Misinformation has run rampant on Elon Musk’s social media platform X in the 48 hours since Hamas militants’ surprise attack on Israel, with users sharing false and misleading claims about the conflict and Musk himself pointing users to an account known for spreading misinformation.
Multiple users over the weekend shared a fake White House news release falsely claiming the US was sending billions of dollars in new aid to Israel in response. Accounts on X with hundreds of thousands of followers in total quickly spread the doctored White House press release after it appeared online on Saturday. Social media influencer Jackson Hinkle, who was among those shared the fake release, claimed it was a slap in the face to Ukraine, which has been pleading with Washington for more money to defend itself from Russia.
Musk himself added to the information chaos on Sunday by recommending X users follow the Israel-Hamas conflict by following an account known for spreading misinformation, including a fake report earlier this year of an explosion at the Pentagon.
Musk and Hinkle later deleted their posts. Musk later posted: “As always, please try stay as close to the truth as possible, even for stuff you don’t like.”
Elsewhere on X (formerly known as Twitter), an account impersonating the Jerusalem Post shared a bogus report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been hospitalized. (The account was later suspended.)
CNN has requested comment from Musk and X on the posts related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
A slew of mischaracterized videos and other posts went viral on the platform over the weekend.
One video that is purported to show Israel generals after being captured by Hamas fighter was viewed more than 1.7 million times by Monday. The video however actually shows the detention of separatists in Azerbaijan.
Another post viewed more than 500,000 times on X purported to show an airplane getting shot down with the hashtag #PalestineUnderAttack. The video is in fact a clip from the video game Arma 3, as was later noted in a “community note” appended to the post.
Community notes allow users on X to fact-check false posts on the platform. While notes were appended to both of these false posts, they often come after a false post has been viewed thousands – or in some cases millions – of times.
X has relied more heavily on community notes to moderate content since Musk laid off thousands of the company’s employees, including many responsible for detecting and addressing false claims, following his takeover of the platform last year.
Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, one of the government’s main cyber defense agencies, on Monday took to X to urge people not to spread unverified information. “[T]he rumor mill is overflowing,” the directorate wrote in Hebrew. The Anti-Defamation League also raised concerns in a statement Saturday about false and antisemitic claims being spread on the platform, including posts by a verified user falsely claiming that Israel helped to facilitate 9-11 on US soil, which have been viewed thousands of times.
The viral nature of the misinformation has alarmed experts on information operations, offering a fresh example of social platforms’ struggle to deal with a flood of falsehoods during a major geopolitical event.
“In times of war, social media becomes a propaganda battlefield; there is always an element of disinformation and exaggeration,” said Emerson Brooking, senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “Today, X is the main platform where this online battle plays out.”
Brooking said changes to X policy under Musk’s ownership have incentivized propagandists and scam artists. Any user can now purchase a “verification” checkmark on X by signing up for the platform’s $8 per month subscription program, and their posts are then boosted by the platform’s algorithm and eligible for monetization.
“Paid verification means that you cannot distinguish between a vetted journalist and a scam artist,” Brooking told CNN. “The for-profit ‘views’ system incentivizes accounts to impersonate news outlets and to post as frequently as possible, drawing from whatever source they can or just making things up.”
Twitter has long played a pivotal role in information sharing during conflicts, from the Arab Spring to the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine, and during previous violence in Israel and Gaza.
Viral misinformation has always existed on the platform, but it has become particularly pronounced under Musk’s stewardship, experts say.
“In the past decade, every conflict has inevitably bred a digital “fog of war,” where both sides, and their supporters, try to use social platforms to spin the narrative in their favor,” Joe Galvin, a journalist who has specialized in open-source intelligence for more than a decade, told CNN Monday.
“The volume and reach of misinformation today, though, far exceeds what we saw in the early social media era conflicts, and is exacerbated by platforms like X, which has taken the guardrails off and allows the most egregious types of disinformation to run rampant,” Galvin said.
He said other platforms that have little or no guardrails including the social media messaging app Telegram are also hotbeds of misinformation, but X is unique given Musk’s behavior.
“Even the owner of X takes part in the chaos, promoting accounts that are known to spread falsehoods to his 150 million followers. The fact is that malicious users, state-backed and otherwise, have become better at spreading falsehoods, with more sophisticated networks being built and better technology – including AI – being used. The platforms are in a perpetual state of catch-up.”
At least four civilians were killed while in the custody of Hamas, just feet from where armed militants had been escorting them near the Gaza border, videos obtained and geolocated by CNN show.
One video from the kibbutz of Be’eri in southern Israel showed armed fighters with burned cars and a bulldozer in the background. Toward the end of the video, which was released on a Hamas-affiliated Telegram channel, four bodies can be seen on the ground.
Another video previously geolocated by CNN showed five Israeli civilians taken captive by armed militants in nearly the same spot.
A CNN analysis of the videos determined that the bodies, and the individuals being escorted by heavily armed militants, had matching clothes and hairstyles.
It is not clear what happened to the fifth hostage.
Be’eri lies just three miles from the eastern border of Gaza.
Alongside other towns and settlements close to Gaza such as Ofakim, Sderot, Yad Mordechai, Kfar Aza, Yated and Kissufim, it was among the first to be targeted by Hamas fighters as they launched Saturday morning’s unprecedented and carefully coordinated killing and hostage-taking spree.
The community of Be’eri was “very badly hit,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Monday during a briefing, more than 48 hours after Hamas launched the surprise attack.
Hecht said most Hamas militants in Be’eri had been killed, but Israeli troops were still there attempting to clear the area of any remaining fighters.
“We are still fighting. We thought this morning we would be in a better place,” Hecht said.
As many as 1,000 Hamas fighters breached the border from Gaza, according to Israeli authorities, in an attack that has killed more than 700 Israelis, prompting retaliatory Israeli airstrikes and a formal declaration of war on Sunday.
More than 400 Palestinians have been killed, including 78 children, according to the health ministry in Gaza, and medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory.
Hamas militants have taken more than 100 Israelis hostage, including high-ranking army officers, a spokesperson for the group claimed Sunday. It’s believed they are in Gaza but their fate is unknown.
Another Palestinian armed group, Islamic Jihad, on Sunday said it is holding at least 30 hostages in Gaza. CNN is unable to verify the claims.
Israel authorities have said that dozens of Israelis are being held hostage in Gaza but have not confirmed exact numbers. In addition to Israeli captives, several other nationalities are believed to have been taken hostage.
Hecht said it was possible that Hamas fighters were still crossing into Israel from Gaza, adding that four fighting divisions had been deployed in the south.
He said around 20 breach points had been totally secured but other points were more vulnerable.
“There are some areas where we are still holding on with tanks and air cover. I can’t deny the fact that there are still people coming in … It’s an ongoing fight,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is “embarking on a long and difficult war” as it deals with an unprecedented hostage crisis after Palestinian militants launched a surprise land, sea and air attack from Gaza Saturday, killing hundreds and infiltrating into Israeli territory.
The shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory.
Israel’s political-security cabinet convened late Saturday and made a “series of operational decisions aimed at bringing about the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, in a way that would negate their ability and desire to threaten and harm the citizens of Israel for many years to come,” according to a statement from the office of Israel’s Prime Minister.
Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance” on the Palestinian militant group Hamas following its unprecedented assault on Israel that appeared to catch the entire Israeli military and intelligence apparatus off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.
Throughout Saturday and into Sunday, Hamas launched thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel – making direct hits on multiple locations inside the country including Tel Aviv – while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.
At least 300 Israelis have been killed, an Israeli official told CNN and more than 1,500 have been injured, Israeli media reported.
Israel responded by launching air strikes on what itsaid were Hamas targets in Gaza, while its forces clashed on the ground with Hamas fighters in villages, army bases and border crossings.
Israeli warplanes continued to pound Gaza on Sunday morning with the Israel Defense Forces saying it had struck 426 targets in Gaza, including 10 towers used by Hamas.
In Gaza, at least 232 Palestinians have died and more than 1,600 are wounded, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The Israeli leader said the “first phase” of the operation had ended with the “destruction of the majority of the enemy forces that penetrated our territory.”
Netanyahu announced Israeli forces have started an “offensive formation” which will “continue without reservation and without respite until the objectives are achieved.” Among the decisions made by the cabinet is to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.
In pictures: The deadly clashes in Israel and Gaza
Complicating Israel’s response is that a “significant number” of Israeli nationals were taken by Hamas as hostages and are being held at locations across Gaza.
“It is unprecedented in our history that we have so many Israeli nationals in the hands of a terrorist organization,” Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus (Res) told CNN, without giving an exact number. “I can assure you that the IDF will be focused on getting each and every Israeli back.”
“These are numbers that we have never, ever seen before,” he added.
It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence.
In a statement Saturday, Palestinian militant group Hamas said the captured Israeli hostages are being held across Gaza and warned against attacks in the area.
“Threatening Gaza and its people is a losing game and a broken record,” said Abu Obaida spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas in a recorded audio message late Saturday. “What happens to the people of the Gaza Strip will happen to them and beware of miscalculation.”
Earlier the group claimed to have captured “dozens” of Israelis, including soldiers, and were holding them in “safe places and resistance tunnels.”
The IDF said Sunday that “many hundreds,” possibly as many as 1,000 Hamas fighters were involved in the attack, according to Conricus, who said fighting inside Israel was still ongoing as of 4.15 a.m. local time Sunday morning (9.15pET on Saturday).
