‘We barely make ends meet’: In Italy, some women are postponing motherhood
Giada, a 30-year-old writer, lives in central Italy with her boyfriend, a shop assistant also in his thirties. After several unpaid internships, she finally secured a more reliable position this year. As a writer specialising in science, she earns about 800 euros ($876) a month on a one-year part-time contract. “They said they are going to renew it, but it’s a small company and everything is very unstable,” Giada told Al Jazeera. For this reason, she is postponing motherhood. “Having kids has never been a question for me, and my boyfriend and I discuss it as he would also like to have them. But then we think about our precarious situation and realise that becoming parents now would not be sustainable. We barely make ends meet – imagine with a child.” Working in Italy as a woman is fraught with challenges. The country is home to the lowest female employment rate in the European Union and a steep gender pay gap. Women are also often more likely to be employed in “non-standard” arrangements, such as part-time and temporary jobs. And it is mothers and young women who are the most affected. “We are lucky in other ways,” Giada said. “Our families support us so we know that if we need help we can ask them. “[But] what if I get pregnant and my company decides to not renew my contract? It is not so unrealistic that this could happen.” Chiara, a 26-year-old social media strategist living in Padua with her boyfriend, said given their salaries, they cannot plan for a family yet. “I left my parents’ home when I was 19 and almost immediately became financially independent by working while studying,” she said. “All my wages have always been used for daily living, not allowing me to save any money.” Chiara is working on an apprenticeship contract, earning about 1,200 euros ($1,314) per month. Looking ahead, she does not expect her salary to rise by much. “Our desire to become parents is strong, but it is never stronger than knowing that a kid deserves to live comfortably,” she said. “With groceries, rent and bills going up, while our salary remains the same, it is basically impossible to do so. “Of course, this is not something that makes me happy: not knowing whether our financial situation will ever allow us to have children scares me, because this day may never come”. Motherhood postponed According to a recent Department of Health report, Italian women are, on average, older than 31 when they have their first child. About 62 percent of babies in 2022 were born to mothers aged between 30 and 39. Those aged between 20 and 29 accounted for 26 percent of births, compared with 30 percent in 2012. The average number of children per woman is now 1.24, one of the lowest rates in Europe. To compare, France’s rate, which is considered high, was 1.8 in 2021 while Greece’s was 1.4, according to the World Bank. The Department of Health said the trends are partly down to a “decrease in the propensity to have children”. While women are under less societal pressure to have children, in Italy, the biggest obstacle to motherhood for some is being able to afford it. Official figures show that 72 percent of resignations in 2021 were submitted by women. Most of those who quit cited the difficulties associated with juggling work and childcare duties. “Care work is still all on women’s shoulders, even for couples where both have jobs,” Chiara Daniela Pronzato, professor of demography at the University of Turin, told Al Jazeera. While women get five months’ maternity leave, fathers are entitled to just 10 days. Good quality and affordable childcare is in short supply. There are not enough state-run nursery places and private preschools are very expensive. Plans to use 4.6 billion euros of the EU’s COVID-19 recovery funds to build new nurseries are lagging. “The most expensive aspect of parenthood is children’s time. Caring for them costs money,” Pronzato said. “When a woman has kids and a low salary, it is likely she would resign to take care of the family, setting her up in a state of poverty that certainly does not help the country to grow. “Increasing the fertility rate is not important because ‘we are shrinking as a population’, but rather to maintain economic prosperity,” Pronzato explained. “If women worked more, they could have more children, as shown by France, Sweden and Norway, where fertility and female employment rates are both high.” Presenting the government’s 2024 budget, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has made clear her desire to increase the birth rate, announced measures for families with children, including free nursery care for a second child, the temporary exemption of women with two or more children from social security contributions, and benefits for companies that hire mothers on permanent contracts. “A woman who gives birth to at least two children … has already made an important contribution to society,” Meloni said in October. But Pronzato warned that while incentives could be helpful, “there should be more focus on services instead of money, as it is hard for people to trust that these bonuses will remain for a long time”. “Building new kindergartens and offering full-time education and after-school activities in schools would rather be a more forward-looking step,” she explained. “We should begin to consider children as precious and important to everyone, because the future depends on them, and it should be the community, the public – not the individual household – that take care of them.” Adblock test (Why?)
