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As Israeli soldiers regain control of areas near Gaza that came under attack, they are finding evidence seen in videos and photos and confirmed by witness accounts of the massacre of civilians by Hamas terrorists.
The post Hamas Leaves Trail of Terror in Israel first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
As Israeli soldiers regain control of areas near Gaza that came under attack, they are finding evidence seen in videos and photos and confirmed by witness accounts of the massacre of civilians by Hamas terrorists.
The post Hamas Leaves Trail of Terror in Israel first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
The jury at Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial on Monday saw a photograph of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder with singer Katy Perry and actor Orlando Bloom at the 2022 NFL Super Bowl.
Prosecutors displayed the image as Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering, testified about how the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on endorsement deals with celebrities in early 2022, months before the exchange declared bankruptcy amid a wave of customer withdrawals.
“It didn’t align with what I thought we were building the company for,” said Singh, adding that he was “embarrassed and ashamed” at deals he said “reeked of excess and flashiness.”
Singh, like Bankman-Fried, has said he adheres to a movement known as effective altruism, which encourages talented young people to pursue lucrative careers and give most of their wealth away to philanthropic causes.
He pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud and conspiring to violate U.S. campaign finance laws and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Singh is the third former member of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle to testify at the trial, which started on Oct. 3. Jurors have already heard from Gary Wang, FTX’s former technology chief, and Caroline Ellison, Alameda’s onetime chief executive officer and Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend.
Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried looted billions of dollars from FTX customers to prop up Alameda, buy real estate, and donate more than $100 million to U.S. political campaigns to try to promote crypto-friendly legislation.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy tied to FTX’s November 2022 collapse. He has argued that while he made mistakes running FTX, he did not steal funds.
The photograph, which Perry posted to her Instagram account, showed Bankman-Fried at the stadium in Los Angeles wearing a blue t-shirt with a football that said ‘FTX.’
Also in the photo was Michael Kives, who ran an investment firm called K5 that Bankman-Fried proposed using as a “one-stop shop” to gain access to influential people, according to a document he wrote that prosecutors displayed. Singh testified that he worried partnering with K5 would be “toxic” to FTX’s culture.
K5 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors showed a spreadsheet from March 2023 detailing $1.1 billion in FTX endorsement deals, which included the naming rights to the Miami Heat’s basketball arena, as well as arrangements with NFL quarterback Tom Brady, model Gisele Bundchen, basketball star Steph Curry and comedian Larry David.
Singh said another FTX executive had told him the deals were meant to help spur user growth.
In a late Sunday letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said he needs to be given a higher dose of Adderall in jail each morning to treat his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in order to focus at trial and decide whether to testify in his own defense.
Since his trial, Bankman-Fried has been seen during testimony typing on a laptop and whispering to his lawyers.
Prosecutors have said they may rest their case as soon as Oct. 26. Defendants in U.S. criminal cases have no obligation to present evidence, and taking the stand carries the risk of being subjected to probing cross-examination by prosecutors.
But Bankman-Fried has defied the conventional playbook for white collar defendants of remaining largely silent. He published blog posts a month after his Dec. 12, 2022 arrest, and shared Ellison’s private writings with a New York Times reporter.
Kaplan said that likely amounted to witness tampering on Aug. 11 and remanded him to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.
The post Sam Bankman-Fried jury sees photo of FTX founder with Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
A funeral and burial for a 6-year-old Muslim boy will take place on Monday in a Chicago suburb after he was stabbed to death over the weekend by a man who police say targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian Americans.
Services for the boy, identified as Wadea Al-Fayoume, are scheduled for 1:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, according to a statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
“This is a heavy day that we hoped would never come. As they say, the smallest coffins are the heaviest,” said Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago executive director, said in the statement.
The funeral will be held in a community known as “Little Palestine” for its heavy concentration of Palestinian Americans.
The killing comes against the backdrop of a fresh crisis in the Middle East after a deadly attack by Hamas militants on Israeli civilians a week ago and subsequent retaliation by Israel in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The conflict has put Jewish and Palestinian Muslim communities in the United States on edge and fearful of a potential backlash against them.
Police said the 6-year-old and his mother – identified as 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin – were attacked by their landlord on Saturday in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Chicago. The boy was stabbed 26 times while his mother suffered multiple wounds. She was expected to survive.
Iman Negrete, a Palestinian American who lives in Plainfield, is from the same town in the occupied Palestinian territories as the mother. She wept as she stood next to a makeshift memorial made up of stuffed animals, saying she does not feel safe in the community because of her background.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said, referring to the boy’s death. “He was Muslim, that’s what happened, he was Muslim and this is what they did, this is what this monster did.”
The boy celebrated his sixth birthday just weeks ago, CAIR’s Rehab told a press conference on Sunday.
“He was a lovely boy. Loved his family, friends. He loved soccer, basketball,” he said. “He paid the price for the atmosphere of hate.”
The boy’s mother came from the West Bank to the United States 12 years ago and his father immigrated nine years ago, Rehab said.
The suspect, Joseph Czuba, 71, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said.
Before the stabbings, there were no known issues or conflicts between Czuba and the family, CAIR said.
The boy’s father, Oday El-Fayoume, told The Daily Beast that Czuba had a “good relationship” with the boy’s mother and son, having built a tree house for the small child outside the home they rented from him.
“He is an angel. Basically a small angel in the form of a person,” El-Fayoume said of his son. “It is hard to picture this man holding a knife about to stab my son.”
