Former NFL quarterback and Fox Sports television star Mark Sanchez is in critical condition after being stabbed late Friday night in downtown Indianapolis, reports TMZ.
Police were called shortly after midnight to a location near West Washington Street and North Senate Avenue where two people were injured, one of them now identified as Sanchez.
Officers with the Indianapolis metropolitan police department responded to what was described as a “disturbance in an alley” about 12.30am Saturday, WTHR reported. One person had been stabbed, while another sustained separate injuries.
Sanchez was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition, according to TMZ Sports. The circumstances surrounding the attack remain unclear. The suspect involved has been detained, according to WTHR.
Sanchez, 38, was in Indianapolis before Sunday’s Colts v Raiders matchup at Lucas Oil stadium, which he was set to call for Fox Sports. He joined Fox in 2021 as an NFL broadcaster and also contributes to FS1 studio programming.
Before his broadcasting career, Sanchez played 10 seasons in the NFL with several teams, including the New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. He retired in July 2019 and soon after began working with ESPN’s college football coverage before transitioning to Fox.
Off the field, Sanchez married his wife, Perry, in 2023. The couple shares three children.
Donald Trump said in an interview on Saturday that “we are very close” to a peace deal in Gaza, even as Israel continued bombing the territory.
Speaking to Axios, Trump said he would push to finalize a deal between Israel and Hamas in the coming days. Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a 20-point plan this week. Hamas has accepted part of the deal but is pushing to negotiate other aspects.
The US president recounted a conversation he had with the Israeli prime minister as the proposal took place.
“I said: ‘Bibi, this is your chance for victory.’ He was fine with it,” Trump told Axios. “He’s got to be fine with it. He has no choice. With me, you got to be fine.”
On Friday, Trump ordered Israel to “immediately” stop bombing Gaza after Hamas agreed to release all hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. On Saturday, Israeli army radio reported that the Israeli military had been ordered to halt its campaign in Gaza City. However, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israel had continued to carry out dozens of airstrikes and artillery shelling on the area.
Trump told Axios: “We had great receptivity for our plan – every country of the world in favor. Bibi is in favor. Hamas went a long way – they want to do it. Now we will need to close it.”
He said Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, had been “very helpful” in pressing Hamas to agree to release hostages.
“Erdoğan helped a lot. He is a tough guy, but he is a friend of mine and he was great,” Trump said.
The White House plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas disarmament and a transitional government led by an international body.
Trump said he intended to help rehabilitate Israel’s global image, which has suffered as its military intervention has killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza.
“Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back,” Trump said.
Police have made more than 440 arrests in London at what organisers hoped would be the biggest demonstration so far against a ban on the proscribed organisation Palestine Action.
Officers began arresting demonstrators at the silent vigil in support of the group, which has been classed by the UK government as a terror organisation since July this year.
The first arrest took place shortly after 1pm as the seated protesters took out pens and wrote signs showing support for Palestine Action.
Dozens of police were lined up to begin arresting members of the group, who were sitting silently on the pavement in the square.
Early indications suggest the hundreds of protesters, with a mixture of ages and different backgrounds including many retirees, may not be enough to break the record for the number of arrests.
Two hours into the protest, the organisers said they counted about 1,000 seated people holding signs.
The Metropolitan police said 442 people had been arrested during the protest.
Police start making arrests at Palestine Action ban protest in London – video
The chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation has claimed “enough is enough” as she said officers policing protests in London were “emotionally and physically exhausted”.
Paula Dodds said: “Enough is enough. Our concentration should be on keeping people safe at a time when the country is on heightened alert from a terrorist attack. And instead officers are being drawn in to facilitate these relentless protests.
“And we are coming under attack for doing so. How can this be right?“
She added: “There aren’t enough of us. Hard-working police officers are continually having days off cancelled, working longer shifts and being moved from other areas to facilitate these protests.
“We are emotionally and physically exhausted. What are politicians and senior police officers going to do about it?”
The organisers, Defend Our Juries, previously said they expected the turnout to be higher than previous protests, with more than 1,500 people planning to attend, potentially beating an arrest record set at the 1961 anti-nuclear demonstration, which was held at the same London location.
In Manchester a demonstration by GM Friends of Palestine to mark the second anniversary of the start of the conflict saw hundreds of people gather.
Manchester for Palestine co-organiser John Nicholson. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian
John Nicholson, a campaigner for the group, said that increased tensions since the fatal attack on a synagogue in the city had led to some choosing to stay at home.
