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washington — President Joe Biden has steadily ramped up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to allow more humanitarian aid and to rein in its offensive in the Gaza Strip. That includes increasingly public criticism of Israel and the recent U.S. abstention vote at the U.N. Security Council that allowed for a cease-fire resolution to pass. However, Biden has stopped short of using what may be his strongest leverage — conditioning U.S. aid for Israel. The U.S. provides Israel with nearly $4 billion a year, most of it in the form of military assistance. Lawmakers from his own party have voiced dissent. Both Senate and House Democrats have demanded that Biden comply with the Foreign Assistance Act and cut off military aid if Israel continues to block U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza. His constituents have signaled their outrage — hundreds of thousands voted "uncommitted" in Democratic primary elections in various states. The latest polls show 75% of Democrats now disapprove of Israel's war conduct. Fifty-six percent of them say continuing to give military aid to Israel would make them less likely to support a presidential candidate. Despite the political cost, Biden is steadfast in his support for Israel. Analysts say there are at least two factors that may be behind this: the president's fear of the war widening beyond Gaza, and his own long-standing and deeply held views on the importance of the security of the state of Israel. Self-proclaimed Zionist Since Harry Truman in 1948 recognized Israel just minutes after its founding, all American presidents have supported Israel. Biden stands out among them with his "extraordinary emotional commitment to the idea of Israel, the people of Israel, the security of Israel," said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former U.S. negotiator in Middle East peace talks under both Democratic and Republican administrations. On various occasions, Biden, who is of Irish Catholic descent, has proclaimed himself as a Zionist. As such, aside from being "gut-loyal committed to Israel's self-defense," he also believes he can "moderate Israel's behavior as a friend from the inside, rather than as an antagonist on the outside," said Laura Blumenfeld, senior fellow at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. "It's the international bear-hug theory of strategic squeezing," she told VOA. Biden has decades of personal relationship with Netanyahu, in 2010 calling him a "close, personal friend of over 33 years." However, as Netanyahu continues to go against U.S. goals in Gaza, many are questioning whether Biden's reliance on his relationship with the prime minister is helpful in finding an end to the war. Biden and Netanyahu are "increasingly estranged," Miller told VOA. As the rift between the two leaders deepens, Biden has even backed remarks by Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senate majority leader and the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in the U.S. Schumer called Netanyahu an impediment to peace and urged Israelis to hold elections to replace him after the war. However, Miller said Biden needs Netanyahu to secure the cease-fire deal and for his administration's ambitious plans to create a "comprehensive integrated peace process" that centers on a two-state solution. At a New York campaign event Thursday, Biden said Arab countries including Saudi Arabia were prepared to "fully recognize Israel" for such a deal. Risk of widening war Six months into the Israel-Hamas war, there is real potential for the war to widen in other areas of the Middle East, especially if Israel's skirmishes with Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon escalate. In this environment, "conditioning aid to Israel would delight Hezbollah, Iran and its other proxies," said Blumenfeld. "Hamas wrote the script of October 7, and conditioning aid to Israel is written into the stage notes." The U.S. provides Israel with weapons systems and munitions for both deterrence and warfighting. Placing conditions for defensive systems - for example, the Iron Dome missile defense system - has serious risks, said Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Hezbollah has between 120,000 and 200,000 missiles and other stand-off systems that can target Israel and would likely overwhelm Israel's air defense capabilities," he told VOA. However, Jones pointed out there's less risk should Biden decide to condition aid on specific types of offensive weapons systems, such as small- and large-diameter bombs, bunker busters and a range of precision-guided munitions. Under pressure from Democratic lawmakers, last month the White House mandated relevant U.S. government agencies to "obtain credible and reliable written assurances" from foreign governments that U.S. weapons are used in accordance with international and humanitarian law. Israel has provided its assurances. Under the memorandum, the State Department has until early May to formally assess the assurances and report to Congress. If they were not found "credible and reliable," Biden may have the option of suspending future U.S. arms transfers. "While the U.S. is assessing the Israeli response, requests to condition military aid will be seen as premature," said Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute. Whether Biden conditions aid may also depend on what happens with Israeli plans for its ground invasion in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians seek safety. As long as Israel does not cross clear American red lines, Goren told VOA, the likelihood of Biden conditioning aid "seems low." Netanyahu insists that the goal of "total victory" against Hamas cannot be achieved without invading Rafah, where Israel says there are four Hamas battalions composed of thousands of fighters. The Biden administration is imploring Israel to find an alternative to "smashing into Rafah." Israeli and American officials are working to reschedule a meeting to discuss Rafah plans. No date has been set yet, but a senior administration official told VOA that they are hoping the talks will take place "as soon as next week."

