In January 2024, the publication Axios reported that the United States president at the time, Joe Biden, was “running out of patience” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza had been raging for months by that point, and Biden was facing public backlash over US support for the conflict.

The assault would continue for the rest of Biden’s term and bleed into the first 10 months of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Since then, media outlets have continued to publish anonymous accounts of rifts and “frustrating” calls between Trump and the Israeli prime minister. But US support for its Middle East ally has never wavered.

Another anonymously sourced report about a furious, expletive-laden call between US and Israeli leaders came out this week, and it spread rapidly across international media.

Axios reported on Monday that Trump called Netanyahu “f***ing crazy” and berated him over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon.

Around the same time, an Israeli attack killed six people, including two children, in the southern Lebanese town of al-Marwaniyah.

Experts say that despite leaks of feuds and harsh words between US leaders and Netanyahu, policies are ultimately what matters, and they have changed very little.

Ryan Costello, the policy director at the National Iranian American Council Action (NIAC), said political observers have grown to “mock” reports of closed-door anger from US presidents against Netanyahu.

“What’s really important is what actually happens in practice,” Costello told Al Jazeera.

Though there are reports of Trump giving Netanyahu a dressing-down, Isabelle Hayslip, an advocacy manager at the US-based rights group DAWN, said that US policy remains aligned with Israeli interests.

“Single-source reporting of Trump as a strongman who picks up the phone and yells at Netanyahu for undermining US policy is contradicted by the actual policy outcomes where Netanyahu gets exactly what he wants,” Hayslip told Al Jazeera.

“Trump has no final say over Israeli actions. Like his predecessors, the president has proved completely unable to prioritise American interests, instead catering to Israel’s expansionist whims.”

The latest report comes as Trump faces increasing pressure from his Democratic rivals and segments of his base over his handling of the war on Iran, which he launched jointly with Netanyahu on February 28.

The conflict, which saw Iran close the Strait of Hormuz, has sent gasoline prices soaring in the US and fuelled inflation.

Critics have accused Trump of allowing Israel to drag the US into a war that does not advance Washington’s priorities.

With negotiations to end the war stagnating, Israel’s escalation in Lebanon and its threat to bomb Beirut risks derailing the fragile truce that came into effect in April.

Iranian officials have suggested that they cut off contact with the US over the Israeli attacks in Lebanon.

Before the Axios report, Trump announced he had spoken to Netanyahu and an unidentified Hezbollah representative, and both sides agreed that “all shooting will stop”.

But Netanyahu was quick to assert that the Israeli military “will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon”, where it is deepening its invasion and turning entire towns into rubble.

Advocates say Israeli atrocities in Lebanon and across the region could not have happened without US backing.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, the US has provided Israel with nearly $25bn in military aid, helped fend off retaliatory Iranian attacks against the country and vetoed several ceasefire resolutions at the United Nations Security Council.

Nonetheless, anonymous accounts that the US president is angry at Netanyahu have become a regular feature in the media.

Such reports are attributed to US officials, but it is unclear how leaks with a similar message on the same topic have continued across two administrations from different political parties.

Publicly, aides of both Biden and Trump have largely refrained from criticising Israel.

Trump has regularly praised the Israeli prime minister, arguing on more than one occasion that Israel would have ceased to exist without Netanyahu’s leadership.

In December, the US president also called the Israeli prime minister a “hero” during a meeting in Florida.

“We’re with you, and we’ll continue to be with you,” Trump told Netanyahu.

Two weeks earlier, Axios reported that the White House had “scolded” Netanyahu over Israel’s ceasefire violations in Gaza.

“The White House message to Netanyahu was: ‘If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don’t abide by agreements, be our guest, but we won’t allow you to ruin President Trump’s reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza,” the publication quoted a US official as saying.

Few people know the exact content of high-level calls at the White House. Sometimes, top officials, including members of the National Security Council, sit in on conversations between the president and world leaders after briefings.

Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a research nonprofit, said the leak about the tense call between Trump and Netanyahu may be aimed at making Trump look tough on Israel to quell outrage over the war.

“It could be sort of a way of moderating the anger or the blame at the US for continuing this unpopular, illegal, unnecessary war,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.

She added that the message it sends is, “Look, we’re very angry at Israel. We yell at them. We call them names.”

But Mortazavi stressed that policy is more important than rhetoric: “Does that change the facts on the ground?”

