Three young girls found dead in Washington State campground; father sought as suspect

Three young girls found dead in Washington State campground; father sought as suspect.

Boulder suspect’s wife and five children taken into ICE custody.

South Korean opposition leader wins presidency after incumbent declared martial law.

Israel has killed over 100 Gazans seeking aid in past week.

Authorities in Washington State are on the hunt for the father of three young girls found dead at a campground. Travis Decker, 32, was on a “planned visitation” with his three daughters- Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5- in Chelan County. The girls’ mother filed a complaint when Travis did not return the girls on Friday night as planned.

The girls were unfortunately found dead today. Police have not yet described the manner of the girls’ deaths. Decker’s truck was still parked near the campground, but Decker himself was nowhere to be found.

Decker is a military veteran with “extensive training”. It’s not clear if Decker is currently armed, but according to law enforcement, he could pose “a significant risk”. He is wanted on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree kidnapping.

Boulder suspect’s wife and five children taken into ICE custody

Following Sunday’s attack on a rally for Israeli hostages in Boulder, CO, the family of the accused attacker, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, have been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Soliman is an Egyptian national who was in the US on an expired visa. He had previously applied for asylum status. The immigration status of his family has not been made public.

ICE has not given the name or exact ages for Soliman’s wife and his five children. He reportedly has two teenagers and three younger children.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Twitter, “We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it”. An official White House social media account boasted in all caps that the family, “COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT”.

Soliman told police that his family knew nothing about his plans to attack pro-Israel protesters. He said that he had left behind a phone in his home with messages for his wife and children. His wife had turned the phone over to investigators.

All that is known publicly about his family is that one of his daughters has recently graduated high school and was awarded a scholarship by a local newspaper in Colorado Springs.

In her scholarship application, Soliman’s daughter wrote that, “Coming to the USA has fundamentally changed me”. Her newspaper profile said she had been born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for 14 years before relocating to the US two years ago. She intended to study medicine.

In her application letter, the daughter added that after coming to the US, “I learned to work under pressure and improve rapidly in a very short amount of time. Most importantly, I came to appreciate that family is the unchanging support”.

Soliman reportedly told police that he had planned to carry out his attack after his daughter’s high school graduation.

South Korean opposition leader wins presidency after incumbent declared martial law

Six months ago, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly declared martial law after losing control of Parliament. Yoon’s administration had been beset by numerous corruption scandals, some of them involving members of his family. Yoon had previously attempted, and failed, to block an investigation into his wife.

The martial law declaration only lasted a few hours and sparked massive demonstrations in Seoul. Yoon failed to get sufficient support from the military, whose officers were blindsided by the martial law decree. Despite Yoon sending soldiers to lockdown Parliament, members of Parliament were able to enter the building and hold a vote invalidating Yoon’s decree.

After his failed coup, Yoon was impeached, and as a result all of his presidential powers were stripped. The outcome of the presidential election appeared certain. As expected, Yoon’s conservative party was soundly defeated by opposition leader Lee Jae-myung and his liberal Democratic party.

Israel has killed over 100 Gazans seeking aid in past week

Last week, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations in Gaza. GHF was set up as a joint venture between the US and Israel as an attempt to replace UNRWA, the UN agency which has served Palestinians made refugees by Israel for over 70 years and which Israel has long reviled.

Starting March 2, Israel imposed a complete blockade of Gaza, allowing in no food, no water, no humanitarian supplies of any kind. GHF was conceived as a way to shield Israel from the public relations backlash of images of starving Palestinians, which have earned Israel worldwide condemnation. If Israel was hoping to improve public opinion on its actions in Gaza, GHF has so far had the opposite effect.

In the last week, Israel’s military, the IDF, has killed over 100 and injured nearly 500 Palestinians seeking aid at GHF distribution sites. There have also been reports that US private military contractors, who run the aid distribution sites, have also opened a fire at aid seekers. In an incident just yesterday, 27 Palestinians were killed by the IDF as they were on route to a distribution site.

Today, the IDF declared all the roads leading to the aid hubs to be “combat zones” and called off all distribution operations for 24 hours. A major US consulting firm connected to GHF also announced today that it was terminating its contract with GHF.

Another Freedom Flotilla ship en route to Gaza

Meanwhile in the Mediterranean, a ship manned Freedom Flotilla Coalition activists has begun its journey towards Gaza. Their aim is to deliver aid to starving Palestinians and break the Israeli blockade. Among the activists on the ship are Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan and civilians from five other countries.

A couple of hours ago, the FFC ship, called the Madleen, issued a distress signal after a drone appeared to be stalking the ship. It now appears it was an Israeli-made surveillance drone operated by the Greek Coast Guard. The activists have good reason to be jittery. A previous FFC mission had to be scrapped a few weeks ago when their ship was disabled off the coast of Malta by an attack drone. Israel is widely believed to have been behind the attack on that ship.

In 2010, Israel attacked a Gaza-bound aid flotilla operated by activists in international waters, killing 10 people on board.