Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza, Abbas Tells France, Saudi Arabia Ahead of UN Conference

I don’t trust either of these guys….

From jns.org

In a letter to France and Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority leader reportedly condemned the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 men, women and children on Oct. 7, 2023 as “unacceptable.”

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has said that Hamas “must hand over its weapons” and called for deploying peacekeepers to Gaza ahead of a summit on Palestinian statehood, France said on Tuesday.

In a letter delivered on Monday to French President Emmanuel Macron and to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, co-chairs of the U.N. summit to take place on June 16-18, Abbas made some “unprecedented” promises, the Élysée Palace claimed, without elaborating further on those pledges.

“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza, and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian [Authority] Security Forces,” Abbas wrote in the missive, according to the France 24 outlet.

Abbas reportedly also wrote that Ramallah was “ready to invite Arab and international forces to be deployed as part of a stabilization/protection mission with a [U.N.] Security Council mandate.”

The 89-year-old leader, who is serving the 21st year of his first four-year term, was said to have reiterated his commitment to long-promised administrative reforms, writing he intends to hold presidential and general elections “within a year” under international auspices.

In the letter, Abbas condemned the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when 1,200 men, women and children were slaughtered, and more than 250 others were dragged back as hostages into the Gaza Strip, as “unacceptable,” according to some French media reports on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Palestinian Media Watch urged Paris and Riyadh to cancel the conference until Abbas publicly denounced the events of Oct. 7.

“As Western leaders plan to meet at the U.N. on June 17 to give P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas a present of recognition of a Palestinian state, Abbas continues to prove how unworthy the P.A. is of being a state,” the Israel-based organization said in a statement on Sunday.

PMW noted that on June 1, the official P.A. daily, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, published an interview with Abbas from August, in which he declared that Hamas had achieved “important goals” with the Oct. 7 onslaught.

According to Abbas, the worst single-day massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust “shook the foundations of the Israeli entity” and “exposed the claims” that the IDF is “invincible.”

The publication of Abbas’s comments came only three months after Mahmoud al-Habbash, Abbas’s adviser on religious and Islamic affairs, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities as “legitimate resistance,” PMW said.

Responding to the announcement from the Élysée  on Tuesday afternoon, PMW tweeted: “Two-faced Abbas strikes again.”

“It took Abbas 20 months to figure out that Oct. 7 rape, beheading, torture and murder of 1,200 is merely ‘unacceptable.’ What’s truly unacceptable is thinking that Oct. 7-defender Mahmoud Abbas has a gram of decency in him,” the NGO exclaimed in the social media post.

A bilateral matter between states’

The upcoming conference, sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia, is set to focus on determining steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state.

The goal signals a retreat from the summit’s earlier ambition of seeing a large bloc of countries, including France and the United Kingdom, recognize a Palestinian state, The Guardian reported on Saturday.

Macron claimed that recognizing “Palestine” was “not only a moral duty but a political necessity,” speaking during a press conference on May 30.

However, Anne-Claire Legendre, his adviser for North Africa and the Middle East, and Romaric Roignan, director for the region at the French Foreign Ministry, told Ynet that the recognition would not be unilateral.

“Recognition of a Palestinian state remains on the table, but not as a product of the conference. It will remain a bilateral matter between states,” they said.

Instead, it will be tied to certain conditions, including a truce in Gaza, the release of hostages, reform of the P.A., economic recovery and an end to Hamas’s terrorist rule in the Strip, per The Guardian.

As I said – I don’t trust either of these guys……

MARANATHA!

26,000 Baptized Across U.S. in Largest Mass Baptism Event in American History

From worthynews.com

Pirate’s Cove, CA (Worthy News) – In a historic display of unity and spiritual awakening, more than 26,000 people were baptized across the United States on Pentecost Sunday, marking what organizers say is the largest synchronized baptism event in American history.

The movement, known as Baptize America, brought together over 650 churches from all 50 states in a coordinated effort to declare their faith in Jesus through water baptism publicly. The initiative represents a significant expansion of Baptize California, which began in 2022 with 4,000 baptisms and grew to over 6,000 last year.

“The prayer of Jesus in John was that we would become one,” said Pastor Mark Francey, one of the event’s organizers. “And I think that’s what we’re seeing right now — a unity around what we all agree on, which is water baptism.”

The national campaign traces its roots to a vision birthed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when church gatherings were restricted and many believers felt isolated. Francey and a group of West Coast pastors began dreaming of a statewide baptism movement that would help reignite spiritual hunger. That vision became Baptize California — a decentralized model that empowered local churches to host baptisms simultaneously across the state.

Inspired by the momentum and growing demand from leaders in other regions, the movement expanded into Baptize America in 2024. Its mission: to see mass water baptisms in every state, uniting believers around the simple act of obedience that transcends denominational lines.

The heart of this year’s event took place at Pirate’s Cove, a beach etched into American church history. Once the site of mass baptisms during the 1970s Jesus Movement led by Pastor Chuck Smith — an era portrayed in the film Jesus Revolution — the beach again became a sacred stage for revival.

For many participants, the moment was deeply personal.

“It felt like God was there — just amazing,” said Kaili Newby, who was among the thousands baptized.

