June 24, 2026

Israel Watch

Blurb:

The fragile truce in Gaza faced its first major test on Sunday after Israel alleged Hamas had violated the ceasefire and hit back with air and artillery strikes.

An Israeli security official told The Associated Press, on the condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement, that the transfer of aid into Gaza is halted “until further notice.”

Earlier Sunday, Israel’s military said it hit multiple targets in the Gaza Strip using aircraft and artillery, after it accused Hamas of shooting at Israeli soldiers. Military officials later said two soldiers were killed.

An Israeli military official told CBS News that Hamas had targeted its soldiers with a rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.

Blurb:

Israel restricted aid into Gaza and kept the enclave’s border shut on Tuesday while re-emergent Hamas fighters demonstrated their grip by executing men in the street, darkening the outlook for U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.

Israel told the United Nations it will only allow 300 aid trucks into Gaza – half the agreed daily number – from Wednesday, and that no fuel or gas will be allowed in, except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the United Nations.

Blurb:

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks for more detail of what the UK is doing to help ensure more aid gets into Gaza.

He says all the bodies of dead hostages need to be returned.

And he asks what the UK is doing to ensure that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank stops.

Starmer thanks Davey for the “content and tone” of his response. (He is making a contrast with Badenoch’s.)

On aid, he says there is a need for more trucks be admitted to Gaza.

On the bodies of hostages, Starmer says he agrees with Davey.

He says, when the media are finally admitted to Gaza, he thinks there will be ‘“quite some debate” in the Commons about “the full horror” of what happened.

Blurb:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said he believes there is little chance a Palestinian state could exist as a completely autonomous, sovereign state side by side with Israel.

Pointing to historical precedent, Netanyahu argued a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would leave a security vacuum in the region, allowing radical groups to assert military power. His justification for a long-term Israeli military presence comes as Gazan clans or local militias opposed to Hamas’s rule have been rounded up and executed by the terrorist group after Israel withdrew some forces to make way for phase one of President Donald Trump’s peace deal.

Blurb:

Some Palestinians fear Hamas will not honor President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan as footage emerged of the terrorists executing civilians in Gaza’s streets, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

Hamas began rounding up alleged Israeli collaborators and killing them as soon as the country’s military withdrew from Gaza after a ceasefire was announced Oct. 8, an anonymous Gazan activist told NYP. The broader 20-point peace agreement requires Hamas to permanently disarm, but video evidence of its brutality toward Palestinians shows it continues to terrorize Gaza.

Blurb:

Aid trucks rolled into Gaza on Wednesday and Israel resumed preparations to open the main Rafah crossing after a dispute over the return of the bodies of dead hostages that had threatened to derail the fragile ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Israel had threatened to keep Rafah shut and reduce aid supplies because Hamas was returning bodies too slowly, showing the risks to a truce that has stopped two years of devastating conflict in Gaza and freed all living hostages held by Hamas.

New Yorkers have been betrayed': can Zohran Mamdani become the ...

Blurb:

Jihadi Zohran Mamdani ran for Gaza on the day the hostages were released -the UNRWA 5K for Gaza. UNRWA, the organization UNRWA whose employees took part in the October 7th massacre and subsequently kept the hostages in captivity. This is who Mamdani is raising money for.

The federal government has already cut off funding to this terror linked organization last year.

Mamdani wants to keep the refugee status of Palestinians into perpetuity to help with his cause of the eliminating Israel.

https://twitter.com/CampusJewHate/status/1977510662575411336

Hamas, Israel Shake Hands': Trump Declares End Of Gaza War ...

President Donald Trump signed the treaty that officially ended the brutal war in Gaza. He did so in Egypt, where he delivered a speech proclaiming the finalization of the deal and the commitment of all parties involved to follow through with the full Gaza Peace plan. All Hamas prisoners have been released along with all living Israeli hostages. Aid has already started coming in, as have the refugees who are now returning. The next step is the formation of a Peace Council that will govern Gaza during the transition. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner, María Corina Machado, partially dedicated her award to President Trump.