“The genocide hasn’t stopped, so why should we?” he said. “If the bombings had stopped for a week, if food and medicine had been allowed to go into Gaza for a week, we may have taken a week off. But they haven’t, so we won’t.”
Nicholson denied the claim that the march was a way of intimidating Manchester’s Jewish population, saying that Jewish people regularly attend the weekly meetings, and that the marches are meant to target policies and governments, not individuals.
“We are not targeting any member of our community, least of all our Jewish community. It is targeted at Trump, at Starmer and at Netanyahu, who are war criminals and who must be held accountable,” he said.
A vigil for the children killed in the conflict in Gaza outside Manchester central library. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian
The demonstration ended outside the central library where it joined another group of Palestine activists who were reading the names of all the people killed in the past two years in Gaza. The reading, which was done in order of the ages of the deceased from youngest to oldest, began at 7am and, by the time the march reached it at about 1.45pm, still had not finished the names of toddlers.
In London, one protester, Trudy Warner, a retired social worker from London, was holding a sign reading “Police find your love, find your conscience.”
She said she was focusing on the police because they were able to take action as individual officers and not participate in the mass arrests.
“I would love to think they could learn from us about the power of collective action and walk away instead of doing this because it’s unconscionable. It’s actually unconscionable.”
A Buckinghamshire couple, Larry and Sue, were holding a sign in support of “Plasticine Action”, a subtle difference in spelling that changes the meaning entirely.
“About eight policemen came and they read me my rights and said I was being arrested under the Terrorism Act and they were about to take me away so I sat on the floor. And when they were bending down to take me away one of them noticed that it says something else and they had to let me go.”
Larry from Buckinghamshire. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian
During the interview with the Guardian, a police officer approached them.
“Sir, can I take your sign please?” the officer said, before realising it did not express support for Palestine Action. “I’m dyslexic!” she added.
“I’m totally fed up with what is happening in Gaza,” said Larry. “Everybody that is not raising their voice to this is somehow slightly complicit in letting our government support this.”
The Metropolitan police also said officers arrested six people in connection with a banner draped on Westminster Bridge in support of Palestine Action.
The force said: “Officers were quickly on scene, the banner had been removed and the six people involved have been arrested for supporting a proscribed organisation.”
Police move a protester. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian
Responding to Keir Starmer’s suggestion that the action should not go ahead, Defend Our Juries supporter Zoe Cohen, who was arrested at the August action and is Jewish, said: “Those who have used the attack on the Jewish community in Manchester to call for today’s vigil to be cancelled, are wrongly conflating the actions of the Israeli state with all Jews. Jewish people around the world are not responsible for Israel’s crimes and there are many Jewish people who do not support the actions of the Israeli state. Cancelling today’s vigil would have perpetuated this dangerous narrative which fuels antisemitism.”
She said if there was a strain on policing resources on Saturday, the blame lay with the government. If the protest had been cancelled, it would have been “letting terror win”.
Cohen added: “When I was brought up learning about the Holocaust and we said ‘never again’, I learned that this means ‘never again’ for anyone.”
When Arij al-Farra heard that Hamas had partially agreed to Donald Trump’s plan and that the US president had ordered Israel to stop bombing Gaza, the first thing she felt was a flicker of hope. The second thing she felt was an explosion. An Israeli aircraft had dropped a bomb close to her tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
Though it was luck that saved al-Farra from death, she took the attack as a bad omen for the prospects for peace in Gaza.
“I feel like we are in a trap. Whether Hamas agrees or not, we will not be safe … There has been no reduction in the intensity of attacks here, no Israeli aircraft has withdrawn from the sky,” said the 23-year-old English teacher who had been displaced to Khan Younis.
Al-Farra was not alone in her scepticism of Friday’s news that Hamas’s partial acceptance of the US president’s plan would lead to an end to the nearly two-year war in Gaza.
Hamas’s agreement to release all hostages and surrender power was hailed by Trump and much of the international community as a step towards peace on Friday.
But the residents of Gaza have been here before.
Trump has on several occasions promised a ceasefire was days away, only for negotiations to suddenly collapse. Israel broke a six-week ceasefire at the beginning of the year after it unilaterally decided to resume fighting in March and besiege the territory, creating famine in parts of Gaza, according to the world’s leading authority on food crises.
“I have little hope in this deal, because every time we are on the verge of a ceasefire, something happens that changes the course of plans,” al-Farra explained.
