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Israel agrees to 5-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza

Israel agreed Wednesday to halt its airstrikes on Gaza for five hours in order to allow humanitarian aid, following a request from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The military said in a statement Wednesday that it would hold its fire for five hours starting at 10:00 a.m. local time on Thursday.
It warns however that it will retaliate "firmly and decisively" if Hamas or other militant groups launch attacks on Israel during that time.
The cease-fire request came from U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Robert Serry, Haaretz reports.
There was no word on whether there would be a similar lull from Palestinian militants, who fired at least 90 rockets at Israel on Wednesday and vowed not to stop until their demands were met.
After news of the cease-fire broke, Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system continued to intercept rockets heading toward Israel, the newspaper added.
Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community to condemn the militant group Hamas for committing a “double war crime” of firing barrages of rockets at Israelis while using Palestinians as human shields.
Netanyahu, speaking at a news conference, said "Israel will continue to do what it needs to do to defend itself until peace and quiet are restored,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
He added that the demilitarization of Gaza is "most important step for the international community to insist on."
The comments came as a senior Hamas official said the militant group has formally closed the door on the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire aimed at ending the conflict with Israel.
Sami Abu Zuhri said Wednesday in a text message to The Associated Press that the group "informed Cairo today officially that we don't accept the proposal they made."
Israel had held out hope that the cease-fire deal plan could be salvaged. But Abu Zuhri says it has been definitively rejected.
Both sides once again exchanged a flurry of rockets Wednesday.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it had struck 50 Hamas targets in Beit Lahiya -- a town of approximately 70,000 people in northern Gaza -- the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighborhoods of Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza.
The website of the Gaza Interior Ministry said Israeli warplanes hit 30 houses, including those of senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar, Jamila Shanti, Fathi Hamas and Ismail Ashkar.
Zahar was a key figure in Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, while the other three were members of the Palestinian parliament elected in 2006. Many Hamas leaders have gone into hiding since the beginning of the Israeli offensive.
Israeli warplanes also bombed a coastal road west of Gaza City, killing four Palestinian boys, who were cousins and ages 9 to 11, said Ashraf Al Kedra, a Palestinian doctor. Seven others -- adults and children -- were wounded in the strike, he said.
The boys' uncle, Abdel Kareem Baker, 41, raged at Israel after the attack.
"It's a cold blooded massacre," he said. "It's a shame who come they didn't identify them as kids with all of the advanced technology they claim they're using."
The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
In response, Hamas fired 74 rockets at Israel Wednesday, 29 of which were intercepted by the country’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system, according to the IDF’s Twitter account.
The IDF also reported that 100 of Hamas’ rockets have struck their own territory since fighting erupted on July 8.
Prior to the intensified strikes in Gaza, Israel warned thousands of Palestinians living in the area Wednesday to “evacuate immediately” or face danger.
An Israeli military spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal that residents of Beit Lahiya and parts of Gaza City had been warned by telephone.
On Wednesday morning, hundreds of residents of Zeitoun and Shijaiyah were seen walking in the streets, carrying small bags with belongings.
Older children carried smaller ones, in their arms or on their backs. Some of the women and children cried, looking terrified.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 100,000 automated calls had been made to Gaza residents, but that number was not confirmed by the military.
The warnings were also delivered by text message and by leaflets dropped from planes. The Israeli military said in its message that large numbers of rockets were launched from these areas and that Israel plans to bomb these locations.
"Whoever disregards these instructions and fails to evacuate immediately, endangers their own lives, as well as those of their families," the message said.
Gaza residents told The Wall Street Journal that most of Beit Lahiya had already emptied out even before the latest warnings. But many residents in other parts of northern Gaza have decided to stay.
The Wafa Rehabilitation Center in Shijaiyah, which cares for 15 disabled and elderly patients, received several calls demanding the patients evacuate, director Basman Ashi told the AP. He said a shell fired by Israel hit near the building, causing damage to the second floor, but no injuries. Ashi added that he wouldn't evacuate his elderly patients, claiming they had nowhere to go.
An Israeli military spokesman told the Associated Press that the hospital's residents "have been asked repeatedly to leave."
"There is a rocket launching site in the area," the spokesman said, adding that Gaza militants are using the center to hide "behind civilians."
Four foreign volunteers -- from England, the U.S., France and Sweden -- have set up camp at the rehabilitation center to deter the military from targeting it.
English volunteer Rina Andolini, 32, said the patients range in age from 12 to over 70, and none can walk or move without assistance. She said there are also 17 Palestinian staff members.
Andolini said the patients are living in a constant state of fear, intensified by the Israeli tank shelling from across the border.
The Palestinian death toll in nine days of fighting rose to 204, with some 1,450 wounded, Palestinian health officials said.
However, it is not clear how many of the dead are civilians and how many are Hamas militants.
On the Israeli side, one man was killed and several people were wounded since the fighting erupted on July 8.
Hamas had come under pressure from the international community to reverse its initial rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, which would have gone into effect Tuesday morning had both sides agreed. Instead, Hamas announced its rejection of the proposal moments after Israel announced that its Security Cabinet had accepted it.
"I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to operate a cease-fire," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.
"I hope the Hamas leadership now understand the best thing to do is to call a halt, have the negotiation, discussion, and sit down with everybody to work out a long-term, viable plan for Gaza," former British Prime Minister and Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair told Sky News.

