A member of the far-left ‘Squad’ facing a tough challenge from within his own party recently attended a fundraiser co-hosted by an Islamic leader who said he was ‘happy to see’ the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who represents New York’s 16th Congressional District, attended the May 1 fundraiser at a private residence in Fairfax, Virginia, and didn’t seem to mind the presence of Nihad Awad, a highly controversial and antisemitic figure who serves as the national executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Awad faced sharp scrutiny last year after expressing his pleasure with the Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,200 Israelis, including women and babies, and claiming Israel ‘does not have a right to self-defense.’

‘The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege – the walls of the concentration camp – on Oct. 7,’ Awad said during the 16th annual Convention for Palestine on Nov. 24 near Chicago. ‘And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not free to walk in.’

He continued, ‘And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.’

The Biden administration later scrambled to distance itself from CAIR following Awad’s comments, stating it was removing the group from its publicly listed pledge to fight antisemitism.

At the time, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital in a statement, ‘We condemn these shocking, Antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.’

‘The horrific, brutal terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on October 7th were, as President Biden said, ‘abhorrent’ and represent ‘unadulterated evil,’’ Bates said.

‘October 7th was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,’ he continued. ‘The atrocities of that day shock the conscience, which is why we can never forget the pain Hamas has caused for so many innocent people.’

‘There are families who are in agony mourning loved ones, and there are also families in agony as they do everything in their power to free loved ones being held hostage,’ Bates said. ‘Every leader has a responsibility to call out Antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head.’

Ahead of the fundraiser, Awad posted on social media praising Bowman as ‘a staunch defender of Palestinian rights’ and asking people to attend the fundraiser and donate.

It’s unclear why Bowman decided to attend a fundraiser alongside Awad, and his campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Bowman is facing what is expected to be a tough primary battle against George Latimer, who serves as a Westchester County executive and previously served in the New York State Assembly and state Senate.

The primary will be held on June 25. The winner will likely become the next representative of the district as elections analysts rate the race as either ‘safe’ or ‘solid’ Democrat.

Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has begun conducting what it describes as ‘targeted strikes’ against Hamas operatives in eastern Rafah, a city located in the southern Gaza Strip where more than 1 million civilians from other parts of Gaza are sheltering. 

Per the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the War Cabinet has unanimously decided that Israel would continue exerting ‘military pressure’ on Hamas in Rafah to promote the release of hostages and the other goals of the war.

Israel announced earlier Monday it was ordering around 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating from Rafah, following a statement from Hamas that it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari proposal for a cease-fire to halt the seven-month-long war with Israel in Gaza.

It still remains uncertain whether the deal has been sealed. 

The Prime Minister’s Office said while ‘the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel’s core demands, Israel will dispatch a ranking delegation to Egypt in an effort to maximize the possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel.’

Israel’s actions signal that a long-promised ground invasion could be imminent. Israel has said that Rafah is Hamas’ last stronghold. 

The U.S. has said it opposes a Rafah invasion unless Israel provides a ‘credible’ plan for protecting civilians there. 

‘The Secretary-General reiterates his pressing call to both the government of Israel and the leadership of Hamas to go the extra mile needed to make an agreement come true and stop the present suffering,’ said Stéphane Dujarric de la Rivière, spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. 

‘The Secretary-General is deeply concerned by the indications that a large-scale military operation in Rafah may be imminent. We are already seeing movements of people – many of these are in desperate humanitarian condition and have been repeatedly displaced. They search [for] safety that has been so many times denied,’ Dujarric said. ‘The Secretary-General reminds the parties that the protection of civilians is paramount in international humanitarian law.’

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said aircraft struck more than 50 terrorist targets in Rafah amid the evacuation of residents in the area and the expansion of the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi and Khan Yunis. 

Jordan’s King Abdullah II has urged the international community to do all it can to prevent a potential ‘catastrophe’ in Gaza as a result of Israel’s anticipated ground invasion of Rafah. 

