Netanyahu rejects US-backed 15-point Gaza peace plan | First Thing
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Netanyahu said he was confronting a ‘wave of rumours about Israeli weakness’. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters View image in fullscreen Netanyahu said he was confronting a ‘wave of rumours about Israeli weakness’. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters First Thing newsletter US news First Thing: Netanyahu rejects US-backed 15-point Gaza peace plan Israeli PM is insisting on a full Hamas disarmament before the deal can be implemented. Plus, what it feels like to get locked into an opera performance that lasts nearly 24 hours
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Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a US-backed 15-point peace plan for Gaza in a rare public break with Donald Trump. In a statement, Israel’s prime minister said he was confronting a “wave of rumours about Israeli weakness and Israeli withdrawals on all fronts” and rebuked US pressure to end wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran without Israel’s buy-in.
Trump’s Board of Peace in July proposed the 15-point plan, which mandated that Hamas disarm in exchange for providing a full Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and an eventual transition of power to an independent Palestinian national committee. Trump had said the agreement would be implemented in stages, but Netanyahu on Sunday said he wanted a full Hamas disarmament first in order to implement the deal.
What other developments have happened in the region? Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz , while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile over the weekend. Tehran said the strait of Hormuz would not open until the US “corrects its behaviour”. Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthis have claimed responsibility for an attack on a refinery in Saudi Arabia on Sunday morning.
What impact is the conflict having on seafarers in Hormuz? The US-Iran war has stranded up to 20,000 seafarers , mostly Indian and Filipino crews, with none knowing when the nightmare will end. Seventeen seafarers have died since hostilities began, the majority following Iranian strikes.
View image in fullscreen Chuck Schumer was among those in the room as a team of legal experts offered scenarios Democrats might face in the coming months. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters Chuck Schumer, the US Senate minority leader, and senators including Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner, Elissa Slotkin and Raphael Warnock were among those in the room as a team of legal experts offered scenarios they might face in the coming months: an assault in real-time on the integrity of November’s election results from the right wing and their Republican opponents.
What sort of exercises did they take part in? Justin Vail, who leads the DC office of the non-partisan advocacy group Protect Democracy, said: “These tabletop exercises are a standard planning tool for experts and stakeholders to prepare for potential scenarios. We’re not predicting exactly what would happen. But we do want to create a realistic context that can help us identify gaps, test our assumptions, and strengthen coordination, and then ultimately develop some recommendations to increase our preparedness.”
How has Trump been working to undermine confidence in US elections? Voting rights advocates pointed toward Trump’s July primetime address as indicative of the president’s intentions – rhetorical attacks on the integrity of voting machines and elections offices, potentially escalating into more direct interference. Trump threatened the broadcast licenses of networks that refused to carry that address live, and in his speech, he again implored Congress to pass the Save America Act, which would ban mail-in ballots nationwide and impose new identification requirements on voters when they register and report to polls.
View image in fullscreen Abdul El-Sayed has pledged he will fight inequality while the president is ‘making billions of dollars off of you’. Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, embraced Donald Trump’s suggestion that the two represent “VERY DIFFERENT” versions of the US, pledging to fight inequality while the president is “making billions of dollars off of you”.
“Yeah, he’s right,” El-Sayed told CNN when asked about a post by the US president that depicted an image of Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, beside a photo of El-Sayed, who is Muslim, and his wife, Sarah Jukaku, wearing a hijab.
What did El-Sayed say? “One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you – or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things. Donald Trump’s vision is the one you’re living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries?”
View image in fullscreen Will Scharf, the new White House counsel. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP Donald Trump has appointed his staff secretary, Will Scharf , as the new White House counsel. Scharf, who helped the president win approval for his $400m ballroom, will replace David Warrington on 1 September.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has announced she is going to freeze her eggs and will be sharing the process online. The progressive New York congresswoman, 36, revealed her decision to undergo fertility treatment in a series of Instagram stories
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has plummeted to its lowest water level since it was filled some 90 years ago , the latest sign of a deepening water crisis in the American west.
Mark Zuckerberg faces questions over why his superyacht reportedly declined to help a stranded boat . The Meta CEO was not onboard at the time.
Some of Taylor Swift’s songs have been removed from videos posted on social media…
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