The boy’s father received text messages from the child’s mother while she was hospitalized, describing the attack and identifying the assailant, Rehab said.
“He asked his wife … what happened,” Rehab said. “He knocked on the door and attempted to choke her and said, ‘You Muslims must die’ and stabbed her.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland late on Sunday said the U.S. Justice Department would open a federal hate-crime investigation into the attack.
“This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence,” the statement said.
Reuters could not identify an attorney for Czuba. He was in the Will County jail awaiting his initial court appearance, the sheriff’s office said.
The post Funeral for slain Palestinian boy to be held outside Chicago first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
The Hamas militant group attacked Israel on Saturday, Oct. 7, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare, “we are at war.” Israel says at least 1,400 people there, most of them civilians, have been killed since Hamas launched the coordinated, multi-fronted attack from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory it has controlled for years.
Thirty Americans are known to have been killed, a State Department spokesperson confirmed Sunday, and 13 Americans remain unaccounted for. Officials say a number of Americans are believed to be among those taken hostage by Hamas.
Gaza health officials say at least 2,750 people, including hundreds of children, have been killed by Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes, and almost 10,000 more wounded.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza have been displaced, and Israel’s military issued a warning Thursday that everyone in northern Gaza should evacuate to the south of the enclave, raising expectations that an Israeli invasion was imminent. The U.N. says food, water and fuel supplies are running low, with humanitarian conditions rapidly deteriorating.
Here’s what we know so far.
Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group launched an unprecedented attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, Oct. 7, firing thousands of rockets as hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday, Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll.
In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, including Israeli towns and other communities as far as 15 miles from the Gaza border. In some places they gunned down civilians and soldiers as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response.
Families were slaughtered in their homes and on the streets, while others were seized by Hamas as hostages. The Israeli military said Monday it has confirmed 199 people are being held captive by Hamas and allied groups.
Map shows some of the locations of Hamas’ attacks in Israel Yasin Demirci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Rockets also struck Tel Aviv and other Israeli communities, slamming into homes and businesses.
Militants fired more rockets from Gaza in the days that followed, damaging a hospital in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon on Sunday, senior hospital official Tal Bergman said.
A salvo of rockets was fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza City toward Israel on October 7, 2023. MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images
More than 250 mostly young people who had been attending a music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in the Southern Israeli desert were among the dead after Hamas militants entered the area and began firing into the crowd. Others were apparently dragged away as hostages. Haaretz, one of Israel’s largest newspapers, described the scene as a “massacre” and a “battlefield,” reporting that terrorists on motorcycles drove into the crowd shooting.
In small Israeli communities near the Gaza border, first responders and security forces arrived to discover evidence of atrocities: families massacred in their homes, even babies and children murdered at the Kfar Aza kibbutz.
“We see blood spread out in homes. We’ve found bodies of people who have been butchered,” said Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Maj. Libby Weiss. “The depravity of it is haunting.”
Israel kibbutz the scene of a Hamas “massacre,” first responders say 04:28
Hamas says it’s holding “dozens” of Israeli civilians and soldiers captive in the Gaza Strip. Their capture marks a major escalation in the fighting. President Biden confirmed Tuesday that a number of American citizens were among those being held; he did not say exactly how many.
A Hamas military official threatened on Monday to kill the hostages it was holding if Israeli airstrikes continue “targeting” Gaza residents without warning.
“We declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one the hostages of civilians we are holding,” a spokesman for Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in an audio statement, news agencies reported.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan accused Hamas of “blatant, documented war crimes.”
Meanwhile, Israeli social media filled up with desperate pleas for information about missing friends and relatives and heart-wrenching tributes to loved ones, including whole families, slaughtered.
Gun battles and rocket fire continued in the days that followed in Israel. An Israeli military official told CBS News on Monday that they had regained control of the communities around the Gaza Strip but fighting had not ceased.
People try to extinguish fire on cars in Ashkelon, southern Israel, following a Hamas rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Hamas attacks “in the strongest terms,” urged maximum restraint and stressed that violence can’t solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a televised address the night of the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier declared Israel to be at war, said the military would use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities. But he warned that “this war will take time. It will be difficult.”
“The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he said, promising that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”
Israel declares war after Hamas launches surprise attack 03:38
Israel’s military said it was targeting command centers used by Hamas in the blockaded Gaza Strip, along with another Iran-backed militant group, Islamic Jihad, but many civilians were among those killed.
The Israeli airstrikes in Gaza flattened residential buildings in giant explosions, including a 14-story tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that he’d ordered a tightening of the Gaza blockade: “Nothing is allowed in or out. There will be no fuel, electricity or food supplies,” he said in a statement. “We fight animals in human form and proceed accordingly.”
Israeli airstrikes on the Islamic National Bank of Gaza destroyed buildings in the Rimal district of Gaza City, Gaza, on Oct. 8, 2023. Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Loudspeakers atop mosques in Gaza City blared stark warnings to residents to evacuate, and by Thursday the U.N. said at least 338,000 Gaza residents have been displaced.
Israel appeared to be readying for a ground invasion as the weekend approached, with the United Nations saying Israel’s military told it late Thursday that everyone in northern Gaza should evacuate to the south of the enclave within 24 hours.
A U.N. spokesperson told CBS News the world body “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.” Israeli Ambassador Erdan dismissed the U.N.’s response “to Israel’s early warning” as “shameful” and said it ignored the brutality of the attack on Israel.
Hamas is the Palestinian militant faction that governs the Gaza Strip, a 230-square-mile area where more than 2 million people live. Israel and the U.S. have designated Hamas a terror organization.