Emaciated but alive: Gaza mothers, premature babies reunited in Egypt
Central Gaza Strip – When Noor Reyhan gave birth to her baby boy, the 20-year-old had no idea it would be the first and last time she would see him for two months. Noor had gone into labour eight months into her pregnancy and gave birth on October 6 at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. “Because he was premature, I didn’t have the chance to see him,” Noor said. “The doctors took him immediately to put him in an incubator. I only have a photo of him.” The next day, all hell broke loose. Israeli forces bombarded northern Gaza indiscriminately, a few hours after Hamas fighters attacked army outposts and Israeli towns just outside the strip. Living in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, Noor and her husband, Huthaifa Marouf, knew from previous Israeli offensives that their area would be targeted. So they left their home and took refuge at a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where Noor could not even find a mattress and instead slept on a blanket on a cold classroom floor with 40 other people. Noor and her husband, Huthaifa, look at photos of their baby boy on her phone. They have not seen him for weeks [Suleiman al-Farra/Al Jazeera] “We have been displaced since the beginning,” Noor said. “Our house was destroyed in the first week after the Israelis targeted our neighbourhood. Even before I became pregnant, we had prepared the nursery room in our home. That’s all gone now.” The new parents tried to take their baby with them but were told they would be risking his life. Besides, relatives and doctors told them that, according to the rules of war, a hospital would be the safest place. They named their son Ayman – which means blessed, righteous or lucky – weeks after he was born. For the next several weeks, they wouldn’t know if he was even alive. Babies left behind In the second week of November, Israeli forces besieged al-Shifa Hospital. Over the course of several days, the hospital was targeted several times, terrorising thousands of displaced families sheltering there and forcing them to leave. Among the dozens of premature babies in the hospital were Ayman and twin girls Rateel and Raseel. Unlike Noor and Huthaifa, Sawsan Abu Odeh, the mother of Rateel and Raseel, was sheltering in al-Shifa. But as the bombardment of the hospital intensified, the 20-year-old had to leave. Rateel and Raseel Abu Odeh were born on October 13 at al-Shifa Hospital [Suleiman al-Farra/Al Jazeera] “That was the day the Israelis threw leaflets telling people to head south,” Sawsan said. “I saw them [the twins] every day for a month and would pump milk to give to them, but I couldn’t hold them.” A week earlier when the fifth-floor maternity ward of the hospital was hit by an air strike, Sawsan told the doctor at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that she wanted to take her twins out of the incubators and head south. “He said it was too dangerous to move them and that they would die if I took them with me because they were still taking nutrition intravenously,” she said. “He pointed out that the gunpowder in the air and the dust and dirt in general would impact their health even more and assured me that the safest place for them was the hospital.” As they talked, the hospital grounds next to the NICU were bombed. The doctor took his wife and children, who were staying with him in the hospital, and fled. The next day, Sawsan and her father, Khaled, were coming back to the hospital after going to the market to buy clothes for the twins. As they made their way towards the entrance gate, an Israeli missile struck it. “A man only a few metres away from me was injured in his leg – there was a big chunk missing,” Sawsan said. “Another man close to us was wounded in his shoulder. My father grabbed me, and we fled from the hospital.” The young mother was hysterical. She had given birth just a few weeks before with some complications and now found herself on the road leading to the southern Gaza Strip with thousands of other people. “I kept stopping and crying and told my family that I didn’t want to go on, that they should continue without me,” she said. “We passed by the soldiers and their tanks and saw many bodies lying on the road. One of the bodies was burned black, and I saw two decomposing bodies in an abandoned car as well.” Her mother flagged down a donkey cart and put her daughter on it until they reached the Maghazi refugee camp, where once again they took shelter in another school. “It was horrible,” Sawsan said. “The bathrooms were filthy. There was no food. I wasn’t in a good state, and I blamed my dad for making me abandon my babies.” As she spoke, her father, Khaled, let out a sad chuckle. After they arrived at Maghazi, worried about his daughter’s state of mind, he set about asking around for news of the premature babies left at al-Shifa Hospital. Sawsan Abu Odeh and her father, Khaled, sit outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital waiting for the ambulance that will take her to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to be reunited with her twin baby girls [Suleiman al-Farra/Al Jazeera] “For weeks, we had no idea where the girls were,” he said. “We called every hospital, but they gave us conflicting news. Some said they were taken to an Israeli hospital, others to the hospital in Ramallah.” Sawsan’s fear intensified after reports emerged that several of the premature babies at the hospital had died. She got in touch with the ambulance services, who referred her to the Red Crescent. It told her to contact the Red Cross, which eventually referred her along to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. After many attempts because of the bad phone lines, she
Video said to show Palestinian detainees being paraded
NewsFeed Video shared on social media appears to show blindfolded Palestinian detainees being paraded by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, to a soundtrack of an Israeli children’s song. The Israeli military has been contacted for comment. Published On 15 Dec 202315 Dec 2023 Adblock test (Why?)