london — British counterterrorism detectives are investigating after a journalist working for a Persian-language media organization was stabbed Friday in London amid fears he had been targeted because of his job, police said. Police said the man, in his 30s, was attacked and suffered an injury to his leg in the Friday afternoon incident in Wimbledon, southwest London. Britain's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the victim was prominent Britain-based Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, who hosts a show on the Persian-language television news network Iran International, which is critical of Iran's government. Police said his injuries were not believed to be life-threatening and he was in stable condition. "This cowardly attack on Pouria is deeply shocking, and our thoughts are with him, his family and all of his colleagues at Iran International," Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ general secretary, said in a statement. In January, Britain imposed sanctions on Iranian officials it said were involved in threats to kill journalists on British soil. Those officials were members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Unit 840, which an investigation by ITV news in Britain said was involved in plots to assassinate two Iran International television presenters in the U.K. "While we are keeping an open mind, given the occupation of the victim and our publicized concerns about the threat to employees of that organization, the investigation is being led by the Counter Terrorism Command," Commander Dominic Murphy, the head of that unit, said. "I must stress that, at this early stage of our investigation, we do not know the reason why this victim was attacked and there could be a number of explanations for this." There was no immediate response from Iranian officials to the report. British police and security officials have increasingly warned about Iran's growing use of criminal proxies to carry out attacks abroad. They say there have been more than 15 direct threats to kill or kidnap dissidents or political opponents that were linked to the Iranian state apparatus over the past two years. In December, an Austrian man was convicted of collecting information that could be used in a terrorist attack after he was accused of carrying out "hostile reconnaissance" on Iran International's London headquarters. "It is too early to know whether this violent assault is connected to the escalating intimidation and harassment by Iran, including the plot to assassinate journalists Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet in 2022," Stanistreet said. "However, this brutal stabbing will inevitably raise fears amongst the many journalists targeted at Iran International and the BBC Persian Service that they are not safe at home or going about their work."

baltimore — A crane that can lift 1,000 tons, described as one of the largest on the Eastern Seaboard, appeared near the site of a collapsed highway bridge in Baltimore as crews prepared Friday to begin clearing wreckage that has stymied the search for four workers missing and presumed dead and blocked ships from entering or leaving the city's vital port. Maryland Governor Wes Moore called the Francis Scott Key Bridge's collapse after being struck by a freighter an “economic catastrophe" and described the challenges ahead for recovering the workers' bodies and clearing tons of debris to reopen the Port of Baltimore. “What we're talking about today is not just about Maryland's economy; this is about the nation's economy,” Moore said at a news conference, the massive crane standing in the background. “The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in this country.” Moore went to the scene Friday and said he saw shipping containers ripped apart “like papier-mache.” The broken pieces of the bridge weigh as much as 4,000 tons, Moore said, and teams will need to cut into the steel trusses before they can be lifted from the Patapsco River. Equipment on hand will include seven floating cranes, 10 tugboats, nine barges, eight salvage vessels and five Coast Guard boats, Moore said. Much of it is coming from the Navy. “To go out there and see it up close, you realize just how daunting a task this is. You realize how difficult the work is ahead of us,” Moore said. “With a salvage operation this complex — and frankly with a salvation operation this unprecedented — you need to plan for every single moment.” Water conditions have prevented divers from entering the river, Moore said. When conditions change, they will resume efforts to recover the construction workers, who were repairing potholes on the bridge when it fell early Tuesday. The Coast Guard is focused on removing what's left of the bridge and the container ship that struck it in order to clear the port's shipping lanes, Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said. Teams of engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Navy and the Coast Guard — along with some private-sector experts — are assessing how to “break that bridge up into the right-sized pieces that we can lift,” Gilreath said. Maryland's Department of Transportation is already focused on building a new bridge and is “considering innovative design, engineering and building methods so that we can quickly deliver this project,” Secretary Paul J. Wiedefeld said. Adam Ortiz, the Environmental Protection Agency’s mid-Atlantic regional administrator, said there is no indication of active releases from the ship, nor of the presence in the water of materials hazardous to human health. Colonel Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland State Police, said the Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to establish a tactical flight restriction area that would begin 3 nautical miles in every direction from the center span of the bridge and extend upward to 1,500 feet. Butler advised people to keep drones away from the area and said law enforcement is poised to act on any violations of that airspace. The victims of the bridge collapse were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, officials said. At least eight people initially went into the water when the ship struck the bridge column, and two of them were rescued. Divers have recovered the bodies of two men from a pickup truck in the river, but the nature and placement of the debris has complicated efforts to find the other four workers. “The divers can put their hands on that faceplate, and they can’t even see their hands,” said Donald Gibbons, an instructor with Eastern Atlantic States Carpenters Technical Centers. “So we say zero visibility. It’s very similar to locking yourself in a dark closet on a dark night and really not being able to see anything.” President Joe Biden's administration has approved $60 million in immediate aid, and Biden has said the federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding the bridge, which carried Interstate 695. Ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore remains suspended, but the Maryland Port Administration said in a statement Friday that trucks were still being processed at marine terminals. The loss of a road that carried 30,000 vehicles a day and the port disruption will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters, but also U.S. consumers, who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays. Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333, said the union was scrambling to help its roughly 2,400 members whose jobs are at risk of drying up. “If there’s no ships, there’s no work,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

