Author:

Marjorie Taylor Greene predicts Mayorkas impeachment articles will pass House without any Dem support

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is predicting that not a single House Democrat will vote in favor of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the migrant crisis at the border. The House Homeland Security Committee is meeting Tuesday morning to advance two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas – one for “willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law,” and the second accusing him of a “breach of public trust.” “I still can’t believe I had to force the floor vote on the House floor,” Greene told Fox News Digital. “I guess I can be thanking these Democrats and these eight Republicans now that those articles of impeachment were moved, that my articles were moved to Homeland because… Chairman Mark Green and the other Republicans on Homeland, having dealt face-to-face and gone through all the hearings that we did, with all the witnesses that we brought in…they had the will to impeach Mayorkas.” WHITE HOUSE DEMANDS SPEAKER JOHNSON GIVE BIDEN ‘AUTHORITY AND FUNDING’ TO ‘SECURE THE BORDER’ Greene had attempted to bring her articles of impeachment for a vote twice in November. They were referred to committee the first time, avoiding the actual vote. She was persuaded to back down the second time after being assured the articles would go through the committee process. The impeachment articles are likely to advance out of committee on party lines Tuesday. Then, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pledged a House-wide vote “as soon as possible.” Greene anticipated the impeachment articles will pass the House also along party lines, even with Republicans’ razor-thin majority, with no Democratic support. TEXAS GOVERNOR DOING ‘EXACTLY RIGHT THING’ AMID CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OVER BORDER ENFORCEMENT: LEGAL EXPERTS “You would think with the situation as severe as it is… you would think that every Democrat, or at least some of the Democrats, would vote for this, but sadly, we’re not going to see any Democrats vote for it,” Greene said. An adviser to House GOP leadership credited Greene with pushing the impeachment resolution to the floor, arguing “she deserves a lot of the credit”  “Let’s be clear, the impeachment of Mayorkas would not be happening unless MTG held GOP leadership’s feet to the flames,” the adviser told Fox News Digital. OPINION: DID BIDEN INTENTIONALLY CAUSE THE BORDER CRISIS? Democrats have accused House Republicans of playing politics with the border crisis, including with the impeachment of Mayorkas. Mayorkas’ defenders have repeatedly pointed out that he is part of bipartisan talks in the Senate on a border security compromise.  But House Republicans have criticized those talks, arguing that the resulting deal probably would not go far enough. They’ve also heaped skepticism on Mayorkas’ role in particular, claiming he cannot be part of a legitimate solution. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a Sunday memo, “This markup is just more of the same political games from House Homeland Security Committee (CHS) Republicans. They don’t want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it. That’s why they have undermined efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and ignored the facts, legal scholars and experts, and even the Constitution itself in their quest to baselessly impeach Secretary Mayorkas.”

Watchdog group launches campaign to expose antisemitic students, faculty on college campuses