Hamas is backed by Iran and gets most of its funding and support from the Iranian regime.
“What I can say, without a doubt, is that Iran is broadly complicit in these attacks,” U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said on “CBS Mornings” Monday. “Iran has been Hamas’ primary backer for decades. They have provided them weapons. They have provided them training. They have provided them financial support. And so, in terms of broad complicity, we are very clear about a role for Iran.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denied reports that the country had a direct role in planning or carrying out the attack, with spokesman Nasser Kanani telling reporters in Tehran that the Palestinians had “the necessary capacity and will to defend their nation and recover their rights” without help from their primary benefactors in Tehran.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh claimed in an address Saturday that the fight would expand to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and to Jerusalem, Reuters reported.
“How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognize the rights of our people?” Reuters quoted Haniyeh as saying.
Hamas calls for Israel’s destruction and has opposed past efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, using tactics including suicide bombings to attack the Jewish state.
Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007. The blockade, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of the enclave, has devastated the Palestinian territory’s economy. Israel has defended the blockade as necessary to keep militants in Gaza from stockpiling weapons — though Hamas clearly managed to obtain an arsenal of rockets and other weaponry despite the restrictions.
Over the years, fighting has flared up repeatedly between Israel and Hamas and other militant groups based in Gaza, including the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad.
Officials across the U.S. responded quickly to condemn the Hamas attack.
“The people of Israel are under attack, orchestrated by a terrorist organization, Hamas,” President Biden said Saturday in brief remarks at the White House. “I want to say to them and to the world, and to terrorists everywhere, that the United States stands with Israel.”
The president said he was in contact with King Abdullah II of Jordan about the situation, along with U.S. congressional leaders. He said he’d directed his team to maintain contact with “leaders throughout the region.”
“We’ll make sure that they [Israel] have the help their citizens need, and they can continue to defend themselves,” Mr. Biden added.
On Tuesday, he spoke again from the White House and called the attacks “pure, unadulterated evil” at the “bloody hands” of Hamas.
“In this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel,” he said. “And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, to defend itself and to respond to this attack.”
President Joe Biden, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, condemned the attack and vowed U.S. support for Israel in remarks from White House on Oct. 7, 2023. JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Mr. Biden spoke Friday with the families of some of the Americans who are missing, some of whom may be held hostage by Hamas.
“I think they have to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about what’s happened to them — deeply,” Mr. Biden told CBS News’ Scott Pelley. “We have to communicate to the world this is critical. This is not even human behavior. It’s pure barbarism. And we’re going to do everything in our power to get them home if we can find them.” [Watch more of the interview this Sunday on 60 Minutes.]
Pres. Biden plans to meet virtually with families of American hostages 00:26
Leaders in New York, New Jersey and other communities across the U.S. condemned the attacks. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose city is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, called the attack a “cowardly action by a terrorist organization.”
Adams said city authorities are monitoring the situation for any possible threats to the local community.
“While there is no credible threat to New York City at this time, our administration is in touch with Jewish leaders across the five boroughs, and we have directed the NYPD to deploy additional resources to Jewish communities and houses of worship citywide to ensure that our communities have the resources they need to make sure everyone feels safe,” Adams said in a statement.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Sunday that the U.S. would be “rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions.”
Austin said he had directed the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the eastern Mediterranean, which includes an aircraft carrier and the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Normandy.
The post What we know about the Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s response in Gaza first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
The smell of death hits you at the entrance to kibbutz Be’eri. Until Saturday morning Be’eri had a population of 1,200, the largest of the 12 villages that make up the Eshkol regional council that runs along the border with Gaza.
Now it is a place indelibly associated with horror and tragedy, as one of the centres of the massacre undertaken by the militant Islamist group Hamas in southern Israel beginning on Saturday morning.
Be’eri, once popular with Israelis as a weekend getaway with its art gallery and nearby mountain-biking trails, had by Tuesday been turned into a war zone, the bloated bodies of the Hamas terrorists who attacked this place still dotted around the kibbutz, and tanks and armoured cars at the entrance where Hamas smashed in.
Audible in the distance the sound of detonations can be heard coming from the direction of Gaza, outgoing artillery firing close by from the positions now occupied by the army.
Be’eri, founded two years before the state of Israel, was once a pleasant place to live with houses and apartments set apart among the trees, and grassy verges joined by little sandy roads. Now the homes are broken and violated.
In some places the doors of the surviving houses stand open as if the residents had simply left to go for a coffee at the kibbutz cafe, pictures of the families that lived here pinned with magnets to fridges.
In other places it is clear that the Hamas militants who stormed Be’eri set fire to buildings to drive out the occupants who were hiding there: to kill or capture. Mostly to kill.
Building after building has been destroyed, whether in the Hamas assault or in the fighting that followed, nearby trees splintered and walls reduced to concrete rubble from where Israeli tanks blasted the Hamas militants where they were hiding. Floors collapsed on floors. Roof beams were tangled and exposed like rib cages.
Many of the juxtapositions on Wednesday were jarring, describing how very ordinary lives were ripped utterly apart. In the kibbutz’s communal dining hall, where residents once gathered to take meals, there are still menus and posters for the kibbutz’s running club and a personal trainer.
It is also where the bodies of the dead, 108 in all, were brought and laid out to await collection by the emergency services.
Now it is the Hamas dead who are being removed by workers from Zaka, an emergency group, in white overalls and orange helmets and masks.
