Israel is arming local militias in Gaza in an effort to counter Hamas in the besieged enclave, officials say, as opposition politicians warned that the move endangers national security.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the covert enterprise on Thursday, calling it “a good thing.” In a video posted on social media, Netanyahu said Israel had “activated clans in Gaza which oppose Hamas,” and that it was done “under the advice of security elements.”

Former defense minister and Netanyahu rival Avigdor Liberman divulged the move on Israel’s Ch. 12 News on Wednesday, saying that Israel was distributing rifles to extremist groups in Gaza and describing the operation as “complete madness.”

“We’re talking about the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza,” Liberman said one day later on Israel’s Army Radio, adding that Israel is providing weapons to “crime families in Gaza on Netanyahu’s orders.”

Meanwhile, Hamas said the plan revealed “a grave and undeniable truth.” In a statement, the militant group said: “The Israeli occupation army is arming criminal gangs in the Gaza Strip with the aim of creating a state of insecurity and social chaos.”

One group that has received weapons from Israel is the militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab, officials said. Abu Shabab heads an armed group that controls some territory in eastern Rafah and he has posted photos of himself holding an AK-47 rifle with UN vehicles behind him. Though Abu Shabab has denied receiving weapons from Israel, Hamas has accused him of being a “traitor.”

“We pledge before God to continue confronting the dens of that criminal and his gang, no matter the cost of the sacrifices we make,” Hamas said on Thursday.

Opposition politicians ripped Netanyahu for the plan to arm militias and the secrecy around it, lambasting it as a continuation of the Israeli leader’s decision to allow millions of dollars in cash to travel from Qatar to Gaza beginning in late 2018. They accused him of strengthening Hamas in the past as an alternative to the rival Palestinian Fatah faction, and now arming gangs as an alternative to Hamas.

“After Netanyahu finished handing over millions of dollars to Hamas, he moved on to supplying weapons to groups in Gaza affiliated with ISIS – all improvised, with no strategic planning, and all leading to more disasters,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said on social media.

Netanyahu has not laid out a plan for who will govern Gaza in the future and has hardly made clear any of his post-war intentions for the coastal enclave. Part of Israel’s war goals include the complete disarmament of Hamas and the end of its ability to govern in the territory.

The arming of militias in Gaza appears to be the closest that Netanyahu has come to empowering any form of alternate rule.

Despite nearly 20 months of war, Israel has not been able to dislodge Hamas completely from large swaths of Gaza, and the militant group – classified as a terrorist organization in Israel, the United States, and the European Union – has clung to power.

Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Democrats party, said in a post on social media: “Instead of bringing about a deal, making arrangements with the moderate Sunni axis, and returning the hostages and security to Israeli citizens, he is creating a new ticking bomb in Gaza.”

Ukraine’s shock drone strike on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet this week has generals and analysts taking a new look at threats to high-value United States aircraft at bases in the homeland and abroad – and the situation is worrisome.

“It’s an eyebrow-raising moment,” Gen. David Allvin, the US Air Force chief of staff, said at a defense conference in Washington on Tuesday, adding that the US is vulnerable to similar attacks.

By “unhardened,” Shugart means there aren’t enough shelters in which US warplanes can be parked that are tough enough to protect them from airstrikes, be it from drones or missiles.

Ukrainian military officials said 41 Russian aircraft were hit in last Sunday’s attacks, including strategic bombers and surveillance planes, with some destroyed and others damaged.

Later analysis shows at least 12 planes destroyed or damaged, and reviews of satellite imagery were continuing.

The Ukrainian operation used drones smuggled into Russian territory, hidden in wooden mobile houses atop trucks and driven close to four Russian air bases, according to Ukrainian sources.

Once near the bases, the roofs of the mobile houses were remotely opened, and the drones deployed to launch their strikes.

The Russian planes were sitting uncovered on the tarmac at the bases, much as US warplanes are at facilities at home and abroad.

