CrossFireArabia
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed that the Biden administration allocated $50 million for a condom distribution program in Gaza, intended to limit Palestinian births in the Strip. US billionaire Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, exposed the plan, confirming that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars would be used to fund it.
CrossFireArabia
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has strongly rejected US President Donald Trump’s statements about the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries like Egypt and Jordan.
CrossFireArabia
The Israeli army “accidentally” killed an Israeli worker on Tuesday from a construction company in the central Gaza Strip, according to media reports.
“Earlier today a worker from a construction company carrying out engineering tasks for the Israeli army, commissioned by the Ministry of Defense, was killed in central Gaza,” the army said in a statement.
“A military police investigation has been opened into the incident under the direction of the military prosecution,” it added without providing details about the circumstances of the death.
The Israel Hayom newspaper identified the victim as 38-year-old Jacob Avitan.
Channel 12 cited initial investigations that suggested Avitan was killed in an operational accident, where he was shot due to a misidentification by Israeli forces.
The report said he was shot by soldiers while working in the Nitzarim Corridor in central Gaza.
The Israeli military withdrew from most of the Nitzarim Corridor on Monday, allowing more than 300,000 displaced civilians to return to northern Gaza under a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement with Israel.
The first six-week phase of the truce took effect Jan. 19, suspending Israel’s genocidal war that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
The Israeli onslaught has left more than 11,000 people missing, with widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave as reported in Anadolu.
CrossFireArabia
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump’s order to freeze federal funding, claiming that $50 million had been earmarked for the distribution of condoms in the besieged Gaza Strip.
However, a review of the latest publicly available data from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on condom shipments, covering 2023, reveals no such shipments to Gaza.
In fact, the only shipment to the Middle East that year was a $45,680 delivery to Jordan, which was noted as the first condom shipment to the region since 2019.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) found “that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt told reporters during her inaugural press conference. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.”
But she did not provide any evidence to support the claim. Anadolu reached out to the White House for clarification but did not immediately receive a response.
USAID’s 2023 report shows that the US delivered over $60 million in contraceptives and condoms globally, with 89% of funds directed to Africa, 9% Asia and 2% to Latin America.
The Trump administration has frozen nearly all foreign assistance programs for at least 90 days, sending shockwaves across the world as countries grapple with an abrupt halt to a range of programs funded by Washington, from development to humanitarian assistance. The US is the largest source of international assistance.
The order, however, includes exceptions for Israel and Egypt, which annually receive $3.3 billion and $1.3 billion in foreign military financing, respectively according to Anadolu.
