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Iran war live: Hezbollah rejects truce as Israel continues Lebanon strikes

Iran war live: Hezbollah rejects truce as Israel continues Lebanon strikes

blinking-dotLive updatesLive updates, Israel’s supreme court annuls a government ban on the International Committee of the Red Cross visiting Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Published On 5 Jun 20265 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)

Democrat fails to block US measure to deepen Israel military cooperation

Democrat fails to block US measure to deepen Israel military cooperation

A congressional panel in the United States has rejected an effort to revoke a provision from the defence budget that would further integrate the US and Israeli militaries. An amendment to sink the pro-Israel measure, introduced by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, failed in a voice vote on Thursday in the House Armed Services Committee. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list That defeat paves the way for the proposal to advance to the floor of the House of Representatives. Khanna had argued that the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), formally called Section 224, rewards Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when the Israeli prime minister is trying to dictate US policy in the Middle East. The progressive Democrat cited recent reports that President Donald Trump is angry at Netanyahu over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon. “Everyone in America — whether you’re a Republican, an independent or a Democrat — says that we need to tell Netanyahu that America calls the shots, not the prime minister of any other country,” Khanna said. “They want less cooperation and blank checks to Israel, not more. Only the United States Congress would dream up at this moment, ‘Let’s actually do more for Israel.’” The vote on the amendment was taken by calling on committee members to say aloud either “yes” and “no”, and the “nays” clearly were more numerous. It was not recorded as a roll-call vote, which would require each member’s preference to be logged. Section 224 would require the Pentagon chief “to designate an executive agent responsible for synchronising cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel”. Advertisement That official would be in charge of overseeing several joint initiatives, “including bilateral defence technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation”, the NDAA reads. Netanyahu’s endorsement Critics have raised concern that Section 224 may make US military aid to Israel more opaque, concealing the assistance as cooperation rather than a separate expense. The measure also risks tethering the US military to its Israeli counterpart technologically at a time when the American public is rapidly turning against Israel, according to recent public opinion polls. “As political pressure builds to reduce US military assistance to Israel, Section 224 provides the framework for continuing — and expanding — US-Israel military ties by entrenching Israeli technology within the US defense supply chain in a way that would shield it from the annual appropriations process,” the nonprofit lobbying group A New Policy said in a brief last week. “The use of must-pass legislation as the NDAA as a mechanism of integration speaks to the plummeting popularity of continuing unconditional support to Israel.” The measure comes as Netanyahu pushes to transform US aid to Israel from direct assistance to military “cooperation”. The Israeli prime minister wrote a letter to Republican Congressman Marlin Stutzman endorsing a bill facilitating that transition. In the letter, Netanyahu said, “The time has now arrived for us to move from aid recipient to partner.” He added he supported Stutzman’s plan for a “new framework of joint defense cooperation, codevelopment, coproduction and mutual investment in areas including advanced missile defense, artificial intelligence … and next generation military platforms”. Referencing the letter on Thursday, Khanna argued that Section 224 “directly” follows Netanyahu’s language. “I am for Team America. I am for the interests of this country, and I believe that when Donald Trump ran, he ran ‘America First’,” the Democrat said. “That includes American interests against any foreign country. We should have American sovereignty and make it clear that we strike 224. If we want to give aid to Israel, if we want to sell them weapons, that should be a vote for the entire Congress.” But both Democrats and Republicans pushed back against his argument, saying that the provision aims to streamline existing cooperative programmes that benefit the US. Key Democrat backs Section 224 Congressman Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the panel, said he was “very sympathetic” to Khanna’s frustration with Netanyahu. Advertisement “Mr Netanyahu insisted on this war with Iran that has strengthened Iran and weakened our position. I do not like his leadership of Israel or where he is going,” Smith said. But he added that it is in the US’s interests to have deep military ties with Israel, a country accused by leading rights groups and United Nations investigators of committing genocide in Gaza. “The reason that we have these partnerships with Israel, where we may not have as many developed partnerships with other NATO countries, is because Israel has actually been having to fight,” Smith said. “They have faced drone attacks and missile attacks. They have had to develop new technologies, technologies that we’ve benefitted from.” Rights advocates often decry the promotion of Israel’s weapons as “battle-tested” — because they have been tested on the Palestinian and Lebanese communities that they devastated, killing tens of thousands of people along the way. Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian rights advocates warned against approving Section 224 during a news conference on Capitol Hill. “It is unfathomable that this is the American response to a country that has, over the past two and a half years, carried out a genocide against Palestinians and started wars in both Iran and Lebanon,” said Margaret DeReus, the executive director at the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU). Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has promised to introduce an amendment to revoke Section 224 when the NDAA goes to a full House vote. Adblock test (Why?)

