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Reporting from Tel Aviv
Hamas has violently sought to reassert its authority over the Gaza Strip in the wake of the Israel military’s partial withdrawal, but questions remain over the group’s future and efforts to rebuild.
Since the ceasefire came into effect a week ago, the militant group has deployed armed police officers on streets from where Israeli forces have withdrawn, clashed with rival clans, directly fired upon and killed Israeli troops in multiple incidents, and staged at least one public execution of suspected collaborators.
As Hamas continues to demonstrate its presence, Israeli security officials and experts on Gaza agree it has been badly diminished but not thoroughly destroyed, and will count on new recruits propelled to join after tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli fire.
Read the full story here.
Construction crews have begun demolishing part of the historic East Wing facade of the White House to make room for Trump’s new $250 million ballroom. In July, Trump pledged that the project wouldn’t “interfere with the current building.” NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., are introducing a resolution to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his first administration’s development of Covid vaccines during the global pandemic.
“President Trump’s decisive action in Operation Warp Speed not only saved millions of lives but brought the American economy back to life,” Cassidy said in a statement shared with NBC News. “When Americans needed a vaccine in record time to stop a once-in-a-generation pandemic, President Trump delivered.”
“The Nobel Prize has been given for a lot less. He should receive the next one!,” Cassidy added.
Cassidy, who is up for re-election next year, and Barrasso said their effort “echoes” the desires of other Trump administration officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with whom both Cassidy and Barrasso had heated exchanges with during a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee last month.
Trump said in a Truth Social post this morning that allies in and around the Middle East are willing to enter Gaza to crush Hamas if the militant group flouts the terms of its negotiated ceasefire with Israel.
“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and ‘straighten our Hamas’ if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,” Trump wrote.
Trump’s post comes as Hamas is resorting to violence as it tries to reassert its power in Gaza.
“There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right,” Trump wrote. “If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!”
Trump singled out Indonesia, thanking the country’s leaders “for all of the help they have shown and given to the Middle East.”
Former President Barack Obama is set to headline get-out-the-vote rallies Nov. 1 for the Democratic nominees for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, Rep. Mikie Sherrill and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, respectively, according to their campaigns.
Sherrill, whose rally will take place that Saturday in Newark, said in a statement that Obama “reminds us what we can accomplish when we leaders are unafraid to take on big challenges to deliver.”
“He led historic efforts to insure millions of Americans and lower healthcare costs. The contrast couldn’t be clearer,” she said. “Jack Ciattarelli is supporting Trump’s attacks on New Jersey, from terminating the Gateway Tunnel Project to kicking hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans off their healthcare. I am so grateful to have President Obama’s support and endorsement in this race as we harness our momentum to mobilize New Jerseyans to vote on or before November 4.”
Spanberger will hold her rally with Obama that day in Norfolk.
The Treasury Department told its staff not to share photos of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make room for Trump’s planned ballroom, a department spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.
The directive, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes after the circulation of viral pictures depicting construction crews starting to rip down parts of the East Wing to build the ballroom.
Reached for comment on the department’s instructions, a Treasury Department spokesperson pointed to potential security issues.
“Carelessly shared photographs of the White House complex could reveal sensitive items, potentially including security features or confidential structural details,” the spokesperson said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we have urged our employees to avoid sharing these images.”
The demolition contradicts the president’s remarks from July, when he said that the ballroom would be “near” the White House “but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
Former FBI Director James Comey filed motions seeking the dismissal of the criminal charges brought against him, arguing that the lawyer Trump named to prosecute him, Lindsey Halligan, wasn’t properly appointed and that the case was politically motivated.
Former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., won’t be required to pay restitution under Trump’s clemency grant, according to the document, which was published by the Justice Department.
Santos faces “no further fines, restitution, probation, supervised release, or other condition,” the document says.
Santos told CNN over the weekend that he would only pay the $374,000 in restitution to his victims if it was “required of me by the law.”
The ex-congressman was originally ordered to pay restitution as part of his sentence, in addition to facing seven years in prison. He ultimately served less than three months before Trump commuted his sentence late last week.
Santos pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in what prosecutors said was a scheme that allowed him to personally profit from his campaign fundraising.
A judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late last night requested the full court rehear whether Trump can deploy National Guard troops in Oregon.
A panel of the federal appeals court ruled 2-1 yesterday that the administration can send the soldiers into the streets of Portland after a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the deployment.
“After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority,” the panel of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges wrote in a 2-1 ruling.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump nominee, wrote in her order that Trump appeared to be acting in bad faith with exaggerated claims of violence in the city.
After the appeals court’s ruling, the Trump administration asked Immergut to rescind a second temporary restraining order she had issued that had blocked the Trump administration from deploying other state National Guard troops into Oregon.
Vance will be in Israel today as the Trump administration works to secure the fragile ceasefire it helped broker between Israel and Hamas after deadly fighting broke out between the two sides over the weekend.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, a senior White House official told NBC News.
Israel said it had begun the “renewed enforcement of the ceasefire” yesterday after it launched strikes in Gaza over what it said was Hamas’ violation of the truce with attacks on Israeli soldiers that killed two.
Republican lawmakers will head to the White House today in an apparent show of solidarity as the government shutdown enters its 21st day with no end to the impasse in sight.
The Senate rejected the House-passed short-term spending bill for the 11th time yesterday.
Asked by NBC News what he hopes to see out of the meeting today, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said last evening that while the agenda is unclear, Trump “is doing real good about reaching out and making sure that the Republicans are working all on the same page.”
“That should attest to his leadership, making sure he’s leading from the front, sharing his vision, making sure we’re staying in line with where the White House and the Congress wants to go with policies,” Mullin told NBC News.
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