TV News LIES

Arbel Yehoud is achingly close to freedom, but her face is a study of shadow and terror. She is dwarfed by dozens of masked Hamas fighters — and beyond them, a heaving mob of chanting men who surround her and fill the frame. In the next, Yehoud looks up at her captors, pleading. But video suggests they’re on the edge themselves, barely able to hold back the people impeding Yehoud’s dash to safety under the terms of a ceasefire deal.

Cut to photos of her friends and family in Israel, watching the handover live — hands over their mouths, breathless. Yehoud makes it into waiting vehicles, and then to Israel. Cue the government’s images of her joyous reunion with her parents.

The visuals out of Israel and Gaza during recent hostage-for-prisoner swaps were part of a choreographed battle of optics waged in parallel to the 16-month ground war between Israel and Hamas. Each side uses the light and shadow of images to make themselves look virtuous and strong — and each other monstrous and weak. It’s propaganda. But some images also tell the truth: The chaos during Yehoud’s release in Gaza on Thursday, for example, reflected the fragility of the ceasefire deal that took effect Jan. 19.

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• Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy hinted that both sides would have to make concessions to end the war – which could include Kyiv giving up land occupied by Russia. After recently returning from a visit to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg told Fox News that “both sides will give a little bit”. Zelenskyy “has already indicated he will soften his position on land,” the retired lieutenant general said, adding that Putin “is going to have to soften his positions as well”. But the Ukrainian president’s communications adviser dismissed Kellogg’s intervention. “We haven’t seen Mr Kellogg’s full interview … But if his plan is just a ceasefire and elections, it is a failed plan – Putin won’t be intimidated by just those two things,” Dmytro Lytvyn told journalists.

• Trump’s threat of sanctions has left Vladimir Putin “rattled” and concerned about the Russian economy, British prime minister Keir Starmer has said ahead of an informal European defence cooperation meeting in Brussels on Monday. Starmer said it was necessary to “see all allies stepping up – particularly in Europe” when it comes to inflicting economic harm on Russia, and argued it would help bring about peace by ending the Ukraine war sooner. “President Trump has threatened more sanctions on Russia and it’s clear that’s got Putin rattled,” Starmer said ahead of the trip. “We know that he’s worried about the state of the Russian economy.”

Canada and Mexico ordered retaliatory tariffs on American goods in response to sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, and businesses and consumers in both countries questioned Sunday how the new trade war might affect them.

Canada initially ordered tariffs of 25% on American imports starting Tuesday, including beverages, cosmetics and paper products worth 30 billion Canadian dollars ($20 billion). A second list of goods was to be released soon, including passenger vehicles, trucks, steel and aluminum products, certain fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, dairy products, aerospace products and more. Those goods were estimated to be worth 125 billion Canadian dollars ($85 billion).

“We can play the game all they want,” Trump said. He said he plans to speak with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts on Monday.

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Some 37 Palestinians, including children wounded in Israel’s war, evacuate Gaza for Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, which opened for the first time in nine months on Saturday.

Israeli forces kill 5 people, including a 16-year-old boy, in three separate bombings as they keep up a large-scale military operation on the Jenin area in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart today for the United States where he will meet with President Donald Trump and discuss the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, his office says.

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The US military has conducted airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) operatives in Somalia, the first attacks in the country during Donald Trump’s second term as president.

The strikes were carried out against IS-Somalia in the Golis Mountains, in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern Puntland region. In 2015, IS-Somalia splintered from al-Shabaab, a much larger and more widely known jihadist organisation affiliated with al-Qaida, which controls parts of southern Somalia.

Trump said on Saturday that he ordered strikes on a senior IS attack planner and others from the organisation.

The president wrote in a post on Truth Social: “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies.