Israel-backed aid organization in Gaza says 20 killed at distribution site, mostly in stampede
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed in the violence near a distribution hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
The group, which rarely acknowledges trouble at its distribution sites, accused Hamas of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.
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Winnipeg Free Press
31 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
In their own words: Trump, Patel, Bongino and Bondi on the Epstein scandal
PHOENIX (AP) — When Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, then-President Donald Trump speculated that authorities might be wrong in ruling it a suicide. Many of his allies in the pro-Trump media went further, casting Epstein's death as a murder meant to continue a decades-long coverup of pedophilia by elites. Now back in the White House, Trump has elevated prominent proponents of Epstein conspiracies to senior law enforcement roles, and they're struggling to contain a fire that they spent years stoking. Much of Trump's base is choosing to believe the president's earlier claims about Epstein over his latest contention that there's nothing of substance in government files. Here's a look at how Trump and his aides, including the attorney general and FBI leadership, fanned the flames of the Epstein conspiracy theories over the years, and how they're now trying to extinguish them. In their own words: Trump and Epstein were friends Before Epstein's sexual predation was well-known, he and Trump were friends. Both were New Yorkers with homes in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump knew something about Epstein's 'social life' and interest in women 'on the younger side,' though there's no evidence Trump was aware Epstein was involved in sex trafficking of minors, as prosecutors allege. 'I've known Jeff for 15 years,' Trump told New York Magazine for a 2002 profile of Epstein. 'Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' The friendship later fell apart, according to Trump. He has since distanced himself from Epstein and more recently describes their relationship as far more distant than he portrayed in 2002. 'Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,' Trump said on July 9, 2019, after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges. 'I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan.' Three days later, Trump was asked what led to his falling out with Epstein and whether the financier had been banned from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Palm Beach home. 'Yes. And I did have a falling out a long time ago. The reason doesn't make any difference, frankly,' Trump said. He said he had 'no idea' Epstein was molesting women. A month later, on Aug. 10, 2019, Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell. His death was ruled a suicide. Trump nods toward conspiracy theories The day Epstein was found in his cell, Trump shared a social media post that linked his death to former President Bill Clinton. 'I want a full investigation, and that's what I absolutely am demanding,' Trump told reporters on Aug. 13, 2019. Pressed on whether he really believed Clinton was involved in Epstein's death, Trump responded at length about Clinton traveling on Epstein's private plane. 'Because Epstein had an island that was not a good place, as I understand it,' Trump said. 'And I was never there. So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island?' In a 2020 interview with Axios, Trump cast doubt on the New York medical examiner's ruling that Epstein's death was a suicide. He was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime companion. Maxwell had been charged a month earlier with luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, and Trump had controversially responded: 'I wish her well.' 'Well, her boyfriend died in jail and people are still trying to figure out how did it happen? Was it suicide? Was he killed? And I do wish her well. I'm not looking for anything bad for her. I'm not looking bad for anybody,' Trump told Axios on Aug. 3, 2020. After Trump left office, Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In the years since, Trump has said he's unsure whether Epstein killed himself. In a Fox News interview during his 2024 campaign, Trump hedged when asked whether he'd release the Epstein files. His noncommittal answer came right after he'd agreed without hesitation to declassify files related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the John F. Kennedy assassination. 'I guess I would. I think that, less so, because you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there because it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would,' Trump said on June 2, 2024. Trump allies lean in Trump's unconventional picks to lead the FBI — Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino — were commentators in Trump's Make America Great Again movement before joining federal law enforcement. In their prior roles, both aggressively promoted theories that Epstein was killed to keep him quiet. In a 2023 appearance on Benny Johnson's podcast, Patel was incensed that House Republicans weren't trying harder to force the release of an alleged list of high-powered Epstein associates — a document the Patel-led FBI now says doesn't exist. 'What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can't get the list? … Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are,' Patel said in the interview, which Johnson posted to social media on Dec. 19, 2023. As a podcaster, Bongino called the Epstein story 'one of the biggest political scandals of our time' and portrayed it as a wide-ranging conspiracy involving global elites. 'What the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?' Bongino asked on his show on May 4, 2023. 'What do Clinton, Obama officials, big money leftists, a former Prime Minister of Israel — why do they want to make this Jeffrey Epstein story go away so bad?' Attorney General Pam Bondi stoked the conspiracy even after taking the helm at the Justice Department. The alleged Epstein client list is 'sitting on my desk right now to review,' Bondi said in a February interview on Fox News. She later told reporters, 'There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn.' Trump and his team try to put the genie back in the bottle Patel, Bongino and Bondi now contradict their earlier selves. The Justice Department this month said Epstein did not maintain a 'client list' of powerful men for whom he trafficked underage girls and said no more files would be released. Patel and Bongino offered assurances that they'd reviewed the evidence and there was no reason to doubt Epstein killed himself. 'I believe he hung himself in a cell in the Metropolitan Detention Center,' Patel testified in a Senate hearing on May 8. Trump himself has been the most aggressive. In a lengthy post Wednesday on Truth Social, he lashed out at his 'PAST supporters' who have believed in Epstein conspiracy theories, calling them 'weaklings' and saying he doesn't 'want their support anymore!' He claimed, without offering evidence, that Democrats concocted the Epstein stories that have animated his base. 'Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,' Trump wrote. In another lengthy post on Saturday, he vouched for Bondi and pressed his supporters to move on. 'What's going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals'? They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!' Trump wrote.
