US defense chief pledges transparency after hospitalization

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday accepted responsibility for failing to disclose a recent hospitalization, following reports that even top White House officials and President Joe Biden were in the dark that he was ill and unable to carry out his duties.

The Pentagon waited until Friday evening to announce that Austin, 70, had been hospitalized four days prior “for complications following a recent elective medical procedure” — a breach of standard protocol at a time when the United States is embroiled in the Middle East crisis.

NBC News reported Austin was in the intensive care unit for four days, and remained at the hospital on Saturday.

“I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better,” Austin says in a statement.

“But this is important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure.”

He adds that he would be “returning to the Pentagon soon,” thanking the doctors and staff at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for their care.

Qatari PM tells hostages’ families talks with Hamas harder after terror chief killed in Beirut — report

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani met with the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, who traveled to Doha on Friday in a bid to revive talks to return their loved ones from the Gaza Strip, according to an Axios report.

Thani told the families talks with Hamas were more complicated by the killing in Beirut on Tuesday of the terror group’s deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri and several other senior members of the Gaza-ruling group, in a strike that has widely been attributed to Israel. Following Arouri’s assassination, Hamas reportedly froze negotiations via Qatar and Egypt, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday claimed to the relatives of hostages that talks for their return were ongoing.

Axios reports that the Qatari PM told the visiting families that “it is more difficult to talk to Hamas after what happened in Beirut,” citing a Qatari official.

The families of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas traveled to Doha, which also hosts Hamas leaders, on Friday for meetings with officials, marking the first such instance.

The families met with Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, who heads the Qatari negotiations team, and later with the Qatari premier, according to the report.

Qatar is “painfully aware of the suffering of the remaining hostages and their loved ones,” the Qatari official tells Axios.

Qatar brokered the release of 105 hostages over a weeklong truce in late November and 132 hostages taken on October 7 by Hamas-led terrorists remain in the Palestinian enclave– not all of them alive.

Qatar and Egypt have been trying to broker a new deal that would potentially see dozens of hostages freed in exchange for a pause in fighting.

“We have engaged directly with the hostages’ families to share as much information as possible, and to assure them that Qatar is committed to using every resource to secure their release,” the official said, according to Axios.

“We are using every possible channel, and collaborating closely with our counterparts in the US and Israel…but Qatar is a mediator. It does not control Hamas,” the official said.

The official noted it was “increasingly difficult” to maintain the channels of communication open with Hamas following the “escalation of bombardment in Gaza and elsewhere, which candidly complicates the hostage negotiations.”

The official said Qatar would continue its communication with the hostages’ families.

French minister urges Iran to stop ‘destabilizing acts’

France’s foreign minister told her Iranian counterpart Saturday that “Iran and its affiliates” must stop “destabilizing acts” that could spark a broader conflict in the Middle East amid the war in Gaza.

During a telephone call with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Catherine Colonna “delivered a very clear message: the risk of regional conflagration has never been so great; Iran and its affiliates must immediately cease their destabilizing acts,” according to a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

“Nobody would win from escalation,” it added.