TV News LIES

Villagers greeted news that progress was being made with relief. But they had more urgent problems.

The village, which has a predominantly Christian population of around 1,300 people, is subject to a reign of terror. October is the olive harvesting season, but its residents risk settler assault if they go into their land to pluck the fruit.

As with all Palestinian villages, gates have been installed at the village entrance to enable the Israeli army to cut off access at a moment's notice.

Youssef Moussa, a 64-year-old Bedouin man, told us how a settler militia broke into his tent while his family was asleep two weeks ago.

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Israel’s military has launched at least 20 air strikes on southern Gaza as the fragile United States-brokered ceasefire intended to end the two-year war comes under threat.

The Israeli army said on Sunday that it conducted a “massive and extensive wave” of strikes on dozens of targets after its troops came under fire from Hamas fighters in Rafah, a charge the Palestinian group denied.

Hours later, the Israeli army issued a statement saying its forces had begun “reinforcing” the truce in Gaza “after a series of significant attacks”. Separately, an Israeli security official told news agencies that the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza was temporarily halted after the alleged Hamas violation.

The Palestinian Civil Defence agency said that several Israeli air raids killed at least 42 Palestinians across the war-devastated enclave on Sunday. Additionally, the Gaza Media Office said that 97 Palestinians have been killed and another 230 wounded since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.

The Israeli army said two of its soldiers had died in “combat” in Gaza on Sunday, and it responded with strikes and artillery fire after its troops were targeted by Hamas. However, Hamas’s armed wing said it is adhering to the ceasefire agreement.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he would be ready to join Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at a proposed summit in Hungary if he were invited.

The US and Russian presidents announced after their phone call on Thursday that they planned to hold talks on the war in Ukraine in Budapest, possibly in the coming weeks.

On Monday, Zelensky told reporters: "If it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it's called, shuttle diplomacy... then in one format or another, we will agree".

Meanwhile, media reports suggest his White House meeting with Trump on Friday descended into a "shouting match" - with the US side urging Ukraine to accept Russia's terms to end the war.

Zelensky was guarded during his first press briefing since the talks, but still his comments made clear that there were large areas of disagreement between the two sides.

He described the meeting as frank, and said he had told Trump that his main aim was a just peace, not a quick peace.

He criticised Hungary as the location of the prospective Trump-Putin talks, saying the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban - who is seen by Kyiv and many EU leaders as a Kremlin ally - could not do "anything positive for Ukrainians or even provide a balanced contribution".

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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. 

"Both of the incidents happened in an Israeli-controlled area, east of the yellow line," the official said. "This is a bold violation of the ceasefire."

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Ukraine sees its EU membership bid advancing before the end of this year thanks to “creative solutions” to overcome Hungary’s opposition, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka told POLITICO.

EU leaders could sign off on opening as many as six negotiating “clusters” — legal steps on the path to membership in the bloc — in December as “political momentum” builds and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán faces growing pressure to remove his veto, he said.

“You can complete preparation of reopening of all clusters and if there will be a political momentum, then all clusters can go already by the end of this year,” Kachka said in an interview.

He added: “The position of Hungary is getting more and more unjustified.”

The Hungarian leader has placed opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership at the center of his bid for reelection next year, arguing that such a large new member would destabilize the bloc.

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A brazen robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris Sunday morning has left investigators searching for four men who made off with what officials describe as "priceless" jewels.

The Paris Prosecutor's office told NPR that two of the suspects broke into the museum's Galerie d'Apollon, which houses some of the museum's most valuable treasures, through a second-floor window shortly after the museum opened. Armed with small chainsaws and box cutters, the men smashed display cases before fleeing on Yamaha TMax scooters toward a nearby highway.

Two pieces of stolen jewelry — including the crown of Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III — were later found near the museum, apparently dropped or abandoned as the suspects fled. The gold and diamond encrusted crown was damaged, the prosecutor's office said.

A Louvre spokesperson described the items as being of "inestimable cultural and historical value."

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the theft "a major, highly organized operation" that lasted just seven minutes. "There's a judicial investigation underway," Nuñez told France Inter radio, adding the missing items were "of true heritage value — truly priceless."

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