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• Obama and Netanyahu meeting this afternoon • 20 killed in widespread demonstrations in Syria • Yemen’s Saleh promises early elections • Libya’s ambassador to Germany on verge of resigning •  Read a summary of today’s events 4.28pm BST / 11.28am ET: Currently, Barack Obama, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are holding a closed-door meeting in the White House. Shortly after noon local time, the two leaders will make joint statements in the Oval Office, with a few journalists present but it appears no questions. Then at 12.30pm ET, the two leaders will be joined by secretary of state Hillary Clinton to hold a private “working lunch” in the White House’s Old Family Dining Room, which is in fact just a dining room and not a branch of a Midwest grilled meat franchise. 4.16pm: The White House meeting between Barack Obama and Binjamin Netanyahu is due to start shortly. 4.09pm: New video from Hama, Syria , appear to confirm that earlier eyewitness report ( 1.19pm ) that teargas was fired at protesters. _ 4.06pm: New video from Homs, Syria , seems to show clashes between the security forces and protesters. Gunshots can be heard and protesters appear to be throwing stones at the security forces. A witness in Hama ( see 1.19pm ) reported seeing protesters throwing stones at the police. _ 3.58pm: Here’s a summary of today’s events : • More than 20 people are reported to have been killed in the largest and most widespread demonstrations in Syria since protesters took to the streets 10 weeks ago. Most of the casualties took place in Homs but there are reports of violence across Syria . • Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh has promised early elections in what is being seen as another stalling tactic. Hundreds of the thousands of people have again taken part in anti-government protest in the capital Sana’a and the southern city of Taiz. There was also a significant pro-Saleh rally. • Libya’s ambassador to Germany appears to be on the verge of defecting after condemning the regime of Muammar Gaddafi . Nato launched its first attack on Gaddafi’s navy in a continuing escalation of its aerial bombardment. • The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Barack Obama’s endorsement of 1967 borders. He said they were “indefensible”, while presidential hopeful Mitt Romney accused Obama of throwing Israel under a bus. Netanyahu is in Washington for talks with Obama . • The British-based photographer Anton Hammerl has been killed in the Libyan desert. His family called the Libyan regime as “cruel” for withholding news of his death . 3.49pm: Nidaa Hassan, a pseudonym for a journalist in Syria, writes: Homs has seen protests in several neighbourhoods, unable to gather together into one big demonstration due to roadblocks around the city. The neighbourhood worst affected today – which has been manned by checkpoints for days – is Bab Spaa, where at least 3 have been shot dead. Bab Dreeb and Baba Amr have also seen protests. All are predominantly Sunni neighbourhoods in a mixed city of Muslims, Christians and Alawis. Protesters in Homs say there have been joined by Christians and given water when marching through Christian areas of the city. Some Alawis are helping behind closed doors, afraid to be seen on the street, says one young protester who helps organise protests in Baba Amr. The streets of the city have been reasonably clear of security and army presence this week. Evidence of trouble can be seen in sandbags stacked up on certain corners and tank marks on the roads of Baba Amr. Outside the city however, tanks remain. Protesters here, as elsewhere, are predominantly men angered by the lack of jobs and increasingly infringement on their lives of the security services. Locals have rallied together to help – setting up hospitals in mosques and later – the mosque hospitals have been destroyed when found by army and security – in local houses, moving each week to evade being found. Doctors say they can only provide emergency care, however, and that some protesters have died due to their not being able to receive medical care in hospitals surrounded by security forces. Homs’ protesters have retained a sense of fun to evade security forces. In Bab Sbaa today one resident said protesters pulled down the metal roll-blinds of shops to make security forces think they were shooting back. Rollblinds make a noise similar to gunfire. 