The priority for the Israeli military Sunday was to “make sure that we clear all Israel communities of terrorists that are still inside Israel,” he said, adding that the IDF was still “clearing the last houses and locations and communities and bases.”
“Hopefully, at the break of dawn we will be able to declare that we have finally restored sovereignty and order in Israel. But that has not yet been achieved. And that will be our number one priority,” he said.
Saturday’s attack prompted strong reactions from around the world. US President Joe Biden said his administration’s support of Israel’s security is “rock solid and unwavering” and many European leaders denounced the violence, while Brazil said it will call an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Air France said it is suspending its flights to Tel Aviv and US aviation officials issued a special bulletin to pilots and airlines urging “extreme caution.”
The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
“We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning,” Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, told CNN.
The number of rockets fired by Palestinian militants was at a scale “never seen before,” Halevy said, and this was “the first time” that Gaza has been able to “penetrate deep into Israel and to take control of villages.”
“This is beyond imagination from our point of view, and we didn’t know they had this quantity of [rockets], and we certainly didn’t expect that they would be as effective as they were today,” he said.
Fighting carried on throughout the day and into the night, and a fresh round of rocket attacks hit Tecl Aviv and other areas on Saturday evening. The IDF urged civilians in Gaza to leave their residential areas as Israeli military operations continued.
Air raid sirens and rockets could be heard in Israel throughout the night into Sunday.
“You can hear the intercept missiles banging in the air,” said CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson as he arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.
It is rare for Palestinian militants to be able to make it into Israel from Gaza which is sealed off and heavily watched by Israel’s military. Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.
Governed by Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah. Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.
Fighting between the two sides has surged in the last two years.
The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.
They also come at a moment of deep division in Israel, months after the country’s right-wing government pushed through a contentious plan to reduce the power of the country’s courts, sparking a social and political crisis.
Israelis are sharing photos of friends and family who they say have been kidnapped by Hamas militants and are urging the public to help spread the word in hopes of getting them back safely.
Yoni Asher, a resident of Sharon region, told CNN he recognized his wife from a viral video that shows a group of people loaded into the back of a truck flanked by Hamas militants.
Asher said his wife and young daughters were visiting his mother-in-law in Nir Oz, a kibbutz near the Gaza border. He said he contacted them on Saturday morning and suspected they may have been abducted. He tracked his wife’s phone and learned that it was located in Gaza, he said.
Later that day, he saw the viral clip. In the video, a woman is seen in the truck as a militant puts a scarf on her head. Asher told CNN that the woman is his wife though CNN has not been able to independently verify the video.
“The situation is not looking good,” Asher said, adding that his wife and mother-in-law have German citizenship and pleaded with the German government for help.
A German foreign ministry source told CNN that, “the Federal Foreign Office and the German embassy in Tel Aviv are in close contact with the Israeli authorities in order to clarify whether and to what extent German citizens are affected.”
An Israel Police spokesperson has told CNN that family members who wish to report their loved ones as missing to come to the nearest police station when it’s safe to leave their homes. The police suggested relatives bring photos and personal items from which DNA samples can be extracted to help with identification.
Hamas captured a number of Israelis during its deadly attack on Israel on Saturday, the Israeli military said, as videos emerged of Israeli soldiers and civilians being taken away by fighters from the Palestinian militant group.
Meanwhile Israelis are sharing photos of friends and family who they say have apparently been kidnapped by Hamas fighters and are urging the public to help spread the word in the hope of getting them back safely.
Hamas fired rockets from Gaza and sent gunmen into Israeli territory, prompting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare that the country is “at war.” At least 300 people in Israel were killed in the unprecedented attack, an Israeli official told CNN Saturday night, and Israeli media reported that at least 1,500 people have been wounded.
At least 232 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Saturday, with 1,697 injured, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said in a statement.
At least one Israeli soldier has been taken prisoner, a new video geolocated and authenticated by CNN shows.
The video, posted to Hamas’ official social media accounts, shows militants yank two clearly terrified and stunned soldiers out of a disabled tank. It’s unclear from the video how the tank was disabled, but Hamas has used drones to drop bombs onto Israeli tanks before.
One of the soldiers is then seen in a short snippet of video being kicked on the ground by the militants. In another clip, the soldier is seen lying motionless on the ground.
The second soldier is seen being led away by Hamas militants. A third soldier – his face very bloody – is seen lying on the ground motionless near the tank track. CNN does not know the current whereabouts or status of the three soldiers.
A second video, taken afterward, shows a number of different armed men around the tank. The three soldiers are nowhere to be seen.
The armed men are then seen pulling a fourth Israeli soldier from the tank. The soldier is motionless as he’s dragged down the side of the tank and onto the ground. The armed men are seen stomping on his body.
The Izzedine al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed to capture “dozens” of Israelis on Saturday.
“We bring good news to our (Palestinian) prisoners and our people that the al Qassam Brigades have dozens of captured (Israeli) officers and soldiers in their hands,” Al Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obaida said in a post on Telegram. “They have been secured in safe places and resistance tunnels.”
In a recorded audio message released later Saturday, Obaida said that all captured Israelis “are present in all axes in the Gaza Strip.”
“What happens to the people of the Gaza Strip will happen to them and beware of miscalculation,” he added.
On Saturday evening, the Israel Defense Forces said the number of civilians captured by Hamas is “unfortunately, a significant number.”
Spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “it is unprecedented in our history that we have so many Israeli nationals in the hands of a terrorist organization.”
“These are numbers that we have never, ever seen before and these are, they’re unprecedented, and they will force an unprecedented response from Israel,” Conricus said.
Yoni Asher, a resident of Sharon region, told CNN’s Erin Burnett he recognized his wife from a viral video that shows a group of people loaded on the back of a truck flanked by Hamas militants. Chants of “Allahu Akbar,” (God is Great), are heard throughout the video.
The footage shows a woman in the back of the truck as a militant puts a scarf on her head. Asher told CNN that the woman is his wife and he’s sharing the video to raise awareness of their situation. CNN has not been able to independently verify the video.
Asher said his wife and young daughters were visiting his mother-in-law in Nir Oz, a kibbutz near the Gaza border. He said he suspected they may have been abducted. He tracked his wife’s phone and learned that it was located in Gaza. Later that day, he saw the viral clip.
“I don’t even know what the situation is regarding the hostages, and the situation is not looking good,” he said.
Hamas has not taken hostages in years. Until now, it was known to hold two civilians who crossed the border and were captured, as well as the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.
Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old soldier, was captured in 2006 and kept for five years before his release as part of a swap that saw more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed.
Other videos geolocated by CNN appear to show where Hamas appears to have taken other Israelis captive.
In one of the videos, geolocated by CNN to the neighborhood of Shejaiya in Gaza, a barefoot woman is seen being pulled from the trunk of a Jeep by a gunman and then forced into the back seat of the car. Her face is bleeding, and her wrists appear to be cable-tied behind her back. The Jeep appears to have an IDF license plate, suggesting it may have been stolen and brought into Gaza.
A second video, which appears to show Hamas militants taking multiple Israelis captive, was geolocated by CNN to Be’eri in southern Israel, a village close to Gaza.
Video appears to show Hamas taking woman hostage near Gaza
IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari says Ofakim in the Negev and Beeri near the Gaza Strip are the “main focal points” where there are hostage situations.
“We are fighting in 22 locations,” he said without specifying further.
Hagari said that the IDF is getting ready for a ground incursion, and “all options are on the table.”
“Hundreds of thousands” of IDF army personnel would be called up, he said.
“A wide reserve mobilization has begun,” he said. “There are four divisions that we are immediately bringing down to Gaza; 31 regular battalions are already in Otef and the south. Tanks are also brought down to the Strip.”
“The main effort is to kill all the terrorists on the fence, all those who try to return to the Strip. First of all, we will deal with fire from the air, and then also with heavy ground tools.”
Turkey’s military carried out airstrikes targeting Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Sunday, just hours after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing in the capital in the latest attack of its nearly four-decade long insurgency.
In a statement, the Turkish Defense Ministry said its warplanes destroyed 20 PKK targets including caves, bunkers, shelters and warehouses in the regions of Metina, Hakurk, Kandil, and Gara.
“Many terrorists were neutralized by using the maximum amount of domestic and national ammunition,” said the statement, which cited self-defense rights from Article 51 of the United Nations Charter to justify the strikes.
The PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, earlier said it was behind the blast Sunday outside Turkey’s Interior Ministry building that left one dead and two injured, the pro-PKK Firat News Agency reported.
The ministry said in a statement that two attackers murdered a civilian and stole his vehicle ahead of the opening of parliament in Ankara. Two police officers reportedly received non-life-threatening injuries.
One assailant blew himself up and the other was “neutralized,” the ministry said.
Investigators found four different types of guns, three hand grenades, one rocket launcher, and C-4 explosives at the scene.
The ministry confirmed at least one of the two attackers is a PKK member. The second attacker has yet to be identified, it said.
Kurds, who do not have an official homeland or country, are the biggest minority in Turkey, making up between 15% and 20% of the population, according to Minority Rights Group International.
Portions of Kurdistan – a non-governmental region and one of the largest stateless nations in the world – are recognized by Iran, where the province of Kordestan lies; and Iraq, site of the northern autonomous region known as Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) or Iraqi Kurdistan.
According to Ankara, the PKK trains separatist fighters and launches attacks against Turkey from its bases in northern Iraq and Syria, where a PKK-affiliated Kurdish group controls large swaths of territory.
