The head of the Israeli General Staff, Herzi Halevi, presented his resignation to the Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, for the military failure that allowed Hamas to launch its attacks on October 7, 2023, the Israeli Army confirmed to EFE.

The country’s top military official asked to leave his post on March 6 of this year. Until that day, Halevi will oversee the Army’s investigations into October 7.

In his resignation letter, Halevi assures that his “responsibility” for the attacks haunts him “day after day, hour after hour.” “I will live like this for the rest of my life,” he writes.

The official had already advanced that he planned to resign once the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was over.

The first phase of the ceasefire in the enclave came into force on Sunday, and is scheduled to last for six weeks, during which 33 Israeli hostages in the Strip will be progressively released in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

The first three hostages were released on Sunday in good condition, after which 90 Palestinian prisoners, the vast majority of them women and children, were released in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that the Gulf of Mexico will continue to be called that “for the whole world,” despite the order of the new president of the United States, Donald Trump, to rename the body of water as ‘Gulf of America’.

“I mean, what corresponds to the continental shelf of the United States, they call it the Gulf of America, for us it is still the Gulf of Mexico and for the whole world, so it is important to see what the decree says,” said the ruler in her daily press conference.

The president minimized the implications of Trump’s executive order, who complied with his warning to seek to call the Gulf of Mexico ‘Gulf of America’ for considering that Mexico is “governed by drug trafficking cartels” and is “a very insecure place.”

“Soon, we will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’,” Trump said on Monday in a speech full of political proposals to inaugurate a “new golden age” in the United States that also included “regaining” control of the Panama Canal.

Although Florida, governed by Ron de Santis – of the Republican Party – became the first state in the United States to call it the ‘Gulf of America’ in a weather alert, Sheinbaum said that the rest of the world will continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico.

“The Gulf of Mexico, beyond anything, they establish it for its continental shelf, for us it is still the Gulf of Mexico and for the whole world it still is,” he stressed.

The Mexican president promised on Tuesday to “defend Mexico above all” after the decrees on migration, trade and drug trafficking signed by Donald Trump, but asked to “be calm.”

“It is important to be calm and read the decrees as such to be able to make an interpretation and that they know that the president of the Republic will always defend Mexico above all,” he said.

The president requested to analyze with “a cool head” the executive orders of Trump, who on his first day in office declared a national emergency on the southern border of the United States, ordered the designation of Mexican cartels as terrorists and asked to reinstate the immigration program ‘Stay in Mexico’.

The head of the Executive argued that “the emergency zone decree of the southern border (of the United States) that he signed yesterday, is very similar, practically the same as the decree that he signed in his first period, in 2019.”

Sheinbaum also rejected that Mexico becomes a “safe third country” with the return of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or ‘Stay in Mexico’, recalling that Trump implemented in his first administration, in January 2019, this program that forces US asylum seekers to wait in Mexican territory.

“This has nothing to do with a safe third country and all this, but it is a statement from the United States Government. What do we do about it? Act in a humanitarian way and, then, according to our foreign policy, our migration policy, seek the repatriation of these people to their countries,” he said.

And he insisted that his Government is prepared to receive potential repatriates from the mass deportations from the United States, where Mexicans represent almost half of the nearly eleven million undocumented immigrants in the country.

“We will always support the Mexicans who are in the United States, our compatriots, our countrymen, those two principles are fundamental and elementary for a president of the Republic,” he stressed.

The president of Mexico said she seeks “coordination” in security with the new president of the United States, Donald Trump, for his order to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists.

“We all want to fight drug cartels, that’s obvious. So what do you have to do? We have to coordinate efforts, we have to collaborate, they in their territory, we in our territory,” said Sheinbaum.

The Mexican ruler recognized that “they can act in their territory, within their framework of action and their Constitution” after the order that Trump signed on his first day in office to classify the Mexican cartels, the Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua and the Salvadoran gang MS-13 as terrorist organizations.

“Mexico probably doesn’t want this,” Trump said in the Oval Office after signing the decree and giving a two-week period for the different departments of the United States Government to help compile a list of Mexican criminal organizations.

Marco Rubio was sworn in this Tuesday as the new Secretary of State of State in a ceremony in which he promised to work for “a safer world” under the directives of President Donald Trump.

Rubio became the first confirmed Trump Cabinet on Monday after receiving the unanimous support of the Senate. The new vice president, JD Vance, was in charge of taking the oath from Rubo.

After swearing in office, Rubio said that “one of the main objectives of US foreign policies will be the promotion of peace.”

“Of course, a peace through force, a peace always without abandoning our values, but I think it is extraordinary that it is something that should be said and that has not been said enough in recent memory,” added the new secretary.

Rubio had a few words in Spanish for his parents, who migrated from Cuba to Florida in 1956, during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

“The purpose of his life was that we could live the dreams that were not possible for them. It is an incredible honor to be the Secretary of State of the most powerful and goodest country in the history of humanity,” he said.

Subsequently, Rubio was greeted in the lobby of the State Department with applause from dozens of workers of this agency.

“There will be changes, but changes don’t have to be destructive. They don’t have to be punitive,” said the new head of US diplomacy.

Rubio said that the State Department needs to “act faster than ever because the world is changing faster than ever.”

“It is an honor to be able to run this agency. I hope to do it with distinction and integrity, working harder than anyone in this position. And that won’t be easy, because before me there have been very hardworking people,” he added.

The new Secretary of State was accompanied by his wife Jeanette, of Colombian origin, and their four children: Amanda, Daniella, Anthony and Dominick.