A media and government watchdog group launched a campaign Tuesday that it says will expose students and faculty on college campuses who have engaged in antisemitic activities and encourage employers to utilize a database that documents such behaviors. According to Accuracy in Media, a group whose mission is to use “citizen activism and investigative journalism to expose media bias, corruption, and public policy failings,” Tuesday and Wednesday will serve as national days of activism on a number of college campuses across the country where reports of antisemitic behavior have been on the rise. Those campuses include Columbia University (only on Tuesday), Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Southern California.  MASSACHUSETTS MAN ALLEGEDLY THREATENED TO KILL JEWS AND BOMB SYNAGOGUES As part of the days of activism, Accuracy in Media will deploy mobile billboards to each of the campuses, which will promote a new website launched by the group: CheckYourHate.com. The website includes a petition that urges employers to “blacklist” applicants who have allegedly engaged in antisemitic activities or sentiments on each respective campus. Those applicants, the group said, will be tracked on a new database, launched by fellow watchdog group Canary Mission, that documents students, professionals and organizations “that have espoused hateful, antisemitic beliefs on college campuses and beyond.” “The surge in antisemitic sentiment we’ve seen at American universities is disgusting and concerning,” Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette told Fox News Digital in a statement. “The October 7 attacks emboldened these hateful antisemites to come out of the shadows and brazenly call for the destruction of Israel.”  CHINA’S TIGHTLY CONTROLLED INTERNET FLOODED WITH ANTISEMITISM FOLLOWING HAMAS MASSACRE “This is unacceptable, and it’s time to send a message to these students and faculty members that their hate has no place here. It’s time to hold these radicals accountable. We are calling on employers to closely examine their hiring practices and take a hard stand against employing antisemites,” he added. Accuracy in Media has taken an aggressive approach in raising awareness about antisemitism on college campuses, including targeting former Harvard University President Claudine Gay as part of the sharp backlash to her response concerning antisemitism on the university’s campus during a congressional hearing following the Oct. 7 attacks. ISRAEL SHARES DOSSIER SPELLING OUT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST 12 UN EMPLOYEES ALLEGEDLY INVOLVED IN HAMAS ATTACK Earlier this month, the group trolled her with a “moving day” billboard and U-Haul trucks just one day after her resignation. “It’s moving day Claudine Gay!” the digital mobile billboard read before changing to another screen that said, “Sponsored by the TENS OF THOUSANDS of Accuracy in Media activists who demanded your RESIGNATION.”

Rep Tenney nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize for ‘historic’ Abraham Accords

