By MATTHEW LEE and ABBY SEWELL (Associated Press)

BEIRUT (AP) — Hamas said Tuesday it has given Qatari and Egyptian mediators its reply to the U.S.-backed proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, with some “remarks” on the deal.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group said they were ready to “deal positively to arrive at an agreement” and that their priority is to bring a “complete stop” to the war.

A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, told Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen television that the group had “submitted some remarks on the proposal to the mediators.” He did not give any details. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt said in joint statement that they were examining the response and that they would continue their mediation efforts along with the United States “until an agreement is reached.”

Earlier in the day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.N. Security Council’s vote in favor of a U.S.-backed proposal for a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release made it “as clear as it possibly could be” that the world supports the plan, as he again called on Hamas to accept it.

“Everyone’s vote is in, except for one vote, and that’s Hamas,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv after meeting with Israeli officials. He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reaffirmed his commitment to the proposal when they met late Monday.

Hamas welcomed Biden’s initial announcement of the plan as well as the U.N. resolution endorsing it but has yet to give its official response. Blinken said Hamas’ statement following the U.N. vote was a “hopeful sign,” but that mediators are still awaiting word from the group’s leaders in Gaza.

“That’s what counts. And that’s what we don’t have yet. And that’s why I say we’re waiting to see it. Everyone has said yes, except for Hamas,” he said.

In a separate development, the U.N. human rights office said Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters may have committed war crimes during the deadly Israeli raid that rescued four hostages over the weekend. At least 274 Palestinians were killed in the operation, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Blinken’s latest visit to the region — his eighth since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel ignited the war — is focused on rallying support for the cease-fire proposal, boosting the entry of humanitarian aid and advancing postwar plans for Gaza’s governance.

He met privately with families of the hostages as well as demonstrators outside a hotel calling for a cease-fire deal, and later traveled on to Jordan. Blinken was also expected to visit Qatar, which along with Egypt has served as a key mediator with Hamas. Blinken was in Cairo on Monday.

The proposal, announced by President Joe Biden last month, calls for a three-phased plan in which Hamas would release the rest of the hostages in exchange for a lasting cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. The group is still holding around 120 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Biden presented it as an Israeli proposal, but Netanyahu has publicly disputed key aspects of it, saying Israel won’t end the war without destroying Hamas and achieving the return of all the hostages.

Hamas supports the broad outline of the agreement but has demanded assurances it will be implemented. The group embraced a similar proposal last month that was rejected by Israel.

“Efforts are continuing to study and clarify some matters to ensure implementation by the Israeli side,” Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha said Tuesday. Israel “has not given clear approval or commitments to implementation that would lead to ending the aggression,” he said.

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposal, with 14 of the 15 members voting in favor and Russia abstaining. The resolution calls on Israel and Hamas “to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.”

The proposal has raised hopes of ending an 8-month war that has killed over 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and driven some 80% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Israeli restrictions and ongoing fighting have hindered efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the isolated coastal enclave, fueling widespread hunger.

Later Tuesday, Blinken attended a Gaza aid conference in Jordan, where he announced over $400 million in additional aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the wider region, bringing the total U.S. assistance to more than $674 million over the past eight months.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told the gathering that the amount of aid flowing to the United Nations in Gaza for distribution has plummeted by two-thirds since Israel launched an offensive in the territory’s southern city of Rafah in early May.

Guterres called for all border crossings to be opened, saying, “the speed and scale of the carnage and killing in Gaza” is beyond anything he has since he took the helm of the U.N. in 2017.

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The war began when Hamas and other terrorists stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire last year in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Biden’s May 31 announcement of the new proposal said it would begin with an initial six-week cease-fire and the release of some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas and Palestinian civilians would be allowed to return to their homes.

Phase one also requires the safe distribution of humanitarian assistance “at scale throughout the Gaza Strip,” which Biden said would lead to 600 trucks with aid entering Gaza every day.

In phase two, the resolution says that with the agreement of Israel and Hamas, “a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza” will take place.

Phase three would launch “a major multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of any deceased hostages still in Gaza to their families.”

