CBS News
Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses Israel-Hamas war cease-fire demands as U.K. limits weapons exports
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will “not give in to pressure” to agree to a cease-fire with Hamas in the face of massive protests in his country as well as President Biden saying he’s not doing enough to end the nearly 11-month war in Gaza and Britain’s government restricting the sale of some weapons to Israel.
Speaking Monday after dramatic protests following the killing of six Israeli hostages, Netanyahu said he would not back down on some of his demands in the ongoing cease-fire negotiations aimed at stopping the fighting, at least temporarily, to allow the release of dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.
In the televised address late Monday night, Netanyahu asked for forgiveness for not saving the six hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. According to Israeli officials, they were killed by Hamas hours before their bodies were recovered. All six were found by the Israeli military in a Hamas tunnel over the weekend.
“I ask for your forgiveness for not bringing them back alive,” Netanyahu said. “We were close but we didn’t succeed. Hamas will pay a very heavy price for this.”
Netanyahu insisted that “the achievement of the war’s objectives” requires Israel to maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the strip of land along the border between southern Gaza and Egypt. Egypt’s government has voiced its objection to an Israeli military presence on that border, and Hamas has demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from the area as part of any cease-fire agreement.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Israel on Sunday and Monday to demand that Netanyahu bring an end to the war and secure the release of the 101 remaining hostages, about 35 of whom are believed to be dead.
“He’s ruining the country. Divides us in order to keep his control,” one protester told CBS News.
JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty
President Biden met with negotiators working on the cease-fire negotiations alongside mediators from Egypt and Qatar on Monday. When asked by reporters whether he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a deal that would end the war and see the release of the hostages, he said, “No.”
Adding more international pressure, the U.K. government announced Monday that it would suspend some of its arms exports to Israel, citing a “clear risk” that the weapons could be used in violation of international humanitarian law. The government said it was suspending 30 of the approximately 350 licenses for items being used in the current conflict.
“The U.K. continues to support Israel’s right to self-defense in accordance with international law,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.
Netanyahu called the U.K. move “shameful” and “misguided.”
In Gaza, the fighting continued as the World Health Organization raced to meet its goal of vaccinating at least 90% of the children living in the enclave against polio. The health ministry in Gaza said around 160,000 Palestinian children in the territory had been vaccinated in the first two days of the emergency vaccination campaign.
contributed to this report.
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CBS News
McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
