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Hamas leaders say they reject the conditions Israel is seeking to impose on Gaza’s reconstruction, including the proposal made by Defense Minister Benny Gantz yesterday that any aid that isn’t humanitarian be conditioned on Hamas’s release of two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two soldiers captured by Hamas in 2014.
Hamas would “not be blackmailed,” the report in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar quotes officials as saying.
Hamas officials also threaten to resume rocket attacks on Israel if the Israeli government seeks to impose a new status quo on Gaza following the fighting, after some Israeli officials called for a renewal of assassinations of Hamas leaders if rocket fire and other violence from Gaza continues.
Belarus forced flight diversion suggests country is âprepared for a total break with Europe
The Atlantic s Anne Applebaum writes.
Unlike other authoritarian regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China, Applebaum argues, Lukashenko has few levers of influence abroad, so the fact that he was willing to falsely detain and possibly endanger a European-owned, European-registered airplane carrying mostly European Union citizens from one EU nation [Greece] to another [Lithuania] to arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist strongly hints that he wasnât too concerned about how Brussels would respond, despite the fact that Belarus sits on the EUâs border.
Instead, Applebaum continues in her piece, it means Lukashenko is completely confident of Russian economic and political support. As she notes, heâs already received some unsurprising praise from Kremlin allies and officials. Read more at
Sondland sues Pompeo, U.S. for allegedly reneging on promise to cover impeachment legal fees
Former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is suing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. government for $1.8 million for allegedly backing out on a promise to cover his legal fees following his testimony against former President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial,
Sondland, who made waves during the Senate trial when he testified that Trump and his aides pressured Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky to investigate President Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid (the infamous quid pro quo ), is alleging that Pompeo told him the government would cover all of his attorney fees and that the $86,040 he reportedly did receive falls well short of that promise.