FIRST ON FOX: Just days after three American soldiers were killed by Iranian proxies, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., nominated former President Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “historic” Abraham Accords treaty. “Donald Trump was instrumental in facilitating the first new peace agreements in the Middle East in almost 30 years,” Tenney told Fox News Digital in a statement. “For decades, bureaucrats, foreign policy ‘professionals’, and international organizations insisted that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump proved that to be false.” The Nobel Peace Prize acknowledged the peace accord between Israel and Egypt in 1978 as well as the Oslo Accords in 1994. However, there has been no recognition for Trump’s role in brokering an agreement between Israel and four of its Arab neighbors aimed at normalizing diplomatic and economic relations between the nations, Tenney noted. E JEAN CARROLL’S CLAIMS AGAINST TRUMP, LIFESTYLE BACK UNDER SPOTLIGHT AFTER EYE-POPPING VERDICT “The valiant efforts by President Trump in creating the Abraham Accords were unprecedented and continue to go unrecognized by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, underscoring the need for his nomination today. Now more than ever, when Joe Biden’s weak leadership on the international stage is threatening our country’s safety and security, we must recognize Trump for his strong leadership and his efforts to achieve world peace. I am honored to nominate former President Donald Trump today and am eager for him to receive the recognition he deserves,” Tenney said. Trump – the current front-runner to be the Republican presidential nominee – has been nominated for the Abraham Accords peace agreement several times but did not receive the award during his presidency. In 2020, Trump was first nominated by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, who applauded his efforts toward resolving protracted conflicts worldwide. A few months later, Laura Huhtasaari, an MEP and a member of the right-wing Swedish Finns Party, wrote to the Nobel Committee to nominate Trump for the 2021 prize “in recognition of his endeavors to end the era of endless wars, construct peace by encouraging conflicting parties for dialogue and negotiations, as well as underpin internal cohesion and stability of his country.” The Finns Party nomination came after Trump helped secure an agreement for economic relations between Serbia and Kosovo. TRUMP CANNOT ASSERT PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY IN E JEAN CARROLL DEFAMATION LAWSUIT, APPEALS COURT RULES Trump then received a third nomination from a group of Australian lawmakers in September 2020.  “What he has done with the Trump Doctrine is that he has decided he would no longer have America involved in endless wars, wars which achieve nothing but the killing of thousands of young Americans and enormous debts imposed on America,” Australian legal scholar David Flint told Sky News Australia at the time. “He’s reducing America’s tendency to get involved in any and every war.” TRUMP, BIDEN AGREE ON ONE THING ABOUT THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in October. Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Republicans to grill top Biden officials over actions targeting key hydro dams