Fed-backed group drops plan to buy fancy hotel to house illegals

Bailey: Just the beginning of the end of America.

A plan to house hundreds of illegal immigrant children at a multimillion-dollar hotel complex in Texas was scuttled after the prospect of taxpayers footing the bill for luxury lodging proved too much of a public relations obstacle.
BCFS, previously known as Baptist Child and Family Services, which has a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to run camps at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and Fort Sill in Oklahoma, had a deal to buy the Palm Aire Hotel in Weslaco, Texas, for $3.8 million. The hotel was built in the 1980s and includes three swimming pools, tennis courts and an exercise room.

The Palm Aire Hotel is not exactly Club Med but the 7-acre site features three swimming pools, lighted tennis courts, concierge service and a Jacuzzi.

"This proposal sought to find a solution for providing safe, humane care for the children flooding across the border and overwhelming U.S. Border Patrol and communities," BCSF said in a statement announcing the deal was scrapped. "BCFS is thankful to the City of Weslaco for their consideration and support, and is disappointed that misinformation has fueled so much negativity against this effort that its success is likely jeopardized."
Officials said the project never reached the point of submitting a proposal to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but one of the hotel's current owners confirmed that a sales agreement with BCSF had been in place.
The deal died Wednesday afternoon, hours after FoxNews.com reported that as many as 600 children between the ages of 12-17 could be placed at the Palm Aire, where BCFS would also provide medical and mental health care and educational and recreational programs under a contract that sources said could total as much as $50 million.
The Palm Aire Hotel is not exactly Club Med -- but the 7-acre site features three swimming pools, lighted tennis courts, concierge service and a Jacuzzi. The property also has around 10,000 square feet of retail and meeting space.
Weslaco is part of the complex of communities that includes McAllen at Texas' extreme southern border, where tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America have crossed over from Mexico, overwhelming Border patrol facilities. Federal agencies and non-governmental organizations have been scrambling for places to house the massive surge of illegal immigrants.
BCSF had planned to hire 650 workers – some making upward of $45 per hour - to staff the facility, according to sources.
Officials said the location made sense, even if it made for bad optics. 
"The facility also would have allowed for the quick transfer of children in Border Patrol custody in South Texas to a residential child care facility, and then expedited release to their families," BCFS officials said. "The average length of stay was expected to be 15 days. During that time, children would be provided room and board, in addition to basic education, recreational activities, medical and mental health care, case management, and religious services, if they chose to participate. The children would not have attended public school."
But images of the hotel's amenities generated a backlash that officials said could not be overcome.
"We are not going to continue with trying to purchase that hotel," a source close to the plan told Fox News. "It was just too controversial. We should have known better, no matter what the cost."

