France evacuates airports over hoax bomb threats – media

Fourteen airports reportedly received threats in the second mass evacuation incident in two days, sources told AFP

Fourteen airports in France received bomb threats on Thursday, triggering evacuations from at least eight, an inside source told AFP. It was the second such incident in two days.

The French Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that “several national airports, including Nantes, received threats of attack [Thursday] morning,” but did not specify how many or which airports were affected.

Brest (Finistere), Bordeaux-Merignac (Gironde), Montpellier (Herault), and Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) were among those evacuated. Lille Airport was also evacuated due to a bomb threat on Thursday, it revealed in a post on X (formerly Twitter). 

It was the second time in as many days that Nantes, Rennes, and Lille airports were forced to evacuate due to hoax threats. A total of 17 “threats of attack” were called in to airports on Wednesday, leading to 15 evacuations. The authorities closed the facilities to “clear up any doubts” about the veracity of the threats, police sources told AFP.

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Louvre and Versailles evacuated due to threats

Strasbourg Airport confirmed it had evacuated on Wednesday in response to “a malicious email,” while Beauvais revealed an “anonymous threat” had been received by several airports, and Nice reported an “abandoned baggage item” had triggered the panic. Other airports affected on Wednesday included Toulouse, Biarritz, Pau, and Lyon.

Wednesday’s evacuations led to 130 canceled flights, as well as numerous delays. 

Transport Minister Clement Beaune pledged to crack down on phony bomb threats in a post on X on Thursday. “These false alerts are not bad jokes. They are crimes,” he wrote, warning perpetrators that penalties for “organized false alarms” include up to two years in prison and a €30,000 fine. 

Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti warned false bomb threats could incur even steeper penalties – up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine. 

Paris’ Louvre Museum and its attached underground shopping center were both evacuated and closed for the day on Saturday after staff received a written message warning of a “risk to the museum and its visitors.” 

The palace at Versailles was also evacuated on Saturday after receiving a bomb threat via anonymous online message. It has since been evacuated three more times due to security threats, with the most recent incident taking place on Thursday. 

France has been under its highest possible terror threat level since last Friday after a Chechen Muslim immigrant suspected of Islamic radicalization stabbed a teacher to death and wounded two others in an attack on his former school in Arras, an incident that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin connected to Israel’s war with Hamas. Some 7,000 troops have been deployed as part of the joint military-police initiative Operation Sentinelle in order to beef up security nationwide. 

Israel will launch ground invasion of Gaza – ambassador

“The decision has been made,” Alexander Ben Zvi, the envoy to Moscow, has said

Israel is likely to go ahead with its plans for a ground operation in Gaza, West Jerusalem’s envoy to Moscow, Alexander Ben Zvi, told Russia 24 on Friday, adding that the government has already made the decision.

“A ground operation is not ruled out,” Ben Zvi initially said when asked, noting that Israel has declared that it is in a state of war, which envisages “all sorts of operations, including air, maritime and ground” operations. The ambassador added that he believes the possibility of a ground invasion is “higher than 50%.”

When pressed, he said that “the decision has been made,” adding that Israel seeks the “destruction of all terrorist structures” of the Gaza-based Palestinian group Hamas, and also wants to free the hostages taken by the militants. “One cannot do that without resorting to a ground operation.”

His comments come just one day after Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat told ABC News that the government has given the green light to the military to start the offensive. “We shall do all efforts to bring our hostages [back] alive,” he said, stressing that destroying Hamas is the “first and last priority” – “even if it takes a year.”

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Israel issues update on possible Gaza ground offensive

The current escalation follows a surprise attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7. The initial assault and ensuing clashes between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed the lives of around 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, according to the authorities.
Israel responded with a massive bombing campaign against Gaza, resulting in almost 3,500 deaths as of Thursday, according to the Palestinian enclave’s health authorities.

Israel has warned that it would launch a ground operation in Gaza since the early stages of the escalation. The IDF said last week that they were ready to “expand the offensive,” including through an “extensive ground operation.” On Tuesday, however, the IDF’s spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, told journalists that the military might take a different course of action.

The potential operation has sparked widespread concern. The African Union and Arab League both urged Israel to cease the hostilities on Monday. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah made a similar call on Thursday, warning of a potential regional catastrophe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that a ground operation would be difficult, and “fraught with serious consequences for all sides,” and the resulting civilian death toll will likely be “absolutely unacceptable.”

China ‘rapidly’ expanding its nuclear arsenal – Pentagon

Beijing now has 500 nuclear warheads and will double that number by 2030, a new report claims

China’s nuclear arsenal is growing faster than the US previously predicted, according to a Pentagon report delivered to Congress on Thursday. The information comes as lawmakers in Washington insist that the US must be prepared for simultaneous wars with Russia and China.

In the latest China Military Power Report, military officials claimed that China possessed more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May, 100 more than it did a year beforehand. 

By 2030, the report continued, China will likely have over 1,000 operational warheads. While the past two China Military Power Reports have also pointed to 2030 as the year China passes the 1,000-nuke threshold, Pentagon planners previously thought it would take longer for the Asian superpower to reach 500.

“Over the next decade, the [People’s Republic of China] will continue to rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces,” the report stated. “Compared to the [People’s Liberation Army’s] nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity.”

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US must prepare for war with China and Russia – Congress

Beyond the headline figure of 500 warheads, the precise details of China’s nuclear program are more vague. The Pentagon report notes that Beijing will “probably” use its latest fast-neutron reactors to produce the plutonium needed to expand its arsenal and “probably completed the construction of its three new solid-propellant silo fields in 2022.”

China has also fielded new silo-based and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the latter of which can reach the continental United States from Chinese waters, the report claimed. 

China’s nuclear capabilities still lag behind those of the US and Russia. The US has 5,244 nuclear warheads, while Russia has the world’s largest stockpile at 5,899, according to figures published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in June.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning responded to the report on Friday, “China is firmly committed to a defensive nuclear strategy and has always kept our nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.”

“For any country, as long as they do not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against China, they have nothing to worry about being threatened by China’s nuclear weapons,” Mao added.


READ MORE: NATO website calls for nuclear war preparation

China and India are the only two nuclear powers to maintain ‘no first use’ policies, with both pledging only to use nuclear weapons if attacked by them.

In Washington, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission called last week for a massive expansion in the US’ nuclear arsenal and its nuclear triad (ballistic missiles, nuclear-capable submarines, and strategic bombers) to manage a potential war against both Russia and China. Although the commission did not outline how this hypothetical war would come about, it stated that “there may be ultimate coordination between [Russia and China] which gets us to this two-war construct.”