Amid fears that the war could escalate into a regional conflict, the US launched two strikes on Thursday (Friday in the Middle East) against facilities linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard in eastern Syria, the US defense secretary said. Lloyd Austin, in a statement.

The attacks come after the Pentagon confirmed that at least 21 US soldiers have suffered minor injuries in several drone attacks by pro-Iran militias in Iraq and Syria since October 17.

Additionally, a civilian contractor employed by the United States died of a heart attack while sheltering from pro-Iran attacks, Austin said.

The Pentagon did not offer more details about the possible casualties of its attacks in eastern Syria this Thursday, which it defined as precision bombings in self-defense, but assured that it does not seek conflict nor has “the intention or desire to participate in further hostilities.” “Austin assured.

“We will not hesitate to take the necessary measures to protect our people”

Even so, he warned: “If attacks by Iran's subsidiaries against US forces continue, we will not hesitate to take the necessary measures to protect our people.”

The secretary also made clear that these attacks are not related to the US response to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and called on all countries to avoid taking actions that could contribute to the spread of the war to other regions.

The White House said Thursday that Russian authorities are executing some of their own soldiers for not following orders on the battlefield in Ukraine.. “We have information that the Russian Army has been executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during a press conference.. He added that some Russian commanders have threatened to execute entire units if they retreat in the face of Ukrainian artillery fire.. The spokesman suggested that the news is a symptom of how poorly the country is doing in its invasion of Ukraine, but warned that Moscow still has significant offensive capabilities and could achieve victories in the coming weeks.

The European Union has not been immune to crises, but it does seem to have become accustomed to living with them, even in those in which unity is not as clear as happened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.. That is precisely what is happening regarding the war between Israel and Hamas and with that division on the table the leaders of the 27 met this Thursday at a new summit of the European Council in Brussels.

The goal was to find consensus language to call for a humanitarian response, whether calling it a “pause,” a “humanitarian ceasefire,” or “humanitarian pauses,” plural. There the heads of State and Government ran aground, with harder positions like those of Austria or Germany, and other lighter ones like those of France or Italy.. Finally, the Member States have agreed to request “a pause due to humanitarian needs” in the bombings with the objective “of opening corridors” for the exit of civilians, according to the conclusions.

In the final document, the 27 advocate the “protection of civilians”, as well as the search for a diplomatic solution with a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, they commit to working on the two-state solution, which the EU has defended for decades.. In the last point they also warn of the need to combat the misinformation that exists around the conflict. In the current situation, they are also committed to holding a peace conference “soon”, an idea that Spain has already put on the table.

Sources from the Spanish delegation recognized that emphasis is being placed on the negotiating effort and in this scenario the EU must have a clear position, facing the humanitarian crisis that is occurring and in which aid must be delivered to civilians. affected. The debate was on how: whether with humanitarian pauses, a humanitarian pause or with a ceasefire, always taking into account Israel's right to defend itself in accordance with International Law.. Spain is in favor of a “humanitarian ceasefire”, as the acting president, Pedro Sánchez, has repeated for days.

The Spanish Executive did not give importance to the language but rather to ensuring that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza. The sources defended, however, that the first to speak of this concept is Sánchez, while insisting on the defense of the two States as the most feasible path to peace and that Spain also sees it as closer almost than ever at this time.. Thus, the president has insisted on holding a peace conference between Israel and Palestine “in six months” precisely in Spain, to give a concrete horizon to the resolution of the conflict.

These conclusions provide an answer to what is urgent and important.

The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, assured that “unity is our strength” as the European Union, and from Moncloa they celebrated the agreement. “These conclusions provide an answer to what is urgent and important,” they summarized, while adding that the points “offer a perspective to reach a solution to the conflict” through the “materialization of the two States.”. Likewise, they very gladly welcomed the option of a peace conference, precisely at the proposal of Spain.

Already before the summit, Michel himself assured that the 27 have to avoid “double standards” regarding the situation between Israel and Palestine. “Some in the world use these circumstances to unite part of the international community to attack the EU and raise doubts about our credibility,” said the Belgian leader, while supporting the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, after the criticism received from the Israeli Government.

