Israel-Hamas war: How much influence does Biden’s America have over its ally?
Maybe there will be a breakthrough in the hours or couple of days ahead.
But it doesn’t feel likely from the language we’ve heard from the men (they are all men) driving the war and the diplomacy in this conflict.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, spent Friday in Israel meeting the Israeli leadership and Saturday in Jordan meeting Arab leaders.
He was threading the tightest of diplomatic needles: maintaining full support for Israel’s right to defend itself while demonstrating to the world that America is capable of influencing events to bring about an end to civilian casualties.
Follow live: Several reportedly killed in blast at UN shelter in Gaza
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‘What will it take for a pause in Gaza?’
The Israeli objectives are clear and perhaps summarised most succinctly by war minister Benny Gantz to me on Friday.
“Everything that happens in Gaza right now is rightly connected to break Hamas and release the hostages. All the rest are simply details.”
Those “details” were outlined by the Jordanian foreign minister alongside Mr Blinken in Jordan.
He reminded the world that 3,700 children have died in Gaza in the last four weeks. That’s more, he said, than all the children killed in all conflicts globally since 2019.
He added that the situation in Gaza will create “a sea of hatred that will define generations to come”.
That’s the deep long-term concern. The damage may already have been done – hatred sowed through events generated by the protagonists on both sides – but the extent of the impact depends, most immediately, on the ability to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
Read more:
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Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on a residential building in Khan Younis in southern Gaza
What’s the difference between a ceasefire and a humanitarian pause?
The Arab nations and the United Nations secretary-general are calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The Americans, the British and many other Western nations are choosing different language – a humanitarian pause.
What’s the difference? A ceasefire is political in nature, providing parameters to allow for negotiations. There’s no way Israel is anywhere near close to negotiations with anyone in Gaza. Even on hostages, they are clear: unconditional release now.
A humanitarian pause is, as the name suggests, humanitarian, not political. Its singular aim is to provide space for aid to get in and civilians to get out.
A Palestinian carries a wounded boy after an Israeli strike in the Nusseirat refugee camp in Gaza. Pic: AP
Israel believes aid will be passed to Hamas
So what’s the problem? Well, Israel doesn’t believe that the aid (fuel for hospitals included) won’t be passed to Hamas for war purposes.
America’s special envoy to the crisis, David Satterfield, said this weekend that he has not seen any attempts by Hamas to interfere with or take aid shipments destined for civilians from the few trucks allowed in last week.
But that hasn’t prompted Israel to change course so far. It begs the question: how much influence does Biden’s America really have over an ally that changed after the 7 October attacks?
Palestinians comfort a crying man after losing relatives under the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Pic: AP
Gaza fuel will only last a few days
What’s at stake? Well beyond the colossal civilian death toll (and the lasting impact that will have) here are a few numbers passed to me by a senior UN official this weekend.
Gaza has about 160,000 litres of fuel left. That will last a few days. After that, the hospital generators shut down, the sewage system shuts down, and the lights go out.
There are about 9,000 cancer patients in Gaza right now. There are 1,000 dialysis patients, 50,000 pregnant women.
Some 5,000 women give birth every month in Gaza; that’s about 160 babies born every day in hospitals under bombardment which could soon have no electricity.
These are the “details” as Israel responds in the only way it says it can to its darkest day exactly a month ago.
Dozens of websites, banks and apps are being affected by a major internet outage.
The problem, which started on Monday morning, appears to be related to an issue at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
As of 9.20am, there were more than 2,000 reports of the Amazon Web Services outage in the US alone, according to Downdetector, which monitors issues and outages in real-time.
On its service status page, the company said it was seeing “increased error rates” and delays with “multiple AWS services”.
Here’s what we know so far.
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
What has been affected?
Multiple banks, the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website, mobile phone networks and video-chatting platform Zoom are among the websites having technical issues.
All Amazon products – including Prime Video and Amazon Music – have also been affected, as well as the main Amazon website.
Here’s a full list of what has been affected by the internet outage, according to Downdetector:
• Snapchat
• Ring
• Roblox
• Amazon Web Services
• Life360
• My Fitness Pal
• Amazon
• Xero
• Signal
• Canva
• Fortnite
• Blink Security
• Zoom
• HMRC
• Clash Royale
• Clash Of Clans
• Asana
• Wordle
• Slack
• Smartsheet
• Epic Games Store
• Duolingo
• Amazon Alexa
• Jira
• Vodafone
• Tidal
• Coinbase
• Atlassian
• IMDB
• Amazon Prime Video
• Pokemon Go
• BT
• Peloton
• EE
• Ancestry
• Square
• Playstation Network
• Eventbrite
• Amazon Music
• Sky
• Flickr
• Hay Day
• Rocket League
• Perplexity AI
• Dead By Daylight
• Bank Of Scotland
• Lloyds Bank
• Halifax
What has AWS said?
AWS confirmed it was suffering from “increased error rates and latencies” for multiple services.
In a statement on its website, the company said: “We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause,” an update on its website says.
“We will provide an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if we have additional information to share.”
The company is posting regular updates on the situation and said its engineers were “immediately engaged” as soon as they spotted the issue.
Concentrated in the US
ThousandEyes, a website that tracks the performance of local and wide area networks, servers and applications, shows many of the outages appear to be concentrated in the US.
A large portion is focused in Virginia, which is widely considered as the global capital for data centres.
Has something like this happened before?
US
Donald Trump mocks ‘No Kings’ protests with AI video of himself dropping brown sludge on protesters from jet
Donald Trump has responded to so-called “No Kings” rallies with an AI video of himself in a fighter jet, pouring brown sludge over protesters.
Millions of people were expected to take part in the demonstrations this weekend – the second such gathering after an initial nationwide day of protest in June coinciding with the US president’s birthday.
The term “No Kings” reflects the belief by some that Mr Trump is behaving like a “king” and some in his administration are depicting him as a monarch.
A protester in costume as Donald Trump presents the president as a prisoner in chains in Seattle. Pic: AP
One of the rallies in New York. Pic: Reuters
On Sunday, the president shared the AI video on his social media platform, Truth Social.
In the clip, an AI-generated version of Mr Trump is wearing a crown and sitting in a jet with “King Trump” written across it, to the soundtrack of Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone, from the film Top Gun.
The jet then drops thick brown sludge on to AI-generated protesters.
Supporters say the marches are a patriotic defence of free speech, while critics are calling them anti-American.
A large inflatable effigy of Mr Trump in Chicago. Pic: Reuters
This protest took place in Washington DC. Pic: AP
Mr Trump’s Republican Party has dismissed the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies.
Many of the events featured marching bands, huge banners and signs, as well as effigies of the president and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes.
Thousands gathered along the waterfront in Portland, Oregon. Pic: AP
Protesters at the Wyoming State Capitol got creative with their signs. Pic: Wyoming Tribune Eagle/AP
The protests follow Mr Trump’s return to the White House and come against the backdrop of a government shutdown which has closed federal programmes and services.
There has also been criticism of what some see as an aggressive executive, confronting Congress and the courts, in ways that protest organisers believe are a slide toward authoritarianism.
This event in San Francisco was among thousands taking place across the US. Pic: Reuters
A ‘No Kings’ sign, outside City Hall in Los Angeles. Pic: Reuters
So far, the atmosphere at most of the protests appears to have been largely energetic and upbeat, with protesters calling for accountability and protections for civil liberties.
Organisers said events would be peaceful – a direct response to Republican and Trump administration claims that the protests could be unsafe.
Two survivors of a US airstrike, targeting what Donald Trump has described as a “drug-carrying submarine” in the Caribbean, have been repatriated to their home countries.
The US president posted footage of Thursday’s operation, part of a recent military campaign targeting boats transporting drugs to America.
“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“US intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics,” he added.
The US military staged a helicopter rescue for the survivors on Thursday after the strike on their semi-submersible
vessel, suspected of trafficking illegal narcotics. They were then transported to a US Navy warship.
Two other crew members on board were killed.
The semi-submersible vessel was struck by US forces on Thursday, leaving two dead and two survivors. Pic: @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
President Trump confirmed the survivors would be returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador “for detention and prosecution”. Both countries subsequently confirmed they had been handed over.
“America will not tolerate narcoterrorists trafficking illegal drugs, by land or by sea,” he added.
On Saturday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on X: “We have received the Colombian detained on the narco submarine, we are happy he is alive and he will be processed according to the law.”
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Trump sends CIA into Venezuela and threatens land attack
Read more from Sky News:
Venezuela’s president pleads for peace
Is Trump planning to attack Venezuela?
Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize winner
The Trump administration has said previous strikes in the Caribbean have killed 27 people, raising concerns among some about the legality of the military operations.
The strikes also come against the backdrop of a US military buildup in the Caribbean that includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and around 6,500 troops as the US president escalates a standoff with the Venezuelan government.
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Venezuelan president: ‘We don’t want a war’
On Wednesday, Mr Trump disclosed he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, adding to speculation in Caracas that the US is attempting to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Mr Maduro has denied any connection to drug smuggling and claimed the US boat strikes are a pretext for regime change, and violations of sovereignty and international law.
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