Live Updates: Pelosi joins call for Biden to stop supply of US arms to Israel

Saturday, April 6, 2024

03:00 GMT — Pelosi joins call for Biden to stop supply of US arms to Israel

Representative Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker and a key ally of Joe Biden, has signed a letter from dozens of congressional Democrats to the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging a halt to weapons transfers to Israel.

Support from Pelosi, a veteran member of Biden's Democratic Party, for stopping the transfer of weapons to Israel showed that the view is increasingly becoming mainstream in the party.

The letter called on the Biden administration to conduct its own probe into an Israeli air strike that killed seven staff of the aid group World Central Kitchen on Monday.

02:50 GMT — US urges Egypt, Qatar to press Hamas on hostage deal with Israel

President Joe Biden has written to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, calling on them to press Hamas resistance group for a hostage deal with Israel, according to a senior administration official, a day after Hamas accused Tel Aviv of being "intransigent," saying it has rejected every proposal put forward.

The letters to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani come as Biden has deployed CIA Director Bill Burns to Cairo for talks this weekend about the hostage crisis.

White House officials say negotiating a pause in Israel's war on Gaza to facilitate the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel is the only way to put a temporary ceasefire into effect and boost the flow of badly humanitarian aid into the territory.

02:31 GMT — Jordan demands opening of all crossings, end to starvation in Gaza

Jordan has urged the opening of all land crossings into besieged Gaza and an end to starvation in the blockaded enclave.

"All land crossings to Gaza must be opened. A ceasefire must begin now," Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi wrote on X. "UN must be in charge of all humanitarian operations and have full access."

Safadi noted that "anything short of that'll be another lie and won't even begin to address the catastrophe Israel has created," stressing that "starvation of Gazans must end."

02:17 GMT — Illegal Israeli settlers torch 4 Palestinian homes in eastern West Bank

Israeli illegal settlers have burned four Palestinian homes in a Bedouin community in northern Jericho in the eastern occupied West Bank.

Hassan Malihat, general supervisor of the Al-Baydar Organisation for Defending Bedouin Rights, told Anadolu Agency that Zionist settlers attacked the Ras Al-Ain Bedouin community and torched the homes.

He warned of the implementation of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians from a settlers' war against the Palestinian Bedouin communities in the eastern West Bank, known as the Al-Aghwar area, which constitutes 30 percent of the total West Bank area.

02:10 GMT — Israel conducts raids in West Bank, wounds 3 Palestinians

The Israeli army has wounded at least three Palestinians during night raids in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the army raided the village of Osarin, near Nablus in the northern West Bank, and fought with Palestinians.

It added that medical teams transferred one Palestinian wounded by an Israeli live bullet to the hospital.

02:05 GMT — Colombia seeks to intervene in ICJ genocide case against Israel

Colombia has asked the International Court of Justice [ICJ] to allow it to intervene in the lawsuit that South Africa filed against Israel for acts of "genocide" in besieged Gaza, the court reported.

"Today, Colombia, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip," it said in a statement.

Colombia made it clear that it does not seek to become part of the process initiated by South Africa, but it wants to submit its declaration "in the genuine belief that the States parties to the Genocide Convention should do everything in their power to contribute to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide."

For our live updates from Friday, April 5, click here.