The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, expressed for her part that the European Parliament “has shown that it is possible to have a united position to denounce the Hamas attacks and denounce the humanitarian situation in Gaza”, because both things, she reiterated, “are not exclusive”. The Maltese leader added that it is “important to send a message of unity” like that seen in other similar situations, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Metsola, in fact, asked leaders to take note of Parliament's position, and also its language. “My appeal will be not to underestimate how difficult and delicate it was to adopt it, but we did it, and we ask other institutions to pay attention to that language,” he said.. Other leaders such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were also optimistic about the agreement, and the latter even defended possible EU mediation in the conflict in the medium term.

Zelensky and Ukraine, in the background

Ukraine has also been on the leaders' agenda, and the meeting in fact took place in parallel with the announcement of the new Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who announced the end of his country's aid to Kiev, something that he had already announced in Campaign. The one who implicitly celebrated this step was the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who met Vladimir Putin in Beijing last week.. “I have a peace strategy,” the Magyar prime minister told reporters, equating the conflict between Israel and Hamas with the Russian invasion.

“Do you support a ceasefire?” journalists asked Orbán. “Between Russia and Ukraine, yes,” he quickly responded, after openly defending his meeting with the Russian president.. “We have a clear and transparent policy that differs from that of the majority. We have to do everything to have peace. That is why we maintain all lines of communication with the Russians, otherwise there will be no chance for peace,” he summarized.. Furthermore, this is the last summit of another of its great partners so far, Mateusz Morawiecki, who will hand over the baton at the head of Poland to Donald Tusk in the coming weeks, depending on the result of the last elections.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also spoke at the start of the summit. He does not want the European Union to forget that Russia continues to invade Ukraine while now all the focus is on the war between Israel and Hamas. Kiev maintains that joining the community bloc is one of its major objectives for the short and medium term, and this was made known this Thursday by the president to the leaders of the 27. “Even despite the large-scale war, we do not ask for exceptions to the general rules,” Zelensky said of the entry.

In this sense, Zelensky had a message for the member states, which are the ones that have the final say on accession.. “We count on your unity in response to the decision to start negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the European Union. This decision will be one of the strongest of this decade and will largely determine the future path” of the Union, he said.. It is almost an all or nothing decision, in the words of the president himself. “Either our entire Europe wins – together with Ukraine, together with Moldova, and in the future together with Georgia and Belarus – or the past will win. “I am sure that you are all on the side of modern Europe,” he concluded, with an implicit message about Vladimir Putin's Russia.

The British Conservative Party MP Crispin Blunt reported this Thursday on his social networks that he was arrested on Wednesday on charges of alleged rape and drug possession. “It has been reported that a deputy was arrested this Wednesday in connection with a rape allegation. I confirm that the deputy was me,” Blunt said on his official X profile, formerly known as Twitter.

According to Blunt, in recent weeks he has already testified on two occasions before the authorities about these events.. The first of them dates back to three weeks ago, a date on which he also stated that he was being “extorted”. “The arrest was unnecessary as I remain willing to cooperate fully with the investigation, which I am sure will end without charges,” added Blunt, who has assured that he will not make any further statements on the matter until the end of the investigation.

The Surrey County Police, in the southeast of the United Kingdom, reported on Wednesday the arrest of a man on suspicion of rape and drug possession who was later released on bail pending further investigations.

The Conservative Party has refused to comment on the situation, alluding to the fact that a judicial investigation is underway.. For the moment, the Tories have suspended Blunt and asked him to stay away from Parliament, reports Sky News.

The United States suffered this Wednesday the deadliest shooting so far this year, one of the worst in the country's recent history and the deadliest in the state of Maine. At least 18 people were killed and 13 injured in two mass attacks that took place in the city of Lewiston. The events occurred at the Sparetime Recreation bowling alley and at the Schemengees Bar & Grille restaurant shortly before seven in the afternoon (around one in the morning in mainland Spain) and were perpetrated by the same person.. The alleged perpetrator was identified as Robert Card and his whereabouts are unknown, according to security forces.