3.44pm: Today Syria witnessed the largest demonstrations, but also one of the most violent crackdowns, since protesters first took to the streets, according Damascus-based human rights lawyer Razan Zeitouneh . She said: Even in Banias, which is under siege, there was a protest … In the suburbs of Damascus, thousands and thousands took to the streets. Every Friday we see more cites and more areas joining the protest … People [have] broken the wall of fear and they continuing no matter how [much] it costs.” She said there were reports that more than 20 people had been killed. She has the names of 12 people who were killed. Most of the casualties were in Homs, but Deraa, Deraya and Idlib also saw casualties. “This week is more violent than last week,” she said. There are further unconfirmed reports of another 10 dead. They have a strategy to crackdown on protests. They have no language but violence. (Apologies for the quality of the recording and the pause in the middle.) _ 3.00pm: There is very noticeable difference in the scale of the demonstrations in Yemen and Syria . The protests in Syria have been larger than usual but at most only tens of thousands have taken part in individual demos. In Yemen hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets. Here was the scene in the southern city of Taiz today: _ 2.50pm: Nidaa Hassan, a pseudonym for a journalist in Syria , writes that according to a local doctor there are three dead in the Bab Spaa area of Homs, including a seven-year-old child. 2.19pm: Libya ‘s ambassador to Germany appears to be on the verge of defecting after condemning the regime of Muammar Gaddafi . In an interview with the Germany’s Spiegel Online, Jamal El-Baraq said: It will collapse. The regime is fighting against its own people. It fires on defenceless people with heavy artillery. I come from Misrata – my whole family comes from there. Every day, acquaintances and friends of ours are being killed there. A school friend of my son Rawad has just died… I will no longer accept what this regime is doing. I hate what the regime is doing. A government has to protect its people, not kill them. He says he is staying in post to help Libyans in Germany. I have not done any more political work. I only come into the office occasionally. But we have over 700 Libyan students in Germany. I make sure that they get their €1,800 allowance each month and that their health insurance and tuition fees are paid. 1.54pm: There are varying accounts of the number of deaths in Homs, Syria . An eyewitness told the Guardian that seven people had been killed, but an opposition group told AP that three had been killed in the city. The latest videos to emerge show protests taking place across the country. I’ve uploaded a selection to an update Google Map. _ 1.51pm: Yemen’s President Saleh continues to wriggle. His latest ploy was to promise early elections, according to Reuters. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on Friday for early elections in an apparent bid to stave off Gulf and Western pressure to leave office, as thousands rallied for and against his three-decade rule. Saleh has twice backed out of a Gulf Arab-brokered transition deal, most recently last Wednesday, despite diplomatic wrangling by US, Gulf and European officials. Saleh in March called for a presidential election by the end of this year, but in his Friday speech he did not give any time frame or details on a plan for an election, leaving some sceptical it may be a tactic to buy time. “We call for an early presidential election to prevent bloodshed, to protect our family dignity and for a smooth democratic path,” he told a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of supporters waving his picture and Yemeni flags. Security analyst Theodore Karasik, of the Dubai-based INEGMA group, said: “I think it is a ploy to further delay the inevitable, to make it look like he is trying to leave power, but I don’t think that is his full intention”. 1.44pm: In a phone call a few moments ago (see 1.19pm) a witness claimed 20,000 people took part in demonstrations in Hama, Syria . This video from the city appears to tally with that estimate. _ 1.37pm: The security forces used water cannon against a demonstration in Banias, Syria , according to this video. The protest continued. _ 1.28pm: An eyewitness in Homs, Syria , just told me by phone that seven people were killed when the security forces opened fire on protesters. One of the latest videos from the city shows a demonstration broken up by gunfire. A burning emergency vehicle can also be seen in the clip. _ 1.19pm: An eyewitness to the protests in Hama, Syria , says the security forces fired first teargas and then live ammunition at thousands of protesters. “They started shooting live fire on people, two minutes ago,” he said in an Audioboo interview. He also claimed some of the protesters threw stones at the security forces. There were three or four demonstrations in different parts of the city, he said. Two of the demonstrations included 10,000 people each, he said. _ 1.09pm: Ian Black , the Guardian’s Middle East editor, has sent this analysis of Obama’s speech: The key phrase in Obama’s 5,400-word address on Thursday was: “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states.” But American presidents from Bill Clinton onwards have used identical language. It was the basis for talks between Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000. It also formed the basis for George W Bush’s talks with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. Binyamin