China’s big freeze blamed for Beijing subway crash
Extending recent erratic weather patterns, China has been hit by sudden freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall. More than 500 people have been hospitalised after two subway trains collided amid heavy snowfall in Beijing. Authorities in the Chinese capital said on Friday that 102 people had suffered broken bones. The accident happened in west Beijing on an above-ground portion of the sprawling Changping subway line on Thursday evening. China has been in the grip of harsh winter weather over recent days. Snow has been building in Beijing since Monday, with temperatures expected to slide further to minus 12 degrees Celsius (10.4 Fahrenheit). Further north, cities such as Shenyang could drop to a 2023 low of minus 27C (minus 16.6F), state broadcaster CCTV said. Due to the weather conditions, slippery tracks prompted a braking on the leading train. The train following from behind was on a descending section and went into a skid and was unable to brake in time, the city transport authority said in a statement on social media. Emergency medical personnel, police, and transport authorities responded, and all passengers were evacuated by about 11pm. By Friday morning, 423 people had been released from hospital, 25 passengers were under observation and 67 remained hospitalised. No deaths were recorded. On social media, images of the collision showed passengers on the floor and partial lighting outages. Some commuters used emergency hammers to try to break the train windows to escape. In other videos, firefighters were seen helping to evacuate an elderly passenger while others made their way through the deep snow to leave the scene. A worker operates a machine sweeping snow on a street amid snowfall in Beijing, China [Tingshu Wang/Reuters] “We sincerely apologise for the accident that occurred this evening,” Beijing Subway, the train’s operator, said on the Weibo social media platform. “Passengers who left the premises unaccompanied during the evacuation and who are not feeling well can contact us at any time. We will take on the cost of care,” it added. Alerts remain in place in Beijing for icy roads, extreme cold and heavy snowfall. Temperatures were due to fall to minus 11C (12F) overnight on Friday. The heavy snow began falling in Beijing on Wednesday, leading to the closures of schools and train operations. However, no deaths have been reported from the winter storms that have hit a large portion of northern China. The sudden cold snap in the capital, contrasting with autumnal temperatures last week, continues a recent trend of sharp swings in temperatures. Beijing experienced one of its warmest Octobers in decades in a year of extreme weather patterns. Adblock test (Why?)
