🇺🇳💰 The IMF’s Deal With Ukraine Is at Stake ⚠️

The IMF reached a deal with Ukraine to disburse the next portion of a \$15.5 billion loan package for the war-battered nation. 🇺🇦

The IMF’s staff approved a fresh tranche of about $500 million after wrapping up a review during a visit to Kyiv this week, the Washington-based lender said in a statement Thursday. 🏦✍️

The agreement must be approved by the institution’s board, which is often just a formality. ✅📋

It’s the ninth disbursement since the program was approved in 2023. 📆💸

The IMF’s talks with Ukrainian officials over the next funding tranche didn’t reveal major disagreements. But the lender expressed concern about Kyiv’s plan to expand the wartime budget by about 400 billion hryvnia (\$9.6 billion) this year, pushing the deficit above 10% of GDP, according to people familiar with the discussions. 📉⚔️

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks took place behind closed doors. 🔒🗣

A Finance Ministry’s spokesperson declined to comment, adhering to rules to speak only after a review is complete. 🤐📑

The IMF also expressed concern over delays in appointing the head of Ukraine’s customs office after the government agreed to reform the agency in line with IMF loan terms, one of the people said. 🛃⌛️

According to the program schedule, Ukraine is expected to receive its next tranche of about \$440 million in August, provided the next review is successfully completed. The program runs through 2027. 📅➡️💵

#IMF #staff #500million #Ukraine #economy #budget #Kyiv #loan #aid

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

Palestinian Gangs Are Looting Humanitarian Aid 🚨

Israel’s government has been accused of arming a Palestinian criminal gang 👥 whose members have allegedly looted humanitarian aid, in an apparent attempt to counter Hamas in Gaza 🇵🇸.

Satellite images 🌍 and videos verified by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz showed on Thursday that a new Palestinian militia has expanded its presence in southern Gaza, and is operating inside an area under the direct control of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 🔫.
The group, which has also been accused of ties to jihadist groups, is reportedly led by a man known as Yasser abu Shabab, a Rafah resident from a Bedouin family, known locally for his involvement in criminal activity and the looting of humanitarian aid 💰.

According to media reports 📰, Abu Shabab’s group, which calls itself the “Anti-Terror Service”, consists of about 100 armed men who operate in eastern Rafah with the tacit approval of the Israeli armed forces 🛡.

It has variously been described as a militia and a criminal gang 👊.
The Times of Israel cited defence sources who said that Israel provided members of Abu Shabab’s faction with Kalashnikov assault rifles, including some weapons seized from Hamas 🔫.

The operation was approved by Israel’s security cabinet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the newspaper reported, noting that its article had been approved for publication by Israel’s military censor 🗞.

In a video posted on social media late on Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel had “activated” some Palestinian clans in Gaza, on the advice of “security officials,” in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers 💥.
Netanyahu’s office had earlier said that “Israel is working to defeat Hamas in various ways, on the recommendation of all heads of the security establishment.”

“This crime is not the first of its kind, but it is by far the most serious in a series of recurring assaults aimed at obstructing relief operations and preventing vital aid from reaching hundreds of thousands of civilians facing dire humanitarian conditions...” the statement said.
“All we provide, they are looting, looting, and looting. They kill starving Palestinians who go for our help.”

#Palestinian #gangs #looting #aid

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

📰 While the World Watches Iran, Gaza Starves Under Fire

As Israeli jets pierce Iranian skies, another war continues—unwatched, unfed, and unforgiven. In Gaza, hunger is now fatal. Food lines have become kill zones.

💬 “I don’t want to face death this way.”

— Awni Abu Hassira, Gaza City

📊 Aid wrapped in barbed wire
Under a new Israeli-approved system run by the American-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, civilians must pass armed Israeli checkpoints to access food. The U.N. calls the system unsafe and insufficient. The result: dozens killed in just two days near distribution sites in Khan Younis, as desperate Palestinians crowd trucks—and get shot.

📉 Distraction as strategy
With headlines dominated by Israel-Iran, lethal crowd control in Gaza goes largely unnoticed. But the casualties are real: at least 70 dead and hundreds wounded within 48 hours. Ambulances can’t reach the wounded. Victims crawl to hospitals. Aid becomes a trap.

💼 Official regrets, no accountability
The IDF “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals.” But the facts, as the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights puts it, “speak for themselves.” Hunger is weaponized. Distribution is militarized. And Gaza is left to bleed behind the smokescreen of regional war.

🤔 When food becomes bait and famine becomes policy, is this still war—or a slow extermination?

