America has given a big statement amidst the fragile ceasefire between America and Iran. US Defense Minister Pete Hegseth has clearly said that Washington is taking steps to protect merchant ships, but it does not want to move towards any major or direct war. However, he warned that if Iran tried to disrupt ‘Project Freedom’, it would have to face American military power.

What is ‘Project Freedom’?
Hegseth said that ‘Project Freedom’ is a naval mission, which donald trump Was started during the tenure of. Its purpose is to provide safe passage to ships in one of the busiest oil routes in the world. He said that this operation is limited and it does not require the US military to enter Iran’s airspace or maritime border.

We don’t want a fight, but we will respond – Hegseth
“We don’t want a fight,” Hegseth said. Iran says that it controls this strait, but it is not so. He described Iran as the main aggressor in this situation.

‘Defensive and temporary missions’
The Pentagon chief described ‘Project Freedom’ as a completely defensive and limited-duration mission. He said that its sole purpose is to protect innocent merchant ships from Iranian aggression. He also said that under this mission, so far two American ships have passed through this route safely, while some ships had to return due to Iran’s port restrictions.

Ceasefire not over, separate operation: America
Hegseth also clarified that this operation does not signal the end of the ongoing ceasefire between America and Iran. He said, ‘Ceasefire has not ended, it is a separate and independent mission.’ He also warned Iran to take its steps carefully so that the situation does not worsen further.

US Army claims: Iran is attacking
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Kane, said that Iran has attacked merchant ships and American forces several times in recent weeks. He alleged that Iran is ‘weaponizing the global supply chain’ and trying to put the entire world economy under pressure.

Attack statistics and current situation
According to America, after the ceasefire, Iran has fired on merchant ships 9 times and captured 2 container ships. Apart from this, there have been more than 10 attacks on American forces. However, the army has described it as ‘low level interference’ and said that the decision on a major war will depend on the political leadership.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it eliminated Hamas commander Anas Muhammad Ibrahim Hamed, who infiltrated Israel and participated in the Oct. 7 Nova Music Festival Massacre.

Hamed was killed during a targeted Monday strike in Gaza, the IDF announced Tuesday.

“The IDF struck yesterday in the center of the Gaza Strip and eliminated Ans Muhammad Ibrahim Hamed, Nukhba commander in the Hamas terror organization, who raided the territory of the State of Israel and the Nova festival during the murderous massacre on October 7,” the IDF wrote in a Tuesday morning post on X.

The IDF called Hamed an “immediate threat to IDF forces operating in the Gaza Strip,” and said he was “eliminated in a precise airstrike.”

ISRAEL ANNOUNCES IT KILLED ONE OF THE ARCHITECTS OF THE OCT. 7 ATTACKS

A poster of Hamas Nukhba commander Anas Muhammad Ibrahim Hamed, who the Israel Defense Forces claim to have eliminated Monday May 4, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF said it has forces “deployed in the area in accordance with the agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat.”

Nukhba, which is Arabic for elite, are the special forces for the Al-Qassam Brigades, which is Hamas’ military wing.

Both units were instrumental in the Oct. 7 massacre. The Al-Qassam Brigades planned and executed the attack, according to the IDF and the Counter Extremism Project. Of the 6,000 terrorists who invaded Israel during the attack, more than 3,800 were Nukhba fighters, the IDF stated in an August 2024 assessment.

The Oct. 7 attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 Israelis and prompted a sprawling Israeli military campaign in Gaza. During this campaign, the IDF eliminated two commanders of the Al-Qassam Brigades and numerous other members of the group’s military leadership.

ISRAELI MILITARY OPERATION IN GAZA EXPANDING TO SEIZE ‘LARGE AREAS’: ‘EXPANDING TO CRUSH AND CLEAN THE AREA’

Palestinian Hamas fighters of the al-Qassam Brigades participate in a military parade near the border in the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2023, marking the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

A July 2024 targeted strike killed then-Al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Deif. In May 2025, another airstrike killed his replacement, Mohammad Sinwar.

The latest Israeli strike in Gaza comes just under seven months after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump in October. The IDF accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire in February by using ambulances to transport terrorists and weapons around the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has also accused Israel of violating the ceasefire with daily airstrikes.

HAMAS TERRORISTS USE AMBULANCES, SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS IN VIOLATION OF US-BROKERED CEASEFIRE, IDF OFFICIAL SAYS

Fox News’ Trey Yingst asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week if Hamas’ refusal to put down its weapons would prompt the Trump administration to support Israel resuming combat operations in Gaza.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio wait as President Donald Trump prepares to address the Knesset in Jerusalem on Oct. 13, 2025. Trump visited Israel hours after Hamas released some Israeli hostages as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal in the Gaza conflict. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Let’s hope we can avoid that. That’s not the outcome we want,” Rubio told Yingst. “The outcome we want is for Hamas to be demilitarized and a Palestinian security force backed by an international security force is able to secure Gaza.   

Fox News Digital reached out to the IDF and the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Fox News’ Yonat Friling contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog group is pursuing a new possible paper trail to find out who is funding climate presentations for judges, filing public records requests for financial information that could reveal how outside advocacy groups influenced the presentations.

Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO), a nonprofit, made recent Freedom of Information Act requests, reviewed by Fox News Digital, for emails and financial records held by the Treasury Department that GAO says could show whether funds connected to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) moved through the Federal Judicial Center Foundation. 

The effort comes as Republican lawmakers and legal critics scrutinize whether the seminars exposed judges to one-sided climate presentations from figures they say are connected to the broader plaintiffs-side climate litigation network, raising concerns about whether the programs created an appearance of partiality for judges who could later hear related lawsuits.