Netanyahu’s outraged rejection of Obama’s words thus appeared both tactical and synthetic. The accompanying notion of “mutually agreed swaps” allows in principle for Israel to retain settlement blocs it has built illegally in the West Bank and around East Jerusalem. The Palestine Papers showed just how far PLO negotiators were prepared to go in 2008 in accepting those “facts on the ground.” The row reflects Netanyahu’s dislike of Obama as well as mounting alarm that Israel’s diplomatic position is being eroded by a combination of international impatience and the changes of the “Arab spring” — especially in an Egypt now pursuing a less pro-American foreign policy. Netanyahu’s anger would have been genuine had Obama insisted simply on a return to the 1967 borders: that would have been a major shift in US policy. On the Israeli right, the 1967 lines are sometimes described emotively as “Auschwitz borders” — implying that they are so difficult to defend that they risk a second Holocaust. Those borders — more precisely ceasefire lines — were where the fighting stopped at the end of the 1948 war which accompanied Israel’s independence and the defeat and flight the Palestinians call their “nakba” or “catastrophe.” UN resolution 242 of 1967 calls for the withdrawal of Israel armed forces “from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The absence of a definite article has sometimes been interpreted as suggesting that Israel could keep some of those territories. But another the key element — also carefully referenced by Obama — is “secure and recognised borders” for both Israel and a Palestinian state. Close reading of Obama’s speech reveals pro-Israeli positions on two crucial points: he rejected the Palestinian initiative to win recognition at the UN general assembly this September. He also called on the Islamist movement Hamas to recognize Israel after reaching its reconciliation agreement with Fatah. “Netanyahu could not have asked for more,” was the conclusion of Aluf Benn in Haaretz, one of Israel’s most astute political commentators. 1.05pm: My colleagues on the video desk have sent this video of Israeli and Palestinian reaction to Obama’s speech. _ 12.55pm: I have just been speaking to Victor Kattan of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London about the US’s attitude to Mahmoud Abbas’s plan to ask the UN to recognise Palestine . Kattan says that you have to separate the two issues Abbas is putting forward: recognition of Palestine would require a vote of the UN general assembly (which would probably pass), but membership of the UN for Palestine requires agreement from the UN security council, each of whose five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – has a veto. “If Obama decides for whatever reason he does not want Palestine to be a UN member, yes, he can stop that process,” Kattan says. He says the US would probably not attempt to block a UN resolution recognising Palestine – after all, this has been official US policy since George Bush’s presidency, and in his speech yesterday Obama reiterated that “a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples”. And he feels that Obama might not even block Palestine’s admission to the UN. “It would be odd if after coming out and saying they support a Palestinian state they refuse to admit it to the UN,” he says. You can listen to our conversation here . _ 12.12pm: There is a bigger momentum to the protests in Syria today, according to Wissam Tarif of the human rights group Insan. “Hopefully the regime will respond with less brutality,” he said in a Skype interview . Tarif said he was disappointment that Barack Obama did not do more to condemn Bashar al-Assad’s regime. I wonder how can President Assad lead reform. We have had 11 years of promises but no delivery. In the last two month this man has proved to be a brutal dictator, when 920 people have been killed … The killing is still happening. _ 11.59am: There are numerous reports and videos of post-Friday prayer protests across Syria today. Here’s a Google Map showing the latest videos purporting to show demonstrations today. The blue placemarks show protests; the orange police icon shows activity by the security forces. We will try to update the map as more videos come in. _ 11.56am: Barack Obama’s speech contained mixed messages for the Palestinians . On the one hand, the US president stated that a future Palestinian state should be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But on the other he dismissed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to seek de facto independence at the UN in September as merely a “symbolic” move. As Abbas (above) explained in a New York Times article earlier this week , in September the Palestinians will ask the UN general assembly for international recognition of the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders and for Palestine to be admitted to the UN as a full member. “The admission of Palestine as a member of the United Nations has