“We’ve got a lot of high-value assets that are extraordinarily expensive,” McChrystal said.

The Ukrainians said their attacks destroyed $7 billion worth of Russian aircraft. By comparison, a single US Air Force B-2 bomber costs $2 billion. And the US has only 20 of them.

Shugart co-authored a report for the Hudson Institute in January highlighting the threat to US military installations from China in the event of any conflict between the superpowers.

“People’s Liberation Army (PLA) strike forces of aircraft, ground-based missile launchers, surface and subsurface vessels, and special forces can attack US aircraft and their supporting systems at airfields globally, including in the continental United States,” Shugart and fellow author Timothy Walton wrote.

War game simulations and analyses show “the overwhelming majority of US aircraft losses would likely occur on the ground at airfields (and that the losses could be ruinous),” Shugart and Walton wrote.

A report from Air and Space Forces magazine last year pointed out that Anderson Air Force Base on the Pacific island of Guam – perhaps the US’ most important air facility in the Pacific – which has hosted rotations of those $2 billion B-2 bombers, as well as B-1 and B-52 bombers, has no hardened shelters.

Allvin, the USAF chief of staff, admitted the problem on Tuesday.

“Right now, I don’t think it’s where we need to be,” Allvin told a conference of the CNAS.

McChrystal said the US must look at how to protect its bases and the aircraft on them but also how it monitors the areas around those facilities.

“It widens the spectrum of the threats you’ve got to deal with,” McChrystal said.

The cost of ‘playing defense’

But all that costs money, and Allvin said that presents the US with a budget dilemma.

Does it spend defense dollars on hardened shelters and ways to stop drones and missiles from attacking US bases, or does it use more resources on offensive weapons that take the fight to the enemy?

“If all we are doing is playing defense and can’t shoot back, then that’s not a good use of our money,” Allvin told the CNAS conference.

“We’ve always known that hardening our bases is something we needed to do,” Allvin said, but other items have been given budget priority.

Hardened aircraft shelters aren’t flashy and are unlikely to generate the headlines of other defense projects, including planes like the new B-21 bombers, each of which is expected to cost around $700 million.

And US President Donald Trump said recently the Air Force will build a new stealth fighter, the F-47, with an initial cost of $300 million per aircraft.

“The F-47 is an amazing aircraft, but it’s going to die on the ground if we don’t protect it,” Allvin said.

Meanwhile, a hardened shelter costs around $30 million, according to Shugart and Walton.

Last month Trump revealed another form of air defense for the US mainland, the Golden Dome missile shield, expected to cost at least $175 billion.

Despite the huge price tag, it’s designed to counter long-range threats, like intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from a different hemisphere.

Vastness as a weakness

In Russia’s case, the vastness of its territory was seen as a strength in its war with Ukraine. One of the air bases hit in Ukraine’s Operation “Spiderweb” was closer to Tokyo than Kyiv.

But now Russia’s size is a weakness, writes David Kirichenko on the Ukraine Watch blog of the Atlantic Council.

Every border crossing may be an infiltration point; every cargo container on every highway or rail line must be treated with suspicion.

“This is a logistical nightmare,” Kirichenko said.

And there is a direct analogy to the United States.

US Air Force bomber bases are usually well inland, but accessible to vehicles large and small.

For instance, all 20 B-2 bombers are stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. It’s about 600 miles from the nearest coastline, the Gulf of Mexico, but only about 25 miles south of Interstate 70, one of the main east-west traffic arteries in the US, with thousands of commercial vehicles passing by daily.

Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, one of the homes of US B-1 bombers, sits just south of another major east-west commercial artery, Interstate 20.

“Think of all the containers and illegal entrants inside our borders,” said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

“That connection will trigger alarm in some US circles,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific, even better US offensive firepower, like Gen. Allvin would like to have, might not be enough in the event of a conflict with China.

That’s because the PLA has made a concerted effort to protect its aircraft during its massive military buildup under leader Xi Jinping, according to the Hudson Institute report.

