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‘The face of Hamas’: Israel confirms terror group’s spokesman Abu Obeida killed

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Israel declared on Sunday that notorious Hamas spokesman Hudayfa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlout, alias Abu Obeida, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip a day earlier.

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet initially said only that the Saturday strike had targeted a senior Hamas operative, but reports quickly identified the operative as the infamous terror group spokesman, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the identification at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

The outcome of the strike was initially unclear, but unnamed Israeli security sources had expressed cautious optimism as to Abu Obeida’s fate, until Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed Sunday that the strike had been successful.

In a post on X, Katz wrote that the longtime spokesman “was sent to meet all the eliminated members of the axis of evil from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen at the bottom of hell.”

“Soon, as the campaign over Gaza intensifies,” he promised, “he will meet many more of his partners in crime there — Hamas murderers and rapists.”

Shortly after Katz’s remarks, the IDF issued a statement confirming that Abu Obeida, whom it called “the face of the terrorist organization,” had indeed been the target of Saturday’s strike.

“The operation was conducted jointly from the Shin Bet’s operations war room, in cooperation with the Southern Command, and was made possible thanks to prior intelligence gathered by the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence, which pointed to the hideout where the terrorist was located,” the IDF statement said.

The military said that for the past decade, Abu Obeida “was responsible for the propaganda apparatus of Hamas’s military wing. In this role, he oversaw spokesperson operations across brigades and battalions, coordinated between political media elements and the military wing, and was the senior figure setting propaganda policy.”

Hamas’s propaganda wing, said the IDF, “was responsible for distributing the atrocities of the October 7 massacre using footage captured by Hamas terrorists.”

Abu Obeida’s outfit also spread videos throughout the Arab world seeking to incite acts of terror and distributed videos of hostages in Gaza, the military added.

Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu had said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel had not yet been able to confirm if Abu Obeida had been killed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) leads a cabinet meeting at an undisclosed secure location on August 31, 2025 (Screenshot/GPO)

“The Shin Bet and the IDF struck the Hamas spokesman, the spokesman of the murderous evil organization, Abu Obeida,” he said.

“We still don’t know the final outcome — I hope he is no longer with us — but I notice there’s no one to speak about this from Hamas’s side,” the premier quipped. “So, the coming hours and days will tell.”

Abu Obeida had been the spokesman of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, since 2004. He rose to prominence in 2006 when he announced the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

The always-masked Abu Obeida has since been the face of the terror group’s higher-profile statements and its psychological warfare.

Abu Obeida’s last statement was issued on Friday evening, warning Israel that its planned offensive to conquer Gaza City would subject hostages in the area to the “same risks” as the terror group’s fighters.

In light of the assassination of the Hamas spokesman, coupled with the strikes that killed the prime minister of the Houthi-led government, Ahmed Ghaleb al-Rahwi, in Yemen last week, the cabinet was reported to have gathered for its weekly meeting in a secure alternative location out of fear of retaliatory attacks.

At the meeting, Netanyahu said that the IDF “has already begun implementing” a recent cabinet decision “to defeat Hamas and bring back all of our hostages.” Those goals have long been the stated aims of the war in Gaza, but Netanyahu seemed to be referencing the decision to move ahead with the conquest of Gaza City by the IDF.

Turning to last week’s strike on the Houthi political leadership, Netanyahu said that “in every one of his speeches, [Houthi leader Abdul-Malik] al-Houthi promises he will strike Israel, that he will destroy Israel. That’s written on their flag.”

“That promise will not be fulfilled,” he promised. “But our promise — to strike the terror regime with increased force — is being fulfilled. And how is it being fulfilled. In a deadly blow, the IDF eliminated most of the Houthi government and additional military officials.”

He said that Israel will continue working to assassinate senior Houthi officials: “This is only the beginning of the campaign targeting senior officials in Sana’a. We will reach all of them.”

Netanyahu also boasted that the Western and Arab coalitions that have attacked the Houthis in the past were unable to achieve what Israel has, and said that ever since the 12-day war with Iran in June, Israel has been “striking the remaining parts of the axis systematically — day after day, front after front.”


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EU slaps Google with €2.95B fine despite Trump trade threat – POLITICO

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The Commission’s multibilllion-euro fine falls short of the €4.34 billion fine the EU executive slapped on Google in 2018 over abuse of dominance related to Android mobile devices, but is higher than the €2.42 billion fine the firm faced for favoring its own comparison-shopping service in 2017.

The Commission’s decision comes as a parallel case before the U.S. courts will soon come to trial.

In April, a U.S. federal judge found that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in display search advertising, and a trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 22.

The U.S. government is seeking a divestment of Google’s assets in that trial.

In a statement, Google’s Global Head of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said that the firm will appeal the Commission’s decision.