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to question five top federal officials on Tuesday morning over the Biden administration’s closed-door deal with environmental groups seeking to breach, or tear down, hydroelectric dams in Washington. The panel’s hearing — titled “Exposing President Biden’s Plan to Dismantle the Snake River Dams and the Negative Impacts to the United States” — will include testimony from White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory and top officials from the Department of Energy, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bonneville Power Administration. Republicans are holding the hearing to examine the Biden administration’s actions targeting four federally operated dams located on Washington’s Snake River, which winds through Idaho and Washington before feeding into the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean. It comes a month after the White House entered into a legal settlement with eco groups and tribes to study breaching, potentially paving the way for future breaching. “What’s worse is that despite my repeated calls for transparency, the White House actively and deliberately left out the voices of those who depend on the river system most. Dozens of stakeholders and utility companies practically begged to be heard in this process … only to be turned away, shut out, and ignored,” Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will say during her opening remarks, which were shared in advance with Fox News Digital. MAJOR US POWER SOURCE FACING EXTINCTION THANKS TO RED TAPE, SPARKING CALLS FOR REFORM “I’m sure our witnesses will say they spoke to everyone, but they’re not being honest. I have heard from many who the administration didn’t talk to, and I will be submitting letters from them for the record,” she will continue. “This process was never about getting results for endangered salmon. It was a reckless pursuit of an activist agenda … a misguided mission to tear out the dams … with no scientific data to back it up.” Under last month’s agreement, the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced the tribes and environmental groups, which had sued the federal government in an effort to forcibly breach the dams, agreed to stay their litigation through 2028. The agreement further includes $1 billion for wild fish restoration and a plan to develop new clean energy power operated by tribes. The White House said the investments agreed to would ensure continued energy reliability, transportation and other services currently guaranteed by the continued operation of the four dams “in the event” that the dams are breached. Officials stopped short of committing to a breach plan as demanded by activists, noting that decision would require congressional approval. WHITE HOUSE INTERVENED TO GRANT ‘QUASI-REGULATORY AUTHORITY’ TO FOREIGN GREEN GROUPS “President Biden understands that the Columbia River System is the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, and for the first time under his direction, federal agencies are putting all hands on deck to support regional and tribal efforts to restore wild salmon in the region,” Mallory said on Dec. 14 after the agreement was announced. Environmentalists have argued that the dams on the Snake River have decimated salmon and steelhead populations by blocking natural migratory patterns. But local stakeholders have argued in favor of the dams’ continued operation, pointing to their energy production and how they enable important agriculture transportation. The dams were built in the 1960s and 1970s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers primarily to ensure the Snake River was passable for such barge transportation. Since then, the main benefit has been their reliable clean energy output, and they still provide about 8% of the state’s electricity, enough to serve millions of residents, and have a large total capacity of 3,000 megawatts. In addition, aided by the dams, barges traveling along the Columbia River system carry about 60% of Washington’s annual wheat exports and 40% of the nation’s total wheat production. COURT FILINGS REVEAL SECRET AGREEMENT BETWEEN BIDEN ADMIN, ECO GROUPS SEEKING TO TEAR DOWN KEY POWER SOURCE As a result, Republicans, energy industry groups and agriculture groups blasted the Biden administration over its agreement last month, saying it paves the way for the dams to be breached. They also blasted the White House for engaging in secret negotiations without public input to reach the agreement. “Apparently, a few unelected bureaucrats at the White House think they know better than the people whose lives depend on them,” McMorris Rodgers will say in her opening remarks at the hearing Tuesday. McMorris Rodgers joined Congressional Western Caucus Chair Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and Reps. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., and Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, last week in introducing the Defending Against Manipulative Negotiators Act, which would prohibit federal funds from allowing or studying the breach or alteration of the Snake River dams. “The Biden Administration has crossed the line with its blatant, hypocritical assault on the Lower Snake River Dams,” said Newhouse said in a statement. “This Administration, since its campaign, claims to advocate for green energy solutions, yet disregards that notion when told to by manipulative environmental activists who do not understand how critical the dams are to the Pacific Northwest and a clean energy future.” A second panel at the hearing on Tuesday is expected to include testimony from National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson, Washington Grain Commission CEO Casey Chumrau and Pacific Northwest Waterways Association Executive Director Neil Maunu, all of whom have criticized the Biden administration’s actions. “The ill-conceived Lower Snake River Dams settlement agreement was brokered in secret, without contributions from electric providers,” Matheson will say in his opening remarks. “As a result, it threatens electric reliability for communities in the Pacific Northwest that rely on hydropower. It also violates the trust these communities put in the federal government.” “The commitments made by the U.S. government in this document were reached without adequate input from stakeholders who would ultimately be impacted by the decisions,” Maunu will add. “Due to this process’s secrecy, agriculture voices were largely excluded from discussion regarding impacts and