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
780 U.S. health-care workers apply in B.C.
Vancouver Watch Less than two months after the B.C. government launched a multi-million-dollar campaign to recruit American health-care workers, 780 applications have come in.
Globe and Mail
3 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Crush at U.S.-backed Gaza aid site kills at least 20
At least 20 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday at an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in what the U.S.-backed group said was a crowd surge instigated by armed agitators. The GHF, which is supported by Israel, said 19 people were trampled and one fatally stabbed during the crush at one of its centres in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. 'We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd – armed and affiliated with Hamas – deliberately fomented the unrest,' GHF said in a statement. There has been no immediate comment from Hamas. Palestinian heath officials told Reuters 21 people had died of suffocation at the site. One medic said lots of people had been crammed into a small space and had been crushed. On Tuesday, the UN rights office in Geneva said it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks in the vicinity of aid sites and food convoys in Gaza - the majority of them close to GHF distribution points. Former DOGE official rushed US$30-million grant to Trump-backed Gaza aid group despite objections Most of those deaths were caused by gunfire that locals have blamed on the Israeli military. The military has acknowledged that Palestinian civilians were harmed near aid distribution centres, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions with 'lessons learned'. The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a U.N.-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the accusation. The U.N. has called the GHF's model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards - an allegation GHF has denied. Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, accused the GHF on Wednesday of gross mismanagement, saying its lack of crowd control and failure to uphold humanitarian principles had led to chaos and death among desperate civilians. 'People who flock in their thousands (to GHF sites) are hungry and exhausted, and they get squeezed into narrow places, amid shortages of aid and the absence of organization and discipline by the GHF,' he told Reuters. The war in Gaza, triggered in October 2023 by a deadly Hamas attack on Israel, has devastated large swathes of the coastal enclave, displaced almost all of the territory's population and led to widespread hunger and privation. If there's a ceasefire in Gaza, my wife wants to rest and go to the beach; my sons want to leave Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had finished paving a new road in southern Gaza separating several towns east of Khan Younis from the rest of the territory in an effort to disrupt Hamas operations. Palestinians see the road, which extends Israeli control, as a way to pressure on Hamas in ongoing ceasefire talks, which started on July 6 and are being brokered by Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar with the backing of the United States. Palestinian sources close to the negotiations said a breakthrough had not yet been reached on any of the main issues under discussion. Hamas said Israel wanted to keep at least 40 per cent of the Gaza Strip under its control as part of any deal, which the group rejected. Hamas has also demanded the dismantlement of the GHF and the reinstatement of a U.N.-led aid delivery mechanism. Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the road showed Israel was not serious about reaching a ceasefire deal. 'It confirms the occupation's long-term intentions and plans to remain inside the Strip, not to withdraw, and not to end the war. This contradicts everything it claims at the negotiating table or communicates to mediators,' Naim said in a post on his Facebook page. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will end once Hamas is disarmed and removed from Gaza. Israeli strike kills children near Gaza clinic with no immediate truce in sight Gaza local health authorities said Israeli military strikes have killed at least 17 people across the enclave on Wednesday. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. An estimated 50 Israelis and foreign nationals remain captive in Gaza, including 28 hostages who have been declared dead and whose bodies are being withheld.