‘His Majest King Abdullah II warns that the Israeli attack on #Rafah, where about 1.4 million Palestinians are internally displaced as a result of the #Gaza war, threatens to a new massacre,’ read a Monday afternoon post on X by Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court (RHC)

The war in Gaza has driven around 80% of the territory’s population of 2.3 million from their homes and caused vast destruction throughout several cities. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, per estimates from Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. 

The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Members of Congress are looking to take action against a United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees in Gaza, amid reports the international organization assisted the Hamas terror group.

Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., are introducing legislation that would demand the U.S. State Department does everything it can to return American tax dollars that went to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

‘For way too long, UNRWA has masqueraded as a relief organization, while in reality serving as an incubator for Palestinian terrorists. Intelligence reports indicate that as many as 10% of UNRWA workers have direct links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihadists,’ Mast said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

He added: ‘It’s ludicrous that our hard-earned American tax dollars were going to fund this crap. The State Department needs to do everything it can to recoup this money.’

The legislation comes after allegations surfaced that at least a dozen UNRWA employees joined or otherwise assisted Hamas terrorists during their overnight attack on Israeli border communities on Oct. 7. The attack left more than 1,200 people dead, and Hamas took more than 200 hostages from a music festival and from their homes back into Gaza.

After reports that some UNRWA members helped Hamas, the Biden administration announced on Jan. 26 that it would stop additional taxpayer dollars from going to the agency.

Just days before the freeze, however, the administration had already transferred $121 million to UNRWA.

Mast and Gottheimer’s bipartisan bill hopes to recoup that sum to the U.S.

The legislation is part of a continued effort from the U.S. — and other countries — to separate itself from the agency.

U.S. intelligence in February said it was likely some employees of UNRWA participated in the attack, but it also said it could not verify Israeli allegations of wider links between the agency and UNRWA, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In March, the Israeli government named 12 UNRWA employees who had ties to and assisted Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in a dossier that it shared with several of its allies. Three were suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of the hostages or keeping them in their homes.

The agency fired the 12 employees named in the allegations, but the damage was already done and UNRWA lost hundreds of millions of dollars from donors after the dossier was sent.

The information includes allegations that approximately 1,200 employees shared some connection with Hamas — including around 17% of UNRWA teachers (out of a total 8,300) and around 20% of UNRWA school principals and deputy principals (out of a total 500) are members of Hamas. Ties to the group extend to UNRWA workers in positions related to relief and humanitarian aid, with about 10% of the 151 relief workers, and members of UNRWA’s health services.

The dossier also included excerpts from textbooks used in the agency’s school curriculum that allegedly include glorification of martyrdom and antisemitic tropes. Maps provided to children in their textbooks show a singular land where Israel and the Palestinian territories exist but labeled as a singular Palestine.

After the report surfaced, Congress passed legislation to defund UNRWA until 2025. 

Other governments similarly cut financial ties to UNRWA.

The report and subsequent response comes years after former President Trump took action against UNRWA when he was serving in the White House.

Fox News’ Peter Aitken contributed to this report.

Hamas has agreed to a cease-fire agreement framework put forward by Egypt and Qatar, the terrorist group announced in a Monday statement.

The White House and State Department could not confirm the agreement as of press time, but a Hamas spokesperson confirmed it to Fox News Digital. Israel has not announced its stance on the framework. If it is approved, however, it would bring an extended pause to the fighting that has raged in Gaza for seven months.

‘The fighter brother Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, had a phone call with the Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al-Thani, and with the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence, Mr. Abbas Kamel, and informed them of the Hamas movement’s approval of their proposal regarding the ceasefire agreement,’ the Hamas statement reads.

News of the agreement comes just as Israel appeared to be preparing for a ground assault on Rafah, the final stronghold of Hamas in Gaza. The city is also playing host to more than 1 million Gazans displaced from the north.

Israel urged Palestinians to flee Rafah ahead of the expected operation. Overnight on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that Israel was left with no choice but to act in Rafah after Hamas terrorists carried out a deadly rocket attack from Rafah earlier in the day that left four Israeli soldiers dead.

