Trump Says Gaza Ceasefire Is Possible Soon
President Donald Trump said on Friday he believes it is possible that a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict will be reached within a week.
Trump, at an Oval Office event celebrating a Congo-Rwanda accord, told reporters that he believes a ceasefire is close.
He said he had been just been talking to some of the people involved in trying to reach a ceasefire to hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
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Arab News
25 minutes ago
- Arab News
What's next for birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court's ruling
WASHINGTON: The legal battle over President Donald Trump's move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite the Republican administration's major victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions. Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with more than a century of precedent. The high court's ruling sends cases challenging the president's birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of the president's policy remains uncertain. Here's what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court's ruling and what happens next. What does birthright citizenship mean? Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the Constitution's 14th Amendment, in part to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship. 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,' the amendment states. Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the US to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the US after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the US, no matter their parents' legal status. It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of US law, with only a handful of exceptions, such as for children born in the US to foreign diplomats. Trump has long said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship Trump's executive order, signed in January, seeks to deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are living in the US illegally or temporarily. It's part of the hard-line immigration agenda of the president, who has called birthright citizenship a 'magnet for illegal immigration.' Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' – saying it means the US can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally. A series of federal judges have said that's not true, and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect. 'I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,' US District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing earlier this year in his Seattle courtroom. In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb, US District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that 'the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed' Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship. Is Trump's order constitutional? The justices didn't say The high court's ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge's authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued want to usurp the president's authority with rulings blocking his priorities around immigration and other matters. But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump's bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order. 'The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges' decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,' said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is 'very confident' that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case. Questions and uncertainty swirl around next steps The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps. The Supreme Court's ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump's order. But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor. 'It's not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,' said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who penned the court's dissenting opinion, urged the lower courts to 'act swiftly on such requests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as they can so as to enable this Court's prompt review' in cases 'challenging policies as blatantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order.' Opponents of Trump's order warned there would be a patchwork of polices across the states, leading to chaos and confusion without nationwide relief. 'Birthright citizenship has been settled constitutional law for more than a century,' said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit that supports refugees and migrants. 'By denying lower courts the ability to enforce that right uniformly, the Court has invited chaos, inequality, and fear.'
Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
At least 34 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer
DEIR AL BALAH/GAZA STRIP: At least 34 people were killed across Gaza by Israeli strikes, health staff say, as Palestinians face a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and ceasefire prospects inch closer. The strikes began late Friday and continued into Saturday morning, among others killing 12 people at the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more living in apartments, according to staff at Shifa hospital where the bodies were brought. Six others were killed in southern Gaza when a strike hit their tent in Muwasi, according to the hospital. The strikes come as US President Donald Trump says there could be a ceasefire agreement within the next week. Taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office Friday, the president said, 'we're working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of.' An official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Israel's Minister for Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, will arrive in Washington next week for talks on Gaza's ceasefire, Iran and other subjects. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Talks have been on again off again since Israel broke the latest ceasefire in March, continuing its military campaign in Gaza and furthering the Strip's dire humanitarian crisis. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, fewer than half of them believed to still be alive. They were part of some 250 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the 21-month-long war. The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children. There is hope among hostage families that Trump's involvement in securing the recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran might exert more pressure for a deal in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, and he could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose. Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says he will only end the war once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected. Meanwhile hungry Palestinians are enduring a catastrophic situation in Gaza. After blocking all food for 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May. Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys. Palestinians have also been shot and wounded while on their way to get food at newly formed aid sites, run by the American and Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to Gaza's health officials and witnesses. Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on the roads heading toward the sites. Israel's military said it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites.
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Breaking: Mediator Qatar sees ‘window of opportunity' for Gaza truce: Spokesman
Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman says mediators are engaging with Israel and Hamas to build on momentum from this week's ceasefire with Iran and work towards a truce in the Gaza Strip. 'If we don't utilize this window of opportunity and this momentum, it's an opportunity lost amongst many in the near past. We don't want to see that again,' Majed al-Ansari said in a Friday interview with AFP.
