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Washington, DC – The United States has imposed new sanctions on Venezuelan judicial and election officials whom it accuses of helping President Nicolas Maduro certify his controversial election win earlier this year.

The penalties on Thursday targeted the leaders of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), as well as other Maduro allies who backed his claim to victory in the July 28 vote.

While the US Treasury Department described the measures as “decisive”, many of the Venezuelan officials sanctioned on Thursday were already under US penalties.

The sanctions, enforced by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freeze the individuals’ assets in the US and prohibit Americans from engaging in financial transitions with them.

Context

A Washington Post investigation has found that Eygi was shot more than a half-hour after the height of confrontations in Beita, and some 20 minutes after protesters had moved down the main road — more than 200 yards away from Israeli forces. A Palestinian teenager, who witnesses say was standing about 20 yards from Eygi, was wounded by Israeli fire; the IDF would not say if he was a target.

A photograph taken at 1:21 p.m. shows at least four Israeli soldiers at the top of the hill. Video and photos from the next several minutes show soldiers taking up positions on higher ground — including on the rooftop of Beita resident Ali Maali’s home, and near a military vehicle.

A video filmed at 1:22 p.m. shows the road next to the olive grove. A shot rings out.

“They’re shooting with regular guns!” an activist says off-camera in Japanese. Steven Beck, an audio forensic expert who consulted for the FBI and reviewed the footage for The Post, said the pop heard on the video was consistent with a gunshot — a finding corroborated by a second audio expert, Rob Maher.

A video filmed at 1:29 p.m. shows people loitering at the bottom of the hill; a man stands with his hands on his hips.

“They haven’t shot any more live rounds, no more tear gas, yet,” Chabbott, the American volunteer, says in another video filmed around the same time. For nearly 20 minutes after that, the scene remained relatively calm, Palestinians and volunteers said.

“Gunshot!” an unseen woman can be heard screaming in the background. She pleads for an ambulance. In the olive grove, Helen saw Eygi drop facedown to the ground beside her. The older woman rolled her over. Blood was pouring from the left side of Eygi’s head, she said, and she was unresponsive.

But one of the soldiers on the roof was “training his gun in our direction,” recalled Pollak, who was standing next to a dumpster that had been moved into the middle of the road at the bottom of the hill. He and other activists said he was the closest person to Israeli troops at the time, just over 200 yards away; Eygi was around 30 yards farther.

The IDF’s initial inquiry into Eygi’s death “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.”

Yet the shots fired toward the activists, including the one that claimed Eygi’s life, came some 20 minutes after they had retreated to the bottom of the hill — more than two football fields away from the nearest Israeli soldiers.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday described the killing of a 26-year-old American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank last week as an apparent accident, backing the Israel government’s description.

Eygi’s family responded to Biden’s remarks Tuesday, saying the activist’s death was “no accident.”

UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters at a news briefing on Tuesday that the Israeli military had detained a convoy of international and local staff members from various UN bodies at gunpoint as they traveled to northern Gaza to help roll out the polio vaccination campaign.

He said Israeli forces stopped the convoy at a checkpoint and added that they wanted to hold two of its members for questioning.

“The situation escalated very quickly, with soldiers pointing their weapons directly towards our personnel in the convoy,” he said.

“The UN vehicles were encircled by Israeli forces and shots were fired,” he added.

He went on to say that the convoy was then approached by Israeli tanks and a bulldozer, “which proceeded to ram the UN vehicles from the front and from the back, compacting the convoy with UN staff inside.”

An interesting poll by the Cato Institute of likely voters in the three states expected to play a decisive role in November's presidential contest shows that not only are Americans paying attention, but have distinct feelings about how hard the U.S. should be leaning in on global conflicts.

— The percentage of those who think the U.S. is too involved in world affairs and conflicts: Wisconsin 53%, Pennsylvania 50%, Michigan 52% (Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to say the U.S. is too involved).

— The percentage who think that U.S. foreign policy does not put American interests first: Wisconsin 62%, Pennsylvania 61%, Michigan 60%

— On Gaza, full majorities support an immediate ceasefire: Wisconsin 80%, Pennsylvania 75%, Michigan 74%.