Terror attacks in Turkey were tragically common in the mid to late 2010s, when the insecurity from war-torn Syria crept north above the two countries’ shared border.
In recent years, Turkey has carried out a steady stream of operations against the PKK domestically as well as cross-border operations into Syria.
In an address to lawmakers Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Turkey would continue its fight against terrorism “until the last terrorist is eliminated domestically and abroad.”
Sunday’s attack marked the “final flutters of terrorism” in the country, he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “vertical of power” – the way in which the entire structure of Russian political power rests on one man – has undergone profound stress testing in the wake of the Wagner mercenary group’s aborted march on Moscow in June.
But everything is now business as usual, and the remnants of Wagner are back in the government’s control, if Kremlin messaging is to be believed.
In a televised meeting Friday, Putin met with Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and former Wagner commander Andrey Troshev, according to a partial transcript published by the Kremlin.
The meeting was held in a long-familiar format. Putin was seated at the head of a conference table with briefing papers and notes, making some general remarks before settling down to official business. The language was sober, competent and relatively substance-free: It could have been a routine meeting with a regional governor to discuss economic plans, at least judging by the official readout.
But unpack the language, and Putin’s Friday meeting appeared to put a reassuring gloss on the Russian government’s attempt to bring the mercenary group to heel. Troshev – who goes by the call sign, ‘Sedoy,’ meaning ‘grey hair’ – is the man Putin tapped to run the mercenary outfit after its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s dramatic fall from grace.
After leading the group’s insurrection this summer and then accepting an apparent deal to end it, Prigozhin died in late August when his private jet plummeted from the skies over Russia’s Tver region. But the damage that Prigozhin did to Putin’s image of infallibility has lingered.
So Putin on Friday did one of the things he does best: Delving into the minutiae of governing.
“I would like to talk to you about issues of a social nature,” Putin told Troshev, without naming Wagner. “You maintain relationships with your comrades with whom you fought together, and now you continue to carry out these combat missions.”
Continued Putin: “We have created the ‘Defenders of the Fatherland’ fund, and I have said many times and want to emphasize again: regardless of the status of the person who performs or has performed combat missions, social guarantees must be absolutely the same for everyone.”
By dangling the carrot of “social guarantees,” one might conclude that the Russian government will be taking on the system of cash handouts and compensation that Wagner fighters in Ukraine enjoyed under Prigozhin’s leadership, something that won the mercenary leader some measure of loyalty. That such guarantees accrue “regardless of status” would appear to acknowledge that mercenary activities are technically proscribed by Russian law.
The Russian leader also alluded to an earlier offer made to Wagner fighters after the short-lived rebellion: Sign contracts with the Russian ministry of defense, or head for neighboring Belarus. Wagner’s future in Belarus has since been thrown into doubt and the Russian government appears to be moving more energetically to bring the remnants of Wagner into conventional military structures, along with all the benefits that might entail.
“At the last meeting, we talked about the fact that you will be involved in the formation of volunteer units that can perform various combat missions, primarily, of course, in the zone of a special military operation,” Putin said, using the official doublespeak for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“You yourself fought in such a unit for more than a year. You know what it is, how it’s done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that combat work goes on in the best and most successful way.”
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Friday that Troshev “is already working with the defense ministry” – citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov – signaling that he will not be a freelance entrepreneur as Prigozhin was.
But that doesn’t answer the somewhat broader question of what the Russian state plans to do with all the work it has outsourced to Wagner in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Wagner fighters have been active in several African countries, including Mali, the Central African Republic, and Libya.
The presence of Yevkurov in the meeting may offer one clue. In late August, Yevkurov led a Russian military delegation to the Libyan city of Benghazi to meet with the Libyan National Army, led by the renegade general Khalifa Haftar.
Wagner has supported the Libyan National Army for several years, reportedly backing Haftar’s 2019-2020 military campaign against the Tripoli-based government. The US military says Wagner has also used Libya as a logistical foothold, flying cargo flights into bases in eastern Libya to resupply its operations there.
Evidence has also emerged that Wagner has used bases in Libya to supply Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.
Wagner has long acted as an often-deniable extension of Russian foreign policy. If Friday’s meeting is any guide, Yevkurov appears to be a point man for future Wagner activity while Troshev takes on a different brief: overseeing Wagner 2.0 for the war in Ukraine.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher is gearing up to resume negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers next week.
Talks will resume between the actors’ union and studio representatives on Monday, two and a half months after the more than 160,000 members of the guild went on strike and one week after the Writers Guild of America and the AMPTP reached a tentative contract agreement.
“We’re happy WGA came to an agreement but one size doesn’t fit all,” Drescher told CNN on Thursday. “We look forward to resuming talks with the AMPTP.”
SAG-AFTRA negotiators will meet with several executives from AMPTP member companies to work out new television and theatrical contracts, according to the union.
SAG-AFTRA and the WGA have both sought contract changes related to streaming residuals and artificial intelligence. Actors are also asking for better relocation expenses for actors working out of state or country and limited long breaks between television seasons in order to give actors more stability while under contract.
The WGA has voted to authorize its members to return to work following the tentative agreement reached this week.
The Taliban has welcomed Zhao Sheng as China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan during a lavish ceremony held at the presidential palace in Kabul on Wednesday.
China is among a handful of countries, including Pakistan, Iran and Russia that have maintained a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban retook control of the country in 2021.
In the palace ceremony, Taliban Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund shook hands with Zhao and “accepted the credentials of the new Chinese Ambassador,” the prime minister’s office said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The Honorable Prime Minister of the Islamic Emirate thanked the leadership of China for the appointment of Mr Zhao Sheng as ambassador and expressed hope that this appointment would elevate the diplomatic relations between the two countries to a higher level and the beginning of a new chapter,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in the statement
According to the prime minister’s office, Zhao said that China was “a good neighbor of Afghanistan” and “fully respects Afghanistan’s independence, territorial integrity and independence in decision-making.”
Zhao added that China does not have a policy of interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, and it does not want Afghanistan “to become its area of influence.”
The Taliban prime minister said relations between the two countries had “been on a good level” and “expressed his hope for taking more steps to further strengthen the bilateral relations,” according to Mujahid.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement the appointment was the “normal rotation of China’s ambassador to Afghanistan” and was “intended to continue advancing dialogue and cooperation” between the two countries.
The ministry said, “China’s policy toward Afghanistan is clear and consistent.”
China, a neighbor of Afghanistan with substantial investment in the region, was cautious about the potential security challenges posed by the abrupt return of the Taliban following the US withdrawal in August 2021.
Since then, Chinese officials have stressed increasing cooperation with Afghanistan, along with other regional neighbors, on issues such as anti-terrorism cooperation, “economic collaboration” and boosting “regional stability and development.”
In May, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan vowed to strengthen trilateral ties on security and counterterrorism at a meeting of the three country’s foreign ministers in Islamabad.
Speaking at that meeting, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang said China attached “great importance to the friendship with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Notably from the meeting, the three sides agreed to cooperate on China’s Belt and Road trade and infrastructure program, through which China has heavily invested in the region.
They also agreed to forge closer economic ties by extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan “so as to promote connectivity, improve cross-border trading, enhance the economic integration of the three countries and achieve sustainable development.”
CPEC is a $60 billion Belt and Road flagship project that links China’s western Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea with a network of roads, railways, pipelines and power plants.
Cuba says it has uncovered a human trafficking network operating from Russia that is recruiting Cubans to fight for their longstanding ally in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been trafficked and “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine,” the Cuban foreign ministry said Monday in a statement.
The ministry gave few details about the alleged trafficking operations, but said that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.
There were no reports of any arrests of people allegedly involved in the trafficking operation. In September, reports surfaced on social media of Cubans who said they were serving in Russia’s armed forces but that they had been tricked into joining the war effort and mistreated when they refused to fight. CNN was not able to independently verify those allegations, and it is not clear how many Cubans may be fighting for Russia.
Cuba stressed in its statement that it “is not part of the war in Ukraine.” The Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.
The report comes amid efforts by Russia to boost its forces in Ukraine, which have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and with the future of the mercenary Wagner Group in doubt.
Moscow announced a plan earlier this year to increase the strength of the Russian armed forces by 30% to 1.5 million servicemen. In July, the Russian state Duma voted to extend the military draft age to include citizens from 18 to 30 years old, up from 27.
For much of the conflict, the official Russian army has been bolstered by mercenaries contracted to Wagner. But after the death of the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops in an aborted mutiny against Moscow in June, it is unclear whether Russia will rely on Wagner forces to wage its war in Ukraine.
Cuba was a major ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and relations between Havana and Moscow have remained cozy since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba has been a staunch defender of Russia’s war on the country, blaming the US and NATO for the conflict. As Cuba grapples with its worse economic crisis in decades, Russia has supplied the communist-run island with badly needed food and shipments of crude oil. Since the war began the two nations have signed a flurry of agreements promising increased Russian foreign investment in Cuba.
In a rare interview in May, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian state-controlled network RT that Cuba condemned “the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” echoing one of the Kremlin’s justifications for its brutal war.
Diaz-Canel visited Moscow in November last year to attend the unveiling of a statue of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also traveled to Cuba on separate trips this year and hailed the relations between the two countries.
There are historical precedents of Cubans fighting alongside and on behalf of Russia.