Trump told world leaders, “I want to congratulate everybody sitting in these first few rows and standing behind me. I don’t know why they chose to stand, but I promise I’ll make it short, okay? We are not going to keep you standing for long. These are great leaders. After years of suffering and bloodshed, the war in Gaza is over. Humanitarian aid is now pouring in, including hundreds of truckloads of food, and medical equipment, and other supplies, much of it paid for by people in this room.”

Blurb:

It’s been a whirlwind day already for President Donald Trump as he signed the Israel-Hamas peace deal he helped negotiate, watched as the terror group released the last 20 living hostages, spoke in front of the Israeli Knesset, and was nominated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Israel Prize, Israel’s highest civilian honor.

He headed to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where he just wrapped up remarks in front of world leaders. “Nobody thought this could happen,” Trump said:

This is the day that people across the region and around the world have been working, striving, hoping, and praying for. They have done things over the last month that I think were really unthinkable. Nobody thought this could happen.

With the historic agreement we’ve just signed, those prayers of millions, have finally been answered. As you know, the hostages have been returned, and further work goes on, having to do with the, sadly to say, bodies.

Blurb:

Tearful reunions were captured on video Monday as the last 20 living Israeli hostages were released from Hamas captivity in Gaza and reunited with their families.
Family members shed tears of unimaginable joy as they embraced their loved ones for the first time in more than two years.

Video clips released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) depict the emotional moments when Guy Gilboa-Dalal (24), Matan Zangauker (25), Matan Angrest (22), and Eitan Mor (25), and Alon Ohel (24) were reunited with their parents at the IDF’s Re’im base in southern Israel.

Zangauker can be heard asking his mother if his dog was still alive.

Blurb:

CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour snidely guessed on Monday morning that Israeli hostages were “probably being treated better than the average Gazan” on Monday, hours after Hamas released the last 20 living hostages. PBS actually simulcasts this woman’s nasty takes.

Fifty years ago, an Amanpour type would have greeted American POWs coming out of Vietnam by suggesting our tortured POWs were “probably treated better than the average Vietnamese.”

In a CNN News Central special, anchor Kaitlan Collins asked about Western journalists being denied access to covering Gaza, which cued Amanpour to lecture:

AMANPOUR: Kaitlan, you can imagine that’s a question that I’m asking every day. And surely all of my colleagues, it is unconscionable that us, we have not been able to go in and help our Gaza colleagues tell the full story to the world  That is just something that I’ve never seen any democratic nation forbid, outside journalists, and I’ve asked every Israeli official who I’ve interacted with over the last two years, publicly and privately, to open the doors and let us in. And I pretty much can assure you that one, that once those I those doors are opened, it will be a scene of absolute, abject horror.

Blurb:

In the shadows of the joy sweeping Israel over the return of 20 living hostages taken by Hamas, outrage erupted over the failure of Hamas to return the bodies of all those who died since they were taken after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists.

Only four of 28 bodies held by Hamas in Gaza were being returned on Monday, according to ABC News.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the action a “failure to meet commitments,” of the first phase of the ceasefire deal brokered by President Donald Trump.

“Any delay or deliberate avoidance will be considered a blatant violation of the agreement and will be responded to accordingly,” Katz said in the statement.

Blurb:

A man who spent his presidency alienating Israel and coddling its enemies just proved he hasn’t learned a thing.

In a post published Thursday to the social media platform X, former President Barack Obama managed such a mealy-mouthed comment on news of a cease-fire in the Israeli-Hamas war that he managed to infuriate partisans on all sides.

But most of all, he proved just how petty a former president can really be.

Blurb:

… as RedState reported on Sunday, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas became a reality, the radical terrorist group faced violent clashes with rival Palestinian militias inside Gaza. Saleh al-Jafarawi, a pro-Hamas, antisemitic social media influencer with more than three million followers, was reportedly killed in one of those clashes.