The conflicting signals from Netanyahu appear to reflect his political dilemma. His far-right coalition allies have rejected the proposal and have threatened to bring down his government if he ends the war without destroying Hamas. A lasting cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza would likely allow Hamas to retain control of the territory and rebuild its military capabilities.

But Netanyahu is also under mounting pressure to accept a deal to bring the hostages back. Thousands of Israelis, including families of the hostages, have demonstrated in favor of the U.S.-backed plan.

The transition from the first to the second phase appears to be a sticking point. Hamas wants assurances that Israel will not resume the war, and Israel wants to ensure that protracted negotiations over the second phase do not prolong the cease-fire indefinitely while leaving hostages in captivity.

Blinken said the proposal would bring an immediate cease-fire and commit the parties to negotiate an enduring one. “The cease-fire that would take place immediately would remain in place, which is manifestly good for for everyone. And then we’ll have to see,” Blinken said.

Sewell reported from Beirut.

Some of Florida’s restrictions on medical care for transgender children and adults are unconstitutional and unjustified, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by transgender Floridians and their families against the state.

“Transgender opponents are of course free to hold their beliefs. But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender,” U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s decision read.

This ruling in Doe v. Ladapo prohibits enforcement of some parts of a 2023 Florida law that added several restrictions to adults receiving cross-sex hormone therapy and blocked puberty blockers and hormone therapy for teenagers under 18. The suit was brought by several parents of children whose gender identity did not align with their biological sex, as well as a transgender man.

The law was passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis spokesperson Julia Friedland said that the state will appeal this ruling.

“Through their elected representatives, the people of Florida acted to protect children in this state, and the Court was wrong to override their wishes. We disagree with the Court’s erroneous rulings on the law, on the facts, and on the science,” Friedland wrote in an email.

The judge wrote that the law showed “bias of the kind sometimes directed at racial or ethnic minorities or women but also a belief that transgenders should not exist at all—or should not be allowed to pursue their transgender identities.”

He called out discriminatory language used by legislators such as Rep. Webster Barnaby, R-Deltona, who called transgender people “mutants” and “demons” at a committee hearing for a related bill.

One of the plaintiffs in the case said the ruling was good news for her child.

“This ruling means I won’t have to watch my daughter needlessly suffer because I can’t get her the care she needs. Seeing Susan’s fear about this ban has been one of the hardest experiences we’ve endured as parents. All we’ve wanted is to take that fear away and help her continue to be the happy, confident child she is now,” said one of the plaintiffs in a statement. She stayed anonymous in order to protect her and her child’s privacy.

Her daughter, referred to as Susan Doe, was “living fully as a girl” since kindergarten but had not started taking medical treatment because she hadn’t reached puberty.

The treatments at issue in this case were puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

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Puberty blockers are a reversible way to delay puberty for teens who are struggling with their gender identity. Cross-sex hormone therapy is a partially-reversible process — depending on how long hormones have been taken — where people are given estrogen or testosterone in order to develop characteristics of their preferred gender identity.

The judge ruled that clinical evidence supports this treatment as a reasonable option.

“The record includes no evidence that these treatments have caused substantial adverse clinical results in properly screened and treated patients— patients who were screened and treated with appropriate caution in compliance with the Endocrine Society and WPATH [World Professional Association for Transgender Health] standards of care,” the ruling reads.

DeSantis and other politicians brought up extreme and irrelevant surgical procedures when discussing this ban — arguing children were being “castrated” or “mutilated,” he added.

“At least insofar as has been shown by this record, no transgender minor has ever been castrated or intentionally sterilized in Florida or elsewhere. But without any factual basis whatsoever, individuals who had a role in adoption of this legislation repeatedly asserted the contrary,” the judge wrote.

The governor’s office used similar language in its response to the judge’s ruling.

“As we’ve seen here in Florida, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, there is no quality evidence to support the chemical and physical mutilation of children,” Friedland  wrote. “These procedures do permanent, life-altering damage to children, and history will look back on this fad in horror.”

Florida’s 2023 law also added several restrictions to adults receiving this care — the first state to do so — including a requirement that adults must be prescribed care by a physician rather than professionals like nurse practitioners that operate under the supervision of physicians.