During a press conference held this Thursday afternoon, in which police officers and the state governor, Janet Mills, appeared, Dr. John Alexander, director of the Central Maine Health Center, confirmed that 15 people arrived at the hospital after the events. Eight of them remain admitted to the center, of which five are stable and three are in critical condition.. Of the total number of those initially admitted, three died, two were transferred to other health centers and two others were sent home.

The alleged perpetrator has been charged with eight murders so far, as police are still trying to identify the remaining ten fatalities.. As reported by the American press, Card was born in April 1983 in the nearby town of Bowdoin and is a US Army reservist.. He had a firearms handling instructor certificate and also suffered from mental health problems.. In fact, this summer he spent two weeks in a mental health facility after exhibiting an “erratic attitude” while at the West Point Military Academy in New York.. Specifically, he would have threatened to carry out a shooting at the National Guard base in Saco, also in Maine.. The North American press adds that the suspect had reported “hearing voices.”

After the shootings, a large police deployment was ordered, in which local, state and federal agents participated.. Agents from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and even Special Forces SWAT teams are also collaborating in the search operation for the suspect, who is feared could flee to Canada.

According to reports, investigators are analyzing his cell phone signals, as well as his social networks and other electronic records, in order to discover his whereabouts.. The FBI would also have made available professionals who are experts in human behavior to determine the next movements of the alleged perpetrator of the events, according to the American press.

Card's family has urged him to surrender and turn himself in.. His brother Ryan has sent a statement to the CNN television network in which he assures that “they have collaborated with the authorities in every possible way.”

Because the suspect, described as “armed and dangerous”, has not yet been located by the authorities, the Government of Maine has ordered the confinement of citizens residing in Lewiston, Lisbon and Bowdoin. Businesses and schools in the three towns have closed and in Portland, the state's main city, classes have also been cancelled.

According to data collected by The Gun Violence Archive, an organization that documents gun violence in the US, this is the mass shooting with the highest number of fatalities this year in the country, where 565 armed attacks have been recorded in 2023, including this one. .

Volodimir Zelensky does not want the European Union to forget that Russia continues to invade Ukraine while now all the focus is on the war between Israel and Hamas. Kiev maintains that adhesion to the community bloc is one of its major objectives for the short and medium term, and this was made known this Thursday by the president to the leaders of the 27 at the beginning of the European Council summit.. “Even despite the large-scale war, we do not ask for exceptions to the general rules,” Zelensky said of the entry.

“Each nation's path to the EU is a work based on merit and institutional development. Ukraine is doing this work,” the Ukrainian leader summarized by videoconference, also ensuring that his country “has practically implemented seven recommendations of the European Commission: both the simplest solutions and the difficult ones for politicians.”. Regarding this, in fact, it is expected that within about 10 days the Community Executive will publish reports on the progress of the candidate countries, including, of course, Ukraine.

In this sense, Zelensky had a message for the member states, which are the ones that have the final say on accession.. “We count on your unity in response to the decision to start negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the European Union. This decision will be one of the strongest of this decade and will largely determine the future path” of the Union, he said.. It is almost an all or nothing decision, in the words of the president himself. “Either our entire Europe wins – together with Ukraine, together with Moldova, and in the future together with Georgia and Belarus – or the past will win. “I am sure that you are all on the side of modern Europe,” he concluded, with an implicit message about Vladimir Putin's Russia.

In this context, Zelensky has taken several new steps. On the one hand, it has signed a new law that strengthens financial control and the fight against corruption, precisely to get closer to the reforms that the European Commission demands of Ukraine.. Likewise, he held a conversation with the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, in which he demanded that the Western allies continue to provide weapons to Kiev in its counteroffensive against Moscow.

And Ukraine has also been on the agenda of the leaders of the 27, and the meeting in fact took place in parallel with the announcement of the new Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who announced the end of his country's aid to Kiev, something that had already been announced in the campaign. The one who implicitly celebrated this step was the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who met Vladimir Putin in Beijing last week.. “I have a peace strategy,” the Magyar prime minister told reporters, equating the conflict between Israel and Hamas with the Russian invasion.

The enlargement of the EU is a debate that has been reopened in recent months and the Granada summit a few weeks ago laid the foundations for at least the message that we want to convey from Brussels. There is no desire to establish a calendar and the institutions insist that it is a “merit-based” process.. All in all, the summary is very clear: “The EU has to be ready when the candidate countries are ready.”

