Biden says he has not spoken to Netanyahu and will be talking to families of hostages.(CNN NEWS)_
US President Joe Biden told reporters Saturday that he has not spoken to Israel’s Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu yet, after saying in earlier in the week he would be talking to the Israeli leader.
“No,” the president said, when asked by CNN’s Camila DeChalus if he had spoken to the Israeli leader.
Earlier in the week, the president told reporters that he would be speaking to Netanyahu “relatively soon” amid growing escalation in the Middle East.
The president was also asked about his message to the families of hostages being held in Gaza ahead of the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack in Israel. Biden, while on the South Lawn, told reporters, “I’ll be talking to a bunch of them.”\
Pro-Palestinian rallies break out worldwide ahead of October 7 anniversary
From CNN’s Eve Brennan in London
Thousands of people rallied around the world Saturday in support for people in Gaza ahead of the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Marches have been taking place in Paris, Manila, Cape Town and other major cities in the run-up to the anniversary of the Hamas attacks that killed around 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli authorities. Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the months since, according to the health ministry in the enclave.
Biden says he has not spoken to Netanyahu and will be talking to families of hostages.(CNN NEWS)_
“Unfortunately, in spite of all our good will, the Israeli government does not take any notice, and they just go ahead and continue their atrocities in Gaza, now also in Lebanon and in Yemen, and now also probably in Iran,” Agmes Koury, a protester in London, told Reuters while holding a sign reading: “This Holocaust survivor says: Stop the genocide in Gaza.”
Rim Boughanmi, a Tunisian protester who joined Saturday’s march in Rome, told Reuters: “We came here to say no to war, to say no to genocide in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, no more war and no more support from the Italian state.”
“I’m here in support of the Palestinian people, especially the children and the women that are being violated and bombed each and every day. It cannot be right that we sit back and watch what Netanyahu is doing. It is enough: Palestine belongs to Palestinian people, not Israelis,” protester Nikewe Jentu told AFP in Cape Town.
In Dublin, hundreds of protesters marched, chanting, “Ceasefire now!” and “Free, Free, Palestine!”
In Israel: The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Thursday it would not hold its weekly Saturday rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem due to the “security situation” in the region. But dozens of rallies are still set to take place today in other locations.