For the Israeli soldiers who now populate Be’eri, these are scenes promoting conflicting emotions. Moving through the kibbutz journalists shouted questions to a harried Israeli soldier who it transpires had fought there.
“When I arrived I saw soldiers fighting here just to get into the kibbutz,” he said. “We were going from apartment to apartment. We will have difficult questions to ask [in the future]. For now we have to look forwards: to the defence of the people and getting the survivors out.”
“I feel anger. I feel speechless and frustration,” said Richard Hecht an army spokesperson accompanying the international media. “You can still smell the bodies here. It’s overwhelming.”
Itai Veruv, an Israeli major general who led the fighting here, could only describe it in historic terms of the Jewish history of persecution. “What happened here was a pogrom,” he says.
It is a word that has been used repeatedly about Be’eri. “[It’s] what happened in Europe in the old days,” adds Veruv. “This was not a war. They wanted to kill and kidnap to Gaza. Women and children.”
The picture of what happened in Be’eri has been emerging piecemeal over several days. How in the space of the horrifying hours of the murderous rampage on Saturday, at least 100 people were slaughtered here, dragged from their homes and murdered or dragged off at gunpoint as hostages to Gaza.
That terrible experience was chronicled in text messages, and desperate calls to family calling for help, and in the gruesome videos shot by Hamas itself within the kibbutz.
In text messages during the attack with this Guardian reporter, one resident – who survived with their family – had pleaded for help in contacting the army as Hamas stormed neighbouring houses.
Describing sounds of nearby shooting, the resident said: “We need to get the army here. It’s not enough. Please get the army come to save us.”
Amit Man, a 25-year-old paramedic, was one of those who lived here. Her last contact was a text she sent to her sister Haviva from the kibbutz clinic, where she was treating the wounded members.
Then there was Yaffa Adar, an 85-year-old who had lived in Be’eri for most of her life. Among those missing, believed captured, there is video of Yaffa sitting surrounded by young men telling her to “smile” in Arabic.
For those residents of Be’eri still alive, things can never be the same.
“I feel like the state of Israel ceased to exist,” Amit Halevi, the 70-year-old chairman of Be’eri, told the Haaretz newspaper on Monday, echoing Veruv. “What is this, some pogrom in Lithuania?”
Uri Ben Tzvi, another survivor from Be’eri, compared his experience to one of the Holocaust’s most famous victims
“I was like Anne Frank,” said Ben Tzvi, 71, who hid with his wife in a narrow corridor in one of the kibbutz’s structures. “It was a pogrom. Like going back to the Kishinev pogrom,” he said referring to a 1903 series of massacres in what is now Moldova.
The post ‘It was a pogrom’: Be’eri survivors on the horrific attack by Hamas terrorists first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
“I am absolutely sure that Wagner’s Russian instructors in Syria were transferred to Hamas in Gaza and took part in training terrorists to prepare the absolutely barbaric attack against Israel from Gaza.”
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#ICYMI: Senior Hamas Official Ali Baraka: We Have Been Secretly Planning the Invasion for Two Years; Russia Sympathizes with Us, Benefits from U.S. Embroilment in This War; Any Swap Deal Should Include Hamas Prisoners in Europe and the U.S. #Hamas #Russia #Israel_under_attack pic.twitter.com/mGHaUNz4iN
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 15, 2023
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#ICYMI: Senior #Hamas Official: We Have Been Secretly Planning The Invasion For Two Years; #Russia Sympathizes With Us, Benefits From U.S. Embroilment In This War; Any Swap Deal Should Include Hamas Prisoners In #Europe And The U.S. – Audio of report here https://t.co/bntVteEIJS pic.twitter.com/pzVQwBK3Nu
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 15, 2023
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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: The Zionist Regime Has Brought this Calamity Upon Itself; Iran Was Not Behind the Invasion of southern of Israel #Iran #Hamas pic.twitter.com/esCD4bGilN
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 15, 2023
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They discussed how best to use “volunteer units” in the Ukraine war.
The Kremlin said the meeting took place late on Thursday.
Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was also present.
The meeting underscored the Kremlin’s attempt to show that the state had now gained control over the mercenary group after a failed June mutiny by its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.
He was killed with other senior commanders in a plane crash in August.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the RIA news agency that Troshev now worked at the defense ministry.
The fate of Wagner has been unclear since Prigozhin’s failed mutiny and his death after which Putin ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state.
A move Prigozhin and many of his men had opposed.
Russia’s Kommersant newspaper has reported that just days after the Wagner mutiny Putin had suggested that Troshev take over from Prigozhin.
The meeting also appears to indicate that what remains of Wagner will now be overseen by Troshev and the defense minister.
The Wagner group became best known for its May capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the bloodiest battle of the war.
Troshev is a decorated veteran of Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
He is a former commander in the SOBR interior ministry rapid reaction force.
#russia #wagnergroup #andreitroshev
The New York Post is your source for breaking news, news about New York, sports, business, entertainment, opinion, real estate, culture, fashion, and more.
“More recently, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Moscow on Sept. 10. …
he back-briefed the Kremlin on Hamas’s final preparations for the attack timed to take place on Putin’s 71st birthday — a quid pro quo.
Other activities suggest Russian support and organization.
According to the Ukrainian Center of National Resistance, members of PMC Wagner, who left Belarus for Africa, allegedly participated in the training of Hamas militants on “assault tactics and the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles to drop explosive devices onto vehicles and other targets.”