Still, others could not help but hope that this could finally lead to an end to the war that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, wounded about 170,000 more and left most of Gaza destroyed.
“I am hopeful and expect that this time the deal will be more serious than previous ones,” said Abu Faris, a 43-year-old video editor living in northern Gaza. “A breakthrough in the ceasefire deal would be a good thing. It would meet the demands of the Palestinian people and give civilians in northern Gaza a sense of hope and security.”
If fully implemented, Trump’s plan to end the fighting in Gaza would be deeply unfavourable to Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
“There is a sense of mistrust because this plan was drafted by American hands and the war itself has continued with clear American support … The plan clearly serves Israel’s interests and does not include any meaningful provisions for the Palestinians,” said Dr Ashraf Maghari, a 48-year-old professor at the Islamic University.
But to most exhausted residents of Gaza, neither politics nor the survival of Hamas were the priority.
“My priority now is to end the war completely. If Hamas has to sacrifice itself to achieve that, then it must bear the consequences of its actions,” said Abu Faris.
He had already lost many of his close relatives to the war, and had been displaced four times, each time returning to find his home more damaged. He could stand to lose much more if fighting did not end soon, as he was in northern Gaza, where Israeli bombardment is intense.
A UN commission of inquiry, several human rights organisations and the world’s leading association of genocide scholars have concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel denies the accusation and says it has only acted in self-defence. It initially launched the war on Gaza after Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on 7 October 2023.
Neither Abu Faris nor al-Farra believed that Israel would negotiate an end to the war in good faith, nor that it would lead to self-determination for Palestinians. For al-Farra in particular, the prospect of disarmament, was a worrying one.
Nonetheless, if it led to an end to the almost relentless bombing of their homes, both said that the deal would be worth it.
“Ending the war for me is not about silencing our rights. It is about taking a deep breath, reorganising ourselves, our lives, our priorities and our thoughts,” al-Farra said.
Costco has struck an agreement with drugmaker Novo Nordisk to make anti-obesity GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy available to its members at roughly half the usual cost.
Through the store’s prescription program, members with a valid prescription can buy a four-week supply of the injectables for $499. The offer is available only to those paying out of pocket, since many insurers still do not cover these medications.
The move comes as GLP-1 drug prices have soared as supply continues to be increasingly limited. This has led some people to seek out cheaper, compounded versions, a trend that’s prompted calls for tighter federal oversight.
“We want to make sure we offer the real, authentic Wegovy and Ozempic where patients seek care,” David Moore, Novo Nordisk’s US president, told NBC News.
Both Ozempic and Wegovy contain semaglutide, an injectable medication used to manage type 2 diabetes and promote weight loss. Semaglutide works by mimicking a natural hormone known as glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), which helps regulate appetite and insulin production. By reducing hunger, it can lead to significant weight loss.
Public familiarity with the drug has grown quickly. A survey conducted in August found that more than 80% of Americans had heard at least “a little bit” about semaglutide, while about one-third had either tried it or expressed interest in doing so.
Novo Nordisk has said that more than 200,000 Wegovy prescriptions are filled in the US each week. Still, the company faces stiff competition from pharmacies and clinics selling cheaper, copycat formulations of GLP-1 drugs.
As of August 2025, nearly 12% of Americans have used GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, including about one-fifth of women aged 50 to 64.
Costco’s entry into the GLP-1 market could further boost access and demand, especially given that many health plans continue to deny coverage for the drugs.
A senior White House official accidentally leaked details of plans to send an elite army unit to Portland, in the latest intelligence leak by the Trump administration.
Anthony Salisbury, a top deputy to Stephen Miller, the influential White House policy adviser, was observed using Signal in a public place to discuss a plan to deploy the army’s 82nd airborne division to Portland, the Democratic-run Oregon city which Donald Trump has repeatedly castigated as being “war-ravaged”.
The Minnesota Star Tribune obtained images of Salisbury’s Signal messages, which it said were sent while the official was “in clear view of others” in Minnesota.
In the messages, sent last weekend, Salisbury chatted with Patrick Weaver, a senior adviser to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and other high-ranking federal officials, the Star Tribune reported.
Weaver wrote that Hegseth wanted Trump to expressly tell him to send troops to Portland.
“Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver said. He wrote that Hegseth would prefer to send in the national guard due to potential backlash over using the army.
“82nd is like our top tier [quick reaction force] for abroad. So it will cause a lot of headlines,” he added. “Probably why he wants potus [Trump] to tell him to do it.”
