Families of hostages held captive in Gaza condemned Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the United States Congress, as pressure grows on the Israeli prime minister to agree to a deal to secure their release.

“The speech and applause won’t erase the one sad fact: The words ‘Deal Now!’ were absent from the prime minister’s address,” The Hostage and Missing Families Forum in Israel said in a statement.

People gathered at the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv to watch Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday, which drew raucous applause inside Congress but was also snubbed by dozens of Democrats.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has become a potent political force in Israel since some 250 people were abducted by Hamas on October 7, and the square a regular site of protests demanding that the hostages be brought home.

“They came to watch the broadcast of the speech and hear addresses from family members of the hostages, hoping to hear the Prime Minister utter the two crucial words: ‘There’s a deal,’” the statement said.

During his nearly 52-minute address, Netanyahu lashed out against critics of Israel’s war in Gaza but did not mention the status of the ceasefire negotiations, despite intense international pressure to find a deal and growing optimism that one could soon be struck.

Rather than mentioning a deal, a bellicose Netanyahu told Congress: “The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms and returns all the hostages. But if they don’t, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’ military capabilities, end its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.”

But Netanyahu is facing growing calls to negotiate a deal to secure the hostages’ release. Noam Peri, daughter of Chaim Peri, who the Israeli government last month said died in Hamas captivity, said: “You can no longer save my father, but you must return to our shared values and restore the basic contract between us – before it’s too late.”

“Sign the deal, save the hostages who are alive and fighting for their lives every moment,” she urged.

Criticism from families of hostages was echoed by Yair Lapid of the opposition Labor party, who wrote on X: “Disgrace! An hour of talking without saying the one sentence: ‘There will be a kidnapping deal.’”

But Netanyahu’s speech was lauded by members of his government. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the “moving and important” speech demonstrates “the strength of alliance between the US and Israel.”

Bezalel Smotrich, the hard-right finance minister and chairman of the Religious Zionist Party, said: “Our Jewish and Israeli hearts are moved and filled with pride on this important occasion.”

After Netanyahu’s speech, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced it had retrieved the bodies of five hostages and brought them back to Israel. The bodies of Ravid Katz, Kiril Brodski, Tomer Ahimas, Oren Goldin and Maya Goren were found during an operation in the Khan Younis area on Wednesday, the IDF said, where it launched a fresh ground offensive this week.

This means that 111 hostages remain in Gaza, including 39 believed to be dead, according to data from Netanyahu’s office. There are eight dual-American citizens believed still to be captive in Gaza, three of whom have been confirmed dead. The Biden administration has not shared information about the five who may still be alive.

The recovery of the five bodies came after Israel renewed its offensive in Khan Younis. The United Nations estimates that about 150,000 people fled the area on Monday alone, after the IDF issued evacuation orders that have intensified pressure on the meager supplies of food and water, and the lack of places to seek shelter.

Absent Democrats

Despite the warm reception by lawmakers in Congress, about 80 House Democrats skipped Netanyahu’s speech, including US Vice President Kamala Harris, who instead attended a pre-scheduled trip to a sorority event in Indiana. President Joe Biden and Harris are scheduled to meet with Netanyahu at the White House Thursday.

Also among the absentees was former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who later blasted Netanyahu’s speech as “by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”

“Many of us who love Israel spent time today listening to Israeli citizens whose families have suffered in the wake of the October 7th Hamas terror attack and kidnappings. These families are asking for a ceasefire deal that will bring the hostages home – and we hope the Prime Minister would spend his time achieving that goal,” she said in a statement.

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian-American congresswoman, held up a black-and-white sign during Netanyahu’s speech. One side said, “War criminal;” the other, “Guilty of genocide.”

A number of House Democrats and Republicans criticized Tlaib’s demonstration. Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer said the sign was “unfortunate” and not appropriate.

While most of the chamber rose to applaud Netanyahu as he entered, Tlaib was among three Democrats who remained seated. Sen. Chuck Schumer stood to welcome Netanyahu, did not not applaud. Sen. Mark Kelly, a potential pick for Vice President in November, did applaud the Israeli leader.

With so many Democrats skipping the speech, a number of Republicans sat on the Democratic side of the aisle.

The death toll from devastating landslides in southern Ethiopia has climbed to more than 250 and could rise as high as 500, the UN warned, citing local authorities.

The landslides hit thousands of people in Gofa Zone on Sunday and Monday and are the deadliest ever reported in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country.

“These people are at high risk of further landslides and need to be evacuated to safe zones immediately. Amongst these are at least 1,320 children under 5 years of age and 5,293 pregnant and lactating women,” the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said.

The UN agency also said that the government is finalizing an evacuation plan.

Residents and volunteers have been digging through the mud searching for survivors.

Photos from one site showed residents of Kencho Shacha Gozdi embracing after another day of excavations.

Ethiopia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, according to geological surveys. In parts of the country, including the southern region, floods triggered by heavy rains have displaced thousands of people in recent months, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report last month.

At least 43 people died from floods and landslides last year, OCHA said in November.

An 18-year-old man has been detained on suspicion of killing a former Ukrainian lawmaker, local authorities say, after her fatal shooting in the city of Lviv.

