahan, apparent site of Israeli strike, is home to Iranian nuclear facilities
(today)
The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center is Iran’s largest nuclear research complex and employs approximately 3,000 scientists, according to the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative. It was built with Chinese assistance and opened in 1984. It operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors, the NTI says, adding that the facility is also the target of both U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
U.S. allows U.N. cease-fire vote, but it’s too late for many in Gaza
We are already halfway through Ramadan, a month-long holy period marked by pronounced grief and suffering in the Palestinian territories. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, forced the overwhelming majority of people in Gaza to flee their homes and plunged more than half of Gaza’s population into a de facto famine. Small children are dying of malnutrition in what U.N. officials describe to be the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world.
Just Two US Lawmakers Sign International Statement Demanding Arms Embargo on Israel
(02.03.2024)
The statement‘s signatories include legislators from Israel‘s top allies and weapons suppliers, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada. Just two U.S. lawmakers—Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—backed the statement.
The statement includes six signatories from Germany, which is facing an International Court of Justice (ICJ) case alleging complicity in genocide against Palestinians.
The lawmakers argued that an arms embargo on Israel is both „a moral necessity“ and „a legal requirement,“ given the ICJ‘s interim ruling in late January.
U.S. floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war’s conduct
Washington has approved more than 100 separate military sales to Israel since its invasion of Gaza, even as officials complain Israeli leaders have not done enough to protect civilians
Israel is still floating a plan for Gaza island. And now there’s a video.
He has estimated the cost of the project to be around $5 billion and has indicated in the past that Saudi Arabia or the Chinese might be interested in investing in the venture.
All sounds good until one factors in Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza
The Washington Post analyzed satellite imagery, airstrike data and U.N. damage assessments, and interviewed more than 20 aid workers, health-care providers, and experts in munitions and aerial warfare. The evidence shows that Israel has carried out its war in Gaza at a pace and level of devastation that likely exceeds any recent conflict, destroying more buildings, in far less time, than were destroyed during the Syrian regime’s battle for Aleppo from 2013 to 2016 and the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, in 2017.
This was a pernicious lie that was promoted by Biden and his administration to justify Israel’s attacking of hospitals. Those of us who warned that this was a lie at the time were accused of being Hamas propagandists.
The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital
The Post’s analysis shows:
– The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
– None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
– There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.
Hours before IDF troops entered the complex, the Biden administration declassified U.S. intelligence assessments that it said bolstered Israel’s claims. In the aftermath of the raid, Israeli and U.S. officials have stood firm behind their initial statements.
A Washington Post investigation has found no proof of a Hamas command center under al-Shifa Hospital following Israel’s attack on the medical complex
Evidence Doesn‘t Support Israeli Claims That Hospital Was Hamas Command Center: Report
The Israeli raid on al-Shifa Hospital last month, which was preceded by an evacuation order aimed at thousands of people sheltering at the hospital and hundreds of sick patients, produced one of the grisliest scenes in the country’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip: a “death zone” that included a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital and dozens of desperate patients inside, according to the World Health Organization, whose aid workers arrived at the facility on Nov. 18 as part of a humanitarian mission.
Forty patients, including four premature babies, died in the hospital due to a lack of electricity in the days surrounding the raid, hospital administrators told the United Nations.
New York Times report says Israel knew about Hamas attack over a year in advance
(01.12.2023)
Netanyahu has stopped short of apologizing for the attack, and has said that determining blame will have to come after the war is waged. Critics say he is attempting to escape responsibility for myriad intelligence failures leading to the deadliest day in Israeli history.
Here’s what to know about the pro-Palestinian rally in D.C. on Saturday
Thousands of people are expected to rally Saturday in Washington, joining a push from people across the world to demand both a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war and an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
Brian Becker, the executive director of the ANSWER Coalition, one of the organizers of the march, said he hopes this gathering will be “the largest demonstration in support of the Palestinian people in the history of the United States.”
EU and The Washington Post Escalate Their Censorship Campaign with a New Fraudulent “Disinformation Study” About Twitter and Russia. Plus: The John McCain Institute Used to Promote Neocon Dogma on War
(September 08, 2023)
The way this typically works is that groups claim to employ “disinformation experts” – a brand new and fake expertise they created overnight – and then produce studies that purport to document who is either circulating harmful disinformation or who is permitting it to be heard. This latter accusation, permitting dangerous disinformation to be heard, always means that one social media company or another is failing to censor in accordance with the demands of the group and its funders. They then get corporate media outlets who crave censorship to melodramatically trumpet their accusatory studies using flamboyant headlines that claim a disobedient technology platform has the blood on their hands, knowing that it will spread virally, but very few people actually read the study to determine if the accusations have any validity.