In several conflicts in Africa during the Cold War, “the deal was the Cubans would supply the soldiers, the Soviets would supply the weapons,” Sergei Radchenko, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.
Thousands of Cuban fighters intervened in support of communist forces in Angola in 1975, as well as in Ethiopia in 1977, alongside Soviet troops and using Soviet equipment.
“Having Cuban mercenaries – you might call them mercenaries, or at that time it was revolutionary fighters – is a longstanding precedent as far as Cuba and the Cuban-Russian relationship is concerned,” said Radchenko. In Cuba, those military interventions – often fighting South African-trained mercenaries – are celebrated as having played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa.
However, Radchenko said, the statement issued by Cuba’s foreign ministry “sounds like something very different,” due to the suggestion of coercion.
Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said he was not surprised that Russia is seeking Cuban mercenaries to wage its war.
“This is the typical Russian modus operandi of getting mercenaries to do their fighting for them – particularly in desperate states,” Sabatini told CNN, adding that Cuba “is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”
What was surprising, he said, was the reaction of the Cuban government, which suggests that Russia “touched a nerve.”
“The Cuban government is fiercely loyal to its allies,” Sabatini said. “That they would call this out is an indication that they truly feel humiliated and exploited by what is an ally taking advantage of their citizens – at a time of desperate need.”
Russia has offered foreign fighters more than $2000 a month to fight in Ukraine, a fortune in Cuba where doctors do not earn that much in an entire year. Russia has also reportedly offered citizenship to foreigners willing to take up arms.
“It’s particularly insulting, too, because the way you are rewarding these mercenaries is giving them a chance to flee their country,” said Sabatini. “That hurts.”
In May, the Russian regional newspaper Ryazan Vedomosti reported that Cuban immigrants living in Russia had joined the Russian army.
“Several citizens of the Republic of Cuba went to serve in the Russian army. According to them, the Cubans want to help our country carry out tasks in the zone of a special military operation, and some of them would like to become citizens of Russia in the future,” said the article.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public comments Thursday on the plane crash believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, saying the Wagner leader had made “serious mistakes in life.”
Putin said he was sending condolences to “Wagner Group employees” on board the plane that crashed on Wednesday.
The crash took place northwest of Moscow and killed all on board, said Russia’s aviation agency, including Prigozhin, chief of the mercenary group that gained prominence for its brutal methods worldwide and its battleground victories in the Ukraine war.
“First of all, I want to express my sincere condolences to the families of all the victims, this is always a tragedy. Indeed, if they were there, it seems … preliminary information suggests that Wagner Group employees were also on board,” Putin said during a meeting with the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin in the Kremlin.
Speaking about Prigozhin in the past tense, Putin said he’d known the Wagner chief “for a very long time,” and that he was “a talented man, a talented businessman.”
“He was a man of difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life, and he achieved the results needed both for himself and when I asked him about it – for a common cause, as in these last months,” the Russian president said.
The crash of Prigozhin’s plane happened two months after Prigozhin and Wagner staged their insurrection, the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule in over two decades.
Just days after the mutiny, a furious Putin made it clear that he viewed the actions of Wagner as a form of treason. While he did not mention Prigozhin by name, he accused “the organizers of the rebellion” of betraying Russia itself.
A witness to the crash told Reuters he saw a wing fly off the plane before it headed toward the ground on Wednesday. “It glided down on one wing. It didn’t nose-dive, it was gliding,” he said.
Prigozhin’s apparent death follows a series of incidents in which Kremlin critics have died or had attempts made on their life.
No evidence has been presented that points to the involvement of the Kremlin or Russian security services in the crash. The cause of the crash is unknown and Russian authorities have launched a criminal investigation.
Putin pledged this investigation would be thorough. “But what is absolutely certain, the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning. They have already launched a preliminary investigation into this incident. And it will be carried out in full and brought to completion,” Putin said.
US President Joe Biden, prominent Russia critic Bill Browder and Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak have all suggested they believe Putin was behind the crash.
CNN spoke to several individuals in Russia about the crash on Thursday. All agreed to be identified only by their first name so they could speak freely without fear of retribution.
No one CNN spoke to believed Ukraine was responsible for the crash. Many openly speculated about its cause, including whether Russian President Vladimir Putin brought down the jet as retribution for Prigozhin’s failed mutiny in June.
“He was killed by Putin, who does not forgive betrayal,” said Alexey from Moscow. “Putin was behind it or it could have been his Politburo but Putin knew and approved.”
A top Russian general who went missing after the mercenary group Wagner’s insurrection in June has been fired from his role as head of the country’s aerospace forces, Russian state media reported Wednesday citing unnamed sources.
Gen. Sergey Surovikin has spent four decades as part of the Russian military, including a brief stint running Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
He was put in charge of the conflict in October 2022, shortly after a major explosion severely damaged the Kerch bridge connecting the annexed Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia. Surovikin was removed from that post just months later.
He has not been seen in public since June, when he released a video pleading for Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop his insurrection. A Russian lawmaker said in July that Surovikin is “resting.”
Documents shared with CNN in June suggested that Surovikin was a secret VIP member of Wagner. The New York Times reported in June that Surovikin may have had advanced knowledge of the rebellion, prompting widespread speculation about his role the mutiny.
Surovikin’s ouster comes about a month after another senior general, Ivan Popov, was removed from his post after accusing Moscow’s Defense Ministry leadership of betraying his troops by not providing sufficient support.
Surovikin’s military career began with service in Afghanistan in the 1980s before commanding a unit in the Second Chechen War in 2004. He was named the commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces of Russia in 2017, the position he was reportedly removed from on Wednesday.
As the head of the aerospace forces, Surovikin oversaw the Kremlin’s campaign in Syria, during which Russian combat aircraft were accused of causing widespread devastation in rebel-held areas. While Surovikin was rewarded in Moscow for his service in Syria, Human Rights Watch alleged that Surovikin may have been responsible for attacks that violated the laws of war and killed at least 1,600 civilians.
The brutality of those alleged attacks earned Surovikint the nickname “General Armageddon.” One of his former subordinates, Gleb Irisov, told CNN last year that Surovikin was disliked because of the way he tried to implement his infantry experience into the air force
“He made a lot of people very angry – they hated him,” Irisov said.
The news of Surovikin’s removal was initially reported by prominent Russian journalist and former chief of the now-closed Echo of Moscow radio station, Alexey Venediktov.
The Venediktov posted on his Telegram channel on Tuesday that Surovikin had been dismissed from his post but would continue serving the Ministry of Defense in another capacity.
According to sources cited by Russia’s business news outlet RBC, Surovikin’s removal from his post is due to his transfer to a different role, and he is currently on a short vacation.
Surovikin’s official bio on the Russian Defense Ministry’s website still lists him as the head of the aerospace forces.
CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.
Late last week, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was handed a harsh judgment: After a court hit him with a new 19-year sentence in a penal colony, he was sent immediately to a punishment cell.
It was a stark contrast to the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Back in June, Prigozhin led the abortive mutiny that presented the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in over two decades of rule. While Prigozhin’s troops stopped short of Moscow, a furious Putin said in a televised speech that those on the “path of treason” would face punishment. Almost two months later, in the case of the Wagner chief, this simply hasn’t happened.
Clearly, the price for confronting Putin is not fixed. Perhaps more surprisingly, Prigozhin hasn’t even kept a low profile since the June uprising.
Just weeks after the insurrection, Prigozhin popped up on the sidelines of the recent Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, shaking hands with a dignitary from the Central African Republic (CAR).
To be sure, the mercenary boss was not striking a martial pose: While subscribers to his Telegram channel have become accustomed to seeing him in camouflage and tactical gear, Prigozhin was spotted in a polo shirt and mom jeans, cutting a seemingly more mild-mannered figure than in months past.
But pity the poor Russian diplomat who has to explain why Prigozhin – whose forces shot down Russian military aircraft and killed Russian military servicemembers on their march toward the capital – remains at large.
That’s exactly what happened when CNN’s Christiane Amanpour confronted Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom, about the bizarre spectacle of Prigozhin’s post-mutiny appearance.
Wagner’s insurrection, Kelin conceded, might constitute a form of “high treason.” But the ambassador went on to explain that Putin has decided to let bygones be bygones.
“The president has qualified it when it has started, then it was all over,” Kelin said. “Now he’s traveling someplace, so we do recognize some hero deeds by Wagner groups,” alluding to Wagner’s apparent battlefield successes around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Amanpour, however, pressed Kelin further.
“What I would like to understand, why is it that people like (jailed dissident Vladimir) Kara-Murza, the intellectual, others, Navalny are in jail for verbally protesting and disagreeing with the Russian government, but… Prigozhin, who tried to commit a coup against the Kremlin, maybe even against the President himself – an armed coup – is still wandering around free in Russia? He was photographed meeting with African leaders during this week’s summit in St. Petersburg, why is he not in jail for treason?”
Kelin evaded at first, saying he didn’t recall that Russian soldiers died during the Wagner mutiny. Pressed by Amanpour, Kelin conceded that he had no explanation. Longtime observers, too, are searching for explanations about Prigozhin’s future.
Experts believe that the Wagner boss still has value to Putin, even though the stature of both men has diminished.
“Prigozhin’s stock with the Kremlin has clearly taken a hit,” said Candace Rondeaux, director of Future Frontlines, an open source intelligence service at the think tank New America. “But since Putin lost even more stock after the mutiny it seems he believes some utility remains in keeping Prigozhin around.”