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https://t.co/dD4PM3bimQ Review: https://t.co/2q8AC1wwxH……… | #NT #News #Times #SouthCaucasus #SouthCaucasusNews Armenia #Armenia Azerbaijan #Azerbaijan Georgia #Georgia #EU #US #Russia #Turkey #Iran #Israel
Gaza Pogrom and Czar Putin: “Putin’s fingerprints are all over the… pic.twitter.com/VuzaJ7dqmz— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) October 13, 2023
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https://t.co/dD4PM3bimQ Review: https://t.co/2q8AC1wwxH……… | #NT #News #Times #SouthCaucasus #SouthCaucasusNews Armenia #Armenia Azerbaijan #Azerbaijan Georgia #Georgia #EU #US #Russia #Turkey #Iran #Israel
Gaza Pogrom and Czar Putin: Putin’s fingerprints are all over the… pic.twitter.com/ZJ0w9VvIQZ— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) October 13, 2023
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Заседание Совета глав государств – участников СНГ • Президент России https://t.co/reMMVnuWlK pic.twitter.com/3uarp7wTzE
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) October 13, 2023
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#FBI FBI #CIA CIA #DIA DIA
This Article: https://t.co/6dJzebgz1w
is a good example of the Open Source Counterintelligence Analysis: GS – https://t.co/HzsWTGXrIQ
Note also the emerging: gradual but vigorous consensus in the media coverage of this subject: Putin and Gaza. pic.twitter.com/crsUEbvRq6— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) October 13, 2023
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Russian Telegram channels quote Wagner PMC mercenaries who reportedly say they had received offers to fight for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. For this, they are offered a salary of 650 thousand rubles ($6,000) a month.
“We have a good job for good money. There is always a… pic.twitter.com/kyzaI4FoOK
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) October 13, 2023
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#FBI FBI #CIA CIA #DIA DIA https://t.co/dD4PM3bimQ Review: https://t.co/2q8AC1wwxH… | #NT #News #Times #SouthCaucasus #SouthCaucasusNews Armenia #Armenia Azerbaijan #Azerbaijan Georgia #Georgia #EU #US #Russia #Turkey #Iran #Israel
IS PUTIN BEHIND THE GAZA WAR? – GS
Putin’s… pic.twitter.com/fwkG0P1eP9— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) October 15, 2023
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12th October 2023 – (Moscow) The sudden eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas has created a potential inflection point in the Ukraine war, handing Russia an opportunity to regain momentum amid its ongoing military struggles. With global attention diverted and pressure on Ukraine’s Western backers mounting, the Gaza crisis significantly alters the strategic landscape to Russia’s advantage.
The timing of the clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas could hardly be better from Russia’s perspective. Coming just months into the Ukraine invasion, the Gaza conflict deals a major distraction that Russia can exploit on multiple fronts.
First, the crisis diverts America’s diplomatic bandwidth away from the Ukrainian conflict. This not only hampers U.S. support for Kyiv in the near-term, but also risks eroding Washington’s focus over time if the Israel-Hamas tensions become protracted.
Second, the fighting in Gaza threatens to redirect vital military equipment to the Middle East, starving Ukraine’s forces of much-needed arms and materiel. Israel will likely demand more American weapons to replenish its Iron Dome defences and conduct potential ground operations against Hamas. This risks depriving Ukraine of key munitions and hardware.
Moreover, an expanded Middle East war also risks weakening Western resolve to continue funding Ukraine’s military. With implications of a wider regional conflagration, pressures will grow on European governments and Washington to reduce commitments to the Ukrainian cause.
In essence, the eruption of clashes between Israel and Hamas is a strategic godsend for Russia as it seeks to regain momentum and leverage in the grinding Ukraine campaign. It effectively hits the “pause button” on global attention while forcing the West into tougher resource allocation choices.
Navigating Complex Regional Dynamics
To fully capitalise on this opportunity, Russia will need to calibrate its regional diplomacy carefully. Moscow has cultivated ties with both Israel and major Palestinian factions over the years. It must now balance these competing relationships amid the crisis.
On one hand, Russia cannot jeopardise its relatively cordial ties with Israel. Despite providing sanctuary for some Jewish oligarchs, Moscow has avoided directly antagonising Israel over Ukraine. Meanwhile, Israel has maintained neutrality over Russia’s invasion, declining to send military aid to Kyiv.
At the same time, Russia has strengthened relations with Israel’s nemesis, Iran, which is the likely source of Hamas’ sophisticated new rockets and drones. As Tehran’s new partner, Moscow will be reluctant to openly back Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
Hence, in both private and public messaging, Russia is likely to adopt a nominally balanced posture emphasizing de-escalation, while subtly favouring prolonging the tensions to distract from Ukraine. Despite rhetorical appeals for peace, a protracted Gaza crisis aligns with Russia’s strategic interests.
Putin’s Long-Term Vision
Beyond just the urgency of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas clashes could advance Vladimir Putin’s broader long-term vision for a new global order. In a recent speech, Putin lambasted the West’s “rules-based order” as mere cover for its ideological and economic domination.
Instead, he advocated a “civilisational” model recognising diverse cultures and local traditions. This aligns with Russia’s historical role as protector of Orthodox Christianity and Middle East Christians.
Presenting itself as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict allows Russia to portray its diplomatic ethos as superior to Western hypocrisy and double standards. Resolving this intractable dispute would cement Russia’s status as a major power bridging divides between civilisations.