Misperceptions about U.S. immigration policy behind surge of illegal children, report says

A new intelligence assessment concludes that misperceptions about U.S. immigration policy – and not Central American violence – are fueling the surge of thousands of children illegally crossing the Mexican border.
The 10-page July 7 report was issued by the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which according to the Justice Department website is led by the DEA and incorporates Homeland Security. Its focus is on the collection and distribution of tactical intelligence, information which can immediately be acted on by law enforcement.
"Of the 230 migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos to UAC (unaccompanied children) and adult females OTMs (other than Mexicans) traveling with minors,” the report said.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., told reporters Tuesday, "It's a critical situation and if we don't deal with it urgently but well- done right- then we're facing a crisis of just huge proportions." 
Diaz-Balart, who along with other lawmakers just visited Central America, described how human smugglers -- known as coyotes - are exploiting perceived changes to U.S. immigration law after the Obama administration decided in 2012 to practice prosecutorial discretion in cases where individuals were brought into the U.S. illegally as minors.
"The violence isn't new. The situation in those countries is not new," Diaz-Balart said. "These cartels have seen a weakness in the system. They've seen statements coming from the administration that they have used in order to just frankly increase the number of people coming over.
“Remember this is not a five-year-old or an 11-year-old can't just walk over the border and get to the United States. These are organized coyotes doing this.”
The intelligence assessment, which is unclassified but not meant to go beyond law enforcement, also cited data from the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime Statistics saying despite an explosion in the number of illegal minors, crime data for Central America actually showed a dip in violence.
"There's no doubt the message went out- go across border now the United States won't do anything about it," said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas. "That came primarily from the coyotes who were transporting these kids. These coyotes - it really was something we weren't prepared for - they sort of advertised themselves, actually advertise, as social workers- we're gonna help you take your kids out of the poverty and the danger they have in these countries and put them in the United States, where they'll receive an education and be taken care of. And that was the message."
A draft chart obtained separately by Fox News, and circulating on Capitol Hill, showed data from Homeland Security projects that if current trends continue, as many as 90,000 illegal children will enter the U.S. by the end of this year and nearly double that,160,000, next year.
"We need a combination of things, want to swiftly and humanely return them to their home, said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “Only until we do that will we stop the flow. So we need a message of deterrence." 
While customs and border protection officials issued no statement about the intelligence report, Homeland Security officials stressed that a combination of factors, including a bad economy and security concerns, were behind the surge. Earlier this month, a media campaign was launched by the U.S. government in Central America to combat misperceptions about American laws.

