Joe Biden presses Benjamin Netanyahu on ‘urgency’ of sealing ceasefire
US President Joe Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure,” the president wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Biden said: “Today I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding U.S. efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats from Iran and its proxy terrorist groups.
“I again made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles.”
Today I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding U.S. efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats from Iran and its proxy terrorist groups.
I again made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo…
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 21, 2024
Key events
In the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, which houses around 1 million residents and displaced Palestinians, according to the municipal council, residents said tanks advanced further from the east and blocked some roads connecting the city with the nearby Khan Younis in the south.
Israeli tanks have also advanced to the west, in Al-Karara and Hamad areas of Khan Younis, pushing more families out of their shelters and tents, sometimes under heavy fire from tanks and drones, residents said.
“Last night drones began firing towards the tents, we ducked down, for maybe hours, then the noise of tanks got louder as they advanced closer, so we decided to run,” Imad Al-Ghalayeeni, 48, told Reuters by phone from Khan Younis.
“We are five families, 48 persons, we ran to the beach, some slept on the road, others slept onshore, just on the sand with no tents, no blankets or mattresses and you can imagine how terrified were the children and women,” he added.
At least 22 people killed in Israeli strikes in central and southern Gaza, Palestinian officials say
Israeli forces pressed deeper into areas of the central and southern Gaza Strip as they battled Hamas fighters, while Palestinian health officials said on Thursday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 22 people across the enclave.
The new escalation comes hours after U.S. President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages, the White House said.
Months of on-off talks on a ceasefire have circled the same issues, but Israel and Hamas have stuck firmly to their demands.
In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, a strike on a house killed 11 people, while another killed six, including a local journalist, in a house in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, medics said. Five others were killed in separate strikes in the south.
The Gaza Strip’s first recorded polio case in 25 years has health workers and aid agencies grappling with the steep obstacles to conducting mass vaccination in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Unrelenting air strikes by Israel more than 10 months into its war against Gaza rulers Hamas, restrictions of aid entering the besieged territory and hot summer temperatures all threaten the viability of a life-saving inoculation drive.
Still, equipment to support the extensive campaign – which UN agencies say could start on August 31 – has already arrived in the region.
“It’s extremely difficult to undertake a vaccination campaign of this scale and volume under a sky full of air strikes,” said Juliette Touma, director of communications for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Democratic convention organizers to make space for a Palestinian speaker.
“Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment,” the New York lawmaker wrote on the X platform. “To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians.”
Delegates of the “uncommitted” movement, which was sparked by dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, announced to reporters late Wednesday that officials denied their request for a Palestinian to speak during the convention.
Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment.
To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians. The @DNC must change course and affirm our shared humanity. https://t.co/bxk8wk63oK
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 22, 2024
A couple dozen delegates began a sit-in protest outside the Democratic national convention after the ceasefire movement was told a Palestinian American could not speak on the convention main stage.
Uncommitted, a national movement that began in Michigan, won 30 delegates to the convention and has tried to use the party process to pressure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to broker an end to the war in Gaza. The sit-in is the latest attempt to get the Democratic party to allow greater prominence for the anti-war movement at this week’s convention in Chicago.
Abbas Alawieh, a leader of the uncommitted national movement and a Michigan delegate, began the impromptu sit-in after the DNC told the group it would not get a speaker.
Read out full report here:
Three Palestinians were killed on Thursday by an Israeli strike on a house in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.
Israel launched strikes on more than 10 areas across southern Lebanon, a spokesperson for the army said, hours after Hezbollah launched more than 50 rockets and a swarm of drones, hitting homes in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and wounding one person.
Israeli warplanes struck weapons depots, military buildings and a launcher used by Hezbollah in an overnight operation, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday.
Hezbollah said its attack on Wednesday was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one person and injured 19.
Israel’s response to the Lebanese militant group came hours after US president Joe Biden used a phone call to press Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages, according to a White House report.
Read our full report here:
Joe Biden presses Benjamin Netanyahu on ‘urgency’ of sealing ceasefire
US President Joe Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure,” the president wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Biden said: “Today I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding U.S. efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats from Iran and its proxy terrorist groups.
“I again made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles.”
Today I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding U.S. efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats from Iran and its proxy terrorist groups.
I again made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo…
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 21, 2024
Welcome and opening summary
It’s 9.10am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, welcome to our latest live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Charlie Moloney and I’ll be with you for the next while.
US President Joe Biden has pressed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages, the White House said.
The call between the leaders on Wednesday, in which vice-president Kamala Harris also took part, came after Palestinian health officials reported at least 50 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes over a 24-hour period, reports Reuters.
Biden stressed to Netanyahu “the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles,” a White House statement said.
US, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators are expected to meet in Cairo this weekend, but have for months struggled to bridge differences between Israel and Hamas.
First, here’s a summary of the latest developments:
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Hezbollah has launched more than 50 rockets and a swarm of drones towards northern Israel, hitting a number of homes in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and wounding one person. The strikes on Wednesday by the Lebanese militant group came the day after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met mediators from Egypt and Qatar, even as Hamas and Israel poured cold water on any prospect of any imminent pause in the fighting in Gaza.
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In response, the IDF has posted on X that it has attacked Hezbollah targets in “more than 10 different areas in southern Lebanon”.
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At least 11 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya in the early hours of Thursday, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said, according to Reuters.
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Thousands of people facing Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have been forced to abandon plans to comply with Israeli evacuation orders telling them to move to a designated “safe humanitarian zone” because there is no space for them there. At the weekend the Israeli military told residents of multiple neighbourhoods in and around the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah to leave their homes before planned attacks and go to the narrow strip of coast around the small town of al-Mawasi that was designated earlier in the war to receive displaced people.
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Israel has not agreed to withdraw its troops from the so-called Philadelphi corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday, denying an Israeli television report. “Israel will insist on the achievement of all of its objectives for the war, as they have been defined by the Security Cabinet, including that Gaza never again constitutes a security threat to Israel. This requires securing the southern border,” Netahyahu’s office said in a statement.
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The outgoing head of Israeli military intelligence, Maj Gen Aharon Haliva, has asked for “forgiveness” from Israelis for failing to protect them from Hamas’s 7 October attack. According to a video released by the Israeli military, Haliva – the first high-ranking official to make a public appeal for forgiveness – said at a ceremony marking his departure that “we did not uphold the sanctity of our oaths”, reports Agence France-Presse.
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The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and accompanying destroyers have arrived in the Middle East, the US military said Wednesday, after the country’s defense secretary ordered the strike group to accelerate its speed. The carrier’s arrival brings the number in the region to two – at least temporarily, as the Lincoln is to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Fears of a major escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond to twin killings blamed on Israel late last month, reports Agence France-Presse.
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The parents of a 23-year-old American taken hostage by Hamas during the 7 October attack on Israel gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention, pleading for the release of the dozens of people who continue to be held captive in Gaza. “This is a political convention. But needing our only son – and all of the cherished hostages – home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin lost part of his left arm and was kidnapped from Israel by militants who attacked the music festival he was attending. Polin and his wife, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, were greeted with an extended ovation and chants of “bring him home” by the thousands of Democratic delegates in Chicago.