In a state with a physician shortage, this made it difficult for some to get care at all. Several clinics stopped providing gender-affirming care altogether in response to this law, the Associated Press reported.

“I’m so relieved the court saw there is no medical basis for this law—it was passed just to target transgender people like me and try to push us out of Florida,” said Lucien Hamel, a transgender man and one of the plaintiffs, in a statement. “This is my home. I’ve lived here my entire life. This is my son’s home. I can’t just uproot my family and move across the country. The state has no place interfering in people’s private medical decisions, and I’m relieved that I can once again get the healthcare that I need here in Florida.”

Florida’s restrictions contradicted widely accepted and long-standing guidance published by the American Academy of Pediatrics; the Endocrine Society, a global medical organization; and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an international group focused on gender dysphoria treatment.

Ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com

Alfred Lubrano | The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

Jun. 10—Nearly 80% of Americans (79%) say that what they read online can contain “false or fake” information that’s deliberately disseminated “to confuse” — with people of color the most targeted, according to a new poll.

Recently released by Free Press, a media watchdog organization, the poll of 3,000 people nationwide also found that 76% of respondents expressed concern that they were reading disinformation online about the presidential election.

When asked where they get their news, more than 50% of respondents named two sources: Facebook and YouTube.

Black Americans, however, use the two platforms for their news more frequently than white people do, the poll found. While 63% of Black people surveyed said they relied on Facebook for information “a few times a week,” 56% of white people said they did. Similarly, 65% of Black people go to YouTube for news, compared to 51% of white people.

People of color who are “disproportionately high users of online media for news and information are therefore likely to be the most impacted by the choices that platform companies and legislators [that regulate them] make,” said S. Derek Turner, a senior policy analysis advisor for Free Press.

To help conduct the poll, Free Press used the services of the African American Research Collaborative, a group of pollsters, scholars, and researchers. BSP Research, a polling firm, was also connected to the project.

Both domestic and foreign operatives have specifically targeted people of color to spread disinformation online meant to undercut their votes and stir race-based discord.

Facebook and YouTube are go-to news sources for Black people because they’re “key sites for community building,” said Timothy Welbeck, director of Temple University’s Center for Anti-Racism and a professor of African American studies.

“People who are marginalized in everyday life find like-minded community on social media,” he said.

“Black people understand that disinformation is a tool to disrupt social progress,” Welbeck added. “It’s been used against them to disrupt access to voting, or to encourage apathy about voting.”

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Black Americans have purposely been given incorrect addresses for polling places, as well as incorrect times for voting, sometimes by Russian bots, Welbeck said. Russian disinformation operatives have also disseminated lies about race and social issues to foment unrest in the Black community, according to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

For years, Facebook has been criticized for allowing its algorithms, which determine what people see on the platform, to amplify fake news and hate speech. While calling Facebook a “positive force in the world,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apologized for not taking “a broad enough view” of Facebook’s responsibilities regarding misinformation and other difficulties.

Black people have to be more vigilant about checking the sources of their news, said Marq Temple, executive director of the Philadelphia Chapter of Concerned Black Men, a nonprofit providing role models and mentors for youth.

“Folks are using social media as research, but they’re not then going on to research the research,” he said. “And now, with artificial Intelligence out there with all that false information, you can get egg on your face if you only read Facebook and don’t do your homework.”

‘Beyond Fact’

Free Press poll’s findings are “not surprising,” said David Kahl Jr., a professor of communication and a misinformation expert at Penn State Behrend in Erie.

“People are becoming more aware that there are powerful forces, such as political actors, using social media to confuse and mislead people,” he said. “There is so much disinformation out there.”

An example is the falsehood that President Joe Biden used his influence to get former President Donald Trump convicted in Trump’s recently adjudicated hush money case in New York, Kahl said.

“No one can prove the conspiracy theory that says Biden did it, but many readers of social media don’t care, because they want to believe it, as well as their political party that says it,” he explained.

“And that belief, along with the emotion it evinces, is beyond fact, and is sacrosanct.”

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