For his part, Costello argued that the leak was likely directed at Iran.

“I see this one primarily as a signal to the Iranians that Trump is serious, and he wants to insulate what’s happening in Lebanon and Israel’s attacks from the Iran negotiations,” Costello said.

“It remains to be seen the extent to which that excoriation has actually led to a change in Israel’s policies, and I think there is a strong incentive for continued defiance from Netanyahu.”

Axios, meanwhile, has defended its coverage.

“We stand by our reporting, which by the way noted ‘Trump and Netanyahu have had several tense calls in the past but have still coordinated closely on Iran and other issues,’” Jake Wilkins, a spokesperson for the publication, told Al Jazeera in an email.

Mortazavi warned that all sides of the war on Iran are trying to influence public perceptions of the conflict.

She pointed to recent reports that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had resigned, a rumour that was promptly denied by his office.

“This is a very hybrid war. It’s a war on the battlefield. It’s an intelligence war. It’s a war of narratives,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera. “And then there’s also an information war,  which includes disinformation, half-truths and strategic leaks.”

[Aljazeera]

The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been rescheduled after the original event on April 25 was suspended after a gunman attempted to access the venue, resulting in an exchange of fire with Secret Service agents.

The new event will be held on July 24 with “significantly enhanced safety measures and new access procedures”, Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), wrote in a letter to members.

US President Donald Trump said he would attend the rescheduled dinner, which will be held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington DC.

The April shooting saw Trump and Vice-President JD Vance, among others, rushed off stage by Secret Service agents.

The suspect was subdued by agents on the scene, and one Secret Service agent was injured by shotgun fire, according to the Department of Justice.

Trump said the rescheduling of the event, which is meant to honour journalists and the freedom of the press, is a “sign of Strength and Fortitude”.

“This announcement is a very good thing in that we cannot allow Lunatics to change our way of life, or even its scheduling,” the president wrote on social media.

The WHCA spent the last several weeks raising funds to make sure that its members who purchased tickets to the April event do not have to pay again for the July event, which will be a “more intimate gathering”, Jiang said.

The association is also offering financial support to scholarship winners who wish to travel back to Washington DC for the dinner, Jiang said.

Trump said he has accepted an invitation to speak at the rescheduled event, adding that he’s not sure if he will “give the same rather nasty statements” that he had planned to in April.

“But we will soon find out,” the president said.

The April event – attended by the president, vice-president, members of Congress and Trump’s cabinet, and hundreds of journalists – was already underway when a gunman stormed through a security checkpoint.

The suspect was later identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, who police said was armed with the shotgun, a handgun and knives.

At a press conference immediately after the shooting, Trump said he would work to get the event rescheduled in the following 30 days.

The Waldorf Astoria, where Trump says the July event will take place, was first converted from an old post office into a luxury hotel by the Trump Organization more than a decade ago. The Trump family leased the building in 2012 and opened the Trump International Hotel there in 2016, before selling the lease in 2022.

[BBC]

Thousands of Kenyans have marched through central Nairobi to demand that the government declare a national crisis over rising cases of femicide and child disappearances.

The march, composed mostly of women, was organised on Monday by the End Femicide movement alongside women’s rights, human rights, and child protection groups. It was one of the largest demonstrations against gender-based violence the Kenyan capital has seen in months, and brought traffic to a standstill across parts of the city’s central business district.

The protest organisers used the brutal murder of a gospel singer, Rachel Wandeto, to rally support.

Wandeto was doused with petrol and set on fire by three men as she walked home in Nairobi on May 16. She suffered burns to over 85 percent of her body and died two days later at Kenyatta National Hospital.

The lobby groups have given the Kenyan government a 40-day ultimatum to declare gender-based violence a national crisis, or face nationwide protests.

Participants dressed in white carried red roses and gathered around symbolic coffins covered in flower petals in a tribute to the victims. A large wall listing the names of the dead stood at the centre of the gathering beneath the message “Stop Femicide in Kenya”.

Protesters carried placards reading “Stop Killing Women,” “Enough is Enough,” and “End Pedicide”.

Former Chief Justice David Maraga joined the march, lending his voice to calls for stronger government action.

The ultimatum to the government demanding action, issued on May 21, came as the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya reports receiving roughly 70 gender-based violence cases every week across its three offices in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.

(Aljazeera)