The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | February 20th, 2025: Hamas Holds Sick Propaganda Ceremony For Dead Israelis & White House Designates Latin American Cartels As Terrorist Organizations
20 Feb 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First, Hamas provoked international outrage with a barbaric display as they returned the bodies of four deceased hostages on Thursday, including the two youngest captives taken during the 7 October 2023 terror attack, parading their coffins in front of a crowd of cheering spectators who shouted anti-Israel taunts. Later in the show, the Trump administration moves to designate Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and a number of Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in their latest crackdown on transnational crime. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Ramp: Get $250 when you join Ramp. Go to ramp.com/PDB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Thursday, 20 February. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed.
First, Hamas provoked international outrage with a barbaric display as they returned the bodies of four deceased hostages on Thursday, including the two youngest captives taken during the 7 October 2023 terror attacks, parading their coffins in front of a crowd of cheering spectators in Gaza who shouted anti-Israeli slogans.
Later in the show, the Trump administration moves to designate TDA, MS-13, and a number of Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in their latest crackdown on transnational crime. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
We'll begin in Gaza, where Hamas turned the release of four deceased Israeli hostages, including a mother and her two young children, into a bizarre and barbaric spectacle. As we've been tracking on the PDB, Hamas announced earlier this week that they would be returning the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, including the two youngest captives taken during the 7 October attacks.
Hamas decided to use the somber moment to stage a propaganda ceremony, inviting local Gazans and militants to spectate and broadcasting the scenes across Arab television channels. That's according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The Iranian-backed terror group built a stage where they displayed four coffins containing the remains of Shiri Bibas, a 33-year-old mother taken on 7 October, along with her two sons, Ariel and Kefir, who were just four years old and nine months old when they were kidnapped by Hamas, as well as 83-year-old Oded Lifshiz, a peace activist.
On the backdrop of this stage was a banner with photos of all four victims. Above that was a bloody picture of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, depicted as a vampire, with an inscription that read, quote, War criminal Netanyahu and his army killed them with missiles and Zionist warplanes.
The coffins also had a picture of each victim, with text reading, Date of arrest, October 7th, 2023, along with a photo of Netanyahu over which was written, quote, The killer. There was also a banner that threateningly read, quote, the return of the war equals the return of your prisoners in coffins, as well as a placard that said, quote, we never forgave nor forgot, end quote.
As the coffins were placed on stage, crowds of spectators cheered and shouted anti-Israeli taunts. Among the crowd were reportedly Palestinian prisoners recently released in the current hostage ceasefire deal, and they were supposed to be exiled from Gaza under the terms of the agreement.
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