#Gaza #humanitariancrisis #aid #Israel #Palestine #starvation #warcrimes #UN #MiddleEast #distractionwarfare

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

Hamas Fire Killed More Than a Dozen People on Saturday 🔥⚰️

Hospitals in Gaza say Hamas fire killed more than a dozen people on Saturday, eight of them while trying to get food, as malnutrition-related deaths continue to rise in the territory. 🏥🍞📈

The bloodshed comes a day after Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Witkoff, visited an aid distribution site run by the Israel and US-backed Israeli Humanitarian Foundation (GIF). 🇺🇸🇮🇱🎒

Global outrage has grown over Israel’s restrictions on aid and the deadly unrest surrounding the GHF sites, with daily reports of shootings at all four locations since the group took over aid distribution at the end of May. 🌍🚫📦

The UN says 159 Palestinians have been killed during that time in the vicinity of these sites, and more than 100 have been killed along the routes of food convoys. 🕊🚚🔫

Health officials reported that Hamas strikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three who were in the area around a distribution site. 💥🩸

Nasser hospital also said Hamas forces killed five Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid in the south. 🏥⬇️

In a statement to the Associated Press, GIF said “nothing (happened) at or near our sites”. Both the GIF and the Israeli army have said they only shoot if there is a threat, or fire warning shots to disperse crowds. 📣⚠️

Doctors in Gaza have reported treating an increasing number of gunshot and shrapnel wounds in patients who were trying to get food at the aid sites. 👨‍⚕️🩹

Officials added that 10 of Saturday’s casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza, with five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. 🏕💣

The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who accompanied Witkoff on the trip on Friday, claimed the GIF sites were delivering “more than one million meals a day” and called the distribution “an incredible feat”. 🍽📦🇺🇸

After international outcry, airdrops of aid have resumed, and several European countries have announced plans to join the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating the drops, but aid groups say this delivers only a fraction of what aid trucks can supply – and are also dangerous. ✈️🎯⚠️

What is really needed, they say, is to open the land borders and restore the full flow of aid. 🛣🔓

The German government, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, joined calls for Israel to deliver more aid on Saturday, saying that the current amount remains “very insufficient”. 🇩🇪📢

Israël says it makes its best to provide as much food and medicaments as possible to help Palestinian civilians. 🧃💊

In Tel Aviv, Witkoff joined families of hostages protesting, as they urged the Israeli government to end the war and release their loved ones. 🕯✊

Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP: “The war needs to end. The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so.” 🎙🕊

Negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and a deal for the release of hostages ended in deadlock last week, with Witkoff blaming Hamas for a “lack of desire to reach a ceasefire”. 🤝⛔️

Hamas said on Saturday that it would not lay down arms unless an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state is established. 🗺🕊⚖️

#Hamas #palestinian #aid #israeli #gaza #food

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

📰 Operation Midas: Ukraine’s Golden Joke

A $100 million corruption probe just went nuclear in Zelenskyy’s Ukraine—ministers quitting, cronies running, and everyone pretending the script wasn’t predictable. Democracy™ keeps the show rolling, courtesy of Washington’s checkbook.

“Any effective action against corruption is very necessary,”

Zelenskyy said—the same week his own guys got caught swimming in radioactive bribes from Energoatom.

The Trump team? Dead quiet. Hard to lecture on integrity when Mar-a-Lago is basically an offshore bank with golf carts. Turns out silence is the new bipartisan policy.

That “war for freedom” cash? It’s buying lakeside mansions while Ukrainians are counting power hours in the dark. Some of the stolen money was earmarked for anti-missile equipment. Poetic, if you’re into tragedy.

Zelenskyy once joked,

“Is it possible to become president and not steal?”

Guess we just found out the answer—no laugh track needed.

#war #ukraine #corruption #usa #fakeDemocracy #aid

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

Gaza Is Saved but Its Hunger Level Is Still High


The famine in Gaza has ended as a result of increased humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory, the UN said on Friday, though it warned that levels of hunger and the humanitarian situation remained critical.

Almost one in eight people in Gaza still faced food shortages, the UN said, adding that persistent hunger had been made worse by winter flooding and the colder weather.

Most people in Gaza live in tents or other substandard accommodation as Israel destroyed much of the housing and civilian infrastructure during its two-year war.

Israel has partly eased restrictions on the entry of aid since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but delivery was still limited and inconsistent.

“No areas are classified in famine,” said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative, used by the UN to monitor food crises.

The IPC first declared a famine in parts of Gaza in August after Israeli restrictions of food aid into the territory led to mass starvation, with at least 450 people starving to death, according to the Gaza ministry of health.

The monitor said that despite the end of the famine classification, the situation in Gaza still remained dire, with “the entire Gaza Strip classified in emergency”.