Police and soldiers killed as more violence flares in northwest Pakistan
Three attackers were also reported killed in the second attack this week on police posts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Several officers and soldiers have been killed and injured in attacks by armed men on a police station and an army outpost in northwest Pakistan, police said. The assaults came on Friday morning, extending a growing campaign of violence in former Taliban strongholds along the border with Afghanistan. Three days earlier, a suicide bomber killed 23 Pakistani soldiers in the same province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Friday’s attack on the police occurred in the Tank district of the province’s Dera Ismail Khan division. Police said two officers were killed and three others wounded. The incident also left three of the attackers dead, reports Al Jazeera’s Abid Hussain. Two were killed by police while the third blew himself up, he reported. An unexploded suicide jacket has also been found and police launched an operation to secure the compound. “Our force on guard engaged them in a gun battle for hours,” and police officers were wounded, police official Iftikhar Shah told Reuters news agency. According to Pakistan’s DawnNewsTV, Shah said all remaining officers at the post were evacuated safely and a search operation was under way after alerts of more armed men present in the area. An armed group that identified itself as Ansar-ul-Islam claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released to a Reuters reporter. However, Dawn reported that a group called Ansarul Jihad claimed the attack. The police did not verify the authenticity of the claims. According to the AP, a military post was also targeted on Friday morning. Two soldiers were reportedly killed and five wounded, local police official Salim Khan said. On Tuesday, armed men stormed a military post in the town of Daraban, about 60km (37 miles) from Dera Ismail Khan city. The fighters rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into the main gate of the police station, followed by a suicide bombing attack, the army said. That attack was claimed by the recently formed militant Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistani group, which is believed to be an offshoot of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has witnessed a rise in violence this year, with several deadly attacks taking place. In January, at least 101 people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a mosque in the capital, Peshawar. The TTP has been waging a war against the state for years, seeking to overthrow the government and replace it with a harsh brand of Islamic governance. Authorities say fighters have become emboldened while living openly in Afghanistan since the Taliban took it over in 2021. [embedded content] Adblock test (Why?)
Eleven security personnel killed in Iran police station attack: State TV
Several wounded in shooting in province of Sistan-Baluchestan which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. At least 11 Iranian security personnel have been killed in an attack on a police station in the southeastern border province of Sistan-Baluchestan, state television reported. Alireza Marhamati, deputy governor of the province, said on Friday that senior police officers and soldiers were killed and injured in the 2am (22:30 GMT Thursday) attack in the town of Rask, about 1,400km (875 miles) southwest of the capital, Tehran. A number of assailants were also killed in a shootout that ensued with the security forces, according to state television reports. The attack was one of the deadliest in years in the region close to Iran’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), a Sunni armed group, claimed responsibility for the attack, state media said. Jaish al-Adl was formed in 2012 and is blacklisted by Iran as a “terror” group. Unrest has plagued the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchestan because of drugs-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim hardliners. Security forces regularly targeted Similar attacks have previously taken place, including in July when four policemen were killed while on patrol. That attack came two weeks after two policemen and four assailants were killed in a shootout in the province, for which Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility. In May, five Iranian border guards died in clashes with an armed group in Saravan, southeast of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan. State media reported at the time that the attack was carried out by “a terrorist group that was seeking to infiltrate the country” but whose members “fled the scene after suffering injuries”. In late May, state-run news agency IRNA quoted police official Qassem Rezaee as saying that “Taliban forces” had shot at an Iranian police station in Sistan-Baluchestan, a drought-hit region. Iran and Afghanistan have been at odds over water rights. Zahedan, one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shia Iran, was also the site of months-long deadly protests that erupted in September last year over the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a police officer. Jaish al-Adl and its affiliate groups based in Pakistan have been accused of committing cross-border attacks against Iranian forces. Adblock test (Why?)
Adapting in the face of climate change in rural Kenya
“Will there be rain? I can’t tell. People used to come to me for advice, but now I tell them that I am also wondering what is happening,” says Clement Mangi, a traditional weather forecaster and farmer from Kenya. He uses traditional forecasting methods passed down for generations. But in recent years, most of the things that used to be definite signs of imminent rainfall are no longer reliable. Eighty percent of food produced across many communities in Africa comes from small-scale farmers like Mangi. This sector is highly vulnerable to extreme weather. While the continent is responsible for only a fraction of global greenhouse emissions, it is heavily affected by climate change. After five failed rainfall seasons, communities in the Horn of Africa were hit by what became known as the worst drought in 40 years, between late 2020 and early 2023. Seven million children under the age of five became malnourished and urgently needed nutrition assistance across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. While climate change is listed as a leading cause of the rise in global hunger, there are big gaps in weather observations and early warning services. Information that would help local farmers better prepare themselves for extreme weather and adapt their farming to secure a good harvest, is missing. In Kenya, some people are working hard to change that. Adblock test (Why?)