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone about Rafah on Monday, Fox News has learned. Netanyahu has repeatedly  vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah. According to Israel’s army, forces are beginning with a ‘limited scope operation.’

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesperson, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi. He said Israel published a map of the evacuation area.

These orders were issued through air-dropped leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts so that Palestinians could get the information.

‘Anyone found near [militant] organizations endangers themselves and their family members. For your safety, the [army] urges you to evacuate immediately to the expanded humanitarian area,’ one flier reads.

Israel’s army said on the social media platform X that it would act with ‘extreme force’ against Hamas terrorists and urged the population to immediately evacuate for their safety.

Fox News’ Lawrence Richard and Trey Yingst contributed to this report.

Israel is preparing to launch what is expected to be a massive ground operation inside Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken shelter. The Israeli army has begun ordering tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the city to evacuate.

On Monday, Israel’s Defense Forces ordered an evacuation of Rafah, signaling that a long-promised ground operation could be imminent. The Israeli army has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after seven months of war, and its leaders have repeatedly said clearing Rafah is necessary to defeat the Islamic militant group.

Overnight, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that Israel was left with no choice but to act in Rafah after Hamas terrorists carried out a deadly rocket attack from Rafah earlier in the day that left four Israeli soldiers dead.

A potential ground operation comes as last-ditch efforts by international mediators, including the CIA, to broker a cease-fire have failed to produce a deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah. According to Israel’s army, forces are beginning with a ‘limited scope operation.’

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi. He said Israel published a map of the evacuation area.

These orders have been issued through air-dropped leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts so that Palestinians could get the information.

‘Anyone found near (militant) organizations endangers themselves and their family members. For your safety, the (army) urges you to evacuate immediately to the expanded humanitarian area,’ one flyer read.

He said Israel has expanded humanitarian aid into Muwasi, including field hospitals, tents, food and water.

Israel’s army said on the social media platform X that it would act with ‘extreme force’ against Hamas terrorists, and urged the population to evacuate immediately for their safety.

The move also comes as the Biden administration reportedly put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-manufactured ammunition to Israel for the first time since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.

Two Israeli officials told Axios that the weapons shipment was stopped last week, leaving officials within the Israeli government scrambling to understand why.

About 1.5 million Palestinians – more than half of Gaza’s population – are sheltering in Rafah, as they have been forced to evacuate other areas in the Gaza Strip, amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under Chairwoman Lina Khan, shows no signs of relenting in its global campaign to suppress American tech companies in favor of their international competitors. The FTC’s radical policies, which include colluding with foreign governments to impose harsh regulations and penalties on American businesses, have considerable detrimental impacts on U.S. economic and national security. 

Recently, Khan defended the FTC’s policies by citing various federal regulatory actions in past decades. In short, she asserts that because government intervention worked then, it must be the right answer now. However, there is a glaring problem with this thinking; the test cases Khan relies upon are from a pre-digital world and ignore the fact that digital technology innovation is an outlier among other competitive industries. 

Khan rightly recognizes innovation as the key factor that propels America’s economic competitiveness that must be protected. But innovation is not being trampled on by leading American businesses, it is being trampled on by Khan’s FTC.  

For starters, it is outrageously inappropriate for the FTC to use American taxpayer dollars to send its employees on a trip to Europe to help the European Union implement EU legislation that disproportionately targets American tech companies, and by extension, American jobs and economic activity. 

Furthermore, Khan attempts to discredit American tech companies by claiming that large companies only ‘deliver marginal innovations’ while breakthrough innovations more often come from outsiders.  

This is a gross departure from reality for two reasons. Firstly, data shows that out of the top five companies in the world that spend the most on research and development, four of them are American tech companies that Khan’s FTC has targeted.  

Second, Khan ignores the fact that tech leaders do not suppress innovation but instead help set and enforce safety and privacy standards for the entire digital ecosystem, which are critical for smaller firms to have a competitive chance. One such example is the app store model used by various tech companies which protects users from inadvertently downloading malicious malware onto their phones via third party apps.  