washington — A new survey shows that nearly 70% of Muslims in the United States give zakat, or practice almsgiving, during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. The survey, conducted by the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at Indiana University, found that gender, age, race, income, marital status, religiosity and voter registration status were the factors that influenced Muslim Americans’ preferences for paying zakat during Ramadan. “The importance of Ramadan to Muslims has long been discussed,” said Shariq Siddiqui, the lead researcher of the study and director of the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at Indiana University. He told VOA in an email that the survey indicates the importance of Ramadan for U.S. Muslims “when it comes to their charitable giving.” While there is no specific requirement to pay zakat during Ramadan, many Muslims prefer to fulfill their obligation during the month as they believe that God will multiply the rewards for charity during the Muslim holy month of fasting. Muslims believe that God revealed the Quran to Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan. During the month, Muslims who have reached puberty and are physically capable fast from sunrise to sunset, which means abstaining from food and drink. The survey also indicated that more than 45% of U.S. Muslims were giving zakat during the time of Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Zakat is aimed at redistributing wealth and alleviating poverty within the Muslim community. It is calculated usually at 2.5% of a Muslim’s accumulated wealth annually, including savings, investments, gold, silver and other assets beyond one’s basic needs. According to the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, Muslims in the U.S. paid an estimated $1.8 billion in zakat in 2021. Nearly 3.5 million Muslims live in the U.S., which is 1.1% of the population in the nation. Siddiqui told VOA that Muslim Americans give an estimated $4.3 billion in charity, including zakat, every year, and 85% of the money stays in the U.S., of which 50% goes to Muslim-led organizations and about 40% to non-Muslim groups. He said, however, that the survey identifies some key demographics often overlooked by fundraisers. According to the survey, married Muslims and Muslim women are more likely to pay zakat during Ramadan. Muslims in their 30s and those with an annual income of $50,000 to $75,000 are leaning toward giving zakat during the month of fasting, the survey stated. Religiosity was another factor influencing their decision to give zakat during Ramadan. Those who identified themselves as more religious tended to fulfill their zakat obligations during the month of Ramadan. The survey also indicated that Muslim Americans who were registered to vote, compared to those who were not registered, were more likely to pay their zakat during the holy month. Sponsored by Islamic Relief USA, the survey was based on a nationally representative sample of 1,139 U.S.-based Muslim adults across the U.S. VOA’s Masood Farivar contributed to this story.