Hunter Biden business partner’s dad boasted about CCP leaders praising his book: ‘You touched my heart’

FIRST ON FOX: An unearthed interview involving the father of Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, shows him boasting about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) praising his business book and amplifying it across China, according to a video reviewed by Fox News Digital. As part of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Biden, Eric Schwerin will appear Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee for a deposition. The committee obtained bank records indicating Schwerin “had access to bank accounts” that could be relevant to their probe. Schwerin’s testimony comes after Fox News Digital first reported that as vice president, Biden used email aliases and private email addresses to communicate with Hunter Biden and his business associates hundreds of times, including with Schwerin. The communications came between 2010 and 2019, with most email traffic taking place while Biden served as vice president. Schwerin, who visited the Obama White House and then-Vice President Biden’s residence at least 36 times between 2009 and 2016, was considered Hunter’s point person for their Chinese business deals and dubbed the “money guy.”  ERIC SCHWERIN’S ROLE IN HUNTER BIDEN’S CHINESE BUSINESS DEALS COULD BE MISSING KEY IN GOP INVESTIGATIONS However, another member of the Schwerin family could face questions about China ties after an unearthed interview details how the elder Schwerin, David Schwerin, separately touted having one of his books resonate with CCP leaders in the early 2000s. This visit led to him gaining intimate access over the next couple of decades and taking several trips to speak in China and conduct workshops for weeks at a time. In an interview uploaded to YouTube in October 2020, the elder Schwerin discussed how an unnamed person in California read his book “Conscious Capitalism” and introduced him to CCP leaders. Schwerin said the interaction initially occurred “a year or two” after his book on business and “ancient wisdom” was published in 1998. “He wanted to take it to China,” Scherwin said during the interview. “At first, I was a little skeptical – I didn’t know him. And as it turns out, he was able to do that – get it translated and published. I was invited shortly thereafter to come to China to speak about the ideas in the book. While the book can be looked at on different levels, one level was certainly socially responsible business, which is now corporate social responsibility or ESG.” Fox News Digital reviewed Schwerin’s online presence and confirmed that the unnamed person’s identity that Schwerin mentions was Dr. Zhihe Wang, according to one of his websites. The website says their “relationship began in 1998 when Zhihe was studying for his Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate University. He came across my first book, Conscious Capitalism: Principles for Prosperity in the Claremont library and contacted me offering to translate it and have it published in China.” ‘MONEY GUY’: THIS HUNTER BIDEN BUSINESS PARTNER COULD BLOW THE LID OFF BIDEN FAMILY’S BUSINESS DEALINGS According to Wang’s bio, he was previously a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, whose leadership is stacked with multiple top CCP members. Schwerin continues, saying he would “become very friendly with [Zhang], his wife and 18 year-old son and have helped Zhihe establish a business to use his contacts to arrange specialized trips to China for people interested in more than the standard touring.” Wang touts on his now-defunct website that he organized dozens of American lectures in China and “established 17 research institutes affiliated with 15 Chinese universities [a]cross China.” “I went over there not knowing what to expect – a little bit nervous, to be honest with you – and I had the opportunity to speak to what I call Communist Party school, which is a school for senior-level Communist Party leaders to come back to get training,” Schwerin said during the 2020 interview. “I spoke to them about what was inside my book. I had no idea what kind of reception I’d get. Believe it or not, they liked it. I really didn’t know what to expect.” “They put my book in their bookstore, wrote about it in their newsletter, and before I knew it, a picture of the cover of my book – which had my face on it – was on the largest – or longest – bus line in China. From that point on, the Communist Party liked the idea enough to start encouraging their businesses to implement it,” he said. “And when the Communist Party gets behind something, it has some influence. So, it took a number of years, but over a number of years this became widespread, this concept.” In a separate podcast interview from August 2020, Schwerin shared a similar account about the reception of his book and said that a CCP member said, “You touched my heart,” referring to his presentation about his “Conscious Capitalism”book.  Schwerin said he has since visited China nine times to talk with CCP leaders and Chinese citizens, including holding several workshops there. On one of Schwerin’s websites, he has a testimonial from Yao Xian Guo, who is listed as an Executive Dean of the “Economics School of Zhejiang University.” However, he does not mention that Xianguo has won multiple “Outstanding Communist Party Member” awards. “Thank you very much for your visit … Your lecture brought us new idea and new thinking style… Social responsibility is an important issue for enterprises in China, especially in the transformation period,” Xianguo’s testimonial said. It is unclear whether the elder Schwerin was involved with the foreign business dealings of Hunter and Schwerin’s son, but emails show that the younger Schwerin would share political articles with his dad and Hunter, sometimes including other business associates. A spokesperson for the Democrat minority of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability told Fox News Digital in September that the younger Schwerin, the former president of Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca Advisors, served as then-Vice President Biden’s “bookkeeper” from 2009 until 2017.   A person familiar with Schwerin’s role in handling then-Vice President Biden’s finances previously told

