Attention to the Unseen

The Times of Israel reports: Several hostage family members wearing Yellow “Seal the Deal Now” t-shirts have been removed from the gallery during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress and detained by law enforcement. Axios reports: Roughly half of House and Senate Democrats skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, according to an Axios headcount. Why it matters: Many lawmakers, particularly progressive Israel critics, made clear they were explicitly boycotting…

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The Guardian reports: Sitting on a stack of ammunition crates at a secret military base, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi was tight-lipped about when Ukraine will receive a long-awaited delivery of F-16 fighter jets. The Dutch and other allies have said they will arrive soon. This week? Or maybe August? “I know. But I can’t tell you about it, unfortunately,” he said, with an apologetic grin, as gulls squawked nearby. Syrskyi is Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief. His unenviable task is to defeat…

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The Hill reports: A group of major labor unions pushed President Biden in a letter Tuesday to stop military aid to Israel as it continues to wage its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “We believe that immediately cutting US military aid to the Israeli government is necessary to bring about a peaceful resolution to this conflict,” the letter reads. Signatories include the United Auto Workers (UAW), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the International Union of Painters and…

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CNN reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed in Washington on Monday to far less fanfare than he would have expected just a day earlier. His highly-anticipated visit – chock-full of meetings with top US officials and a prized address to Congress – will now undoubtedly be overshadowed by US President Joe Biden’s stunning decision to drop out of the presidential race. But as detailed ceasefire negotiations aimed at turning a framework agreement into a final deal stretch into their…

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Middle East Eye reports: As 14 Palestinian leaders lined up for a photograph in Beijing on Tuesday, they each made sure to shake hands afterwards with one man: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Tuesday’s Palestinian unity talks, where an agreement for a post-war Gaza framework was signed, were an opportunity for China to provide a rival platform to Israel and its western allies on the future of Palestine and the Middle East. “China’s major goal is to gain consent and…

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The New Arab reports: A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris to honour journalists wounded and killed in the field on Sunday. The torch relay, which started in May, is part of celebrations in which about 10,000 people from various walks of life were chosen to carry the flame across France before the Games opening ceremony on 26 July. Christina Assi of Agence France-Presse was among six journalists struck by Israeli shelling on 13 October while reporting on…

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Middle East Eye reports: The official spokesperson for the Houthis, Nasruddin Amer, described the Israeli airstrike on the oil tanks and power facility at Hodeidah port as “a brutal act of aggression against Yemen aimed at worsening the suffering of its people and pressuring Yemen to halt its support for Gaza.” The Israeli military announced that it carried out strikes on the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah in Yemen earlier on Saturday. In a post on X, Amer dismissed…

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  For 18 years, Hala Rharrit worked in the US State Department, most recently becoming its Arabic-language spokesperson. But the Biden administration’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza forced her to resign in April, becoming the first US diplomat to quit in protest over the US’s Gaza policy. In this wide-ranging Real Talk interview, Rharrit reveals what went on behind the scenes, how her Gaza reports were received by US officials, and why she ultimately decided to resign.

Lev Grinberg writes: Watching President Joe Biden clumsily debate Donald Trump on June 27, many Israelis could instantly recognize how their own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been able to exploit the weaknesses of the aging commander-in-chief for so long. Netanyahu has had a close relationship with his “friend Joe” for decades, going back to Biden’s days in the U.S. Senate and especially during the early years of the Barack Obama administration. According to Biden’s biographer Evan Osnos, the then-vice…

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CNN reports: US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode. The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said. The plan to kill Armin Papperger, a white-haired…

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David Ignatius writes: The breakthrough came recently, when Hamas relented on its demand for a written guarantee on a permanent end to the fighting. Instead, it accepted the reassuring language of a U.N. Security Council resolution, passed last month, affirming the U.S.-negotiated deal. Here’s the key passage: “If the negotiations take longer than six weeks for phase one, the ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue,” the U.N. resolution says. American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators would “work to…

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