Politics
Venezuela releases 10 jailed Americans in prisoner swap deal with El Salvador – National TenX News
Venezuela released 10 jailed Americans on Friday in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, officials said.
The arrangement represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands El Salvador a swap that its president had proposed months ago.
“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement in which he thanked El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
Bukele said his country had handed over all the Venezuelan nationals in its custody. The Venezuelan government said it had paid a “steep price” by having to release the U.S. nationals but was pleased to have its own jailed citizens back.
Central to the deal are the more than 250 Venezuelan migrants being freed by El Salvador, which in March agreed to a $6 million payment from the Trump administration to house them in a notorious Salvadoran prison.
The arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly remove men his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang. The administration did not provide evidence to back those claims.
The Venezuelans have been held in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which was built to hold alleged gang members in Bukele’s war on the country’s gangs. Human rights groups have documented hundreds of deaths and cases of torture inside its walls.
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Among the Americans freed Friday was 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, whose family says he was kidnapped in January by Venezuelan border guards from inside Colombia, where he was vacationing.
“We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal,” said his younger sister Sophie Hunter.
The release of the Venezuelans is an invaluable win for Maduro as he presses his efforts to assert himself as president despite credible evidence that he lost reelection last year. Long on the receiving end of accusations of human rights abuses, Maduro for months used the men’s detention in El Salvador to flip the script on the U.S. government, forcing even some of his strongest political opponents to agree with his condemnation of the migrants’ treatment.
The migrants’ return will allow Maduro to reaffirm support within his shrinking base, while it demonstrates that even if the Trump administration and other nations see him as an illegitimate president, he is still firmly in power.
The release comes just a week after the State Department reiterated its policy of shunning Maduro government officials and recognizing only the National Assembly elected in 2015 as the legitimate government of the country. Signed by Rubio, the cable said U.S. officials are free to meet and have discussions with National Assembly members “but cannot engage with Maduro regime representatives unless cleared by the Department of State.”
Venezuelan authorities detained nearly a dozen U.S. citizens in the second half of 2024 and linked them to alleged plots to destabilize the country.
“We have prayed for this day for almost a year. My brother is an innocent man who was used as a political pawn by the Maduro regime, said a statement from Christian Casteneda, whose brother Wilbert, a Navy SEAL, was arrested in his Caracas hotel room last year.
Global Reach, a nonprofit organization that had advocated for his release and that of several other Americans, said Venezuelan officials initially and falsely accused him of being involved in a coup but backed off that claim.
The Americans were among dozens of people, including activists, opposition members and union leaders, that Venezuela’s government took into custody in its brutal campaign to crack down on dissent in the 11 months since Maduro claimed to win reelection.
The U.S. government, along with several other Western nations, does not recognize Maduro’s claim to victory and instead points to tally sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its candidate, Edmundo González, won the July 2024 election by a more than a two-to-one margin.
The dispute over results prompted immediate protests, and the government responded by detaining more than 2,000 people, mostly poor young men. González fled into exile in Spain to avoid arrest.
Despite the U.S. not recognizing Maduro, the two governments have carried out other recent exchanges.
In May, Venezuela freed a U.S. Air Force veteran after about six months in detention. Scott St. Clair’s family has said the language specialist, who served four tours in Afghanistan, had traveled to South America to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
St. Clair was handed over to Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions, during a meeting on a Caribbean island.
Three months earlier, six other Americans whom the U.S. government considered wrongfully detained in Venezuela were released after Grenell met with Maduro at the presidential palace.
Grenell, during the meeting in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, urged Maduro to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. Hundreds of Venezuelans have since been deported to their home country, but more than 200 deported from the U.S. have been held since mid-March at the prison in El Salvador.
Lawyers have little access to those in the prison, which is heavily guarded, and information has been locked tight, other than heavily produced state propaganda videos showing tattooed men packed behind bars.
As a result, prominent human rights groups and lawyers working with the Venezuelans on legal cases had little information of their movement until they boarded the plane.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Politics
UK refuses to invite Israeli government officials to London arms fair over the war in Gaza – National TenX News
The U.K. has barred Israeli government officials from attending the country’s biggest arms fair over growing concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The decision does not cover representatives of Israeli defense contractors, who will be allowed to attend the DSEI UK exhibition, scheduled for Sept. 9-12 in London. The event was formerly known as Defense and Security Equipment International.
“The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong,” the British government said in a statement. “As a result, we can confirm that no Israeli government delegation will be invited to attend DSEI UK 2025.”
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The decision comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer in July announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state unless Israel takes steps to end the crisis in Gaza, agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas and commits to a long-term peace agreement. Britain previously barred sales to Israel of any arms that could be used in the nearly 23-month war in Gaza.
Israel’s Defense Ministry said the decision was based on politics and “serves extremists.”
“These restrictions amount to a deliberate and regrettable act of discrimination against Israel’s representatives,” the ministry said.
The Israeli ministry said it would withdraw from the exhibition and will not establish a national pavilion.
Pro-Palestinian and anti-war groups have announced plans to for protests during DSEI, which will take place at the Excel center in east London.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Politics
Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows – National TenX News
Israel will soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza as it expands its military offensive against Hamas, an official said Saturday, a day after Gaza City was declared a combat zone.
The decision was likely to bring more condemnation of Israel’s government as frustration grows in the country and abroad over dire conditions for both Palestinians and remaining hostages in Gaza after nearly 23 months of war.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told The Associated Press that Israel will stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving in the north as it prepares to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people south.