14 PFI workers get death sentence in killing of BJP leader in Kerala

The sentence was pronounced by Mavelikkara Additional District judge V G Sreedevi.

BJP wins mayor’s post in Chandigarh against AAP-Congress combine, setback for INDIA bloc

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has Chandigarh mayoral elections today defeating AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar, reported news agency PTI.

Biden’s leaked campaign plan: Target Trump (of course) and work social media

As John Lennon sings of those who want a revolution, “We’d all love to see the plan.” Well, we don’t have to wonder about Joe Biden’s plan to stop a revolution, or insurrection, depending on your point of view. His campaign has helpfully leaked it to the New York Times. Most of it won’t surprise you; in fact it’s pretty well known. And why would the Biden camp want to give away its confidential strategy, so it could be read and countered by Donald Trump and his advisers? BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS ‘GRASPING AT STRAWS’ BY ‘DEPLOYING KAMALA HARRIS’: CAROLINE DOWNEY My take is that the leak is aimed at persuading the media that the president has a solid chance at keeping his job against the former president. Biden has abysmal poll numbers, he’s got the age issue, and Trump is edging him in a number of battleground state polls.  In short, he has to counter the narrative that he’s likely to lose in November, which could create a self-reinforcing death spiral.  It’s also a reminder that the president has sent two top White House officials, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Mike Donilon, to run the campaign from Wilmington – on Barack Obama’s advice. Maybe they are rejiggering what he plans to do. There are obvious advantages to incumbency: You can fly around on Air Force One, take official actions that make big news and generally play the commander-in-chief card. But there are serious disadvantages as well. Everything that goes wrong can be blamed on you, especially when the country is in an angry mood, as it is now. When an Iran-backed group launched a drone strike that killed three American soldiers in Jordan, Biden vowed to retaliate. He also has to balance that against the risks of a wider war, but as each day goes by – and this is also true of the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea – he looks weaker. Biden has done a very good job managing the Mideast war, but even that is hurting him with the left-wing segment of his party that opposes Israel and supports Hamas. Then there’s the out-of-control border with a record-shattering number of illegal migrant crossings last month – a huge albatross for the president. AS HALEY TRIES TO STOP TRUMP, MANY PUNDITS DOWNPLAY HIS IOWA LANDSLIDE Biden has been pushing a bipartisan border deal, in part to resume military aid to Israel and Ukraine, but Trump may have killed it by telling Republicans to hold off until he’s back in office, even boasting “blame me.” Growing consumer confidence as inflation slows and the Dow zooms past 38,000 should also help the president, but most Americans are financially anxious and aren’t giving him credit. Biden says if the measure passes he will use the authority to shut down the border when it is overwhelmed. But what’s to stop him from declaring a national emergency and doing that right now? Yes, he would give up his leverage on military aid, and yes, this has given the Democrats an argument that Trump would rather have the issue than a solution. But the president needs to do something dramatic. Now for the leaked campaign plan: The Biden camp wants to make Trump the issue – big surprise – by portraying him as “a mortal threat to American government and civil society.” There will be a “direct assault” on Trump (didn’t Biden already do that in a pair of speeches around the Jan. 6 anniversary?) and a “heavy emphasis on abortion rights” (which was launched last week with Kamala Harris making the TV rounds). Campaign aides, says the Times, want to make the Capitol riot a “touchstone” (check), and “believe that the more the public sees and hears Mr. Trump, the less people will be inclined to vote for him” (maybe). But there is one new strategy: Biden made an hour-long visit in North Carolina “to the home of a supporter who had his student loans canceled through a federal program. The man’s son later posted a video of Mr. Biden’s visit on TikTok, which drew millions of views – a template for how the campaign hopes to reach voters in new ways.” Campaign officials are talking to “celebrities and social media stars” about promotions on Instagram and TikTok, with the president sometimes making the pitch. AS TRUMP EASILY BEATS HALEY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, SHE VOWS TO STAY IN THE RACE And here’s the zinger: the chatter around Taylor Swift “and the potential of reaching her 279 million Instagram followers.”  Biden wants her endorsement – she’s a Democrat, after all – but the idea that she would do it at the Super Bowl, since her boyfriend and the Kansas City Chiefs will be there, is ludicrous. Maybe later on they could sing a duet with Travis Kelce looking on (yeah, right). The only reason I can see Taylor not endorsing is that she doesn’t want to deal with all the vitriol that would come from Trump supporters. And by the way, even though the Swifties make the singer the most popular person in the world – and she’s Time’s person of the year – does anyone really believe she could steer a significant number of votes to Biden? I’ve got better advice, but the president won’t take it. He should use the bully pulpit. He should do more interviews, and not just with friendly podcasters – take some tough questions and make some news. So what if he stumbles or slurs his words? But his advisers are largely shielding the 81-year-old president from the press, except for a few shouted questions near the helicopter. Biden seems to be under the impression that putting out statements is enough, but television and the web thrive on video.  When the three American service members were killed, he should have gone before the cameras. When the economy grew at a 3.3% rate last quarter, he should have gone before the cameras. I’m sure even Taylor Swift would

