INTERNACIONAL
Netanyahu gifts Trump controversial item that helped turned tide in war against Hezbollah
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Donald Trump an unusual gift during his most recent trip to Washington, D.C., this week — a gold-plated pager.
The present was a nod to the controversial mass attack believed to have been carried out by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency against Hezbollah Sept. 17, 2024, in which thousands of pagers, walkie-talkie-like devices and radios simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and Syria around 3:30 p.m.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office to Fox News Digital said, «The pager symbolizes the prime minister’s decision that led to a turning point in the war and marked the beginning of Hezbollah’s strategic collapse.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Donald Trump a gold-plated pager during a visit to the White House Feb. 6, 2024. (Israeli Government Press Office)
«This strategic operation reflects Israel’s strength, technological superiority and tactical ingenuity in confronting its adversaries.»
An image obtained by Fox News Digital showed the pager mounted to a wooden plaque with a message on the device that said, «Press with both hands,» accompanied by a double downward arrow sign, the same message that reportedly showed moments before the devices detonated.
The plaque also came with a message to Trump calling him Israel’s «greatest friend and ally.»
The statement appears to be the first time Netanyahu’s office has publicly commented on the strike against the terrorist network in the summer.
Though the attacks were intended to target Hezbollah terrorists, the explosions also injured, maimed and killed civilians, including at least two children. In total, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that 32 people were killed and 3,250 others were injured.
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A symbolic portrait of a young Lebanese girl who was killed in a deadly pager attack is pictured next to flowers placed in front of the Lebanese embassy in northern Tehran, Iran, Sept. 18, 2024. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
U.N. Human Rights experts condemned the operation and said the indiscriminate nature of the attacks amounted to «war crimes.»
«These attacks violate the human right to life, absent any indication that the victims posed an imminent lethal threat to anyone else at the time,» one expert told the OHCHR. «Such attacks require prompt, independent investigation to establish the truth and enable accountability for the crime of murder.»
Despite the limited number of terrorists killed in the widespread attacks, Israeli officials have championed the operation as a successful psychological blow to Hezbollah.
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Though Israel was immediately suspected of being involved in the reported years-in-the-making operation, Jerusalem had not officially confirmed its role publicly before.
However, by November 2024, Israeli reports revealed comments leaked from a Cabinet meeting in which Netanyahu was quoted as saying, «The pager operation and the elimination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah were carried out despite the opposition of senior officials in the defense establishment and those responsible for them in the political echelon.»
President Donald Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4, 2025. (Avi Ohayon (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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The prime minister’s comments were an apparent dig at former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who he fired just weeks prior to the comments over disagreements regarding the war effort against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Neither the White House nor the U.N. immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Yael Rotem-Kuriel contributed to this report.
INTERNACIONAL
Trump downplays China-Russia-Iran nuclear talks, says they may discuss ‘de-escalation’
President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office Thursday, downplayed an upcoming nuclear summit in Beijing between Iran, Russia, and China, three chief adversaries of the U.S.
The discussions, first confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry Thursday and which come just days after Iran rebuffed Trump’s push to engage in nuclear negotiations, will coincide with a United Nations Security Council meeting regarding Tehran’s expansion of near-weapons-grade uranium.
Trump suggested perhaps Beijing, Moscow and Tehran will be having their own discussions on «de-escalation.»
«Well, maybe they’re going to talk about non-nuclear problems. Maybe they’re going to be talking about the de-escalation of nuclear weapons,» Trump told reporters.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (Getty Images)
Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin once engaged in «strong» talks about nuclear weapons and said he believes, had he won the 2016 election, further Russian denuclearization would have been on the table.
«I think I would have made a deal with Putin on de-escalation, denuclearization,» Trump said. «But we would have de-escalated nuclear weapons because the power of nuclear weapons is so great and so devastating.»
The president also claimed that China would «catch us in five years» because of its rapid development of its nuclear stockpiles, though this would be far sooner than other experts have warned.