Diseases spread in Gaza amid health system collapse, Israeli strikes
The besieged residents of the Gaza Strip who have so far survived Israel’s bombs and bullets, are increasingly faced with the spread of diseases amid heavy winter rains that have flooded their makeshift shelters, and an acute shortage of food and potable water. Doctors and aid workers have warned of epidemics given the dire humanitarian situation and with the enclave’s health system on its knees. From November 29 to December 10, cases of diarrhoea in children under five jumped 66 percent to 59,895, and increased by 55 percent for the rest of the population, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). The UN health agency cautioned that the figures likely did not provide the full picture because of a lack of complete information with the health system and other services in Gaza near collapse. Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the paediatric ward at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said this week that his ward was overrun with children suffering extreme dehydration, causing kidney failure in some cases, while severe diarrhoea was four times higher than normal. He said he was aware of 15 to 30 cases of hepatitis A in Khan Younis in the past two weeks: “The incubation period of the virus is three weeks to a month, so after a month there will be an explosion in the number of cases of hepatitis A.” In its latest report on conditions in Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the WHO has reported cases of meningitis, chickenpox, jaundice and upper respiratory tract infections. Since the truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed on December 1, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to shelter in abandoned buildings, schools and tents. Many more are sleeping in the open with little access to toilets or water to bathe, aid workers said. Twenty-one of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are closed, 11 are partially functional and four are minimally functional, according to WHO figures from December 10. Adblock test (Why?)
US Yazidis sue France’s Lafarge for aiding ISIL violence
Hundreds of Yazidi Americans have launched a class action lawsuit accusing French cement maker Lafarge of supporting violence carried out by ISIL (ISIS). Led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, the group filed the lawsuit on Thursday at a court in east New York, accusing the French conglomerate of conspiring to provide material support to a campaign of violence. Now United States citizens, the Yazidis are survivors of ISIL violence that started when the group targeted their homeland of Sinjar in northern Iraq in 2014. During that campaign, Murad was kidnapped and held by ISIL for three months. After escaping and fleeing to Germany, she became an activist working with survivors of trafficking and genocide. In 2016, she sued ISIL commanders with the help of Clooney. In 2018 she was awarded the peace prize. “When ISIS attacked Sinjar, my family was killed, and I was taken captive as a slave. I was exploited and assaulted every single day until my escape,” said Murad. The plaintiffs were represented by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, former US diplomat Lee Wolosky, and US law firm Jenner & Block. According to the lawsuit, Lafarge “aided and abetted ISIS’s acts of international terrorism and conspired with ISIS and its intermediaries”. The plaintiffs demand that the company “must pay compensation to the survivors”. Lafarge has admitted to a conspiracy that aided ISIL by providing millions of dollars in cash to the group, according to a statement by law firm Jenner & Block and is alleged to have provided ISIL with cement to construct underground tunnels and bunkers used to shelter ISIL members and hold hostages, including captured Yazidis. This is not the first time the company has faced such accusations. Families of US soldiers and aid workers killed or injured by ISIL fighters at the al-Nusra Front filed a similar lawsuit against Lafarge in July. The French company also pleaded guilty last October in a US court to a charge that it made payments to groups designated as terrorists by the United States, including ISIL, so that it could continue operating in Syria. Lafarge agreed to pay $778m in forfeiture and fines as part of the plea agreement. “It is shocking that a leading global corporation worked hand in hand with ISIS while ISIS was executing American civilians and committing genocide against Yazidis,” Clooney said in a statement. “We hope that this case will send a clear message that supporting terrorists cannot be ‘business as usual’ and that there will be justice for the victims.” Centuries of persecution For centuries, the Yazidis have been persecuted for their religious beliefs by the Ottomans, Arabs and most recently, ISIL. “Our religion is an ancient Mesopotamian one, connected to nature. We pray to Tawusî Melek, who is symbolised as a peacock. So, because we pray to a ‘peacock angel,’ we’ve been called ‘devil worshippers,’” Wahhab Hassoo, co-director of NL Helpt Yezidis, a Dutch organisation fighting for the rights of the community, told Al Jazeera. Yazidis mainly