No rest for Gaza’s dead with rushed burials, bodies desecrated

Even the dead are not spared by the war raging in the Gaza Strip, with bodies dug up by Israeli soldiers and hurried burials taking place in hospitals and even a school. In Gaza City’s Tuffah district, shrouded corpses of Palestinians removed from their graves lay atop muddied earth. The desecration is part of a pattern which the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs of Palestine in the Hamas-run strip said has seen more than 2,000 graves damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces across the territory. The Israeli military said it “in no way targets cemeteries as such, and has no policy of harming or desecrating cemeteries”. But it also said “cemeteries or specific gravesites, like other civilian sites or structures, can come to be damaged” during the war. Responding to allegations that soldiers have snatched bodies from graves, the military told the AFP news agency that it acts “in the specific locations where information indicates that the bodies of hostages may be located”. “Bodies determined not [to] be those of hostages are returned with dignity and respect,” it said in a statement. The current conflict broke out following Hamas’s October 7 attacks in southern Israel in which about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed. Hamas also took some 250 people captive. Israel says 132 of them remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 people. Israel’s relentless military offensive has killed at least 26,637 people in Gaza, most of them women and children. People walk at a makeshift cemetery, parts of which the Israeli army reportedly bulldozed to exhume bodies, in the eastern Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City. [AFP] ‘Their souls trembled’ At a school packed with displaced people in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Saida Jaber recalled seeing footage on social media of the destroyed cemetery at the Jabalia refugee camp. “I felt that my heart would stop,” said Saida, adding that her father, grandparents and other relatives were buried at the site in northern Gaza. “I felt that their souls trembled … I can’t imagine how anyone dares to dig up graves and violate the sanctity of the dead,” Saida said. With no stop to the fighting, many Palestinians in Gaza have been unable to reach cemeteries and have instead turned to makeshift graveyards. At a school-turned-shelter in the central Maghazi refugee camp, a woman touched the sandy earth where her daughter had been buried in the yard. “My daughter died in my arms … we waited day and night and couldn’t send her to the emergency room,” said the woman, who did not give her name. She said missiles hit the school compound and ignited gas canisters, causing deadly explosions. A man tending to the site said more than 50 people are buried there, each grave containing three or four bodies, with their names written either on bricks or the adjacent wall. Young men sit by the shallow tomb of a person killed by Israeli air raids at a makeshift cemetery in a residential neighbourhood near Gaza City’s al-Shabiyah district. [AFP] ‘Die of grief’ The number of deaths is so high that victims of Israeli attacks have been buried in mass graves across Gaza. Rows of bodies have been buried in the grounds of al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, where people have separated graves with stones and plant branches. “If we went to the cemetery, they [Israeli forces] might bomb us and we’d die,” said Arfan Dadar, 46, living in a tent with his family in the hospital compound. Dadar said Israeli soldiers shot dead his 22-year-old son while he was returning to the hospital in Gaza City. “I marked his grave, [but] now the hospital park is crammed with mass graves. I barely recognise my son’s grave,” he said. Palestinians in Gaza have said they hope they can move their dead once the war ends. Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, said he had “no choice” but to bury his son in an overcrowded cemetery in southern Rafah after the young journalist was killed in an Israeli attack. “We will transfer him to the martyrs cemetery in Gaza after the end of the war. We want his grave to be near to us so that we can visit him and pray for him,” Dahdouh said. Jaber said she longed to return to Jabalia to check on the graves of her relatives. “I will die of grief if they were also swept away.” Adblock test (Why?)

N Korea fires ‘several’ cruise missiles in third test in less than a week

Pyongyang is ramping up arms testing as it seeks to develop more sophisticated weaponry. North Korea has carried out a third test of its cruise missiles in less than a week, firing the weapons into the waters off its west coast. South Korea’s military “detected several unknown cruise missiles launched into the West Sea of North Korea around 07:00 [22:00 GMT]”, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The South Korean and US intelligence agencies were analysing the data, it added. North Korea is not banned from testing cruise missiles under longstanding United Nations sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme and has already carried out two tests over the past week. On Monday, state media said leader Kim Jong Un had “guided” the launch of submarine-launched strategic cruise missiles, known as the Pulhwasal-3-31, over the weekend, a few days after South Korea detected several cruise missiles being launched from the country’s west coast. Pyongyang has forged ahead with weapons testing amid rising tensions on the peninsula as Kim modernises the country’s military and develops more sophisticated weaponry. Since the start of the year, it has also launched what it said was a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile as well as a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone. Japan, South Korea and the United States, meanwhile, have been expanding their combined military exercises – which Kim portrays as invasion rehearsals – and sharpening their deterrence strategies built around nuclear-capable US assets. In recent weeks, Kim has declared South Korea his country’s “principal enemy”, and shut down agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach. Adblock test (Why?)