Iryna Farion, 60, died in hospital last Friday after she was shot in western Ukraine, the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadoviy, posted on Facebook.

A specialist team of Ukrainian security forces and criminal analysts tracked down the suspect on Thursday after 139 hours of investigative work, according to the country’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. Authorities scoured about 100 hectares of forest and identified him using surveillance cameras, the minister said.

“We checked every corner of the shooter’s escape route,” Klymenko posted on Telegram. “Identifying and detaining the offender was a laborious process that required the highest professionalism, endurance and discipline to avoid making any mistakes. I thank the entire team.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his country’s security forces.

“I am grateful to each and every one of them who added more facts to the picture of the crime every day and brought the full truth closer,” he said in a post on Telegram on Thursday.

A former nationalist parliamentarian and professor, Farion was known for her unfavorable attitude towards the Russian language, which is spoken in eastern Ukraine.

The Security Service of Ukraine launched a criminal investigation against the academic last year, after she published a social media post with a screenshot of a message from a pro-Ukrainian student in occupied Crimea, containing the name, surname and other personal data of the sender. That information became the basis for his persecution by the Russian special services.

During the investigation in November, Farion told authorities that she categorically rejected Russian-speaking members of the Armed Forces fighting against Russia’s full-scale invasion, according to Reuters, saying she could not call them Ukrainians.

Her statement triggered a wave of outrage among sections of Ukrainian society.

As Venezuela girds for what could be a historic presidential election this weekend, one of the most important names in the race isn’t on the ballot: María Corina Machado – the woman who galvanized Venezuela’s opposition movement, and whom many voters see as the real challenger to socialist incumbent Nicolás Maduro.

Twelve years ago, Machado introduced herself to Venezuela’s political scene by confronting late President Hugo Chávez in Congress. Chévez, then at the peak of his power, was delivering his annual state of the nation address. Machado, then a fringe opposition politician who lost her primary race to challenge Chávez for the presidency, stood up and shouted back at the president on the podium.

Chávez dismissed her as an irritation, telling her, “An eagle doesn’t hunt a fly.”

On Sunday, once again, Machado will not be on the ballot – but not for lack of popularity. An avowed capitalist who has promised privatization of several state industries, Machado won more than 90% of the opposition primary vote last year, but has been barred from running for office following allegations that she didn’t include some food vouchers on her assets declaration. Machado has described the decision to bar her – upheld by Venezuela’s Supreme Court – as illegitimate, unjustified and unconstitutional.

The current opposition candidate for president, Edmundo González, is backed by Machado, who has campaigned on his behalf to mobilize voters.Experts say that their efforts may now pose the most significant threat to Maduro’s grip on power in years, as he fights to claim a third term.

Machado: We will win. We will succeed and we will bring everyone that has been forced to leave to come back. That’s my only plan.

Machado: I am committed to giving every single Venezuelan the opportunity to have the education they need to be independent and take hold of their future.

I do believe in public education, but I do believe that you have to create incentives so the public education can be as competitive and with the same degree of excellence that you have in private education.

You must have the rules of the market. It’s the system, and that works as well with the health system. I am convinced that education is a right.

Machado: As a society and as a state, you have the duty to guarantee that every single Venezuelan has access to it. But we have to change all the way around.

What do I promote? For instance, in the case of education, I believe in coupons that you can give directly to the parents so that parents can choose the kind of education they want for their children, either public or private. And this is a true revolution in Venezuela.

In the case of the energy sector or other, industries. Venezuela has a huge potential that requires enormous investments. That we don’t have the resources for. This country was sacked: we need to open markets.

And we need to create conditions that are so competitive, so attractive that international resources will be invested in a country, despite what happened in the previous regime.

One of the things we need to do is totally transform our judiciary system and come back from being the last place globally in rule of law to one of the most respected countries.

Machado: We need tens or hundreds of billions of dollars that could be invested in energy, not just oil and gas. Also, renewable resources.

The Venezuelan government doesn’t have the resources to do that. The resources we need to invest in infrastructure, in health, in education and so on.

We definitely need to open markets in order to take advantage of that huge potential and turn Venezuela into truly the energy hub of the Americas.

How the how the country will benefit from that? We will have fiscal flows, and other resources, mechanisms through which the state will get taxes.

But you don’t need to own the companies directly for the country to benefit from it.

If we don’t do that, the window of opportunity for oil and gas will close soon. And that will be unforgivable.

Machado: The regime will try to steal the election. But I have trust, full confidence in what the Venezuelan people voted for. We have built a platform to defend our votes; it’s unprecedented.

Today, Venezuelans realize that it is a personal responsibility. They don’t expect others to defend their vote. Right? They are going to do it themselves. And you will see people coming out with their families together, willing to stay as long as it takes.

Ambar Leáñez grows quiet when she thinks of a future beyond this weekend.

A staunch supporter of Venezuela’s opposition movement, she’s buoyant about her coalition’s chances to win this Sunday’s presidential election. The thought of another six years under the incumbent – Venezuela’s entrenched authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro – would drive her to flee the country, she says.