The 82nd airborne division is an elite unit which specialises in parachute assaults and forcible entry operations. It was deployed in both world wars and the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Its commander was the last American soldier to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021.
On Sunday, Hegseth said 200 members of the national guard would be deployed “immediately”. On Wednesday, Trump claimed the national guard was “now in place”; however, NBC News affiliate KGW reported that the guard had not yet been deployed.
Salisbury was appointed deputy homeland security adviser by Trump in January. Announcing his appointment, Trump said Salisbury “will bring his vast law enforcement, counter-narcotics and counter-cartel experience to the White House”.
In a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, confirmed Salisbury had been in Minnesota to attend a funeral.
“Despite dealing with grief from the loss of a family member, Tony continued his important work on behalf of the American people,” Jackson told the Star Tribune. “Nothing in these private conversations, that are shamefully being reported on by morally bankrupt reporters, is new or classified information.”
The messages are the latest embarrassing leak by the Trump administration. In March, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic was accidentally added to a Signal chat that was being used by senior Trump administration officials, including Hegseth and the vice-president, JD Vance, to discuss highly sensitive military strikes on Yemen.
A month later it emerged that Hegseth had used a second Signal group chat to send detailed information about the strikes to his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.
Kim Nachazel had been looking forward to a road trip to Mesa Verde national park in Colorado this week. Her husband had been mesmerized by the park since he read about it in high school, and she’d planned them a full day of adventure – two tours of famous cliff dwellings, a camping spot on BLM land, and even a spot for her pup at a dog-boarding place inside the park grounds.
She knew about the government shutdown, but that didn’t deter her. “I had hope and optimism that this park wouldn’t really be affected,” she says, “and that we would have an amazing day exploring.”
But when she arrived at the gates after driving from Salt Lake City, the parks worker thanked them and told them the park was closed, she says. “We were devastated.”
As US government funding ground to a halt on Wednesday, the sprawling national park system was thrust into limbo. Without a budget agreement, 9,296 of the park agency’s 14,500 employees were expected to be furloughed, according to a contingency plan published by the Department of the Interior. The plan also outlined how parks should stay partially open, leaving some visitors confused about whether they could actually visit or not.
“Park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors,” the contingency plan read. Operators who run the park’s hotels and other facilities could also stay open. “If a facility or area is locked or secured during non-business hours (buildings, gated parking lots, etc) it should be locked or secured for the duration of the shutdown,” the plan also said.
While the shutdown has shuttered large parts of some national parks, such as Mesa Verde, some popular parks are still trying to function – with a skeleton crew of staff – using fees collected from campgrounds instead of from federally appropriated funds.
However, operations are not continuing as normal. At Yosemite national park, the gates are open– but no one is there to collect park fees – and backcountry permits have to be self-issued by hikers. At Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Sequoia national parks, little to no maintenance will be conducted, parks will not provide regular road or trail condition updates, and will only provide updates on their websites and social media in an emergency. Law enforcement is still working, the national park service says.
Emails and calls the Guardian made to the public information officers at the parks for further clarity went unanswered, with a message about the “lapse in appropriations”.
At Mount Rainier, gift shops, restaurants, and hotels, operated by private companies, remained open, but entrance gates and ranger stations staffed by NPS employees were closed. Photograph: M Scott Brauer/Zuma/Shutterstock
The hodgepodge situation has park workers and advocates concerned, especially on the heels of an already tough year. “Our national parks are dealing with multiple challenges right now, threatening everything that these places were created to protect,” says Angela Gonzales, with the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy organization for national parks. She points out that since January, the National Park Service has lost more than 25% of its permanent staff. “With the government shut down, thousands of park employees are now furloughed, unsure when they’ll see their next paycheck. And with the administration threatening more staff cuts, many fear they may not have a job to return to at all.”
Staying open has its risks as well. James Jones, a veteran who does maintenance in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway national park, says the park is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Helene last year. And in a few weeks, visitors will come in droves to see the fall colors.
Jones has been furloughed since the government shut down on 1 October, but he says he is on call and could be brought back for small jobs at a moment’s notice. “They’ve left the park open, which is new – it’s the first time they’ve actually left entire areas of the parkway open, especially like the developed areas like campgrounds and picnic areas,” he says. “I guess the interior secretary wants to try to keep services rolling, to try to make it look like there’s no impact.”
He adds that during past shutdowns, poachers have run wild collecting ginseng, and people have even been injured and had to wait long times for medical attention on the trails – all preventable with the right level of staffing.