Simultaneously, prolonged unrest prevents any solidifying of an American-led security architecture in the Middle East. Keeping the region in flux suits Russia’s aim of eventually displacing U.S. hegemony. Even absent direct instigation, the Gaza crisis furthers Moscow’s long-term multipolar objectives.
Managing Global Risks
While the timing of the clashes favours Russia for now, extreme escalation threatens dangerous spillover effects. A major regional war risks energising Islamic extremist networks and unleashing refugee outflows into Europe.
To safeguard its interests, Russia will likely press both Israel and Palestinian factions towards eventual ceasefire talks, while avoiding overt condemnation of Hamas rocket attacks. The optimal outcome for Moscow is sustained controlled tensions that bog down the West without unleashing unmanageable instability.
For Putin, the crisis represents a pivotal moment to regain momentum amid the strategic challenges of Ukraine. While Moscow will not publicly cheer turmoil that leaves civilians suffering, it offers undeniable geopolitical opportunities.
Russia has proven adept at capitalising on global disturbances to advance its interests — as seen after the 2008 Georgia war and 2014 Syrian intervention. The Gaza conflict offers the latest such opening at a crucial juncture. The true costs of Moscow’s machinations, as always, will be borne by ordinary people far from the Kremlin’s halls.
Hamas Attack Ends a Delicate Entente Between Russia and Israel
Time is an ally of Russia in the Ukrainian conflict. Russia needs to reduce its rate of battlefield deaths and remain militarily active in Ukraine for as long as possible.
A great aid to Vladimir Putin would be a disruption in the supply of weapons to Kyiv, and a diminishing commitment from European and US governments to support the war or to provide military equipment. A rival crisis to distract Ukraine’s allies, in the form of war in the Middle East, could provide just this.
Hamas’s violent incursion into Israel from Gaza on Saturday October 7 has already distracted the United States diplomatically.
The conflict could also divert military equipment to the Middle East rather than to Ukraine. How large the diversion of arms is depends upon whether Israel chooses to try to reoccupy Gaza or not.
A war might also serve to further loosen the will of Ukraine’s allies to sustain their spending in Ukraine. It might do so because the implications of a wider Middle Eastern conflict, or China opportunistically attacking Taiwan, would outweigh the consequences of continued hostilities in Ukraine.
The diplomatic picture for Russia towards the Israel-Hamas conflict is not clear cut. Russia has historically been friendly towards Israel. Israel has mirrored this by toning down any criticism it has made of the Ukrainian invasion.
Russia has recently become friendlier towards Iran as it has sought to buy military equipment. But Iran is likely to be the source of the military equipment used by Hamas to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system and to invade the country, including the electronic interference equipment used to deactivate the border sensors and remote sentries.
Iran is also the likely source of counterintelligence techniques that have enabled Hamas to avoid attention from the capable Israeli intelligence services. Russia has been active in selling intelligence techniques around the world and so Iranian counterintelligence is likely informed by Russian practices.
Russia has long operated multilevel diplomacy – managing to maintain positive relationships with competing and even warring nations – in the Middle East, and will continue to do so. It is unlikely to find disadvantage here.
Putin has a strong history of hiding in plain sight. He tells us what he intends to do, and we assume it is rhetorical bluster. But in reality Putin is telling us his plans and seeing how many of them he can complete.
Missed by the majority of the world’s media was the annual Russian security conference (the Valdai International Discussion Club, known simply as the Valdai), at which Putin spoke on October 5. There he described his ambition being to create a new world order founded upon a “civilisation-based approach”. This would recognise local differences and communities of common interest.
In this, Putin was softly echoing an Indian approach to society which emphasises the environment, meaning the physical environment, the people within it, and community as a supportive structure. It is also an echo of the ethos of Israeli kibbutz which emphasise equality, common identity, community loyalty and shared efforts.
This is an explicit rejection of western individualism and a nod to those in the developing world that Russia is a kindred spirit.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, will be aware that Russia is hoping for the international focus to be turned on Israel/Gaza and away from the Ukraine war. Ukraine President’s Office/ Alamy
In the speech, Putin recast the previous 20 years as Russia seeking to positively engage in helping to solve global challenges, but that this engagement had been seen as obedience to western desires and norms. Putin further argued that the world required multiple sources of power and ways of seeing the world, rather than to all follow western patterns of economic exploitation and ideological domination.
He cited China and India as plausible alternative sources of power and world views. In Putin’s civilisation-based approach, his invasion of Ukraine is not Russia trying to capture territory, but repelling the Euroatlantic control of Nato and the EU. Liberation from colonialism is at the heart of Putin’s Valdai speech – a message that ordinary Ukrainians would dispute.
Referring to the Middle East, Putin noted that Nato powers selectively engage with Arab nations. Protection is provided to those who are obedient, but not because of their values or traditions.
It is here that we can infer that Putin is supportive of both Israeli and Palestinian claims, and that it is only westerners providing an overriding security guarantee to one side over the other that generates the conditions for continuous conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Russia is a beneficiary but not likely an author of the conflict and upheaval in Israel and Gaza. Putin does not need to have caused the uptick in tension but he will not be disappointed to see it further escalate over the coming weeks and months.
Russia also benefits because of the distraction it places at the heart of the upcoming US presidential election and to a world order already placed on high alert because of Ukraine, because of China and Taiwan and Serbia and Kosovo.
For Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then, time remains on its side, despite all its military losses. A change in US president, an activist US Congress continuing to show disquiet about further funding to Ukraine, and the US needing to support Israel in the Middle East all will play decisively in how the Ukrainian conflict will end.