China has more than 650 hardened aircraft shelters at airfields within 1,150 miles of the Taiwan Strait, the report says.

But Shugart and Walton argue the best move Washington could make would be to make Beijing build more – by improving US strike capabilities in Asia.

“In response the… PLA would likely continue to spend funds on additional costly passive and active defense measures and in turn would have less to devote to alternative investments, including strike and other power projection capabilities,” they said.

Mexican prosecutors are investigating a widely shared surveillance video of the former boss of murdered woman carrying a suspicious bundle up a flight of stairs.

Lorena Jacqueline Morales, who lived in the city of León in the central state of Guanajuato and worked at a food store, was reported missing by her family on May 23, according to authorities.

The 28-year-old’s body was found on Tuesday, June 3, inside a suitcase, according to prosecutors. Her murder has shocked the country and has underscored violence against women in Mexico.

Prosecutors arrested the alleged perpetrator, her former boss, that same day.

The surveillance video showed Morales’ former boss going into an apartment building and climbing a flight of stairs with a covered-up object. Later, the man is seen next to a car struggling to load a heavy suitcase into the trunk.

The timestamp in the upper left corner of the video suggests it was filmed on May 22. It’s unclear what happened before and after the footage was recorded.

Guanajuato Gov. Libia Dennise García Muñoz said the case should be investigated as a femicide.

Mexico has long struggled with high levels of both homicide and violence against women.

While not all homicides involving women are femicides, many are. In 2020, a quarter of female killings in Mexico were investigated as femicides, with cases reported in each one of Mexico’s 32 states, according to Amnesty International.

Last year, there were 847 reported cases of femicide nationwide – and 162 in the first three months of this year, according to Mexican government figures.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 summit in Alberta later this month, an invitation Modi accepted despite strained ties between the countries.

The countries expelled each other’s top diplomats last year over the killing of a Sikh Canadian activist in Canada and allegations of other crimes.

The invitation prompted anger from the World Sikh Organization of Canada, which wrote to Carney in May asking him not to invite Modi. Tensions remain high between Canada and India over accusations about Indian government agents being involved in the murder of a Canadian activist for Sikh separatism in British Columbia in 2023.

Carney extended the invitation to Modi in a phone call between the two leaders on Friday. The summit runs from June 15 to 17.

Carney noted Canada is in the role of G7 chair and said there are important discussions that India should be a part of.

“India is the fifth-largest economy in the world, the most populous country in the world and central to supply chains,” Carney told reporters, adding that there has been some progress on law enforcement dialogue between the two countries.

“I extended the invitation to Prime Minister Modi and, in that context, he has accepted,” Carney said.

Carney said there is a legal process underway in the killing of the Canadian Sikh activist and said he would not comment on the case, when asked by a reporter if he thought Modi was involved.

The tit-for-tat expulsions came after Canada told India that its top diplomat in the country is a person of interest in the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and that police have uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government.

Modi said he was glad to receive a call from Carney and congratulated him on his recent election victory.

“As vibrant democracies bound by deep people-to-people ties, India and Canada will work together with renewed vigour, guided by mutual respect and shared interests. Look forward to our meeting at the summit,” Modi said in a social media statement.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Nijjar’s murder.

Balpreet Singh, legal counsel and spokesperson for the World Sikh Organization of Canada, called Carney’s invitation to Modi a “betrayal of Canadian values.”

“The summit to which Mr. Modi is being invited falls on the anniversary of the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar two years ago,” he said. “So for us, this is unacceptable, it’s shocking and it’s a complete reversal of the principled stand that Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau had taken.”

Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil.

In 2023 US prosecutors said an Indian government official directed a failed plot to assassinate another Sikh separatist leader in New York.

Russia bombarded Ukraine’s second-largest city with massive strikes in the early hours of Saturday, its mayor said, one night after Moscow carried out one of the war’s largest aerial assaults on Ukraine.

