TV News LIES

Months of feverish negotiations, in different cities and at multiple levels, have gotten Israel and Hamas closer to striking a ceasefire deal. But even if an agreement is reached – still far from certain – it could end up lasting only weeks before it collapses and the war in Gaza resumes.

As senior negotiators prepare to meet this weekend in Cairo, there are still several sticking points in the talks over the potential three-phase agreement. But Israel has made it clear that following the initial six-week phase, a break in the fighting may be just that and it is not ready to agree to a permanent ceasefire.

• Russian forces mounted 53 attacks on the Pokrovsk front in Donetsk oblast on Thursday as Moscow pressed to take the town, which Kyiv’s military described as the main focus of the invaders’ efforts in Ukraine. Elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near the settlement of Niu-York. Russia earlier said it had seized the settlement. Russia’s army also claimed it had captured the village of Mezhove, between already held Avdiivka and Pokrovsk. Ukraine did not confirm the Russian claims.

• A ferry loaded with fuel tanks sank in the Russian port of Kavkaz in southern Krasnodar region on Thursday after a Ukrainian attack, local authorities said. Kavkaz port is one of Russia’s largest on the Black Sea, exporting as well as sending fuel across to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

Successive Israeli evacuation orders in Gaza, including 12 just this month, have displaced 90% of its 2.1 million residents since the Israel-Hamas war began last October, often multiple times, the top United Nations humanitarian official for the Palestinian territory says.

Muhannad Hadi said the evacuation orders are endangering civilians instead of protecting them. “They are forcing families to flee again, often under fire and with the few belongings they can carry with them, into an ever-shrinking area” that is crowded and unsafe.

Everyday fruit and vegetables are some of the latest methods Mexican cartels are using to smuggle drugs into the US, recent seizures of methamphetamine suggest.

Around 2 tonnes of the powerful stimulant known colloquially as crystal meth was discovered recently in packages designed to look like bright green watermelons at the San Diego, California, port of Otay Mesa, according to US Customs and Border Patrol Protection officials.

Hidden amongst a shipment of actual watermelons, around 1,220 fake watermelons were found to contain 4,587lbs of meth valued at $5m after a truck driven by a 29-year-old man was selected for secondary inspection.

Port director Rosa Hernandez described the method of concealment as “sophisticated.

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Israel's outgoing head of military intelligence took responsibility for his country's failures to defend its border on Oct. 7 at his resignation ceremony on Wednesday.

Some of the drones were shot down over Podolsk, a city of more than 300,000 people about 20 miles south of the Kremlin, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

"This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow using drones ever," Sobyanin said in a social media post Wednesday. "The layered defense of Moscow that was created made it possible to successfully repel all the attacks."

The assault comes four days after a drone attack in the Russian border region of Rostov ignited a massive fire at a fuel depot. Russian Orthodox priests visited the scene Wednesday, leading prayers for hundreds of firefighters still battling the blaze.

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