The Pentagon in 2024 assessed that China is believed to have 600 nuclear weapons, up from the low 200s in 2020. But, in a report Wednesday, experts with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said claims that China will be a «peer» or «near peer» with the U.S. in the near future were a «gross exaggeration.»
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President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House March 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
«There is no evidence that China’s ongoing nuclear expansion will result in parity with the U.S. arsenal,» the report said. «Even the worst-case 2023 projection of 1,500 warheads by 2035 amounts to less than half of the current U.S. nuclear stockpile.»
Russia is believed to have 5,580 nuclear weapons, and the U.S. is reported to have 5,225, while China comes in at a distant third, according to the Arms Control Association.
Concerns over North Korea’s largely unchecked nuclear program have also continued to mount in recent years, particularly after Pyongyang formed closer ties with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
«It would be a great achievement if we could bring down the number,» Trump said.
«You don’t need them to that extent,» he added, noting the immense destruction even one nuclear weapon could inflict.
North Korea is estimated to have 50 nuclear weapons, which Trump noted is «a lot.»
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, supervises artillery firing drills in North Korea March 7, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
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But he also pointed to the positive relationship he had with Kim Jong Un during his first presidency and suggested that relationship could extend during his second term. Trump appeared to suggest there could be room for nuclear negotiations.
«I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll see what happens,» Trump told reporters. «But certainly he’s a nuclear power.»
INTERNACIONAL
«Sobres», comidas y viajes: investigan coimas de Huawei en el Parlamento Europeo y hay varios detenidos
¿Qué es Huawei?
Algunas naciones europeas han seguido el ejemplo de Washington y han prohibido el equipo de Huawei. Foto: ReutersLos «regalos»
El segundo escándalo de corrupción
INTERNACIONAL
Perú: en huelga de hambre, el ex presidente Pedro Castillo fue internado por una descompensación
El ex presidente peruano Pedro Castillo fue trasladado el jueves desde la cárcel donde permanece prisión preventiva hasta un hospital de Lima por presentar una descompensación en su salud, tras iniciar el lunes una huelga de hambre en protesta por el juicio por rebelión en su contra.
El tribunal de la Corte Suprema que lo juzga informó al inicio de la sesión del jueves que Castillo, de 55 años, fue enviado a un hospital por presentar una “descompensación” y para descartar un “trastorno hidroelectrolítico y una deshidratación leve”.
Castillo inició el lunes una huelga de hambre en protesta. La fiscalía ha pedido 34 años de cárcel por el presunto delito de rebelión, abierto en su contra por su intento de disolver el Congreso en diciembre de 2021 para evitar una votación de destitución y gobernar por decreto.
El ex presidente está en prisión preventiva desde el 7 de diciembre de 2022, el día en que leyó un discurso ante las cámaras de la televisión pública para gobernar por decreto y en el que no fue respaldado por las fuerzas de seguridad. Fue detenido a la salida y la justicia ordenó tres años de prisión preventiva en su contra mientras es procesado por rebelión.
El Congreso lo destituyó ese día y su entonces vicepresidenta Dina Boluarte asumió el poder. Hubo tres meses de protestas en los Andes que dejaron 50 civiles fallecidos.
El ex presidente ha calificado el juicio de “pantomima” y ha cuestionado a Norma Carbajal, una jueza del tribunal que lo juzga, por haber adelantado su opinión. Solicitó que sea reemplazada.
Castillo se ha negado a tener una defensa legal en el juicio y su primer abogado gratuito renunció. Ahora tiene a otros dos abogados gratuitos a quienes también ha rechazado. El martes otro informe de la agencia que administra las cárceles peruanas indicó que los médicos de la fiscalía habían diagnosticado a Castillo con “una ligera deshidratación” en el segundo día de su huelga de hambre.
El profesor rural que llegó al poder en 2021 también enfrenta otra investigación en la fiscalía por actos de presunta corrupción durante su gobierno, que incluyen ascensos irregulares dentro del escalafón militar y la designación de un consorcio para construir un puente sin respetar supuestamente las bases de un concurso.
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