Gabriel, another participant, described how his decision surprised his mother and marked a dramatic turn in his life.

“If it wasn’t for her prayers, and if it wasn’t for God’s grace, I would either be dead or in jail because of the activities I was involved with in the Middle East,” he said.

Jorge Gonzalez, baptized alongside his brother, called the experience transformative: “God was pulling all my heartstrings. I had to come out here and finally accept Jesus as my Savior. And today was the perfect opportunity.”

Volunteers like Alissa Circle said they were moved by witnessing so many lives changed in a single day. “I really think the coolest part about being out there is just experiencing people experiencing Jesus,” she said.

Francey sees this not as a conclusion, but a beginning. “It’s just getting started,” he said. “Our belief is that what happens at this beach will go to the ends of the earth.”

HALLELUJAH!!

Israel Screens October 7 Massacre Footage for Greta Thunberg ‘Selfie Yacht’ Riders

From breitbart.com

Israeli forces seized a yacht bound for Gaza on Monday and forced its crew of pro-Hamas activists, including former teen climate crusader Greta Thunberg, to watch footage of the October 7 massacre while they were in detention.

Thunberg and her crew were headed for Gaza aboard a boat named Madleen, memorably dubbed the “selfie yacht” by the deeply unimpressed Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the boat carried a “meager cargo” of goods, as a pretext for billing itself as a humanitarian aid mission. Mencer said the cargo would be sent to Gaza, while the grandstanding activists would be sent home.

“There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip. They do not involve Instagram selfies. The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,” he said.

“To poor Greta, we say, who is really feeding Gaza, and who is feeding their own ego. When it comes to this flotilla, it wasn’t a flotilla, it was a selfie yacht. It was Instagram activism,” Mencer said.

“They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over,” he said.

The rest of the crew included six French nationals, including a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament named Rima Hassan, plus citizens of Brazil, Spain, and Turkey, and an Irish actor named Liam Cunningham who appeared in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

The Times of Israel (TOI) chronicled the brief voyage of the selfie yacht: 

The vessel had defied repeated warnings issued by Israel to turn around since it departed Sicily last Sunday. The last reported location of the vessel was at 1:15 a.m. local time, just north of Egypt’s Port Said, around 55 nautical miles from Israeli-administered waters. At around 3 a.m., as it approached Gaza, it was intercepted by the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit and the Snapir harbor security unit, a military official told The Times of Israel.

Before it was boarded, it was given a final opportunity to change course, both by the Foreign Ministry and the Navy, but again refused.

“The Gaza maritime zone remains an active conflict area, and Hamas has previously exploited sea routes for terrorist attacks, including the October 7th massacre,” warned the Foreign Ministry, which provided periodic updates in English throughout Sunday night and Monday morning.

The Israeli Navy tried using loudspeakers to tell the Madleen it could lawfully dock and deliver its supplies at the port of Ashdod, but the activists refused to change course, instead posting social media video of themselves conducting “emergency drills” and sounding “alarms” as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.

The sponsors of the Madleen mission, an anti-Israel group called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, claimed the crew had been “kidnapped by Israeli forces” after their social media feeds went dark and began running pre-recorded videos of the activists pleading for help. The TOI noted these videos were intended to compare the detained activists to the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Fortunately for Thunberg and her crew, they were not treated the way Hamas handles its hostages. Instead, the Israeli government released video of the detainees in good spirits as they chowed down on pastrami sandwiches:

Their spirits might have dimmed a bit after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the detainees to screen a 43-minute video documenting the massacre and mutilations performed by Hamas during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israeli civilians, precipitating the Gaza war ostensibly opposed by the Madleen activists.

 WATCH the Aftermath of Hamas Attack on Israeli Kindergarten on October 7, 2023: 

“It’s appropriate that Greta the antisemite and her Hamas-supporting friends should see exactly who is the terror group Hamas that they support and act on behalf of, what atrocious acts they carried out on women, the elderly and kids, and who Israel is fighting for its defense against,” said Katz.

Katz was even more harshly critical of the Madleen stunt than Mercer, denouncing it as a “hate flotilla” and “Hamas propaganda.”

“I congratulate the IDF for the quick and safe takeover of the ‘Madleen’ flotilla to prevent them from breaking the blockade and reaching the shores of Gaza,” he said.

The U.N. “special rapporteur” for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, responded by urging more ships to follow Thunberg’s course and challenge the Gaza blockade.

Madleen’s journey may have ended, but the mission isn’t over. Every Mediterranean port must send boats with aid and solidarity to Gaza,” she said.

Albanese has a record of making public statements supporting Hamas and encouraging terrorism against Israel, including declaring at a Hamas conference in 2022, “you have a right to resist.”

The government of Turkey was especially critical of the interception, denouncing the boarding of the Madleen as a “clear violation of international law.”

“This heinous attack by the Netanyahu government, which also threatens freedom of navigation and maritime security, has once again proven that Israel is a terrorist state,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

_________________________________________

Brethren – we are witnessing Scripture being fulfilled concerning Israel in the last days.  Watch this video from gotquestions.com to better understand where we are in Bible prophecy:

HOW CAN I BE SAVED?

MARANATHA!