The closed visitor center at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal national historic park. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The previous shutdown in 2018 lasted 35 days and took a toll on beloved national parks. At Joshua Tree, trees were chopped down. At Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, the human waste and trash issues became so problematic that the parks were eventually forced to close.
Kenji Haroutunian, executive director of the nonprofit Friends Of Joshua Tree, a group that supports the national park, points out that every shutdown is different – so it’s hard to predict exactly how this one will play out. “The most disturbing thing is just not being sure of exactly what’s happening, what resources are in place and what protections and infrastructure remain in order to protect the park, and to protect and to serve the public.”
He points out that Joshua Tree, like many parks, sits alongside small towns that rely on income from tourists to survive – and those towns take a hit every time visitors choose not to come because of a shutdown. According to the NPCA, every day this shutdown drags on, the national park system will lose as much as $1m in fee revenue, while gateway communities stand to lose as much as $80m in visitor spending.
After Nachazel and her husband were turned away from Mesa Verde, they drove to Aztec Ruins national monument – only to find a sign at the entrance that the park was also closed “until further notice” and that all tours were cancelled. “We were very let down,” she says.
And with Congress at a deadlock and the shutdown dragging into the weekend, it could be a while before she and others can get back to their adventures again.
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, abruptly fired the navy chief of staff on Friday, removing an aide who had been key to the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the Pentagon.
Jon Harrison, who was appointed in January, had been key to broad changes made to the navy’s policy and budgeting offices. Together with John Phelan, a Trump mega-donor who was confirmed as navy secretary in March, Harrison had reportedly sought to limit the influence of the navy under secretary, who typically has a key role in managing that military branch’s budget.
The Pentagon confirmed Harrison’s departure in a statement to Politico, which first reported his departure.
“He will no longer serve as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Navy,” it said. “We are grateful for his service to the Department.”
Harrison’s firing comes days after Hung Cao, a former naval officer who ran for Senate as a Republican last year, was confirmed as navy under secretary.
Politico previously reported that Harrison and Phelan, who had no prior military experience before being appointed, had reassigned several top aides who were supposed to help Cao adjust to his role. According to Politico, that move was intended to reduce the influence of the under secretary’s role.
Harrison’s departure comes after months of upheaval under Hegseth.
In May he ordered the military to cut 20% of its four-star generals and admirals, while Hegseth and Trump have fired more than half a dozen top generals since January. They have also fired the only two women serving as four-star officers. In February Hegseth fired air force general CQ Brown Jr, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff and the second Black man to serve in that role.
In an unusual speech to top military officials this week, Hegseth railed against diversity and inclusion guidelines and claimed the defense department had previously become “the woke department”. Many veterans reacted furiously to the address by Hegseth, who before being appointed as defense secretary was a host on Fox News.
The Israeli military has been ordered to halt its campaign on Gaza City by its political leadership, Israeli army radio reported on Saturday, while it was preparing for the first phase of Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza and release all hostages.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it was directed to “advance readiness” for the first part of the Trump plan. Army radio reported that operations in Gaza to be reduced to “the minimum” with troops meant only to carry out defensive strikes.
The orders came as the US president, Donald Trump, demanded Israel stop bombing Gaza late on Friday night after welcoming Hamas’s partial acceptance of his proposal to end the nearly two-year war in Gaza.
Despite Trump’s demands, Israel continued striking the Gaza Strip and besieging Gaza City on Saturday.
At least six Palestinian civilians, including two children, were killed in Israeli strikes on a house in Gaza City and a tent housing displaced people in al-Mawasi. Drones also targeted a gathering of people near a bakery in central Gaza City, killing “dozens” of people, according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.
Israeli military Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned residents not to return to northern Gaza or Gaza City, where Israeli troops are still operating, in a post on X on Saturday morning.
Hamas agreed to release all 48 remaining hostages and surrender governing power of the Gaza Strip, while calling for negotiations on other parts of the proposal. Trump said that based on Hamas’s response, it was ready for peace.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday that Israel was committed to ending the war in Gaza. After Trump’s approval of Hamas’s acceptance, the prime minister will face pressure to implement the plan, which met with widespread approval internationally and in Israel.
Israeli opposition politician Yair Lapid said on Friday night that the Trump plan was a “genuine opportunity to release the hostages and end the war” and that he would back Netanyahu politically to engage in further negotiations to finalise the deal.