inhabit the mountainous regions of northwest Iraq. They consider the mountain valleys of Lalish and Sinjar sacred. The community can also be found in parts of Turkey, Armenia and Syria. ISIL views Yazidis as devil-worshippers. When the group took control of Iraq’s major cities in 2014, it killed and enslaved thousands, forcing many into camps for displaced people in Syria and Iraq. Some also fled to other parts of the world to seek refuge. Women members of Iraq’s Yazidi community hold photos of victims of the August 2014 massacre carried out in the Sinjar region by ISIL fighters, during a commemoration of the eighth anniversary of the massacre at the Temple of Lalish, the holiest temple of the faith, in the Lalish valley near the Iraqi Kurdish city of Dohuk [File: Ismael Adnan/AFP] In 2016, The US determined ISIL committed genocide against Christians, Yazidis and Shia Muslims. In May 2021, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, special adviser and head of the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD), said: “I can confirm to the [UN Security] Council that based on our independent criminal investigations, UNITAD has established clear and convincing evidence that genocide was committed by ISIL against the Yazidi as a religious group.” Murad said that the tragedy for them is that the horrors they experienced took place under the awareness and support of powerful corporations like Lafarge. “Still, the responsible parties have not been held accountable,” she said. “In filing this lawsuit, I stand alongside my fellow Yazidi Americans seeking justice and accountability from those whose actions enabled our nightmare.” Adblock test (Why?)
Israel-Hamas war: List of key events, day 70
EXPLAINER Raids continue on Jenin and Kamal Adwan Hospital amid mass protests calling for a ceasefire – here are major updates. Here’s how things stand on Friday, December 15, 2023: Latest developments A court in the Netherlands will rule today on whether the Dutch government needs to stop supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, according to news reports. Jewish protesters in the United States organised demonstrations for a ceasefire in Gaza across eight major cities, blocking roads in some places. “On the 8th night of Hanukkah, 8 cities, 8 bridges,” activist group Jewish Voice for Peace wrote of the protests on social media. Benjamin Reese, a 51-year-old middle school teacher in the US, was arrested last week after he threatened to “behead’” a Muslim child offended by an Israeli flag hung in the classroom, news outlets reported on Thursday. German authorities said on Thursday that they have arrested four people suspected of being linked to Hamas and plotting to attack Jewish sites. A wartime opinion poll among Palestinians published on Wednesday shows a rise in support for Hamas while almost 90 percent of people want Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resign. Human impact and fighting Overnight Israeli attacks on Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza resulted in several casualties, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency. At least 10 people have been killed since dawn, while dozens of injured people from Khan Younis have been arriving at Nasser hospital, Al Jazeera Arabic reported. Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza for a third day in a row, forcing 2,500 displaced people to leave, while two patients died as a result of troops preventing medical staff from providing support, according to the United Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). In a three-day raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers targeted a mosque where they were filmed chanting Jewish prayers and mocking the Islamic call to prayer over a loudspeaker. The Israeli army claimed on Thursday that those soldiers were “immediately removed from operational activity”. Israel’s military said it has recovered the body of a 28-year-old captive from Gaza. Yemen’s Houthi group said on Thursday that it hit an “Israel-bound” cargo ship in the Red Sea with a drone. Diplomacy Israel cancelled a planned trip of Mossad director David Barnea to Qatar where he was expected to restart talks on another captive release deal with Hamas, CNN reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the negotiations. While speaking to reporters on Thursday, US President Joe Biden urged Israel to “be focused on how to save civilian lives”, and “be more careful”. In a news conference at the US Capitol on Thursday, labour union leaders joined progressive lawmakers in appealing that the Biden administration call for an Israel-Gaza ceasefire. In a trip to Israel on Thursday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli war cabinet. Sullivan discussed a possible transition to “lower-intensity operations” in the near future, but the administration has not put a “timestamp” on the shift, according to White House spokesman John Kirby. Israel’s foreign minister Eli Cohen said on Wednesday that the war on Gaza would continue “with or without international support”. In an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom said Israel would no longer accept a two-state solution. Adblock test (Why?)