While the bombings fall incessantly in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian situation worsens by the moment, the world holds its breath before Israel's announced ground offensive. The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu assured this Wednesday that sooner or later it would enter the Palestinian enclave with the aim of “eradicating” Hamas, the Islamist organization that governs Gaza.. In a televised message, the president acknowledged that the operation was being delayed and voices from the High Command of the Israeli Army confirmed that it was due to “strategic issues.”. However, a few hours later, several battle tanks crossed the fence in what they called a first “selective raid.”. The invasion could be getting closer.

During the early morning operation this Thursday, both the Givati infantry brigade and the Israeli 162nd Armored Division entered Gaza territory in an incursion “of a few hours” that will serve as a prelude to the “next stages of the combat,” this said. Thursday Israeli Army spokesman Daniel Hagari. “Overnight the Israel Defense Forces carried out a targeted raid using tanks in the northern Gaza Strip, as part of preparations for the next stages of combat,” he said.

In the video published by Israel, you can see how several tanks break the border fence, shoot and explosions occur near buildings.. In the operation, which according to Hagari went within a kilometer of the border and concluded without any wounded soldier, “numerous terrorists, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launching points were located and attacked,” explained the military spokesman, who acknowledged that his forces “operated to prepare the battlefield” and then “left the area.”

Within the framework of the daily bombings, Israel has claimed to have killed the “number two” of the Hamas Intelligence Directorate, Shadi Barud, who was considered the intellectual co-author of the attacks on October 7.. According to Tel Aviv, its fighter jets have attacked “more than 250 targets”, including “operational command centers, tunnels and rocket launchers located in the heart of civilian areas”, from where the Army alleged that the militias fired throughout the war. In this sense, the Jewish State has also acknowledged having killed a senior Hamas official who was leading the rocket launching operations from the town of Khan Yunis, located in the south of the Strip.

The Palestinian militias in Gaza launch rockets from the Strip daily, although many of them do not reach their destination as they are repelled by the Iron Dome, the Israeli defense system.. This Thursday, for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, they headed towards the city of Eilat, in southern Israel.. In addition, Hamas has confirmed that 50 hostages have died “due to Israeli bombings”. Information that has not been verified by any other organization.

“There is no safe place in Gaza”

Since Israel declared war against Hamas in response to the attacks that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead and 224 kidnapped, airstrikes have killed more than 7,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Hamas itself.. Among those killed in the Strip there are at least 2,913 children and 397 elderly. In addition, the Islamist organization recognizes that there are at least 1,650 people missing under the rubble, of which 940 are minors.

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which does not govern the enclave due to its dispute with Hamas, recognizes that some 200,000 homes were partially or totally destroyed by Israeli bombings on Gaza.. That is, 25% of the populated area has become rubble.

The data coming out of the enclave is difficult to verify, since Israel does not allow international journalists to enter Gaza. In just two and a half weeks of conflict, 23 local journalists have died due to bombings in both Gaza and southern Lebanon (where there are also bombings between the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Israel).

The Israeli prime minister reiterated this Wednesday that all Gazan civilians had to leave the north of the Strip, as he did at the beginning of the conflict.. However, international organizations insist that there are no security conditions for this and Amnesty International affirms that this policy of forced displacement could be a war crime.. Likewise, in the south of the enclave, where the population is asked to take refuge, Israeli bombings continue to occur daily.

The United Nations stated this Thursday that “there is no safe place in Gaza” in the face of Israeli bombings. “For people who cannot move, because they have nowhere to go or because they cannot move, advance warnings (from Israel) make no difference,” said the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lynn Hastings. “When evacuation routes are bombed, when people in the north and south are trapped by hostilities, when goods essential for survival are in short supply and when there are no guarantees of return, people face impossible choices,” he said.

The humanitarian crisis is worsening due to the total cutoff of water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel by Israel. The Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed this Thursday the entry of another humanitarian aid convoy from Egypt. A total of 74 trucks with humanitarian assistance have crossed the Rafah crossing, although, for the moment, no fuel supply has yet been provided.