Israeli negotiating teams have been instructed to prepare to resume talks today to implement the first part of Trump’s plan, according to Israeli media.
While many details of the plan and its final implementation remained unclear, momentum seemed to be building towards reaching a deal. The positive statements by both Hamas and Trump indicated that the possibility of an end to the war in Gaza was closer than in recent months, though previous ceasefire efforts have collapsed in the negotiation phase even with significant momentum behind them.
A senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse on Saturday that Egypt was organising a conference for Palestinian factions to decide on the post-war future of the Gaza Strip, which Hamas had outlined as the way forward on the Trump plan.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a hardline militant group aligned with Hamas, said it was on board with Hamas’s response to the Trump plan. In a statement, PIJ said Hamas’s reply “represents the position of the Palestinian resistance factions”.
The support of PIJ, which holds Israeli hostages, is a key signal that Hamas has the backing of other militant groups within Gaza to move forward with the Trump plan.
Trump’s 20-point plan calls for an immediate end to fighting in Gaza; the release of the remaining 48 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza within 72 hours in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners; the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza; the disarmament of Hamas and a transitional authority of the strip led by Trump himself.
The plan also called for a surge of aid to Gaza, parts of which are undergoing famine due to an Israeli blockade on the territory, and the reconstruction of the devastated strip.
Hamas’s reply to the Trump plan notably did not mention anything about laying down arms, an issue that presumably will have to be resolved in future negotiations.
The Trump plan is largely seen as unfavourable to Hamas. Israel, in turn, has to give few concessions. However, Palestinians in Gaza are desperate to see an end to fighting after nearly two years of devastating bombing, hunger and displacement.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 67,074 Palestinians and wounded about 170,000 according to the Gaza health authority, which says the majority of those killed were civilians. Israel launched the war after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
A UN commission of inquiry, as well as the world’s leading association of scholars on genocide, have concluded that Israeli has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel denies the claim, saying it has only acted in self-defence.
The Greens are viewed more favourably than any other party in London and among younger voters, polling produced for the party has shown, with its leader, Zack Polanski, saying this showed they were “on track” to supplant Labour.
The YouGov poll, carried out to coincide with the Greens’ ongoing annual conference in Bournemouth, asked voters in England to rank the five main parties in order of how favourably they felt about them, rather than the usual metric of which they planned to vote for.
By this measure, across England as a whole the Greens were beaten only by Reform UK in terms of the proportion who put them at the top of the list, getting 17% of first preferences. This compared with 27% for Reform, 16% for Labour, 15% for the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives’ total of 14%.
When answers from just London were taken, the Greens came top, with 27% of the first-preference choices, against 20% for Labour, 16% Reform, 15% Conservatives and 14% Lib Dems.
The difference was even more notable among voters aged 18 to 24, with 36% putting the Greens as their most-favoured choice. Next were Labour on 24%, then 14% for the Lib Dems and just 6% each for the Conservatives and Reform.
In a sign of how the Greens under Polanski could take support from former Labour voters, another breakdown of the polling showed nearly a quarter of people who voted for Keir Starmer last year now ranked the Greens as their favourite party.
Speaking to the Guardian at the conference, Polanski, who won the election to lead the Greens in England and Wales a month ago, reiterated the pledge in his speech to the gathering that the party was aiming for Labour.
“I think it’s already happening,” he said. “It’s happening at defection level. Just last month in Barking and Dagenham, we welcome three new councillors to the party. It’s also happening right across England and Wales.
“At local council elections, there was a stunning victory recently in Brighton, where the Labour vote completely collapsed and the Green vote rocketed. Reform are still a worry, yes, and the fact that they’re polling even reasonably in London is a real threat, I think, to anyone who’s a progressive voice.
“But absolutely, the plan has always been to replace Labour at the electoral level, starting at the local level, and I think we’re on track to do that.”
Labour MPs and strategists are deeply worried about how the party will fare next May in elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, and for a series of councils across England.
In London, where about 1,800 council seats across 32 boroughs are being contested, there is concern in Labour, which won nearly 44% of the seats when they were last contested in 2022, that there could be heavy losses to Reform UK in more suburban outer boroughs and to the Greens in more central areas.
In his speech on Friday, Polanski warned against what he called the “managed decline” of the Labour government, predicting that unless he changed course, Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform.
Polanski said the Greens would be pushing for “seats right across London”, adding: “What I’m excited about is … that [support is] pretty evenly spread, and that [we] will be campaigning in places that we haven’t traditionally campaigned in before.”