Obama-era veteran Kurt Campbell to lead Biden‘s Asia policy
(Jan 13, 2021)
Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia under Democratic President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is considered an architect of their “pivot to Asia” strategy, a vaunted but so far still limited rebalancing of resources to the region.
Why Biden Skipping the Asean Summit Is a Mistake
The deliberate cherry picking of allies and partners is the brainchild, insiders tell me, of Biden’s key Asia policy czar, Kurt Campbell. It is likely to continue, as Campbell has pointed out in a discussion earlier this year at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
U.S. presses Saudi Arabia on reported migrant massacres
(Updated August 31, 2023 at 6:22 p.m.)
The United States has voiced public concern about the reports of violence against civilians, which circulated among diplomats and U.N. officials for more than a year before being thrust into wider public view, and called for a Saudi investigation.
U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations, say they are also pushing the Saudis to identify the units who, according to eyewitnesses and victims, used mortars, small-arms fire and close-range executions to kill hundreds or possibly thousands of people, many of them women and children.
What’s Driving the Coups in Gabon and Across West Africa?
Four days after the central African nation held disputed presidential elections that incumbent Ali Bongo was reported to have won, army officers appeared on state television to announce they’d canceled the Aug. 26 vote and dissolved the country’s institutions. Bongo first took office in 2009, succeeding his late father, who had held power since 1967. While the oil producer hasn’t had to deal with the jihadist attacks or spreading insecurity that’s dogged much of West Africa, the ruling family’s grip on power has come under pressure in recent years.
A tanker believed to hold sanctioned Iran oil starts offloading near Texas despite Tehran‘s threats
(August 20, 2023)
Iran has been trying to evade sanctions and continue selling its oil abroad, while the U.S. and its allies have been seizing cargoes since 2019 after the country’s nuclear deal allowing the trade collapsed.
A Saudi-Israeli Peace Deal? Who Wants What and Why
The main thing the Saudis would get in exchange — security guarantees — wouldn’t come from Israel but from its closest ally — the US. Israel, a high-tech power, would play a major role in ambitious Saudi plans to move its economy beyond oil. It would also be expected to make concessions to the Palestinian self-ruling authority in the West Bank. The US would regain some of its influence over Saudi Arabia, stemming efforts by China to expand its sway in the Middle East. The deal offers significant rewards to all four governments, not least of them additional ways of dealing with Iranian military activity in the region. But the prospect of the pact stirs populist forces among all of their constituencies, posing risks to those in power.
Slow counteroffensive darkens mood in Ukraine
(August 10, 2023)
In Smila, a small city in central Ukraine, baker Alla Blyzniuk, 42, said she sells sweets for funeral receptions daily as parents prepare to bury their children killed on the front hundreds of miles away. (…)
Blyzniuk also lives in fear that her husband or two sons of fighting age will be mobilized. She has already noticed that far fewer men walk the streets of her city than before. Ukraine does not disclose its military casualty counts, but everyone shares stories, she said, of new soldiers at the front lasting just two to three days.
Why Israel Is Bitterly Split Over a Judiciary Overhaul
(August 8, 2023 at 10:09 a.m. EDT)
4. What else is planned?
• Changing the way judges are chosen. Currently, Supreme Court justices are selected by a committee made up of two ministers, two lawmakers (one of whom is traditionally from the opposition), two members of the bar association and three justices. The government wants to increase the role of politicians in picking judges but the details are still being debated. Some suggestions are to shift the balance of legal professionals and politicians on the committee, others to remove the judges and bar members entirely, replacing them with a mix of coalition and opposition politicians. Netanyahu says he will seek consensus and will wait till November before making his next move.
Biden faces renewed pressure to embrace Supreme Court overhaul
(04.07.2023)
As Democrats reel from another painful set of defeats at the Supreme Court in recent weeks, President Biden is facing renewed pressure from a range of elements in his party, from liberal lawmakers to abortion rights activists, to more forcefully embrace far-reaching changes to the high court.