CLIMATE JUSTICE GROUP HAS DEEP TIES TO JUDGES, EXPERTS INVOLVED IN LITIGATION AMID CLAIMS OF IMPARTIALITY

People involved in climate activism hold a demonstration in Manhattan to demand an end to fossil fuel funding by Wall Street and the American government on Sept. 18, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The FOIA requests were significant, GAO legal counsel Chris Horner told Fox News Digital, because they opened up a new path for his group and congressional investigators to pursue as they probe what role the Federal Judicial Center, which is a research arm of the taxpayer-funded judicial branch, had in hosting the seminars.

While it is not necessarily subject to FOIA requests, Horner said that records belonging to the Federal Judicial Center Foundation, created by Congress as a 501c1, are public. That means the foundation, which is authorized to take donor money to support events, should have a public paper trail, Horner said.

Fox News Digital reviewed ELI’s tax records, including 990 forms beginning in 2019, which showed multimillion-dollar lump sums designated, in part, for educating judges. Horner said his group was looking to understand the “mechanics” behind that funding.

“Judges are getting from the courtroom to the resort. How does that happen?” Horner asked, questioning if the Federal Judicial Center, a public, impartial entity, was improperly using ELI’s money to facilitate judges’ attendance at the controversial seminars.

The seminars at issue were climate-related judicial education programs involving the Federal Judicial Center and ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project, which ELI launched in 2018 to provide judges with instruction on climate science, climate impacts and climate-related litigation. 

The Federal Judicial Center previously told Fox News Digital it held a series of small, one-day seminars with ELI for fewer than 100 judges in 2019 and early 2020, before the programs became the subject of scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, conservative legal critics and energy industry advocates. The Federal Judicial Center said last year it stopped working with ELI in 2020. Fox News Digital reached out to ELI and the Federal Judicial Center for comment on the current status of the seminars.

Nick Collins, an ELI spokesperson, said in a statement that ELI’s climate project began because courts were seeking out education on the topic. He denied that the project had ties to current climate litigation that judges might be presiding over.

“[The Climate Judiciary Project] partners with leading educational institutions to provide those courses which are no different than other judicial education programs providing training on legal and scientific topics that judges voluntarily choose to attend,” Collins said. “CJP does not participate in litigation, coordinate with parties related to any litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule on any issue or in any case.”

GAO argued in its FOIA requests that the Federal Judicial Center Foundation is a government agency and that the statute that established the foundation authorized it to maintain a fund with the Treasury, where all the foundation’s donations could be held. GAO said the public should have access to those account statements showing deposits and disbursements.

The FOIA requests targeted records spanning multiple years, including the potential Treasury-held data dating back to 2015, as well as records from 2019 to 2021 tied to the climate seminars specifically.

The requests did not establish that any funds were improperly used, but GAO said the records could clarify how outside money was handled by a public institution.

Horner called it a “big gap in the stone wall,” referencing what he viewed as an opening to learn more about what has long been a murky understanding of financial ties between the Federal Judicial Center and private entities helping to bring the climate lawsuits.

Horner noted ELI’s well-documented connections to plaintiffs who have brought numerous lawsuits against major oil companies like Shell, BP and ExxonMobil in the name of addressing climate change.

“The judiciary has been caught in bed with the plaintiffs, and the judiciary apparently wants to hide the evidence rather than be transparent about it, which certainly does not inspire confidence,” Horner said.

MAJOR ‘CLIMATE DECEPTION’ LAWSUIT AGAINST BIG OIL VOLUNTARILY DISMISSED

AUSTIN, TEXAS – AUGUST 05: An Exxon gas station is seen on August 05, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)  (Brandon Bell)

ELI is connected to litigators involved in the uptick in recent years in the lawsuits against oil companies, including through its former board member Ann Carlson. ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project maintains that it is a “neutral, objective” resource for judges, but its curriculum has been fossil fuel-averse. The Climate Judiciary Project educates the very judges who could end up presiding over cases against the oil companies.

ELI “intends to accomplish via the courts what it cannot get enacted into law: a radical environmental agenda,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, alleged in a 2024 letter.

GAO lawyers argued in their FOIA requests that the foundation’s financial information was of great public interest because judges were effectively being lobbied on how to handle climate cases through these seminars, and the foundation could have had a role in funding them.

“These seminars were arranged by parties affiliated with the plaintiffs’ legal team yet presented as the objective background which judges should know about climate science,” the GAO lawyers wrote in the FOIA requests. “The Federal Judicial Center Foundation is authorized to accept gifts to underwrite such seminars.”

Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a roundtable discussion at the U.S. Capitol on March 3, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Critics like Cruz and GAO have long contended that the seminars were not neutral and instead part of a broader climate litigation ecosystem. Judges attending seminars on any given topic would normally be a nonissue, but the concerns have zeroed in on who may be influencing the judges and whether they are part of the same network advancing the climate lawsuits.

Like GAO, Congress has been probing the financials as part of its oversight of the judicial branch. In January, the House Judiciary Committee said ELI, and its Climate Judiciary Project, appeared to target judges in jurisdictions where climate cases would be heard. The letter noted that ELI has said its Climate Judiciary Project began in 2018 “in coordination with” the Federal Judicial Center.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

GAO’s FOIA letters signal that the Federal Judicial Center Foundation could be a missing link in understanding who paid for the seminars and how the Federal Judicial Center was involved with the privately funded programs, which lawmakers say could be at odds with policies that the U.S. courts are required to follow.

Fox News Digital reached out to Carlson, as well as the Federal Judicial Center, the Federal Judicial Center Foundation and the Treasury Department for comment on the FOIA requests.