Often divided among its many political parties, Venezuela’s anti-government coalition has united behind a single presidential candidate, Edmundo González.

Many experts believe that González could pose Maduro’s toughest political challenge to date. On top of a galvanized opposition, pressure from the international community and Venezuela’s oil sector have led to a series of agreements that paved the way to a competitive election this year.

On Friday, members of a young opposition group in Maracay, a mid-size city in central Venezuela, took to the streets with fliers and slogans to galvanize votes for González. A few years ago, openly calling for Maduro’s removal here could have invited trouble.

But the group, called “Neighbors for Venezuela,” campaigned without incident. Leañez among them shouting anti-Maduro slogans in the city’s market: “Urgent, we need a new president!”

Another protester, Julio César Pérez, described the choice looming on Sunday in stark terms: “For me, it’s change or the Darién.”

Campaigning with your bags ready

Thousands of Venezuelans have already trekked through jungles and rivers in the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panamá to head northward toward the United States.

If Maduro remains in power, experts predict that millions more may follow. One poll conducted in June by Venezuelan firm ODH Consultores, estimates up to a third of the population is considering leaving the country after the election.

“I don’t want to leave!” has become a popular chant among opposition supporters.

Most people in Venezuela know someone who has emigrated already. Large numbers of Venezuelans now live in Colombia, Perú, and Brazil, and growing numbers have attempted relocating to the United States – part of a significant election year issue for American voters.

Leáñez’s uncle, Rafael Cabrera, moved to Miami in 2021. On a videocall to his niece in Maracay, he expressed anger that he would not be able to vote on Sunday – Venezuelans living abroad are not allowed to vote by mail, and Venezuela doesn’t have consular representation in the US, which means there are no paths to the vote for Cabrera.

To join him one day, Leáñez said she would consider migrating as an undocumented migrant. “I would wish to migrate as legally as possible, but it’s is one of the cards in my hand. An option… What else could I do?” she said.

‘To all Venezuelans abroad…come home!’

On the campaign trail, both Venezuela’s current government and the opposition are urging Venezuelans abroad to return.

Since 2018, a government-sponsored “Return to the Homeland” program organized free flights for more than 10.000 Venezuelan migrants who wished to come back from other Latin American countries.

“We have gone through a bad stretch, really bad, but we’re getting better, we’re improving… to all Venezuelans abroad […] come home!” Maduro said last month.

It’s an issue that has touched the top leaders of the opposition movement personally – though they have chosen to stay and fight, in a battle for Venezuela’s future that will be decided on Sunday.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has campaigned alongside González after being barred from running as a candidate, has endured a familiar separation, with her three adult children and their families all living abroad.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged Hong Kong to prevent Russia from using the Asian financial hub to bypass Western sanctions during a visit to the city on Thursday.

The United States and European Union have sanctioned dozens of companies in Hong Kong and mainland China for evading the extensive measures imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, including the supply of critical dual‑use goods such as semiconductors.

Kuleba “called on the Hong Kong administration to take measures to prevent Russia and Russian companies from using Hong Kong to circumvent the restrictive measures imposed for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” according to a statement from Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued after the minister met with Hong Kong leader John Lee.

“These restrictive measures are necessary to weaken Russia’s capacity to wage war and kill people in Ukraine,” it added. “The Minister stressed that Russia’s machinations should not spoil Hong Kong’s reputation as a highly developed liberal economy based on unwavering respect for the rule of law.”

Dual-use items are goods, software or technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications. The US has said that some of the dual-use items targeted by its sanctions are critical to Russia’s defense-industrial base.

While the UN General Assembly has passed resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion and demanding the withdrawal of its troops from Ukraine, similar resolutions at the UNSC have been vetoed by Russia, a permanent member of the group.

Hong Kong officials have previously said the city has no obligation to implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other countries – including when a mega yacht linked to a Russian oligarch sanctioned by the US, the EU and the United Kingdom dropped anchor in the city in October 2022.

However, international companies based in Hong Kong, including Chinese banks, have generally adhered to US sanctions to avoid any risk of being frozen out of the dollar dominated global financial system.

Kuleba’s visit to Hong Kong was the final leg of his trip to China, the first time the close partner of Russia has hosted a top Ukrainian official since Moscow’s invasion began nearly two and half years ago.

Beijing, which has forged deeper ties with Russia since the invasion and become a vital economic and diplomatic lifeline for Moscow, has repeatedly decried “unilateral sanctions” and what it calls “long-arm jurisdiction” by Western countries, saying they have no basis in international law.

In a meeting in the southern city of Guangzhou on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Ukrainian counterpart that, “although the conditions and timing are not yet ready,” China was “willing to continue to play a constructive role in ceasefire and resumption of peace talks.”

Kuleba told Wang that Ukraine was prepared for peace talks “when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith,” according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, but stressed that Kyiv saw no such willingness from Moscow.

The Ukrainian diplomat’s visit comes as Beijing faces increasing pressure from the West over its deepening ties to Russia and allegations that it’s aiding Moscow’s war effort by providing dual-use goods. Beijing denies this and says the West is fueling the conflict by supplying arms for Ukraine’s defense.