washington — Donald Trump on Friday asked a Georgia appeals court to disqualify the district attorney prosecuting him for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state for a romantic relationship the prosecutor had with a former top deputy.  The legal filing from the Republican presidential candidate and eight co-defendants asks the appeals court to reverse a judge's ruling this month that allowed Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, to continue prosecuting the case.   The appeal presents another opportunity for the former U.S. president to delay or derail one of the four criminal cases he faces.  Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee was sharply critical in his ruling of the relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer contracted to help lead the prosecution. But he rejected claims from the defense that the romance posed a conflict of interest that would require Willis' office to be removed from the case.  Wade stepped aside from the case after the judge said he would need to withdraw for Willis and her office to continue.  Trump defense attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement on Friday that McAfee should instead have dismissed the indictment outright and, "at a minimum," disqualified Willis and her office from prosecuting the case.  In a brief submitted to the court, Christopher Anulewicz, a lawyer representing co-defendant Robert Cheeley, argued that the failure to disqualify Willis and her office should be reversed because, if allowed to stand, "it would render each and every trial in this case a nullity."  The appeals court has 45 days to decide whether to take up the issue. McAfee gave Trump and the other defendants permission to immediately appeal his ruling but said he would continue moving the case toward trial during the appeal.  If the court accepts the case, Trump could seek to pause the proceedings while the appeal plays out. A trial date has not yet been set.  McAfee's ruling came after a tumultuous period for Willis, who was grilled by defense lawyers in dramatic testimony about whether she improperly benefited from the relationship through vacations booked by Wade while he was being paid by her office.  Trump's lawyers also accused Willis of "stoking racial animus" in her response to the allegations and misleading the court on when the romantic relationship began.  Willis denied receiving any improper benefit from the relationship, arguing that expenses were divided roughly evenly between her and Wade, and said the romance had no impact on the criminal case.  Willis has cast the disqualification bid as an effort to distract from racketeering and other charges against Trump and 14 co-defendants who are accused of scheming to overturn Trump's narrow defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election. Four others who had been co-defendants in the case have pleaded guilty in deals with the prosecutors.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Dakar, Senegal — Senegal's Constitutional Council on Friday confirmed anti-establishment candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye as president-elect, releasing final official results giving him a first-round victory of 54.28 percent in the March 24 vote.    The governing coalition's candidate, former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, finished with 35.79 percent, and the council other contenders had raised no objections.    Faye, 44, is due to be sworn in as Senegal's youngest president on Tuesday in the city of Diamniadio, according to the presidency.  The handover of power from outgoing leader Macky Sall is then scheduled at the presidential palace in the capital, Dakar.  Faye's victory is the first time a Senegalese opposition candidate has won the election in the first round since independence in 1960. 

New Delhi — India's navy said Friday it intercepted a fishing vessel in the Arabian Sea after a suspected hijacking, its latest anti-piracy operation after a spate of regional attacks on shipping.  Two Indian vessels had approached the Iranian-flagged FV Al Kamar 786 around 165 kilometers (103 miles) southwest of the Yemeni island of Socotra, not far from the eastern tip of Somalia.  An operation was "currently underway by the Indian Navy towards rescue of hijacked FV & its crew," the navy said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.  The statement added that nine armed pirates were believed to have taken over the vessel. It did not say how many crew members were aboard.  India's navy has been deployed continuously off Somalia since 2008.  It stepped up anti-piracy efforts last year following a surge in maritime assaults, including in the Arabian Sea and by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.  This month, the Indian navy rescued 19 crew members off the Maltese-flagged cargo ship MV Ruen, which had been hijacked by Somali pirates in December.   On Saturday, it brought 35 Somali nationals accused of the hijacking to Mumbai aboard the warship INS Kolkata, which had led the rescue operation, to face a piracy trial in an Indian court. 

baghdad, iraq — Iraq said Friday that a power line would soon bring electricity from Jordan to the border area as authorities aim to diversify energy sources to ease the country's chronic outages. With its generating capacity ravaged by decades of conflict and underinvestment, Iraq has long relied on imports of gas and electricity from neighboring Iran. The 340-kilometer (210-mile) power line from Jordan will officially start operating on Saturday, the Electricity Ministry said in a statement. In a first phase, it will provide 40 megawatts of power to the Al-Rutbah area near the border. Its capacity will then be boosted to 150 MW and finally 500 MW to cover "several large parts" of Anbar province, west of Baghdad. Despite its vast oil reserves, Iraq suffers rolling power cuts that can last up to 10 hours a day, forcing those households that can afford it to subscribe to neighborhood generators as a backup. Iraq's imports from Iran are carefully monitored by the United States to make sure they do not breach U.S. sanctions on Tehran, which regularly cuts supply to punish nonpayment. Power outages are particularly severe in the summer, when temperatures regularly hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) and demand for refrigeration and air conditioning surges. 

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MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors have asked the justice ministry to label Alla Pugacheva, the queen of Soviet pop music, as a "foreign agent," the state RIA news agency reported.  Pugacheva, 74, a Soviet and then post-Soviet icon, has criticized the war in Ukraine.  She is one of Russia's most famous people – known across generations for hits such as the 1982 song "Million Scarlet Roses" and the 1978 film "The Woman who Sings."  Pugacheva has in the past been feted by both President Vladimir Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. When Mikhail Gorbachev died in 2022, she praised the last Soviet leader for allowing freedom and rejecting violence.