If the war in Ukraine is still raging in 2025, it will be Russia with the upper hand.
For over a decade, Israel has prided itself on its growing ties with the Putin regime. But its silence on Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine will turn out to be a diplomatic error that will not be easily forgiven
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Jun 25, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin made the wrong gamble when he dragged his country into a floundering war with Ukraine last February, an expensive and blood-soaked war that continues to exact catastrophic costs.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has long portrayed himself as a friend of Vladimir Putin. In a memoir published during Russia’s war on Ukraine, Netanyahu repeatedly lauded the Russian leader for his intellect and his “particularly friendly attitude” toward the Jewish people.
Putin, too, has over the years cast himself as a loyal ally of the Israeli state, promoting cultural ties and visa-free travel between the two countries.
But after the worst attack on Israel in decades, the much-touted friendship appears to have vanished.
Four days after the start of Hamas’s surprise attack, Putin is yet to call Netanyahu, while the Kremlin has not published a message of condolence to the country, a diplomatic gesture of goodwill that Russia routinely sends out to global leaders following deadly incidents on their soil.
On Tuesday, in his first comments about the Hamas incursion, Putin said the explosion of violence between Israel and the Palestinians showed that US policy had failed in the Middle East and had taken no account of the needs of the Palestinians.
“I think that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” Putin said, without acknowledging the gruesome deaths in Israel.
The shift in tone appears to point to a larger rift between the two countries that has taken place since the start of the war in Ukraine.
For years, Putin has sought to cultivate strong ties with Israel while also backing the Palestinian cause, an alliance which stems from the Soviet area.
Russia’s delicate diplomacy with Israel appeared to bear fruit when the country refused to participate in western sanctions against Russia, much to the chagrin of Kyiv, which accused Israel of ignoring the suffering of Ukrainian Jews.
But below the surface, there had been signs that the relationship between Russia and Israel was deteriorating over Putin’s claims that he was fighting “neo-Nazism” in Ukraine, while shifting his country into the orbit of Iran, an arch-enemy of Israel.
“The warm relationship [between Russia and Israel] that we have seen for years under Putin has cooled down. We are in a different world now,” said Pinchas Goldschmidt, who served as the chief rabbi of Moscow for nearly 30 years until fleeing the country over his opposition to the Ukraine war.
“Israel has always been careful to maintain a good relationship with Moscow given Russia’s large Jewish community and its influence over Syria,” Goldschmidt said, speaking to the Guardian by phone from Israel. On Saturday he attended the funeral of Yuval Ben Yaakov, an Israeli soldier killed in the fighting, who was the son of another former Moscow rabbi.
Goldschmidt said many in the Jewish community have been left deeply uncomfortable with Putin’s framing of the war, comparing Ukraine’s government to Nazi Germany to justify his invasion of the country.
Last summer, these tensions first spilled over into the public, when Russian officials accused Israel of supporting the “neo-Nazi regime” in Kyiv. The spat was ignited after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, recycled an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” – comments that Israel described as “unforgivable and outrageous”.
The Kremlin also cracked down on the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency, a private charity closely affiliated with the Israeli government that helped tens of thousands of highly skilled Jewish Russians to immigrate to Israel.
Perhaps more worryingly for Israel was Moscow’s growing reliance on Iran. Russia, isolated from western markets, has invested heavily in buying Iranian suicide drones to attack Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, while the US has warned that Iran was seeking to acquire large numbers of Russian attack helicopters, warplanes and air defence systems.
As the US pledged to send its own military aid to Israel following the Hamas assault, some pro-Kremlin commentators expressed hope that the Israeli-Hamas war would drain western resources away from Ukraine.
Sergey Mardan, a Russian propagandist and television presenter, wrote: “This mess is beneficial for Russia, because the globalist toad will be distracted from Ukraine and will get busy trying to put out the eternal Middle Eastern fire.”
There was also a sense of glee in Moscow over Israeli military and intelligence blunders, which were presented as a testament of western weakness.
“Apparently, the IDF leadership … is resting on the laurels of long-past victories,” military expert Boris Rozhin, who is close to the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, wrote on Telegram.
Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia’s security services, said such comments “unmasked the acute psychological trauma suffered by the Russian military after its disastrous offensive against Ukraine in the early months of 2022.”
“That loss of global respect is hard to bear for a nation with a proud military tradition. So, the relief offered by Hamas has triggered an avalanche of schadenfreude. Did you laugh at our incompetence? Now it’s our turn,” Soldatov said.
On Russian state television, commentators also ridiculed the tens of thousands of Russian Jews who left for Israel following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in order to avoid mobilisation.
Addressing the Russian parliament on Wednesday, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, said that Russians who fled the country to side with Ukraine should be charged with treason and sent to work in mines.
“We’re probably … talking about mines and we need to find territories where the weather is more constant, where there’s no summer,” Volodin said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine appears to have cast aside its previous grievances with Israel, eager to fill the friendship vacuum left behind by Russia.
In a speech made alongside Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, likened Hamas’s assault on Israel this weekend to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said his people stood with Israel because they understood what it meant to suffer terror attacks.
“The only difference is that there is a terrorist organisation that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said.
Vladimir Putin has long projected friendly ties to Israel. But his silence since Saturday’s assault illustrates how the war in Ukraine has strained the relationship between the two countries.