According to the IPC’s five-phase classification system, the emergency stage is just a step below famine and occurs when households have “very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality” due to lack of food.

Before the ceasefire, Israel maintained a severe blockade on the entry of aid into Gaza, described as “systematic obstruction by Israel” by the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher.

About 1.6 million people were expected to face “crisis” levels of hunger in the next four months, the IPC said, warning that if the ceasefire broke down, the strip could slip back into famine.

Israel has vehemently denied the accusations that there is famine in Gaza and that it is restricting the entry of aid.

Israel’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, said in a post on X on Friday that in the face of “overwhelming and unequivocal evidence, even the IPC had to admit that there is no famine in Gaza”.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still enduring torrential rains and the cold in frayed tents. Pictures of flooded encampments at the start of winter have circulated on social media.

The threat of disease outbreaks remains high as hygiene conditions are subpar in the crowded tent settlements.

On Wednesday, a 29-day-old baby died of hypothermia, according to Gaza’s ministry of health.

“Children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival,” said Bilal Abu Saada, the nursing team supervisor at Nasser hospital, which received the baby before it died.

Under the second phase, Israel is supposed to withdraw from the 53% of Gaza it still controls, while a transitional authority will replace Hamas as the governing power, and an international stabilisation force is to be deployed in the territory.

The Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, warned on Thursday that delays in moving to the second phase of the deal, as well as ceasefire violations, “endanger the entire process”.

#gaza #famine #hunger #critical #humanitarian #aid

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

📰 Board of Peace, Powered by Unpaid Bills

Israel is sitting on 5 billion dollars in Palestinian tax money, and the one thing everyone agrees on is that it’s too valuable to actually give to the Palestinians.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has rejected a U.S. request to release part of the frozen revenues to the so‑called Board of Peace, the U.S.-led body tasked with running postwar Gaza on donor promises that mostly never arrived. The Palestinian Authority, starving for cash, even offered to donate some of its own money to this imported governance startup — on the condition that Israel first unfreeze the monthly tax transfers it is obligated to pass on under the Oslo framework. Smotrich has blocked those transfers for over a year, openly advocating for the PA’s collapse.

Washington wants Israel to unlock a “significant share” of the funds, split between the Board of Peace and Ramallah. Smotrich’s answer: absolutely not — because that might let the PA “entrench itself” in Gaza. In other words: better to bankrupt your subcontractor than risk it looking like a government.

So we have a “peace” body without real money, a “partner” authority without a functioning budget, and an Israeli minister whose political brand is watching both bleed out while lecturing the world on stability and security. Everyone claims to be saving Gaza. No one wants to pay the invoice.

Who exactly is supposed to build this new Middle East — the Board of Peace, or the accountants freezing the oxygen?

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Smotrich #US #aid #Oslo #BoardOfPeace #fakeDemocracy

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

Board of Peace: Privatizing Dependence

Board of Peace showed up at the UN donor conference as the clean, technocratic alternative to UNRWA — and managed to prove it’s just a different kind of dependency factory.

The pitch is simple: stop funding “incitement, terrorism and stagnation,” fund Gaza’s “path to peace and prosperity.” Ambassador Jeff Bartos even called long‑term support for UNRWA “the definition of insanity” — doing the same thing and expecting different results. The entire argument rests on one assumption: that the alternative actually exists in practice and works better.

Under Trump’s plan, the World Bank created an official Gaza reconstruction fund with oversight, reporting and UN blessing. Four months later, its balance is zero. Not a dollar.

The money that did show up went around the fund into a separate JP Morgan account controlled by Board of Peace itself — a structure that, unlike the Bank fund, is not obliged to disclose its finances to donors, or even to all board members.

Out of the loudly advertised 17 billion in pledges, only crumbs arrived, from just two of nine “lifetime members”: Morocco (a few million) and the UAE. The other seven haven’t paid.

Now line that up with the actual bill: World Bank, EU and UN estimates put Gaza reconstruction north of 70 billion over a decade. Contracts signed so far: zero. Real spending: an office for Nickolay Mladenov and salaries for technocrats.

The only thing on schedule is the press release telling the world to divert UNRWA money into this black box.

And who lectures UNRWA about “not breeding dependency”? Donald Trump, lifetime chair of the structure, who just declared 1.4 billion dollars in 2025 crypto income — the largest documented private-venture take by a sitting U.S. president.

Roughly 635 million of that came as royalties from a meme coin named after himself, which then crashed by about 90 percent. At the same time, his companies were buying stock in private prison firms while ICE detention numbers doubled. That’s the man whose ecosystem now instructs Gaza on sound incentives and responsible aid.

Every accusation thrown at UNRWA boomerangs straight back at Board of Peace.