Unsurprisingly, eager antitrust regulators have taken issue with these business practices as well, despite clear evidence that they have enabled smaller digital developers to thrive and give consumers more choices, and without them, private data and emerging software developers would face multiplying cyber threats. 

Finally, Khan has failed to credibly address any of the national security concerns regarding the FTC’s actions. Instead, she has dismissed these concerns and suggested that the U.S. tech sector is not aligned with America’s geopolitical priorities, citing a red herring in which she claims enabling tech leaders would negatively impact supply chain resilience. Certainly, the U.S. has supply chain vulnerabilities that should be addressed, but the nature of these challenges is profoundly different for the digital economy. 

Khan fails to recognize this and the role of the U.S. sector in supporting U.S. national security goals, especially in terms of security risks related to competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). American tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon have taken the initiative to retreat from the PRC. They have been doing so for more than a decade considering the U.S.-China relationship has become increasingly characterized by strategic rivalry. 

Khan’s comments also overlook Silicon Valley’s contributions to America’s geopolitical interests in Europe. Innovative tech firms like Google, Maxar Technologies, Palantir and Scale AI have strongly supported Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression.  

Their contributions range from countering cyber offensives and documenting war crimes to debunking Russian propaganda. Over-regulation could stifle innovation and the ability of the U.S. tech sector to contribute to American global interests, therefore harming U.S. security. 

Khan rightly recognizes innovation as the key factor that propels America’s economic competitiveness that must be protected. But innovation is not being trampled on by leading American businesses, it is being trampled on by Khan’s FTC.  

Under Khan, the FTC is also positioning itself to be the chief regulator of artificial intelligence (AI), overstepping the scope of its regulatory authority. AI will be a force multiplier and key driver of both economic and national security. It is also a critical domain for the strategic competition with China that Beijing has prioritized to exploit.  

The FTC actions demonstrate a lack of understanding about the national security implications of over-regulating AI. Without national security competencies, the FTC’s regulatory approach to AI will likely harm U.S. AI providers, thereby allowing the PRC to catch up or, even worse, overtake the U.S. in the AI race. This would be detrimental to industries and economic sectors far beyond the tech innovation space and would put wider U.S. economic and national power at risk. 

The FTC is supposed to be a force that ensures a fair, competitive and innovative market that protects consumers and America’s interests. Under Chairwoman Khan, the FTC has taken its authority to an extreme and focused its efforts on imposing interventionist government regulations without regard to the consequences to U.S. economic and national security. These policies are hamstringing tech innovation, eroding U.S. economic leadership and subverting America’s geopolitical interests. 

The Biden administration has put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-manufactured ammunition to Israel for the first time since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack, according to a report.

Two Israeli officials told Axios that the weapons shipment was stopped last week, leaving officials within the Israeli government scrambling to understand why.

When asked about the report, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told Fox News Digital that it has supported Israel’s defense since the Oct. 7 attack.

‘The United States has surged billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since the October 7 attacks, passed the largest ever supplemental appropriation for emergency assistance to Israel, led an unprecedented coalition to defend Israel against Iranian attacks, and will continue to do what is necessary to ensure Israel can defend itself from the threats it faces,’ the statement said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken shelter, and where Hamas maintains its last remaining stronghold.

The potential Rafah operation to root out Hamas terrorists comes despite warnings from President Biden and other Western officials that doing so would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.

The Biden administration has said there could be consequences for Israel should it move forward with the operation without a credible plan to safeguard civilians.

Biden has also faced criticism from Americans who are against his support of Israel, most recently seen in protests that have erupted across college campuses nationwide. 

The current war in Gaza began after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in which the terrorist organization killed 1,200 people, and took about 250 people hostage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mike Pompeo, when he was U.S. secretary of state, shared intel with the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic suggesting a ‘high likelihood’ that the deadly coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab, according to The Telegraph.