Prigozhin’s business acumen – and his skill at concealing commercial gains through an opaque network of front companies and offshore operations – are an asset for Putin’s Russia, which has been hit by sweeping Western economic sanctions, Rondeaux said.
“At this point, Prigozhin’s networks of shell companies are the best insurance Putin has to keep Russia’s war economy,” she said. “But it’s not likely to stay that way forever – eventually something has got to give. And there is a good chance once it does we’ll see more spectacular events closer to the border between Poland and Belarus.”
Rondeaux was referring to the recent relocation of some Wagner fighters to Belarus. The move – apparently part of a deal brokered to end the June mutiny – has already raised alarms in Poland, a NATO member next door to Belarus.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently said that 100 troops from Wagner were moving toward a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, with the possible intent of posing as migrants to cross the border.
It’s unclear exactly how many Wagner troops are in Belarus, and whether or not they have access to heavy weaponry. But Morawiecki seemed to be pointing to one potential scenario for Wagner mischief: Promoting some kind of destabilization along NATO’s eastern frontier.
And then there are Prigozhin’s plans for another region: Vulnerable and unstable countries in Africa, where Wagner has already conducted a series of operations.
Speaking after Wagner fighters relocated to Belarus, Prigozhin suggested he remained focused on this core African market.
“To ensure that there are no secrets and behind-the-scenes conversations, I am informing you that the Wagner Group continues its activities in Africa, as well as at the training centers in Belarus,” Prigozhin said in an audio message shared on Telegram accounts associated with the Wagner group.
Prigozhin’s forces are already implicated in activities in Sudan – where Wagner has supplied the militia battling Sudan’s army – and has operated extensively in the CAR and in Libya.
He may also sense opportunities in Niger, after a recent military coup threatened to spark a major regional crisis. In a recent Telegram message, Prigozhin hinted that Wagner might be ready to offer its services there.
“What happened in Niger has been brewing for years,” Prigozhin said. “The former colonizers are trying to keep the people of African countries in check. In order to keep them in check, the former colonizers are filling these countries with terrorists and various bandit formations. Thus creating a colossal security crisis.”
Then followed his hard sell. “The population suffers,” he said. “And this is the (the reason for the) love for PMC Wagner, this is the high efficiency of PMC Wagner. Because a thousand soldiers of PMC Wagner are able to establish order and destroy terrorists, preventing them from harming the peaceful population of states.”
That might be dismissed as pure bluster and salesmanship. But it’s worth noting that Prigozhin’s sale pitch was at odds with the view of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which called for the “prompt release” of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum by the military.
And that’s where things can still get interesting back in Russia. By defying Putin and evading punishment, Prigozhin seems to have built and sustained a competing center of gravity to the Kremlin.
In a recent analysis, Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Prigozhin had effectively chipped away at the “power vertical” – Putin’s longstanding system of top-down rule.
“Putin’s much-hyped ‘power vertical’ has disappeared,” she wrote. “Instead of a strong hand, there are dozens of mini-Prigozhins, and while they may be more predictable than the Wagner leader, they are no less dangerous. All of them know full well that a post-Putin Russia is already here – even as Putin remains in charge – and that it’s time to take up arms and prepare for a battle for power.”
General Salifou Mody, one of the Niger officers who seized power in a military coup last week, visited Mali on Wednesday, according to the Mali presidency, amid speculation of a possible interest in the Wagner mercenary group, which has a presence in the country.
Mali’s transitional president, Assimi Goïta, hosted Mody and a large Nigerien military delegation on Wednesday, according to pictures and a statement posted on Facebook by the Mali presidency.
Mody called the meeting “part of a complex regional context,” the Mali presidency said, and thanked Malian authorities “for their support and accompaniment since the seizure of power by the CNSP,” referring to the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland where Mody is vice president.
Hundreds of Wagner contractors are stationed in Mali at the invitation of the country’s military junta, to quell an Islamist insurgency brewing in an area where the borders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger meet.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last week celebrated the coup in the landlocked West African country, saying his private military company could also help with situations like the one unfolding in Niger.
The dramatic ouster of Niger’s President Bazoum last week alarmed Western leaders, including the US and France, which are both key stakeholders in Niger’s crackdown on local Islamist insurgencies.
US officials have warned that the Russian mercenary group could now seek new opportunities in Niger. “I would not be surprised to see Wagner attempt to exploit this situation to their own advantage as they’ve attempted to exploit other situations in Africa to their own advantage,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday.
Miller added that “any attempt by the military leaders in Niger to bring the Wagner forces into Niger would be a sign, yet another sign that they do not have the best interests of the Nigerien people at heart.”
A number of CNN investigations, and others by human rights groups, have established Wagner’s involvement in and complicity with atrocities against civilian populations in Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic, where they have been employed to assist local defense forces against rebellions and insurgencies, and suppress opposition.
The coup has provoked a split reaction from countries in the Sahel region, where the threat of militant extremism in recent years has destabilized local governments and led to volatility.
On Monday, Mali and Burkina Faso’s governments said they would consider any military intervention “an act of war” against them and put their armies on standby.
Mali presidency’s statement said General Mody told his host he had come to explore “ways and means to strengthen our security cooperation, at a time when some countries are planning to intervene militarily in our country.”
The statement comes after the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Sunday threatened to use force if Niger’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, was not reinstated within one week.
ECOWAS also imposed a travel ban and asset freeze for the military officials involved in the coup attempt, as well as for their family members and civilians who accept to participate in any institutions or government established by the officials.
Burkina Faso and Mali expressed their solidarity with Nigerien authorities and said they would not participate in any measures against Niger by ECOWAS, calling the sanctions “illegal, illegitimate and inhuman.” Guinea also expressed its solidarity with Niger on Monday.
The US intelligence community assesses that there likely were between 100 to 300 people killed in the blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and there was “only light structural damage at the hospital,” according to an unclassified intelligence assessment obtained by CNN that adds more detail to the initial assessment released Wednesday finding Israel was not responsible for the strike.
The unclassified assessment sent to Capitol Hill by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence adds more detail to the US intelligence community’s initial assessment released Wednesday that Israel was not responsible for the strike on the hospital.
“Israel Probably Did Not Bomb Gaza Strip Hospital: We judge that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday [17 October] at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip,” the assessment states. “Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, and open-source video and images of the incident.”
The US intelligence community also estimates the number of deaths from the hospital at the “low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum,” according to the assessment, a lower number than figures initially cited by Hamas of more than 500.
The intelligence community “observed only light structural damage at the hospital,” with no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters, according to the assessment.
“We see only light damage to the roofs of two structures near the main hospital building, but both structures remained intact,” the assessment states.
The US intelligence community released its initial assessment on Wednesday that Israel was not responsible after President Joe Biden stated publicly while in Israel that the strike appeared to have been “the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.” Biden is giving a primetime address from the Oval Office on Thursday evening.
The National Security Council has said that the Biden administration plans to publicize as much intelligence as it can about the strike amid accusations that Israel was responsible for the blast.
“We will be sharing that information with our friends and partners in the region we have shared as much of that information as we can publicly,” Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said on “CNN This Morning” on Thursday.
The assessment states that intelligence indicates that “some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip assessed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by Palestine Islamic Jihad” and that the militants were still investigating.
“We continue to work to corroborate whether the explosion resulted from a failed PIJ rocket,” the ODNI assessment states.
“We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life,” the assessment states. “The United States takes seriously the deaths of all civilians, and is working intensively to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
Finer told CNN that the assessment of the hospital strike was a warning to the danger of drawing conclusions amid the fog of war. “I think this is a cautionary note for governments in the region, and frankly for press, in responding to each and every twist and turn in a conflict,” he said.
The Biden administration has been debating how much raw intelligence to declassify underpinning its assessment that the deadly blast at the Gaza hospital was caused by an errant rocket from a Palestinian militant group — not a missile from Israel, according to a senior administration official.
The White House believes that providing a clearer assessment to the public would be useful in trying to establish a clear and accurate narrative of events, this official said, noting it hasn’t reached a conclusion about how effective raw intelligence would be in that effort.
The debate a reflects growing concern that the US and Israel have lost control of the narrative spiraling out of Gaza that Israel was to blame for those killed in the hospital blast on Tuesday evening.
Former intelligence officials and sources familiar with current US intelligence were skeptical that there was anything the US might make public that would be believed in the Arab world.
“Unfortunately, the narratives have already spread and solidified at this point,” said one US official.
Following a classified Capitol Hill briefing Wednesday afternoon, a bipartisan group of senators urged the Biden administration to make public as much of the intelligence as possible.
“A part of the focus also has to be lowering the temperatures in some of the countries that have had reasonably good relationships with Israel — think Jordan, think Egypt,” Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican from North Carolina, told reporters on Wednesday. “That’s more of the focus now.”
As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the end of its first week, millions have turned to platforms including TikTok and Instagram in hopes of comprehending the brutal conflict in real time. Trending search terms on TikTok in recent days illustrate the hunger for frontline perspectives: From “graphic Israel footage” to “live stream in Israel right now,” internet users are seeking out raw, unfiltered accounts of a crisis they are desperate to understand.
For the most part, they are succeeding, discovering videos of tearful Israeli children wrestling with the permanence of death alongside images of dazed Gazans sitting in the rubble of their former homes. But that same demand for an intimate view of the war has created ample openings for disinformation peddlers, conspiracy theorists and propaganda artists — malign influences that regulators and researchers now warn pose a dangerous threat to public debates about the war.
One recent TikTok video, seen by more than 300,000 users and reviewed by CNN, promoted conspiracy theories about the origins of the Hamas attacks, including false claims that they were orchestrated by the media. Another, viewed more than 100,000 times, shows a clip from the video game “Arma 3” with the caption, “The war of Israel.” (Some users in the comments of that video noted they had seen the footage circulating before — when Russia invaded Ukraine.)
TikTok is hardly alone. One post on X, formerly Twitter, was viewed more than 20,000 times and flagged as misleading by London-based social media watchdog Reset for purporting to show Israelis staging civilian deaths for cameras. Another X post the group flagged, viewed 55,000 times, was an antisemitic meme featuring Pepe the Frog, a cartoon that has been appropriated by far-right white supremacists. On Instagram, a widely shared and viewed video of parachuters dropping in on a crowd and captioned “imagine attending a music festival when Hamas parachutes in” was debunked over the weekend and, in fact, showed unrelated parachute jumpers in Egypt. (Instagram later labeled the video as false.)
This week, European Union officials sent warnings to TikTok, Facebook and Instagram-parent Meta, YouTube and X, highlighting reports of misleading or illegal content about the war on their platforms and reminding the social media companies they could face billions of dollars in fines if an investigation later determines they violated EU content moderation laws. US and UK lawmakers have also called on those platforms to ensure they are enforcing their rules against hateful and illegal content.
Since the violence in Israel began, Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the social media watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate, told CNN his group has tracked a spike in efforts to pollute the information ecosystem surrounding the conflict.
“Getting information from social media is likely to lead to you being severely disinformed,” said Ahmed.
Everyone from US foreign adversaries to domestic extremists to internettrolls and “engagement farmers” has been exploiting the war on social media for their own personal or political gain, he added.
“Bad actors surrounding us have been manipulating, confusing and trying to create deception on social media platforms,” Dan Brahmy, CEO of the Israeli social media threat intelligence firm Cyabra, said Thursday in a video posted to LinkedIn. “If you are not sure of the trustworthiness [of content] … do not share,” he said.
‘Upticks in Islamophobic and antisemitic narratives’
Graham Brookie, senior director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, told CNN his team has witnessed a similar phenomenon. The trend includes a wave of first-party terrorist propaganda, content depicting graphic violence, misleading and outright false claims, and hate speech – particularly “upticks in specific and general Islamophobic and antisemitic narratives.”
Much of the most extreme content, he said, has been circulating on Telegram, the messaging app with few content moderation controls and a format that facilitates quick and efficient distribution of propaganda or graphic material to a large, dedicated audience. But in much the same way that TikTok videos are frequently copied and rebroadcast on other platforms, content shared on Telegram and other more fringe sites can easily find a pipeline onto mainstream social media or draw in curious users from major sites. (Telegram didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
Schools in Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States this week urged parents to delete their children’s social media apps over concerns that Hamas will broadcast or disseminate disturbing videos of hostages who have been seized in recent days. Photos of dead or bloodied bodies, including those of children, have already spread across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X this week.
And tech watchdog group Campaign for Accountability on Thursday released a report identifying several accounts on X sharing apparent propaganda videos with Hamas iconography or linking to official Hamas websites. Earlier in the week, X faced criticism for videos unrelated to the war being presented as on-the-ground footage and for a post from owner Elon Musk directing users to follow accounts that previously shared misinformation (Musk’s post was later deleted, and the videos were labeled using X’s “community notes” feature.)
Some platforms are in a better position to combat these threats than others. Widespread layoffs across the tech industry, including at some social media companies’ ethics and safety teams, risk leaving the platforms less prepared at a critical moment, misinformation experts say. Much of the content related to the war is also spreading in Arabic and Hebrew, testing the platforms’ capacity to moderate non-English content, where enforcement has historically been less robust than in English-language content.
“Of course, platforms have improved over the years. Communication & info sharing mechanisms exist that did not in years past. But they have also never been tested like this,” Brian Fishman, the co-founder of trust and safety platform Cinder who formerly led Facebook’s counterterrorism efforts, said Wednesday in a post on Threads. “Platforms that kept strong teams in place will be pushed to the limit; platforms that did not will be pushed past it.”
Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, said in a letter Wednesday to the European Commission that the platform has “identified and removed hundreds of Hamas-related accounts” and is working with several third-party groups to prevent terrorist content from spreading. “We’ve diligently taken proactive actions to remove content that violates our policies, including: violent speech, manipulated media and graphic media,” she said. The European Commission on Thursday formally opened an investigation into X following its earlier warning about disinformation and illegal content linked to the war.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said that since Hamas’ initial attacks, the company has established “a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to closely monitor and respond to this rapidly evolving situation. Our teams are working around the clock to keep our platforms safe, take action on content that violates our policies or local law, and coordinate with third-party fact checkers in the region to limit the spread of misinformation. We’ll continue this work as this conflict unfolds.”
YouTube, for its part, says its teams have removed thousands of videos since the attack began, and continues to monitor for hate speech, extremism, graphic imagery and other content that violates its policies. The platform is also surfacing almost entirely videos from mainstream news organizations in searches related to the war.
Snapchat told CNN that its misinformation team is closely watching content coming out of the region, making sure it is within the platform’s community guidelines, which prohibits misinformation, hate speech, terrorism, graphic violence and extremism.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Large tech platforms are now subject to content-related regulation under a new EU law called the Digital Services Act, which requires them to prevent the spread of mis- and disinformation, address rabbit holes of algorithmically recommended content and avoid possible harms to user mental health. But in such a contentious moment, platforms that take too heavy a hand in moderation could risk backlash and accusations of bias from users.
Platforms’ algorithms and business models — which generally rely on the promotion of content most likely to garner significant engagement — can aid bad actors who design content to capitalize on that structure, Ahmed said. Other product choices, such as X’s moves to allow any user to pay for a subscription for a blue “verification” checkmark that grants an algorithmic boost to post visibility, and to remove the headlines from links to news articles, can further manipulate how users perceive a news event.
“It’s time to break the emergency glass,” Ahmed said, calling on platforms to “switch off the engagement-driven algorithms.” He added: “Disinformation factories are going to cause geopolitical instability and put Jews and Muslims at harm in the coming weeks.”
Even as social media companies work to hide the absolute worst content from their users — whether out of a commitment to regulation, advertisers’ brand safety concerns, or their own editorial judgments — users’ continued appetite for gritty, close-up dispatches from Israelis and Palestinians on the ground is forcing platforms to walk a fine line.
“Platforms are caught in this demand dynamic where users want the latest and the most granular, or the most ‘real’ content or information about events, including terrorist attacks,” Brookie said.
The dynamic simultaneously highlights the business models of social media and the role the companies play in carefully calibrating their users’ experiences. The very algorithms that are widely criticized elsewhere for serving up the most outrageous, polarizing and inflammatory content are now the same ones that, in this situation, appear to be giving users exactly what they want.
But closeness to a situation is not the same thing as authenticity or objectivity, Ahmed and Brookie said, and the wave of misinformation flooding social media right now underscores the dangers of conflating them.
Despite giving the impression of reality and truthfulness, Brookie said, individual stories and combat footage conveyed through social media often lack the broader perspective and context that journalists, research organizations and even social media moderation teams apply to a situation to help achieve a fuller understanding of it.
“It’s my opinion that users can interact with the world as it is — and understand the latest, most accurate information from any given event — without having to wade through, on an individual basis, all of the worst possible content about that event,” Brookie said.
Potentially exacerbating the messy information ecosystem is a culture on social media platforms that often encourages users to bear witness to and share information about the crisis as a way of signaling their personal stance, whether or not they are deeply informed. That can lead even well-intentioned users to unwittingly share misleading information or highly emotional content created with the intention of collecting views or monetizing highly engaging content.
“Be very cautious about sharing in the middle of a major world event,” Ahmed said. “There are people trying to get you to share bullsh*t, lies, which are designed to inculcate you to hate or to misinform you. And so sharing stuff that you’re not sure about is not helping people, it’s actually really harming them and it contributes to an overall sense that no one can trust what they’re seeing.”
The Biden administration has yet to find a smoking gun linking Iran directly to planning and executing the attack on Israel this weekend, US officials told CNN on Sunday.
However, there’s no denying Iran’s history of aiding Hamas, officials said.
“Of course Iran is in the picture,” one US official told CNN. “They’ve provided support for years to Hamas and Hezbollah.”
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, senior US officials maintained that it was too early to determine whether Iran had any direct role in planning and supporting Hamas’ attack. “It is early” and a matter of direct interest to determine, one senior official said.
But officials are beginning to go as far as to say that Iran’s well-established connections to Hamas would mean it is likely Iran helped train and finance efforts that led to this weekend’s attack.
“Iran’s close ties to Hamas and financial and operational support make it likely they had a role in this,” one Democratic senator, who was expected to receive a classified briefing on Monday, told CNN.
But for now, US officials say there is no intelligence making the direct connection.
Asked during a briefing with House leadership Sunday evening whether there was any indication that Iran had direct involvement, acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said: “We have not found that connection, but that doesn’t mean we won’t.”
According to a person familiar with the call, Nuland noted that Iran has historically provided weapons to Hamas but US officials are looking for a more specific connection.
One congressional source said that given the sophistication of the attack, Iran would have had a role, since Hamas does not have the ability to buy weapons at this scale. The question now: To what extent Iran played a role.
Another key question is how Hamas coordinated and amassed the people and weaponry to execute the operation and did so undetected by key Middle Eastern and Western intelligence operations, including the Israelis.
“In this specific instance, we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” he added, “That’s something we’re looking at very carefully, and we’ve got to see where the facts lead.”
While the administration has rejected the criticism that a recent deal unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian funds was connected to the attack, Blinken was more circumspect about whether the deal freed up Iran to spend other money, noting that Iran has long underwritten terrorism.
“Iran has, unfortunately, always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas. And it’s done that when there have been sanctions; it’s done that when there haven’t been sanctions. And it’s always prioritized that,” he said on “Meet the Press.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
For a group of roughly two dozen displaced Afghan university students, the future feels uncertain.
They’ve already uprooted their lives once, fleeing Kabul – where they were studying at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) – when Afghanistan fell back under Taliban rule and the university was shuttered two years ago.
They were among the 110 AUAF students who were able to evacuate to Iraqi Kurdistan to continue studies at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani with the help of both universities, former Iraqi President Barham Salih, and a group called the Afghan Future Fund.
Now, the 23 students are awaiting approval to come to the United States, where they have been accepted into universities and received scholarships through the Qatar Scholarship for Afghans Project to finish their undergraduate degrees or pursue graduate ones.
“It’s been a year since my graduation. I’m still here, waiting,” one student in Iraq told CNN.
“I am left with uncertainty now,” a second student said, telling CNN that they fear they will be left “in limbo.”
CNN is not using the names of the students to protect their safety.
More than 100 displaced Afghan students – 80 of whom were in Iraq – have already come to the US, where they are studying at more than 45 universities, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The sources told CNN that most of the students are coming to the US as Priority 1 (P-1) refugees – a program they qualify for because of their affiliation with AUAF. The university received significant funding from the US government over the course of a decade and was targeted by suspected Taliban militants in a deadly 2016 attack. Its campus was seized by the Taliban almost immediately after the US military completed its withdrawal in August 2021.
The 23 students who remain in Iraq have not received P-1 approval yet. Sources say this is likely due to a security review process.
The students told CNN they don’t have any clear sense of when they will get approval to come to the US, and they are worried about what the continued delay means for their future.
Those who spoke to CNN have already had to defer their enrollment once, and likely will have to do so again as the start of fall semester looms. The second student said they had lost admission at their first university in the US because they were unable to travel there and enroll.
“This is basically my last hope,” this student said, noting they do not want to lose admission again.
“I do not want to lose another year of my life,” the first student said.
“I really want to study. I have worked really hard when I was in Afghanistan to get the chance of going to AUAF,” they said.
“I’m never going to give up on education,” they added.
“We Afghans lost almost everything, and this scholarship in the US is a very big opportunity for us,” a third student told CNN.
Going back to Afghanistan is not an option for these students, particularly those who are female. This is why they have sought the P-1 refugee status, which would give them a pathway to settle in the US after university.
The Taliban has enacted harsh restrictions against women and girls since coming back into power in two years ago. Girls and women have been barred from higher education and numerous work sectors; have been refused access to public spaces; have been ordered to cover themselves in public; and have had their travel abroad restricted.
“Anything that women do in Afghanistan is banned right now. You cannot exist as a woman,” the first student said.
For now, there are substantial efforts underway to try to get the students cleared to come to the US as soon as possible, with students reaching out to their prospective future members of Congress and advocates engaging with various agencies of the US government.
A US State Department spokesperson said they are “aware of the Afghan students at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani,” but could not comment on individual cases.
“Case processing in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program can be lengthy, however, we continue to prioritize processing cases of our Afghan allies and are working hard to speed up case processing across the USRAP,” the spokesperson said.
Vance Serchuk, an Afghan Futures Fund board member, said that his organization and others like Education Above All, Qatar Fund For Development, and the Institute of International Education “are committed to helping displaced Afghan students from the American University complete their education and realize their potential in safety.”
“These young people made the choice to attend the American university in Afghanistan at great risk to themselves; Americans now cannot be indifferent to their fate,” he said.
A weekend of terror in Israel has sharpened already grave questions about the capacity of the politically fractured United States to lay out a unified and coherent response to a world spinning out of its control.
When the House of Representatives descended into chaos last week, many Republicans, Democrats and independent experts warned that anarchy raging in US politics sent a dangerous message to the outside world. But no one could foresee just how quickly the paralysis in Washington would test the country’s reaction to a major global crisis.
The horrific Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, which have killed hundreds of people and shattered the country’s sense of security, thrust the Middle East to the precipice of a new era of violence and instability. This followed a period of relative calm and after US presidents spent years trying to extricate American forces from the region.
Israel’s response to the carnage caused by a major Iranian proxy raises the possibility of a wider regional war that would further destabilize the global order already rocked by the war in Ukraine and China’s flagrant challenges to Western power.
A situation this dangerous requires a calm, united and thoughtful US response, supported across the political spectrum. But the turmoil in America’s politics – plagued by internal extremism, threats to democracy and the hyperpoliticization of foreign policy – means it will be an impossible task to bring the country together at a perilous moment.
Swift efforts by lawmakers to quickly register support for Israel and to rush extra aid to its government could be hampered by the collapse of the Republican Party’s ability to govern in the House after the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week by his party’s extreme elements.
And the US is also facing an unprecedented election season. A president with low approval ratings confronting questions about his advanced age could go up against a potential Republican nominee who could be an indicted felon by Election Day. This means, at best, the United States will spend the coming months preoccupied by its own political plight. At worst, the world’s superpower guarantor of democracy could actually worsen global disruption and instability.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump rushed to exploit the crisis for his political gain, accusing President Joe Biden of causing the conflict because of “weakness.”
“Joe Biden betrayed Israel, he betrayed our country. As president, I will once again stand with Israel,” Trump said.
Foreign policy issues rarely decide US elections. But the danger for Biden and the opening for Trump is that yet another crisis abroad could foment an idea that the world is in turmoil, American power is weakening and Biden is hapless. At home and abroad, chaos is Trump’s friend as he seeks to foment the classic conditions that benefit aspiring autocrats promising strongman rule.
Fractured American governance doesn’t simply pose a material issue for Israel and for Ukraine, whose US lifeline as it battles Russia’s unprovoked invasion is now in extreme jeopardy due to far-right Republicans. The spectacle also suggests to US enemies – including Iran, the main supporter of Hamas, and Russia and China – that the US is hopelessly divided and may struggle to wield power to safeguard its interests.
“It wasn’t my idea to oust the speaker. I thought it was dangerous,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I look at the world and all the threats that are out there, and what kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we can’t govern, when we’re dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a speaker of the House?
“How does Chairman Xi in China look at that when he says democracy doesn’t work?” the Texas Republican added. “How does the Ayatollah look at this, knowing that we cannot function properly? And I think it sends a terrible message.”
US sends a message of chaos and weakness
The shuttered House created a particularly damaging symbol of the US – and the democratic system of governance it promotes around the world – in disarray. The Biden administration has the capacity to send immediate military aid to Israel, whose government has asked Washington for JDAM precision-guided munition kits and more interceptors for the Iron Dome air defense system as Hamas rockets rain down on Israeli cities. But any delay in seating a new speaker and creating a functioning majority in the House could have serious consequence.
Republican Rep. Michael Lawler, who faces a tough reelection in a New York district that Biden would have carried in 2020 under its new lines, warned that the chaos in the House needs to end. “Given the situation in the Middle East with one of our closest allies in the world, it is critical that we bring this to a close expeditiously,” Lawler told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And so, I think it is imperative, frankly, that this nonsense stop, that Kevin McCarthy be reinstated as speaker,” Lawler added.
Republicans left town after ousting McCarthy last week, and are expected to try to choose between Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who has the backing of Trump, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise this week. But given the demands of extremists in the GOP conference, the complications of a tiny majority and the fact it took McCarthy a marathon 15 rounds of balloting to win the job in January, there is no guarantee that strong, new Republican leadership will quickly emerge.
While there is crossparty consensus over supporting Israel in the House, the US response to another murderous assault on a vulnerable democracy – Ukraine – threatens to be derailed by America’s viciously polarized politics in a way that could seriously erode Washington’s global leadership.
Right-wing Republicans who back Trump are echoing the former president’s opposition to further US aid and ammunition to Ukraine. While there is still a majority in favor of such measures in the House and the Senate, any future Republican speaker will likely have to pass aid packages with the help of Democratic votes – the very scenario that caused McCarthy’s fall as he tried to head off a damaging government shutdown (even though that stopgap funding bill did not include Ukraine aid, as the White House had wanted).
Already, the political showdown over Ukraine is causing deep concern in Kyiv that it will be unable to continue its fight against Russia in the current form without the more than $20 billion in assistance that the Biden administration has requested.
In a broader sense, the possibility that a populist, nationalist wing of the Republican Party under Trump could desert a democracy under attack from Russia – and therefore reward the aggression of an autocrat who shaped his worldview as a member of the KGB – threatens to not just shatter the logic of decades of US foreign policy, but to fundamentally change the US’ role in the world and the values on which its allies believed they could depend.
The politicization of global crises is not just confined to Israel or Ukraine. A Chinese spy balloon that wafted over US soil this year caused an extraordinary outburst of Republican fury toward Biden, which threatened to tie the president’s hands when managing the critical issue of US relations with the Pacific superpower.
A growing sense abroad that America’s political problems are limiting its ability to lead globally could also have a devastating effect on its power. This can only play into the hands of enemies in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, who have all sought to influence US elections, according to US intelligence agencies, and all have strong geopolitical incentives in seeing American democracy fail.
The extraordinary and sudden Hamas attack on Israel – which has been compared to the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in terms of per capita casualties was far more bloody – falls into the category of tragedies that could change the world.
Aside from the awful human toll – now also being felt by Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where hundreds have perished in the initial Israel reprisal attacks on the infrastructure of Hamas – the onslaught will have far-reaching strategic consequences that will be felt in the US.
If evidence is found that Iran directly plotted the attack with Hamas, there will be huge pressure on the Israelis to respond by directly confronting the Islamic Republic, at the risk of sparking a wider regional conflagration that could draw in the United States.
The attacks and their fallout are also almost certain to disrupt the effort, in which the US is a key player, to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and allied Arab states. Such an agreement would fundamentally reshape the region and further isolate Iran – a logical reason why it could have had an interest in perpetrating the Hamas assault. US officials are still trying to establish how, if at all, Iran was involved.
The horror in Israel presents Biden with another fearsome foreign policy crisis as he contemplates his reelection bid – alongside the war in Ukraine and a rising confrontation with China.
It comes at a moment of political vulnerability for the administration as it seeks to explain why it made a deal to release US prisoners from Iran that resulted in the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Iranian government can use the funds only to buy humanitarian and medical supplies. The deal took place far too recently for such money to be used to finance this attack. But such subtleties don’t count for much in an election year, as multiple Republican presidential candidates accused the president of funding Iranian terror.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday tried to defuse the political impact of the agreement. “Not a single dollar has been spent from that account. And, again, the account is closely regulated by the US Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” he insisted on “State of the Union.”
But, in a political sense, it only matters that enough Americans believe what the Republicans are saying is true.
GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, for instance, implied Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that funds that Iran may not have to spend on medicine because of the hostage deal could now be spent on terror.
“Secretary Blinken is just wrong to imply that this money is not being moved around as we speak,” Haley said, although her argument is undercut by the fact that Iran’s clerical regime has rarely seemed to prioritize the humanitarian needs of its people while building up a huge state military complex.
Another 2024 candidate, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, went even further, accusing Biden – who has been one of the strongest Washington supporters of Israel in half a century in politics – of being “complicit” in the attacks.
Schools in Israel, the UK and the US are advising parents to delete their children’s social media apps over concerns that Hamas militants will broadcast or disseminate disturbing videos of hostages who have been seized in recent days.
A Tel Aviv school’s parent’s association said it expects videos of hostages “begging for their lives” to surface on social media. In a message to parents, shared with CNN by a mother of children at a high school in Tel Aviv, the association asked parents to remove apps such as TikTok from their children’s phones.
“We cannot allow our kids to watch this stuff. It is also difficult, furthermore – impossible – to contain all this content on social media,” according to the parent’s association. “Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”
Hamas has warned that it will post murders of hostages on social media if Israel targets people in Gaza without warning.
There are additional concerns that terrorists will exploit social media algorithms to specifically target such videos to followers of Jewish or Israeli influencers in an effort to wage psychological warfare on Israelis and Jews and their supporters globally.
During the onslaught on Saturday, armed Hamas militants poured over the heavily-fortified border into Israel and took as many as 150 hostages, including Israeli army officers, back to Gaza. The surprise attacks killed at least 1,200 people, according to the Israel Defense Forces, and injured thousands more.
Since Israel began airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave Saturday, at least 1,055 people have been killed in Gaza, including hundreds of children, women, and entire families, according to the Palestinian health ministry. It said a further 5,184 have been injured, as of Wednesday.
As the war wages on, some Jewish schools in the US are also asking parents not to share related videos or photos that may surface, and to prevent children – and themselves – from watching them. The schools are also advising community members to delete their social media apps during this time.
“Together with other Jewish day schools, we are warning parents to disable social media apps such as Instagram, X, and Tiktok from their children’s phones,” the head of a school in New Jersey wrote in an email. “Graphic and often misleading information is flowing freely, augmenting the fears of our students. … Parents should discuss the dangers of these platforms and ask their children on a daily basis about what they are seeing, even if they have deleted the most unfiltered apps from their phones.”
Another school in the UK said it asked students to delete their social media apps during a safety assembly.
TikTok, Instagram and X – formerly known as Twitter – did not immediately respond to requests for comment on how they are combating the increase of videos being posted online and for comment on schools asking parents to delete these apps.
But X said on its platform is has experienced an increase in daily active users in the conflict area and its escalation teams have “actioned tens of thousands of posts for sharing graphic media, violent speech, and hateful conduct.” It did not respond to a request to comment further or define “actioned.”
“We’re also continuing to proactively monitor for antisemitic speech as part of all our efforts,” X’s safety team said. “Plus we’ve taken action to remove several hundred accounts attempting to manipulate trending topics.”
The company added it remains “laser focused” on enforcing the site’s rules and reminded users they can limit sensitive media they may encounter by visiting the “Content you see” option in Settings.
Still, misinformation continues to run rampant on social media platforms, including X.
A post viewed more than 500,000 times – featuring the hashtag #PalestineUnderAttack – claimed to show an airplane being shot down. But the clip was from the video game Arma 3, as was later noted in a “community note” appended to the post.
Another video that is purported to show Israeli generals after being captured by Hamas fighters was viewed more than 1.7 million times by Monday. The video, however, instead shows the detention of separatists in Azerbaijan.
On Tuesday, the European Union warned Elon Musk of “penalties” for disinformation circulating on X amid Israel-Hamas war.
The EU also informed Meta CEO Zuckerberg on Wednesday of a disinformation surge on its platforms – which include Facebook – and demanded the company respond in 24 hours with how it plans to combat the issue.
In an Instagram story on Tuesday, Zuckerberg called the attack “pure evil” and said his focus “remains on the safety of our employees and their families in Israel and the region.”
At least two brands have said they will suspend advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after their ads and those of other companies were run on an account promoting fascism. The issue came less than a week after X CEO Linda Yaccarino publicly affirmed the company’s commitment to brand safety for advertisers.
The nonprofit news watchdog Media Matters for America documented in a report published Wednesday that ads for a host of mainstream brands have been run on the account, which has shared content celebrating Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Ads for brands including Adobe, Gilead Sciences, the University of Maryland’s football team, New York University Langone Hospital and NCTA-The Internet and Television Association were run alongside tweets from the account that had garnered hundreds of thousands of views, CNN observed.
Spokespeople for NCTA and pharmaceutical company Gilead said that they immediately paused their ad spending on X after CNN flagged their ads on the pro-Nazi account.
“We take the responsible placement of NCTA ads very seriously and are concerned that our post about the future of broadband technology appeared next to this highly disturbing content,” NCTA spokesperson Brian Dietz said in a statement, adding that the organization had opted into X’s brand safety measures including keyword restrictions and limiting its ad placement to the “home feed of target audiences.”
“Brand safety will remain an utmost priority for NCTA, which means suspending advertising on Twitter/X for the foreseeable future and heavily limiting NCTA’s organic presence on the platform,” Dietz said.
A spokesperson for Gilead said the company will pause its ad spending while X investigates the issue.
Jason Yellin, University of Maryland’s associate athletic director, expressed concern about the placement of the football team’s post on the account and said Maryland Football has not spent money on advertising on X since 2021, meaning X may have promoted the post despite it not being a paid ad.
A spokesperson for NYU Langone said in a statement that the hospital was “completely surprised by this and are extremely concerned with any appearance of our advertising and brand next to obviously objectionable content that promotes hatred,” adding that it expects its advertising partners to “act responsibly.”
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN. Hours after the Media Matters report was published Wednesday morning and CNN observed additional brands’ ads running on the account, the account appeared to be suspended.
Adobe did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNN.
The issue comes as X has been trying to lure advertisers back to the platform after many left in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the company last fall over concerns about content moderation, mass layoffs and general uncertainty over the platform’s direction. Musk said last month that the company still had negative cash flow because of a nearly 50% drop in its core advertising revenue.
Yaccarino — who joined the company in June, just ahead of a major rebrand from Twitter to X — told CNBC in her first public interview as chief executive last week that many of the platform’s advertisers have returned and that the company is “close to break-even.” She touted the company’s “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” policy, which aims to limit the reach of so-called lawful but awful content on the platform and to protect brands from having their ads appear alongside such content.
X last week said it had rolled out additional brand safety controls for advertisers, including the ability to avoid having their ads show next to “targeted hate speech, sexual content, gratuitous gore, excessive profanity, obscenity, spam, drugs.” In addition to human content moderation reviewers that monitor for content that violates the platform’s rules, X says it has automated software that determines where and how ads are placed on the platform.
“Your ads will only air next to content that is appropriate for you,” Yaccarino said during last week’s interview.
But Wednesday’s report suggests that the company still has work to do if it wants to avoid monetizing, and placing ads alongside, objectionable content. “Media Matters and other observers have documented how X has remained a dangerous cesspool of content, especially for advertisers,” Wednesday’s report states. Media Matters says it has also documented instances of brands’ ads being placed next to content from Holocaust denial and white nationalist accounts.
While she did not publicly comment on the ads appearing alongside pro-Nazi content, Yaccarino did post on X Wednesday that, “Sensitivity Settings is live globally in the X Ads Manager — making it even simpler for all advertisers to find the right balance between reach and suitability.”