Russia has conducted extensive attacks on Ukraine in recent days, in what is being viewed as retaliation for an audacious drone operation by Kyiv that debilitated more than a third of Moscow’s strategic cruise missile carriers.

The northeastern city of Kharkiv – which sits about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Russian border – was shaken by “at least 40 explosions” on Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding more than a dozen, according to a Telegram post by Mayor Igor Terekhov.

“Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the start of the full-scale war,” Terekhov said. “The enemy is striking simultaneously with missiles, (drones) and guided aerial bombs. This is outright terror against peaceful Kharkiv.”

Video released by emergency services showed a large fire burning in a multi-story apartment block in the Osnovyanskyi district in the city’s southwest, where Terekhov said two people had died.

One person was also killed in a strike that hit a house in the Kyivskyi district to the north, he said.

A day earlier, in the apparent retaliation to Ukraine’s drone swarm, Russia launched a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles across broad swaths of Ukraine, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others.

“They gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night,” US President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late on Friday.

Trump had earlier warned Russian retaliation was imminent, after speaking with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear if Putin intends to further escalate Moscow’s retaliation.

Trump is eager to bring an end to the three-year war, but has been reluctant to impose new sanctions on Russia while the US pushes the warring nations to strike a ceasefire deal.

On Friday, he said he will use further sanctions against Russia “if necessary.”

“If I think Russia will not be making a deal or stopping the bloodshed… I’ll use it if it’s necessary,” he told reporters.

Officials from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul on Monday for a second round of peace talks, but the meeting lasted barely over an hour and the only real outcome was an agreement to work towards another prisoner swap.

The body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who was abducted alive during the October 7 attacks was recovered from southern Gaza in a military operation on Friday, according to a statement from the Israeli military and the Shin Bet security service.

The announcement comes just days after Israel recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages from Gaza.

Pinta, 35, was taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel where he had been working in agriculture, according to an Israeli military official, who said it is estimated that he was killed during the first months of captivity. Pinta was a husband and father working in Israel to support his family in Thailand, the official said.

“We will not rest until all the hostages, living and deceased, are returned home,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

Pinta was abducted by the Mujahideen, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, a militant group that took part in the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack on Israel. The IDF said it is the same organization that kidnapped the Bibas family and killed Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, the mother and two young sons who became the most prominent among Hamas’ captives.

Earlier this week, Israel announced that the bodies of Judy Winston-Haggai, 70, and Gadi Haggai, 72, were recovered from southern Gaza. The two were also taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz. The couple had four children and seven grandchildren.

The retrieval of Pinta’s body comes with an intense Israeli operation underway in Gaza, with the Civil Defense reporting at least 38 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Friday.

The IDF said four soldiers were killed and five wounded early Friday morning when an explosive was detonated in a building in Khan Younis in which they were operating, causing part of the structure to collapse.

A total of 55 hostages remain in Gaza, including one taken in 2014. Twenty are believed to still be alive.

Of the 251 people taken hostage by Hamas militants on October 7, many were migrant workers from poor rural parts of Asia, who had gone to work in Israel’s agricultural, construction and health care sectors to send money back home.

Four people were killed in an “extremely violent” blaze seemingly caused by a battery-powered electric scooter that tore through a 10-story housing block in Reims, the capital of France’s Champagne region, authorities said Saturday.

A 13-year-old jumped to his death from the 4th floor apartment where the fire started in the early hours of Friday and a burned body found inside is believed to be that of his older brother, aged 15, said Reims prosecutor François Schneider.

An 87-year-old woman and her 59-year-old son who lived on the 8th floor suffocated to death in the smoke, he said.

Two people were seriously injured, including the dead boys’ stepfather who was badly burned, and 26 others were treated in hospital for lighter injuries, he said.

Schneider said there is “no doubt” that the blaze was accidental, spreading quickly from the scooter that caught fire for reasons unknown.

Battery fires “are extremely difficult to extinguish” and fire officers battled the blaze for more than three hours, the prosecutor said.