Interestingly, likely voters in all three states say Tump is more likely to keep the U.S. out of war, Wisconsin 52%, Pennsylvania 51%, Michigan 52%. They said he is more likely to put American interests first in foreign policy, Wisconsin 51%, Pennsylvania 54%, Michigan 56%

But they said the former president is more likely than Harris to get the U.S. into "World War III" : Wisconsin 51%, Pennsylvania 51%, Michigan 53%

On WWIII, most likely voters in these battleground states thought we were approaching a world war: Wisconsin 59%, Pennsylvania 51%, Michigan 54%

Two articles published in the last few days were part of the IDF investigation, one from The Jewish Chronicle and one from the German tabloid newspaper Bild. Both have claimed to reveal internal and top secret documents of Hamas, supposedly straight from Yahya Sinwar’s computer.

In both cases, Sinwar’s strategy reflects exactly what Netanyahu claimed in his speech and in the interviews he gave last week, Ynet reported, according to which the Hamas leader is trying to sow division in the Israeli public and is not really interested in the hostage deal. It also stated that he plans to smuggle hostages through the tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor to Egypt and, from there, to Iran. This was revealed during the interrogation of a captured Hamas official, as well as from information obtained from seized documents, Ynet reported.

“This is a very serious matter,” Ynet quoted an IDF official familiar with the investigation. "There are systems in the IDF and other intelligence agencies whose job it is to influence the “Red,” which is the enemy, but according to the law, it is forbidden to try and operate such a system of influence, certainly not with the use of classified materials that were not allowed to be distributed in public at all.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. chief said Monday that the United Nations has offered to monitor any cease-fire in Gaza and demanIded an end to the worst death and destruction he has seen in his more than seven-year tenure.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s “unrealistic” to think the U.N. could play a role in Gaza’s future, either by administering the territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel is unlikely to accept a U.N. role.

“Of course, we’ll be ready to do whatever the international community asked for us,” Guterres said. “The question is whether the parties would accept it, and in particular whether Israel would accept it.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have accused the U.N. of being anti-Israel and have been highly critical of U.N. humanitarian operations in Gaza, including accusing U.N. workers of collaborating with Hamas. He also has voiced skepticism about peacekeeping missions, saying only Israel can protect itself.

The army refused to send a delegation to Switzerland, partly due to the involvement of the UAE, the RSF’s main patron, as a moderator. After 10 days, no clear breakthrough was achieved, despite the announcement of the opening of two humanitarian corridors intended to save Sudanese civilians from famine and the ongoing war.

A member of the Sudanese army-aligned delegation that met mediators in Cairo at the end of August said they thought the RSF was stalling for time by claiming a commitment to peace.

“The RSF wants to pass the rainy season [March to October, with most rain falling between June and September], which obstructs the movement of its forces due to the inaccessibility of the roads and difficulties to sustain the supply, then it will carry out wide attacks,” the source, who requested anonymity due to not being authorised to speak to the media, told MEE.

Sudanese political analyst Elwathig Kameir said that the army had made significant gains from the last round of talks, including US recognition of Burhan as the president of Sudan’s sovereign council and de facto head of state, as well as clear US condemnation of RSF atrocities.

However, he criticised the army’s leadership for boycotting the Geneva talks, arguing that they risked losing credibility and missing the chance to represent their position. He also stated that the UAE’s participation was an insufficient reason for staying away.

“In my opinion, the presence of the UAE as an observer does not harm Sudan in any way. Indeed, the UAE remains accused of its role in fuelling the war by supporting the RSF, making it a stakeholder,” he wrote.

In late August, the top-ranking U.S. military commander in Africa toured Libya — and had a cordial meeting in Benghazi with a notorious warlord: Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter.

Left out of the AFRICOM announcement is any mention that Hifter is a notorious “warlord,” according to members of Congress, whose LNA, which the State Department lumps in with “other nonstate actors, including foreign fighters and mercenaries,” has been accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and gross violations of human rights.

A 2011 revolution and NATO intervention, including U.S. airstrikes, toppled Gaddafi and plunged Libya into chaos from which it has never fully emerged. In the years that followed, Hifter renewed his long-dormant project to seize power in his homeland.

In 2014, railing against the Libyan central government’s failure to beat back terrorists, Hifter announced a military coup that quickly evaporated. But the warlord’s fortunes changed after he launched a campaign to clear the eastern half of the country of Islamist militant groups like Ansar al-Sharia, which conducted the 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Hifter forged a reputation for attacking terrorist groups, but critics questioned his commitment and effectiveness, casting his activities as a cultivated effort to curry favor, including with the United States.

Over the years, Hifter’s LNA has been backed by Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.