Israel warns Gazans to leave homes as Hamas urged to accept cease-fire

Israel resumed its aerial offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, one day after the Islamic militant group rejected a cease-fire plan proposed by Egypt. 
A Hamas website claimed that Israel had fired missiles at the homes of four senior leaders. The BBC reported that Israel officials said that senior Hamas militants had died in strikes carried out overnight. It was not clear if the two reports were about the same people.
The Israeli military had warned thousands of Palestinians living in the eastern and northern parts of Gaza to leave their homes by 8 a.m. Wednesday local time (1 a.m. Eastern Time). An Israeli military spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal that residents of Beit Lahiya, a town of approximately 70,000 people in northern Gaza, as well as the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighborhoods of Gaza City had been warned by telephone. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 100,000 automated calls had been made to Gaza residents, but that number was not confirmed by the military. 
Gaza residents told The Journal that most of Beit Lahiya had already emptied out even before the latest warnings. But many residents in other parts of northern Gaza have decided to stay.
The Wafa Rehabilitation Center in Shijaiyah, which cares for 15 disabled and elderly patients, received several calls demanding the patients evacuate, director Basman Ashi told the Associated Press. He said an Israel shell hit near the building, causing damage to the second floor, but no injuries. Ashi added that he wouldn't evacuate his elderly patients, claiming that  they had nowhere to go.
Four foreign volunteers -- from England, the U.S., France and Sweden -- have set up camp at the rehabilitation center to deter the military from targeting it.
English volunteer Rina Andolini, 32, said the patients range in age from 12 to over 70 and none can walk or move without assistance. She said there are also 17 Palestinian staff members.
Andolini said the patients are living in a constant state of fear, intensified by the Israeli tank shelling from across the border.
Gaza health officials say that 204 Palestinians have died in the nine days since the fighting began. However, it is not clear how many of the dead are civilians and how many are Hamas militants. 
Hamas has come under pressure from the international community to reverse its initial rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, which would have gone into effect Tuesday morning had both sides agreed. Instead, Hamas announced its rejection of the proposal moments after Israel announced that its Security Cabinet had accepted the proposal.
"I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to operate a cease-fire," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.
"I hope the Hamas leadership now understand the best thing to do is to call a halt, have the negotiation, discussion, and sit down with everybody to work out a long-term, viable plan for Gaza," former British Prime Minister and Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair told Sky News.
Egyptian officials told the Wall Street Journal they were still confident a truce deal could be reached and were keeping up their efforts. President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi planned to host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Wednesday. Abbas has expressed support for the Egyptian proposal.
Meanwhile, Israel's decision to accept the cease-fire exposed fault lines in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Late Tuesday, Netanyahu dismissed his deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, after he said Mr. Netanyahu had made a mistake in accepting the cease-fire. 
Other members of Netanyahu's government, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have advocated for a ground invasion of the territory, with Lieberman telling a press conference "The Israel Defense Forces must finish this operation in control of the entire Gaza Strip."

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VA is making disability payment errors in rush to cut backlog, watchdog says

The Department of Veterans Affairs is making disability payments to thousands of veterans without adequate evidence they deserve the benefits as the agency attempts to cut the huge backlog of claims, a department watchdog said Monday.
Without improvements, the VA could make unsupported payments to veterans totaling about $371 million over the next five years for claims of 100 percent disability alone, said Linda Halliday, an assistant inspector general, in prepared testimony at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.
VA whistleblowers also revealed widespread problems at VA regional offices at the hearing, saying mail bins of disability claims were ignored or shredded so employees could work faster.
Committee member Rep. Tim Huelskamp said the “unbelievable” testimony showed that while agency officials have told Congress the backlog was being reduced in a timely and accurate manner, it seemed to be a sham.
“That’s all baloney,” said Huelskamp, R-Kansas. “They are all concerned about numbers and not veterans.”
Halliday said spot inspections revealed that VA also made errors in one in four claims involving traumatic brain injury. Special initiatives designed to remove older claims and to speed processing of new claims are worthwhile, Halliday said, but in some cases they "have had an adverse impact on other workload areas such as appeals management and benefits reductions."
"Improved financial stewardship at the agency is needed," Halliday said. "More attention is critical to minimize the financial risk of making inaccurate benefit payments."
The VA used the hearing to claim "tremendous progress" in reducing a disability claims backlog that reached about 611,000 in March 2013. The backlog is now about 275,000 — a 55 percent decrease from the peak, said Allison Hickey, undersecretary for benefits at the VA.
Last year, the Veterans Benefits Administration completed a record 1.2 million disability rating claims, Hickey said, and the agency is on track to complete more than 1.3 million rating claims this year. More than 90 percent of the claims are being processed electronically, she said.
The VA has set a goal to process all claims within 125 days at 98 percent accuracy in 2015, but so far has fallen far short. The VA now processes most claims within 154 days at a 90 percent accuracy rate, compared with an accuracy rate of 86 percent three years ago, Hickey said. At one point, veterans were forced to wait an average nine to 10 months for their disability claims to be processed.
"It has never been acceptable to VA ... that our veterans are experiencing long delays in receiving the benefits they have earned and deserve," Hickey said. She said the department has spent the past four years redesigning and streamlining the way it delivers benefits and services.
Halliday, however, said her investigators have found numerous problems in handling VA benefits, including faulty claims processing that "increases the risk of improper payments to veterans and their families."
Inspectors surveying Philadelphia's VA benefits center in June found mail bins brimming with claims and associated evidence dating to 2011 that had not been electronically scanned, she said.
Inspectors also found evidence that staffers at the Philadelphia regional office were manipulating dates to make old claims appear newer. The findings are similar to problems that have plagued VA health centers nationwide. Investigators have found long waits for appointments at VA hospitals and clinics, and falsified records to cover up the delays.
In Baltimore, investigators discovered that an employee had inappropriately stored thousands of documents, including some that contained Social Security data, in his office "for an extensive period of time." About 8,000 documents, including 80 claims folders, unprocessed mail and Social Security information of dead or incarcerated veterans, were stored in the employee's office, Halliday said.
Kristen Ruell, an employee at the VA's Pension Management Center in Philadelphia, told the committee that mail routinely "sat in boxes untouched for years" at the pension office. Once, after becoming concerned that unopened mail was being shredded, Ruell opened the boxes and took photos. Instead of addressing the problem, she said, VA supervisors enacted a policy prohibiting taking photos.
"A lot of the mail that should not have been shredded was shredded," she said.
After VA officials in Washington issued a directive last year ordering that a backlog of claims older than 125 days be reduced, the Philadelphia office "took this to mean that they could change the dates of every claim older than six weeks," Ruell said. While pension center managers later told the IG's office that the mislabeling was based on a misunderstanding of the directive, Ruell said, "these behaviors are intentional."
The incorrect dates "are used to minimize the average days pending of a claim to make the regional office's numbers look better," she said. For instance, claims that should have been dated 2009 were dated 2014, "therefore making the claim appear 'new,' " she said.
"The VA's problems are a result of morally bankrupt managers that through time and (government service) grade have moved up into powerful positions where they have the power to and continue to ruin people's lives," Ruell said.
The VA has long struggled to cope with disability claims. The backlog had intensified in recent years as more solders returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, and as the VA made it easier for Vietnam-era veterans to get disability compensation stemming from exposure to Agent Orange.
Lawmakers in both parties have complained about the Obama administration's handling of the problem and some have called for an independent commission to address it.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Forty illegal immigrants returned to Honduras amid massive influx