And on Monday, Rama Duwaji publicly grieved al-Jafarawi’s death on Instagram, posting four broken-heart emojis, and mourning “Beloved Jafarawi,” as she called the radical antisemite.

How fitting for Mamdani, likely the next mayor of New York City, huh? You know — to have a no-doubt loving wife who is apparently at least as radical as he is.

The Palestinian Influencer who was known for his viral social media videos, was killed by an anti-Hamas militia in Gaza.

Blurb:

Monday was a day of rejoicing, of gratitude. For the families and friends of the 20 last living hostages freed after two years of hell, it was a day of fully breathing once again. The hostage release came as a very good sign that Hamas, the genocidal monsters responsible for the devastating two-year war with Israel, could at least come through on a principle term in a long sought ceasefire.

“This is the day the Lord has made known to us, and we will rejoice in it,” Zvika Mor, father of Eitan Mor, said after reuniting with his hostage son, according to reporting by the Times of Israel.

Peace is suddenly a real promise for this war-ravaged portion of the Middle East.

Blurb:

Monday was a momentous, joyful day — after two years, finally, a ceasefire in the Middle East.

A somber one, yes — it marked a ceasefire that ended hostilities between Israel and Hamas that had claimed thousands of innocent lives (as well as quite a few not-so-innocent ones, mostly fighting under the aegis of the terror organization that has run the Gaza Strip for 19 years now). But it was a happy day, a day which saw peace for the good guys, looming justice for the bad guys, and a well-deserved comeuppance in a moment of brief levity for pusillanimous ones.

Blurb:

Longtime CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour offered a lengthy apology for comments comparing the treatment of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the plight of the residents in the Gaza Strip.

Amanpour was reporting on the historic peace deal negotiated by President Donald Trump for Hamas to return hostages to Israel, both living and the remains of the dead. Even critics of the president have had to acknowledge his efforts to secure peace.

‘I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips.’

Blurb:

It’s been a very busy 36 hours for President Donald Trump. He brought peace to the Middle East. Once again, he trounced his doubters, ended the war in Gaza, and got Hamas to release the rest of the Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack two years ago. The remains of captives murdered by Hamas will also be returned.

The president addressed the Knesset and later flew to Egypt to make this ceasefire agreement, which Trump pitched at the end of September, official. As with anything relating to the president of the United States, he wasn’t on schedule, though this was intentional. Trump stuck around a little longer to meet with the families of the hostages.

Blurb:

An emergency vote on Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest has been called off following developments in the Middle East, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has said.

Contest organisers had scheduled “an extraordinary meeting of [its] general assembly to be held online” in early November after several countries said they would no longer take part in Eurovision if Israel participated.

The EBU said in a statement that following “recent developments in the Middle East” the executive board had agreed on Monday that there should be an in-person discussion among members “on the issue of participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026”.

Blurb:

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that no one could expect former President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken “to go off quietly” after he claimed President Donald Trump “built on” the former administration’s Israel-Hamas plan.

On Wednesday, Trump secured a historic peace deal between Israel and Hamas, just a day after the anniversary of the war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, under the Biden administration. Guest host Kayleigh McEnany read Blinken’s tweet aloud, noting that it made her “bristle.”

“Well, it doesn’t make me bristle. Look, the entire Democratic left wing is out of touch with reality and verges on crazy. Blinken is part of that group. Why would you think that he has any realistic sense of what happened?” Gingrich asked.

Blurb:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — The Egyptian president told a summit of world leaders Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump’sMideast proposal represents the “last chance” for peace in the region and reiterated his call for a two-state solution, saying Palestinians have the right to an independent state.

The summit in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh was aimed at supporting the ceasefire reached in Gaza, ending the Israel-Hamas war and developing a long-term vision for governing and rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory.