An intelligence alliance known as ‘Five Eyes’ reportedly met in January 2021 to discuss the lab-leak theory, the outlet reported. Around the same time, Pompeo is said to have shared information from classified American reports put together by the State Department to then-U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, as well as representatives from New Zealand, Canada and Australia. 

The British newspaper says two former Trump administration officials believe Raab – and the U.K. government as a whole – ignored the lab leak theory due to pressure from government scientists who leaned toward the theory that the illness had been transferred from animals to humans. 

‘We saw several pieces of information and thought that they were, frankly, gobsmacking,’ one former official who worked on the intelligence in Pompeo’s report told The Telegraph. ‘They obviously pointed to the high likelihood that this was indeed a lab leak.’

The reports, consisting of information collected in the early days of the pandemic, were also shared with the U.K. via Five Eyes between October and December 2020. Five Eyes consists of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Information in one document obtained by The Telegraph states U.S. officials accused Chinese officials of ‘stonewalling,’ as well as ‘gross corruption and ineptitude.’ The information also reportedly showed that the Chinese military had been working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years before the pandemic, and that lab researchers got sick soon before COVID-19 was first reported in the area. 

On May 1, the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic called for a criminal probe into the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

The demands for an investigation come after the release of an interim staff report accusing EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak of funding ‘dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, without sufficient oversight.’

EcoHealth Alliance is a non-governmental organization based in the United States and focused on researching pandemic prevention.

According to congressional lawmakers, EcoHealth used taxpayer dollars ‘to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)’ in China. 

The NGO disputes that claim.

Fox News Digital previously reported that EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and that U.S. taxpayer funds flowed to Chinese entities conducting coronavirus research through EcoHealth Alliance.

Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

Former President Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are showcasing that they hauled in over $76 million last month, as the presumptive GOP nominee works to reduce his fundraising deficit to President Biden in their 2024 election rematch.

The announcement came as Trump this weekend headlines the RNC’s spring donor retreat, which is being held in Palm Beach, Florida. 

The haul by Trump and the RNC is up from $65.6 million in March. But Biden and the Democratic National Committee combined raked in roughly $90 million in March. And according to campaign disclosures, the president had more than twice as much money in his campaign coffers as the Republican challenger and predecessor in the White House as of the beginning of April.

But Trump and the RNC’s fundraising has soared since the former president clinched the 2024 GOP nomination in March, and his top political advisers repeatedly insist they’ll have enough campaign cash to compete with Biden.

‘President Donald J. Trump is not only winning across every battleground state, but we are raising the resources necessary to deliver a victory in November,’ Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement Saturday that announced the April haul.

 ‘With half of funds raised coming from small dollar donors, it is clear that our base is energized. The Republican Party is united, and voters nationwide are ready to FIRE Joe Biden and elect President Donald J. Trump,’ they added.

‘Our team will continue working every day to exceed expectations, raise the funds we need, and build an unmatched party infrastructure to prove that President Trump’s momentum is unstoppable,’ RNC chair Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump added in the statement.

Whatley, the former North Carolina GOP chair, and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, were installed as the new RNC leadership by Trump in early March as he effectively took over control of the party after clinching the nomination.

The fundraising figures were first revealed earlier on Saturday as Trump campaign officials gave a one-hour presentation to donors at the closed-door retreat, Republican sources confirmed to Fox News. The weekend confab is being held at the Four Seasons oceanfront resort in Palm Beach and at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, which is located a few miles north.

During the presentation, which was first reported Saturday by the New York Times, Trump campaign officials emphasized that the former president is ahead in the key battleground states of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, and competitive in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Biden narrowly carried all six of those states in 2020 to defeat Trump and win the White House.

Trump’s advisers also said they aimed to expand the map in Minnesota and Virginia, where they said their polling shows Trump competitive in states Biden comfortably won four years ago.

The RNC spring retreat provided a brief break for Trump from his criminal trial in New York City. The former president is being tried on nearly three-dozen state felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records in relation to hush-money payments during the 2016 election he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress.

Trump has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels.