US President Joe Biden on Monday vowed to end the war in the Gaza Strip and get the hostages home
“I’ll keep working to bring hostages home, end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden said on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
“We are working around the clock… to prevent a broader war, to reunite hostages with their families, and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now. To finally deliver a cease-fire and end this war,” he stated.
As the convention kicked off Monday, thousands of pro-Palestine protesters gathered in Chicago to push for an end to US support for Israel’s war on Gaza where more than 40,100 Palestinians have been killed.
As delegates arrived and entered the convention center, protesters continued to march in downtown Chicago, periodically chanting outbursts of slogans, including “Free, free Palestine.” It happened hours before Biden was to address the convention. Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides,” Biden said.
He also said he wrote a peace treaty for Gaza, adding: “I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since Oct. 7.”Meanwhile, some audience members at the convention unfurled a banner reading: “Stop arming Israel.”As soon as other audiences noticed the banner, they chanted: “We love Joe”.
A man was also viewed in a social media post, attempting to rip down the banner. In the most recent effort to reach a cease-fire, the US, Egypt, and Qatar reported that at talks in the Qatari capital Doha last week, they had put forward to both Israel and Hamas what they described as a “bridging proposal” for further closing “remaining gaps in the manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal”.
In turn, the Palestinian group Hamas said on Sunday that the new offer meets “Netanyahu’s conditions and is adapted to them, particularly his refusal of a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and his insistence on continuing the occupation of the Netzarim Junction that separates between the North and South of the Gaza Strip, the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor in the South”. That is it’s working on what it concurred upon on July 2.
In May, Biden explained that Israel proffered a three-phase deal that would put an end to the hostilities in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held in that coastal enclave. The plan comprises a truce, the exchange of hostages and prisoners, and Gaza’s reconstruction phase.
Israel has killed more than 40,100 Palestinians since the October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas. The Israeli activities have caused a humanitarian disaster and the genocide trial, which is ongoing at the International Court of Justice.