Some 40 illegal immigrants, including both adults and children, were returned to Honduras from a U.S. detention facility in New Mexico on Monday, Homeland Security officials confirmed to FoxNews.com.
The group had been housed at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, N.M., and was among thousands of illegal immigrants from Central American countries, including Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, apprehended at the border.
After the plane landed, U.S. officials touted the move as a step in the right direction.
“As President Obama, the vice president, and (Department of Homeland Security) Secretary (Jeh) Johnson have said, our border is not open to illegal migration and we will send recent illegal migrants back,” Homeland Security officials said in a written statement.
The proverbial pat on the back for sending 40 Hondurans home came as close to 82,000 illegal immigrants remain in the country. Of that number, minors make up about 57,000.
Homeland Security officials said Monday’s flight was just the “initial wave” of deportations. Immigration officials have seen a spike in immigration in recent months as false rumors spread of a June deadline under which they could legally stay in the U.S.
Many of those who crossed the border said they came to America looking to escape atrocities back home.
As required by law, recent border crossers subjected to expedited removal are screened for “credible fear,” DHS said, adding that despite quick removal proceedings, adults and children “maintain important due process rights, including the ability to seek asylum, appeal to an immigration judge the denial of a credible fear finding, and the ability to seek legal representation.”
Last week, the president of Honduras declared a humanitarian emergency and announced that the country would create a revolving fund to coordinate the deportation and reintegration of children.
In Honduras, immigration officers review the documents of deportees before they leave the plane. They are then moved to a processing center where they get their “documentation, coffee, hygiene kits, and their property (i.e. luggage),” ICE officials said.
Representatives from the Labor Office are there to help them with employment, and, in a separate office, the National Registry of Persons signs them up for national identification if they don’t have any.
For minors, the child welfare agency in Honduras tries to connect them with family members living in the country.