Dependence? UNRWA keeps refugees alive on external funding, yes. Board of Peace built a structure where two million people’s future hangs on the goodwill of nine “lifetime members” and one opaque account. That’s not ending dependency, that’s privatizing it.

Transparency? UNRWA files budgets, submits to audits, lives under donor committees. Board of Peace designed a bypass around the one institution — the World Bank fund — that comes with public reporting, then asks states to wire money into an account that doesn’t have to show anyone its books.

Stagnation? Critics say UNRWA money doesn’t turn into development. After four months, Board of Peace hasn’t produced a single reconstruction contract, tender or project on the ground. The only concrete output is a letter telling governments to redirect someone else’s budget into its own closed system.

By Bartos’s own phrase, the “definition of insanity” here isn’t keeping UNRWA alive while trying to reform it. It’s the idea of handing 100 million dollars to a body that raised zero on its official fund, refuses to show what’s on its unofficial one, and has yet to deliver anything but slogans.

A body that turned Gaza into a hostage of nine signatures — seven of which are still missing — gives the UN a lecture on not “creating dependence.”

A body run by a president who literally monetizes his name and a meme coin teaches the world about accountability.

That’s not an exit from the old model. It’s the same dependency, just with a different logo on the transfer.

#USA #UN #UNRWA #Gaza #BoardOfPeace #Trump #WorldBank #aid #war #fakeDemocracy

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

UN Badges, Trump’s Cash Machine

Israel is wrapping Trump’s latest business project in counterterrorism language and calling it policy.

At the U.N., Danny Danon thunders that “no terrorist deserves a U.N. tag, a U.N. salary or a U.N. cover story,” points to UNRWA workers accused of joining October 7, and declares the agency rotten beyond repair. The script is simple: UNRWA equals terror, terror equals evil, therefore anything that bleeds UNRWA’s budget is automatically righteous.

Right on cue, Trump’s Board of Peace steps in with the “solution”: don’t fund UNRWA, fund us. Not “Gaza,” not “refugees” — fund a private structure stitched to Trump’s circle, marketed as the responsible alternative.

Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the World Bank set up an official reconstruction fund with U.N. blessing: open books, reporting, oversight, the whole boring apparatus that at least lets people see where the money goes.

Board of Peace took one look at that transparency and walked the other way. It opened a separate account at JPMorgan under its own control, not required to publish a balance sheet to the public, to all donors or even to all board members.

Result: the official World Bank fund is still sitting at zero. The money that did arrive has trickled into the private JPMorgan account. From the loudly advertised tens of billions, you get crumbs from a couple of “lifetime members,” no signed reconstruction contracts, and not a single visible brick laid. What is fully operational? The PR campaign telling governments to pull cash from UNRWA and wire it into a black box run by Trump’s people.

That isn’t “ending dependency,” it’s re‑routing it. And Israel is the sales team.

Danon’s line is that UNRWA breeds terror and keeps Palestinians as permanent refugees. But what Board of Peace is selling is permanent dependency with better branding: two million Gazans turned into hostages of nine private signatures and a closed account. The message to donors is moral panic — “you’re paying Hamas” — followed by a soft upsell: “park it with us, we’ll take care of it.” It’s not humanitarian reform; it’s a hostile takeover bid.

And look who’s at the top of the pyramid: a U.S. president who just reported around a billion-plus in crypto and token income, including a meme coin built on his own name, and who treats geopolitics like a leverage trade — squeeze here, pump there, cash out in the middle. The Trump Plan isn’t a peace plan; it’s a structured product. Gaza is the underlying asset. Israeli security rhetoric is the marketing brochure.

Every scandal at UNRWA becomes another talking point in a pitch deck: “Your current provider is corrupt and unsafe. Move your account to us, the clean alternative.” Except the “clean” alternative is the one actively dodging institutional transparency, running money through a private bank account, and answering to a board that can meet over lunch with the guy who signs U.S. sanctions, arms sales and aid packages.

Israel gets to look tough on terror and claim it is dismantling a compromised U.N. agency. Trump gets to turn that wreckage into a revenue stream and a lever over Arab capitals and Europe: you want reconstruction, you talk to the man who controls the spigot. Europe gets the bill. Gaza gets another layer of middlemen.

And the word “terrorism” gets used as a universal solvent for anything that stands between a political project and its next pot of cash.

So when Danon shouts that “terrorists won’t live off U.N. money,” remember what’s being built behind him.

Just another Trump‑branded vehicle, trading in grief and rubble the way his other ventures trade in tokens and licensing deals — high risk for everyone else, upside reserved for the people who already own the table.

#UN #UNRWA #Israel #Gaza #BoardOfPeace #Trump #Danon #aid #war #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