Blurb:

At California universities Monday, the ceasefire in Gaza — and the accompanying hostage and prisoner exchange — emerged as an inflection point for the future of a student-led protest movement that for two years has roiled campuses.

The activism, along with its contentious aftermath, continues to reverberate as pro-Palestinian organizers and Jewish community leaders reckon with the tumult touched off by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Blurb:

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken is under fire for attempting to “steal” credit for the Trump-negotiated 20-point peace deal between Israel and Gaza, which secured the release of all living Israeli hostages who were abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attacks and brought an end to the two-year conflict.

In a lengthy X post, Blinken argued that the ceasefire was only made possible due to previous efforts undertaken by the Biden Administration. The former secretary noted that key regional partners like Turkey and Qatar have said “enough” to Hamas, adding that Iran-backed groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have been effectively de-fanged.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump received multiple standing ovations at the Knesset, Monday morning, as he addressed Israel’s parliament following the release of 20 Israeli hostages. 

“After two harrowing years in darkness and captivity, 20 courageous hostages are returning to the glorious embrace of their families,” Trump told the plenum. “After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still, and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace.”

Trump delivered remarks in Israel and met with families of hostages ahead of his trip to Egypt, where he co-hosted a summit on Gaza’s future with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that was attended by more than 20 world leaders.

Blurb:

Diplomats and Middle East experts have stated for generations that there is only one path to bring lasting peace for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.

True lasting peace will only come with a two-state solution where a Palestinian state is established and the two sides recognize the rights of each other and agree to live in peace.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent his entire political career opposed to a two-state solution.

Trump to present plan on ending Israel's Gaza war to Arab, Muslim ...

After both Hamas and Israel publicly declared the agreement with President Donald Trump’s brokered peace deal, hopes were high in both Gaza and Israel that the brutal war was really over. Hamas and Israel are both moving forward, so far, on schedule with the first phase of the deal, the handing over of hostages, dead and alive, to Israel, and the handing over of prisoners to Hamas. The next step is the creation of an international body, the “Board of Peace” that will administer the region initially during the transition.

President Trump announced he was “very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.”

What’s in Trump’s Gaza peace deal? Here are the details so far 

from globalnews.ca

Blurb:

Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, a ceasefire and hostage deal that could be a first step toward ending a two-year-old conflict that has roiled the Middle East.

Here are some details of what is known and not known so far:

The agreement on the initial stage of Trump’s 20-point framework resulted from indirect talks in Egypt, a day after the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Trump announced that both Israel and Hamas had signed off on the first phase of the plan and this would bring the release of all hostages, alive and dead, “very soon” and the withdrawal of Israeli troops to the so-called yellow line in Gaza. According to a senior Israeli security source, that is a boundary for an initial Israeli pullback under the Trump plan.

Hamas confirmed it had reached an agreement to end the conflict, that includes an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a hostage-prisoner exchange, but the group called on Trump and guarantor states to ensure Israel fully implements the ceasefire.

How Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA helped Trump and MAGA win ...

Blurb:

The leaks published by Candace Owens suggest that Kirk fell out with a Jewish donor just days before his assassination

Leaked text messages in which late conservative activist Charlie Kirk admits to losing the support of a major Jewish donor are “authentic,” according to Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for Kirk’s nonprofit Turning Point USA.

Kolvet said he had personally shared a screenshot of a private chat with “people in the government” shortly after Kirk’s death. He did not want to make it public because it was a “private conversation” that did not “necessarily comport with things that were already made public,” he said on ‘The Charlie Kirk Show’ YouTube channel on Tuesday.

The leaked messages were first shown by conservative commentator Candace Owens during her YouTube podcast on Monday. According to the screenshots, Kirk wrote, “I just lost another huge Jewish donor. $2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker.”

The remark apparently referred to Kirk’s refusal to withdraw an invitation for fellow conservative commentator Tucker Carlson to speak at his AmericaFest conference. In a follow-up message, Kirk wrote that he had “no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause.”