“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” said Mulholland.

This story has been updated.





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New York Times: Unsuccessful 2019 Navy SEAL mission left unarmed North Koreans dead

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A 2019 mission in North Korea, which intended to have Navy SEALs plant an electronic device to intercept communications of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, resulted in an unsuccessful operation that left unarmed North Koreans dead, according to a report from the New York Times on Friday.

The mission, which took place during President Donald Trump’s first term, required the president’s direct approval, the Times reports, and came amid high-level nuclear talks between the US and North Korea.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment. CNN has also reached out to the ​US Special Operations Command and North Korea’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York for comment on the report.

According to the Times, SEAL Team Six’s Red Squadron rehearsed for months for a plan that would require the Navy to slip a nuclear-powered submarine into North Korean waters, alongside two mini-subs of SEALs who would motor along the shore before swimming to the target to install the electronic device.

The SEAL Team Six, which is a secretive US military unit formed in 1980, has worked on a range of secret, dangerous and high-risk missions, including carrying out the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

The Times reports when a North Korean boat, which evidence later suggested were two or three North Korean civilians diving for shellfish, approached in the water during the operation, the SEALs opened fire and killed them. The report also states the Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress.

The relationship between the United States and North Korea, a country that is highly isolated, has been rocky over the years. Trump issued an ultimatum to North Korea in 2017 to not make any more threats against the US or they will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.” His warning came as US intelligence analysts assessed North Korea had produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead at the time.

Kim and Trump would go on to exchange a series of flatteries and letters in 2018 and 2019 after the significant tensions in 2017. They then would participate in a series of unprecedented summits in 2018 with fulsome declarations of a new friendship but vague pledges of nuclear disarmament.

In 2019, Trump would make history as the first sitting US leader to set foot in the hermit kingdom, when he shook hands with Kim and took 20 steps into North Korea. Biden’s administration, meanwhile, would take a different strategy, CNN reported at the time, focused on shows of strength and unity with South Korea as well as incremental progress toward denuclearization.

This story has been updated with additional information.





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Tech CEOs Praise Donald Trump at White House Dinner

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The scene opens confusingly. The camera zooms too close to the president’s face; the table at which the tech executives are seated seems far too long. Mark Zuckerberg is there, and Bill Gates and Tim Cook and Satya Nadella and Sam Altman and on and on, a baker’s dozen or so of Silicon Valley’s most powerful people—cutthroat competitors all—united here to pledge allegiance to Donald Trump.

The introduction from Trump is characteristically both overgilded and confusing: “It’s an honor to be here with this group of people. They’re leading a revolution in business and in genius and every other word.” And then, about 90 seconds in, the pandering begins.

This was Donald Trump’s dinner with tech leaders at the State Dining Room in the White House on Thursday evening, broadcast in part for all to see on C-SPAN. It’s in many ways a remarkable document, the culmination of months of Big Tech cozying up to the administration.

One by one, Trump asked the executives how much they were investing in the United States. One by one, they obliged, praising Trump’s leadership along the way. The president has run this play previously with his cabinet members, powerful people tripping over themselves in the race toward Trump’s good graces. But there was an eeriness to see that same dynamic among Big Tech’s braintrust, like passing a camera around to take turns wishing a distant, unloved uncle a very happy Thanksgiving.

“It’s going to be something like $600 billion through ‘28,” said Zuckerberg about Meta’s domestic infrastructure investments. Sergey Brin congratulated Trump on “applying pressure” in Venezuela, two days after a US drone operator extrajudiciously murdered 11 people on an alleged drug cartel boat.

Everyone else praised the administration’s AI policy. Microsoft’s Nadella shouted out Melania Trump in particular for her leadership in “skilling and economic opportunity that comes with AI.”(The first lady launched a Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge last month, and hosted an education-themed AI task force meeting prior to the dinner on Thursday.) Google CEO Sundar Pichai and AMD CEO Lisa Su praised the Trump administration’s AI initiatives.

“I want to thank you for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States,” said Cook, referring to Apple’s pledge to put $600 billion into US manufacturing. Given that Apple made that commitment under threat of crippling tariffs on smartphones, it was a bit like thanking the school bully for setting the tone such that you can give him your lunch money.

For enthusiasm it was hard to beat Oracle CEO Safra Catz, who had previously served as a member of Trump’s transition team. “You’ve unleashed American innovation and creativity, all the work you’re doing in basically every cabinet post in addition to what’s coming out of the White House is making it possible for America to win,” Catz said. “I think this is the most exciting time in America ever.” And with that, after a quick joke about his rumored demise, Trump opened up the floor to questions from the media. If you watch closely, you can catch Zuckerberg giving someone across the table an eyebrow raise for the ages.



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