Netanyahu responds to Nasrallah threat: Will deal ‘crushing blow’ if Hezbollah attacks

(Worthy News) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned the Hezbollah terror group that Israel would deal a “crushing” blow to Lebanon if it attacks, two days after the organization’s leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel could be “wiped out” during a potential war between the United States and Iran.

“Over the weekend we heard Nasrallah’s arrogant words about his attack plans,” Netanyahu said at the outset of the weekly cabinet meeting. “Let me be clear that if Hezbollah dares to commit an act of stupidity and attack Israel — we will deal it and Lebanon a crushing military blow. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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Two more F-35 fighter jets land in Israel, bringing IAF’s declared total to 16

(Worthy News) – Two F-35 fighter jets landed in Israel Sunday, the army said, bringing the number of fifth-generation stealth aircraft that the military says it has in its arsenal up to 16.

The Israel Defense Forces’ first two F-35 jets arrived in December 2016. Approximately a year later, the stealth fighter — known in Israel as the Adir — was declared operational, and several months after that, the head of the air force revealed that the aircraft had conducted bombing raids, making Israel the first country to acknowledge using the planes operationally.

“The capabilities of the Adir Squadron add another tier to the operational and strategic capabilities of the air force, which ensures the air force’s superiority in all its missions, namely the protection and safety of the State of Israel’s skies,” the IDF said in a statement. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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Senior Hamas official calls on members of Palestinian diaspora to kill Jews

(Worthy News) – A senior Hamas official has urged members of the Palestinian diaspora to kill Jews around the world.

Fathi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s politburo who is considered a hard-liner and is known for his fiery rhetoric, made the statement in a speech at a protest in the border region between the Gaza Strip and Israel on Friday.

“Our patience has run out. We are on the verge of exploding. If this siege is not undone, we will explode in the face of our enemies, with God’s permission and glory. The explosion is not only going to be in Gaza but also in the [West] Bank and abroad, if God wills,” Hamad said, referring to significant Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods between Israel and Gaza. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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France, Britain and Germany say risks Iran nuclear deal could collapse

(Worthy News) – France, Britain and Germany said on Sunday they were preoccupied by the escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf region and a risk of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal falling apart, calling for dialog between all the parties to resume.

The European nations said in a joint statement that following renewed sanctions by the United States on Iran, and Iran’s decision to no longer respect some of its obligations, the deal signed on this day four years ago could collapse.

“The risks are such that it is necessary for all stakeholders to pause, and consider the possible consequences of their actions,” the joint statement released by the French president’s office said. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

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New York City Power Outage Leaves 73,000, and Times Square, Without Electricity

(Worthy News) – On the anniversary of a 1977 blackout that hit most of New York City, a massive power outage brought the curtain down on Broadway shows and stalled traffic on Manhattan streets. Underground, the power outage affecting 73,000 customers for hours also left the subway system in disarray.

Con Edison CEO John McAvoy said a problem at a substation caused the 6:47 p.m. power failure, which stretched 30 blocks from Times Square to 72nd Street and Broadway and spread to Rockefeller Center. Electricity was restored to customers and businesses in midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side by around midnight, according to a statement from the utility.

McAvoy said the exact cause of the blackout would not be known until an investigation is completed. [ Source: Time (Read More…) ]

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China’s GDP growth slumps to 27-year low amid trade war with US

(Worthy News) – The Chinese economy has suffered a loss of momentum in the second quarter, with the GDP falling to 6.2 % from a 6.4 % expansion in the first three months of the year, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday.

The growth rate, the slowest since at least 1992, reflects growing pressure on the world’s second-largest economy as a Sino-US trade war drags on and demand for Chinese goods slackens in the rest of the world.

“Economic conditions are still severe both at home and abroad, global economic growth is slowing down and the external instabilities and uncertainties are increasing,” said NBS spokesman Mao Shengyong. [ Source: Deutche Welle (Read More…) ]

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Anti-Christian Wave in Europe Seems Coupled with Antisemitic Wave

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Anti-Christian vandalism is spiking in Europe, where investigators found a surprising culprit to the rising number of church attacks and desecrations of religious symbols in France and other historic bastions of Christianity.

Richard Bernstein, writing for RealClearInvestigations, headed to France to interview residents about the climate that has led to a quadrupling of anti-Christian incidents between 2008 and 2019, according to the French Ministry of the Interior.

“It’s safe to say that there are many attacks that have nothing to do with extremist groups,” Ellen Fantini, head of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, told Bernstein, with Bernstein himself uncovering evidence that Muslim immigrants “account for [only] a small fraction of anti-Christian crimes.”

Most of the culprits—60%—were surprisingly native French youth, with the rest either homeless or disgruntled lone actors with a score to settle against the church.

“There is a mood against the church, against faith…there is a discourse against the church [in French culture and media],” Father Joseph Dequick, a priest in Lavour—where two boys were found guilty of a church arson—told Bernstein.

The trend seems to be coupled with a rise in antisemitic violence, with French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has reported a 74% spike in antisemitic incidents between 2017 and 2018 in February.

Across the English channel, the U.K., which also experienced a slew of church arsons over the past few years, recorded its highest number of antisemitic incidents in 2018, a 16% increase from 2017’s total, “which was itself a record annual total,” according to Community Security Trust.

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Netanyahu’s Claim that Iran Performed ‘Clean-Up’ Job At Covert Nuclear Site Confirmed by IAEA

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) test at a claimed Iranian nuclear site yielded signs of radioactivity, thus proving the site was used for storage of illicit nuclear materials, according to Israeli sources.

The site, which Iran had claimed was a carpet factory, became the object of scrutiny in an address to the UN by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last September, who said Israeli intelligence possessed evidence the Iranians had removed 33 pounds of undocumented enriched uranium from the site in August 2018.

According to Israeli officials who spoke with Axios, the IAEA confirmed through tests of soil samples at the site conducted over the past several months what Israeli intelligence had already known: The Iranians had attempted in August of last year to surreptitiously scrub the site of illicit materials before UN inspectors arrived.

In a further development, on Friday the House of Representatives voted to prevent Trump from executing military strikes on Iran without congressional authorization, revoking the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which legalized Operation Iraqi Freedom under President George W. Bush.

Any military operation will henceforth have to enjoy bipartisan support in a Democrat-led House in order for congress to approve it, slating the forthcoming UN report on the IAEA’s tests at the covert Iranian site to become just the evidence the Trump administration needs to wage a legal war against Iran.

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