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RIYADH: Saudi authorities arrested 16,790 people in one week for breaching residency, work and border security regulations, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Saturday. According to an official report, a total of 10,177 people were arrested for violations of residency laws, while 4,523 were held over illegal border crossing attempts and a further 2,090 for labor-related issues. The report showed that among the 709 people arrested for trying to enter the Kingdom illegally, 63 percent were Yemeni, 34 percent Ethiopian, and 3 percent were of other nationalities.
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Markets showed signs of a slight recovery in sentiment on Monday, as European stock indexes edged up and oil prices steadied, but traders were still cautiously watching for any signs of escalation in the Israel-Hamas war.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to “demolish Hamas” as his troops prepared to move into the Gaza Strip in pursuit of Hamas militants whose deadly rampage on Oct. 7 killed 1,300 people in the worst attack on civilians in Israel’s history.
Oil prices rose last week as investors priced in the chance of escalation in the world’s top oil-producing region, while U.S. Treasuries and gold prices rose as traders bought safe-haven assets.
Traders are waiting to see if the conflict draws in other countries, which would drive up oil prices further and deal a fresh blow to the global economy.
They are keeping a particular eye on Iran, which said on Sunday that its armed forces would not engage militarily with Israel so long as Israel does not attack it, its interests or its citizens.
At 1120 GMT, the MSCI World Equity Index was down 0.1% on the day (.MIWD00000PUS). Europe’s stock indexes rose, with the STOXX 600 up 0.2% (.STOXX) and London’s FTSE 100 up 0.4% (.FTSE).
Oil prices eased but were still above $90 a barrel after surging last week.
The outlook for Wall Street looked uncertain, with Nasdaq futures flat and S&P 500 futures up 0.3% .
“What the market will be looking for in order for the mood to improve would be any sort of de-escalation … and on the downside any sense that the oil-rich nations are going to be involved would be a catalyst to drive stocks lower,” said Fiona Cincotta, senior markets analyst at City Index.
“Any further comments from Iran will be much in focus.”
Top U.S. officials warned on Sunday that the war could escalate into a wider conflict across the Middle East.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Thursday and has also been to Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in a bid to limit the spread of the conflict.
Before Hamas’ attack, market sentiment had been driven by the global economy and the idea that the U.S. Federal Reserve was planning to keep rates higher for longer.
This narrative, along with company earnings this week, has become secondary to the geopolitical concerns, Cincotta said.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields edged up to 4.7018%, following a more than 8 basis point decline on Friday amid demand for the safety of bonds.
European government bond yields rose after European Central Bank officials reiterated concerns about inflation. The German 10-year yield was up 6 basis points at 2.788% .
The U.S. dollar index slipped slightly, down 0.1% on the day at 106.470 . The euro was up 0.2% at $1.053 .
Israel’s shekel sank to a more than eight-year low.
Gold pared some of Friday’s $63 gain, retreating 0.9% to $1,914.7 per ounce.
“Ultimately, gold and oil prices are the most sensitive expressions of the (Gaza) conflict’s risks,” Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com, wrote in a note.
However, “identifying the potential flashpoints and gaming-out scenarios is highly challenging”, Rodda said.
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Wall Street index futures started an earnings-packed week on a firm footing though tensions over the Israel-Hamas conflict kept gains in check, while investors also awaited key economic data for clues on the U.S. economy.
Israeli bombardments intensified ahead of a likely ground invasion in southern Gaza, dashing hopes of a brief ceasefire as residents of the Hamas-ruled region said the overnight strikes were the heaviest yet in nine days of conflict.
Yields on long-dated U.S. Treasury notes gained as the United States strives to prevent an escalation in tensions, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken arriving in Israel for talks after top U.S. officials warned the conflict could worsen.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped on Friday as deteriorating consumer sentiment data and the Middle East conflict kept investors away from riskier bets and overshadowed some upbeat earnings from big U.S. banks.
“This suggests that investors are currently more focused on the war in the Middle East rather than the earnings season, but this could well change when tech giants begin to report and needless to say, conditional upon no further escalation in geopolitical tensions,” Charalampos Pissouros, senior investment analyst at forex broker XM said in a note.
Results from large banks Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Bank of America (BAC.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N), pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), EV maker Tesla (TSLA.O) and video-streaming pioneer Netflix (NFLX.O) are due this week.
Brokerage Charles Schwab (SCHW.N) is scheduled to report results before the opening bell.
Third-quarter earnings for the S&P 500 companies are estimated to grow 2.2% on an annual basis, LSEG data showed.
Of the 32 S&P 500 companies that have reported results, 87.5% have surpassed expectations compared with the long-term average of 66.5%.
Investors await economic data including retail sales for September and the Philly Fed Business Index for October later this week, while the reading for the New York Fed’s Manufacturing index for October is due before market open.
Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker will speak later in the day while Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is due to speak on Thursday.
Harker had said on Friday he believes the U.S. central bank is likely done with its rate-hiking cycle.
Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee said on Monday that it was “undeniable” the slowdown in U.S. inflation was a trend rather than a momentary blip, according to a report.
At 7:36 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 139 points, or 0.41%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 11.5 points, or 0.26%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 7.25 points, or 0.05%.
Nvidia (NVDA.O) fell 1.4% in premarket trading after Reuters reported U.S. would take steps to prevent American chipmakers from selling semiconductors to China in a bid to block more AI chip exports.
Pfizer (PFE.N) lost 2.6% after slashing its full-year revenue forecast by 13% on Friday. Rival Moderna (MRNA.O) dipped 5.1%
Lululemon Athletica (LULU.O) added 5.8% as the sportswear apparel maker is set to join the S&P 500 index this week, replacing Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O).
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