Why Mogadishu clashes are deepening Somalia’s political crisis again

Why Mogadishu clashes are deepening Somalia’s political crisis again

Mogadishu, Somalia – Mustafa, 33, dreads election time in Somalia. He drives a bajaj — a three-wheeled taxi — and says that when tensions rise, as they always do when polls are near, the whole city feels it, and drivers like him are among the first. On Wednesday, he was passing through the Hawl Wadaag district when heavy gunfire between government and opposition forces erupted all around him. Recommended Stories list of 2 itemsend of list “I couldn’t even think. Everyone was shouting and running for their lives, and we all fled from the bullets,” he told Al Jazeera. “We haven’t seen fighting this bad in years.” The shooting that began that afternoon around the homes of former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire and, later, former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, came as opposition figures were planning to organise protests against what they describe as an illegal term extension by incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Khaire and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed were among opposition leaders spreadheading the planned protests amid rising tensions with the federal government. The government said the planned protests would undermine security in a city still grappling with persistent armed violence. Hundreds of families fled neighbourhoods near the fighting, and by the next day, many of the capital’s central areas had emptied. The sudden eruption of violence ended a period of improving security in Mogadishu, shattering the perception that the city had begun turning a corner. “The most frustrating thing is that we have nothing to do with it, and it impacts so many of us,” Mustafa said. “We make our living in this city”. Advertisement Security forces sealed Maka al-Mukarama Road, one of Mogadishu’s main arteries, while Bakara market, the largest commercial hub in the city, was effectively closed for business. Maka al-Mukarama Road, Mogadishu’s main thoroughfare, is usually a bustling commercial hub, but recently, it has been largely empty, with the exception of military vehicles [Faisal Ali/Al Jazeera] “Look, it’s midday, and there’s almost no one here, shops are closed, and usually by this time the place is jammed,” Ahmed, a street vendor at Bakara market, told Al Jazeera, gesturing at shuttered stalls. Ali Wardheere, the deputy central bank governor, estimated the direct cost to businesses and services at $3.8m, though he stressed the figure was a model-based projection, not an official or final tally. Like most Somalis, Mustafa has never voted for a president or a member of parliament. The country has not held a direct election for national leadership since the late 1960s. Since the state was re-established in 2012 after its 1991 collapse, leaders have been selected through an indirect system negotiated by clan elders and political elites. As presidential terms near their end, low trust among political actors often leads to intense competition over power — and at times violence — as disputes over the electoral timetable come to a head. At a press conference in late May, Sharif warned that the political deadlock could turn violent if negotiations failed. “Where do things stand? [We say] Leave, and [you say] I won’t leave. What comes next? Bullets.” The warning echoed events in 2021, when then-President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo remained in office more than a year beyond the end of his term, triggering clashes in Mogadishu before a political agreement was reached. Higher stakes this election This time, the political standoff carries higher stakes. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says that constitutional amendments approved by parliament extended his mandate by an additional year from May 15. The opposition rejects that and has begun referring to him as a “former president”. Two of Somalia’s most influential federal states also reject the amendments, leaving the country divided over the constitutional framework governing the next election, with no constitutional court to resolve the dispute. After parliament approved the changes, Mohamud declared that the “provisional constitution, and the provisional era, was a sun which set yesterday,” signalling that his administration would press ahead despite objections from its opponents. Advertisement Tensions had been building for days. Ahead of a protest planned for Thursday, opposition leaders left the heavily fortified “green zone” near Mogadishu’s airport and returned to their residences across the city. Some opposition figures said they would deploy their own armed guards at the demonstration, a proposal Mohamud rejected. The dispute heightened fears of a confrontation before fighting eventually broke out. Both sides blame the other for starting the clashes. Khaire accused Mohamud of directing a “sustained and indiscriminate military assault” that lasted more than 20 hours, a claim Sharif echoed after fighting reached his own residence. Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, the defence minister, accused the opposition of militarising the standoff, likening it to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces and alleging that opposition figures had “distributed mortars and artillery across the capital”. “Force and militias,” he said, would no longer be allowed to “seize power or block the state.” How it came to this The roots of the crisis run back to the 2012 provisional constitution, which set up a federal, parliamentary system built on broad consensus and clan-based power-sharing, which every government since has promised to achieve and failed to attain. This year, after a long review, parliament amended the constitution through a disputed process that split the political class. The government has insisted that the new constitution advances the statebuilding process and that the Somali public should be allowed to directly elect its representatives. For Ahmed Abdi Koshin, a federal MP who boycotted the draft, the danger is that the whole settlement comes apart. The process, he said, “clearly doesn’t have buy-in,” and the original constitution, for all its faults — “an imperfect product of compromise” — was the “only glue holding Somalia together”. Koshin is not against a direct vote in principle, he said, but does not believe the country is ready for one. “We don’t have legislation for a direct vote; censuses and the security situation remains compromised. It really is up to the president to either reach a deal and save Somalia, or watch