Trump's team meets Hamas - Israel attacks Gaza
Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the new Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya in Cairo on Sunday. AFP reports. Kushner pressed Hamas to demonstrate that it is giving up its weapons, as the group has promised in previous negotiations on Trump's peace plan, a source told the news agency.
On Monday, Kushner and his delegation will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called the peace plan "unacceptable," according to Reuters.
According to the plan, Israel will immediately cease its military operations in Gaza and Hamas will disarm. Israel will then withdraw from the area and a new civilian Palestinian administration will rebuild it.
Israel has resumed its airstrikes in recent days. The military says they are aimed at preventing terrorist attacks. Several people were injured, including in a tent camp.
Mediating countries condemn Israel's rejection of peace plan
Eight Muslim countries have condemned Israel's rejection of the peace plan that Donald Trump has presented for Gaza, according to AFP. Among them are the three mediating countries Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.
"Israel bears direct and full responsibility for all consequences of its continued rejection, obstruction, delay or failure to implement the peace plan," they wrote in the statement, according to the Times of Israel.
During the day, the mediating countries have participated in talks between Trump's envoy Jared Kushner and Hamas, and tomorrow they are expected to meet Israel, according to Reuters.
söndag 16 augusti 2026
Middle East crisis Gaza war
Trump's USA American Defense
Trump Cuts Down on Exercises with South Korea – Praises Kim Jong Un
Donald Trump is ordering his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "significantly reduce" the joint military exercises between the US and South Korea - because it is too late to stop them completely. He writes this on his own social media Truth Social. The annual exercise "Ulchi Freedom Shield" starts tomorrow, according to Al Jazeera.
The decision is based on his "very good" relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he writes, adding that the military exercises are expensive and send "inappropriate and hostile signals".
North Korea has said that it sees the planned exercise as an escalation from previous years and intends to respond to "the new level of threat with a new level of deterrence", according to a statement from the Defense Department quoted by Al Jazeera.
Donald Trump ends his post by pointing out that South Korea recently refused to participate in the "denuclearization of Iran".
Trump's Wishes: Redesign the Ships to Look Like World War II Boats
The US Navy is considering a completely new design for its aircraft carriers because Donald Trump wants them to look like they did during World War II, seven sources with insight told the Washington Post.
What the president reportedly wants to do more specifically is move the conning tower further forward on the ship, so that it is more centrally located.
The sources raise concerns that such a change would be time-consuming and cost several billion dollars.
It would also affect both weight and buoyancy, says former Navy officer Bryan Clark at the right-leaning Hudson Institute think tank.
- It could be changed, but it would involve a very extensive intervention.
The White House has not commented.
Trump: North Korea shows respect
Donald Trump does not like the US to conduct a military exercise together with South Korea. Instead, he praises North Korea, which in his words is acting "non-threatening and with respect".
The US president does not believe that the country should participate in a joint military exercise with South Korea, this "based on my very good relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong-Un".
The exercise, which is to begin on Monday, has been planned for a long time, and as Trump writes on Truth Social "cannot be canceled".
The exercise is too expensive, he writes, but above all "sends signals that are completely inappropriate and hostile" towards North Korea - a country that according to Trump has only been respectful and not threatening "as long as Donald J Trump has been president".
He announced that he had therefore instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to significantly curtail the exercise.
As recently as Saturday, Trump posted a photograph on his platform in which he poses with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.
In the post, he also suggests that South Korea is not a good ally since the country's President Lee Jae-Myung "said no thanks" to participating in the Iran war, or what he calls "the denuclearization of Iran."