Israel on Friday ended recently imposed daytime pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery, describing Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold and alleging that a tunnel network remains in use, despite previous large-scale raids. The United Nations and partners have said the pauses, airdrops and other measures fell far short of the 600 trucks of aid needed daily in Gaza.
A ‘massive population movement’ coming
AP video footage showed several large explosions across Gaza overnight. Israel’s military Saturday evening said it had struck a key Hamas member in the area of Gaza City, with no details.
In recent days, Israel’s military has increased strikes on the outskirts of Gaza City, where famine was recently documented and declared by global food security experts.
By Saturday there had been no airdrops for several days across Gaza, a break from almost daily ones. Israel’s army didn’t respond to a request for comment or say how it would provide aid to Palestinians during another major shift in Gaza’s population of over 2 million people.
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“Such an evacuation would trigger a massive population movement that no area in the Gaza Strip can absorb, given the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and the extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care,” Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement.
It’s impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City can be done in a safe and dignified way, she said.
Hundreds of residents have begun leaving Gaza City, piling their remaining possessions onto pickup trucks or donkey carts. Many have been forced to leave their homes more than once.
Killed while seeking food
Israeli gunfire killed four people trying to get aid in central Gaza, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital, were the bodies were taken.
An Israeli strike on a bakery in Gaza City’s Nasr neighborhood killed 12 people including six women and three children, the Shifa Hospital director told the AP, and a strike on the Rimal neighborhood killed seven.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said another 10 people died as a result of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, including three children. It said at least 332 Palestinians have died from malnutrition-related causes during the war, including 124 children.
At least 63,371 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the war, said the ministry, which does not say how many are fighters or civilians but says around half have been women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
“There is no food and even water is not available. When it is available, it is not safe to drink,” said Amer Zayed, as he waited for food from a charity kitchen in Deir al-Balah on Friday.
“The suffering gets worse when there are more displaced people,” he added.
Israelis rally again to demand a ceasefire deal
Israelis waited to hear the identity of the remains of a hostage that Israel on Friday said had been recovered in Gaza. It also said it recovered the remains of hostage Ilan Weiss.
Forty-eight hostages now remain in Gaza of the over 250 seized in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Israel had believed 20 are still alive.
Their loved ones fear the expanding military offensive will put them in even more danger, and they were rallying again Saturday to demand a ceasefire deal to bring everyone home.
“Netanyahu, if another living hostage comes back in a bag, it will not only be the hostages and their families who pay the price. You will bear responsibility for premeditated murder,” Zahiro Shahar Mor, nephew of hostage Avraham Munder, said in Tel Aviv.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
The Trump administration said Friday it was denying and revoking U.S. visas from members of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
That comes ahead of next month’s United Nations General Assembly, where Canada and several other countries have said they intend to officially recognize a Palestinian state.
The U.S. State Department cited the groups’ efforts to secure statehood recognition at the UN, along with their appeals to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice to investigate alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza, as reasons for the decision by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks,” the department said in a statement.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”
The statement did not name the officials being denied entry. It was not immediately clear if the list included Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to travel to New York for the UN gathering.
The Palestinians’ ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters at the UN headquarters that they were checking exactly what the U.S. move means “and how it applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly.”
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Representatives assigned to the Palestinian Authority mission at the UN, led by Mansour, will be granted waivers so they can continue their New York-based operations, the U.S. statement said.
Mansour said Abbas still intends to lead the delegation to the high-level meetings and is expected to address the General Assembly — as he has done for many years — and to attend a meeting on the afternoon of Sept. 22 on a two-state solution co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. President Donald Trump will travel to New York and address the general assembly on Sept. 23, the White House said on Thursday.
Canada, Britain, Australia and France in recent weeks have announced or signalled their intention to recognize a Palestinian state during the meeting.
The countries have said their recognition is conditional on the Palestinian Authority — which has limited self-rule over parts of the occupied West Bank and has for years been positioning itself as a legitimate government alternative to Hamas in Gaza — undergoing reforms and new elections.
Abbas has signalled he will co-operate with the Western nations’ demands.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization is an internationally recognized coalition that represents Palestinian people in its occupied territories and abroad.
The Trump administration has staunchly backed Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. The U.S. has also refused to condemn expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Canada and other allies have said undermine two-state solution efforts.
Rubio hosted Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday “to reaffirm our two nations’ close cooperation,” the U.S. secretary said in a post on X.
Saar, asked after the meeting what the plan was for a Palestinian state, said there would not be any.
The Israeli minister on Friday thanked Rubio for holding the PA and PLO “accountable for rewarding terrorism, incitement and efforts to use legal warfare against Israel” in a social media statement.
Officials with the Palestinian Authority reject that they’ve undermined peace prospects.
Under the 1947 UN “headquarters agreement,” the U.S. is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York. But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, terrorism and foreign policy reasons.
Hamas earlier this month said it had accepted a U.S.-backed proposal on a ceasefire in Gaza that would see the release of some hostages in exchange for talks with Israel that would end the conflict and see the return of all remaining hostages.
But Israel has said it will only accept the full return of all the hostages and has pressed ahead with a plan to occupy Gaza City, which international monitors like the UN have warned could worsen a famine already afflicting the Palestinian territory.
Rubio last week announced sanctions against multiple International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors involved in the court’s investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza and the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
—With files from Reuters
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
UK refuses to invite Israeli government officials to London arms fair over the war in Gaza – National TenX News
Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows – National TenX News
U.S. scraps Palestinian officials’ visas ahead of UN General Assembly – National TenX News
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