become an inevitable reality in September next,” Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi said last month . The UN has declared that the Palestinian Authority is capable of functioning as an independent state and is only being held back by Israeli occupation. The World Bank and IMF agree. And, despite what Obama said yesterday, the US would only have a veto over this proposal if it goes through the security council, rather than the general assembly. Ian Black, the Guardian’s Middle East editor, says that if the Palestinians pursue the move through the UN general assembly it is very likely to pass. Decisions are made by a majority of the 192 members. Only the US, Israel “and AN Other” are likely to reject the motion, Ian says. He also points out that it was the UN general assembly that voted for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish areas in November 1947 ; a move by the same body recognising Palestine would thus carry considerable historical and geo-political weight. ( This New York Times article seems to suggest that Obama could veto the vote in the security council, however.) Abbas believes “Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalisation of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.” The Palestinian president says that “we have met all prerequisites to statehood listed in the Montevideo Convention, the 1933 treaty that sets out the rights and duties of states”: The permanent population of our land is the Palestinian people, whose right to self-determination has been repeatedly recognised by the United Nations, and by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Our territory is recognized as the lands framed by the 1967 border, though it is occupied by Israel. We have the capacity to enter into relations with other states and have embassies and missions in more than 100 countries. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union have indicated that our institutions are developed to the level where we are now prepared for statehood. Obama and Netanyahu are meeting this afternoon at about 4pm British time. We’ll be covering the meeting here on the live blog. 11.25am: Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem sends some details of Israeli press reaction to the US president’s speech last night: “Obama’s speech comes as a major blow to his [Binyamin Netanyahu's] policy,” wrote Nahum Barnea, a columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper. “First because of his explicit determination that the future border will be based on the 1967 borders. Netanyahu knows that if an agreement is ever signed, these will in fact be the borders – but he believed, and still believes, that ambiguity on this issue served him best.” Ben Caspit, a Ma’ariv columnist, wrote: “[Netanyahu] has heard, for the first time in history, an American president explicitly mention the 1967 borders as the basis for an arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians … This president, who now looks like a strong president, has crushed Netanyahu’s worldview, according to which there is no partner … [Obama] looks straight at Israel, looks it right in the eye, and tells it the truth to its face: the US is forever committed to the security and prosperity of the state of Israel, but the US is not interested in continuing to lie to Israel and to itself. Everyone knows what the solution is, everyone is familiar with the formula, here it is before us. Let Israel kindly sign here, here and here, and start implementing.” An analysis by Simon Shiffer, also in Yedioth, said: “No amount of whitewashing can succeed in changing the bitter taste of the pill served by Obama to the Israeli prime minister … Obama is the first American president who has defined in such a clear and geographic manner the outline of the arrangement that is supposed to end the conflict, in his opinion.” 11.05am: The UN’s refugee agency says more than 4,000 people have fled Syria to neighbouring countries to flee the government crackdown against protests, the Associated Press news agency reports. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says some 1,400 mostly women and children have arrived in Lebanon in the past week alone. Andrej Mahecic told reporters in Geneva on Friday that many of those who fled said they escaped heavy military bombardment of the Syrian town of Talkalakh. He says a separate group of about 270 people fled to Turkey three weeks ago. 10.47am: Here is an Associated Press report on the fate of missing South African photographer Anton Hammerl (left), whose family believe he was killed in the Libyan desert by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. He suffered a wound to his stomach in April after coming under attack with other journalists. “We believe that his injuries are such that he would not have survived without immediate medical attention,” [family spokeswoman Bronwyn] Friedlander said. “It is incredibly cruel that they [the Libyans] have been telling us that they had him.” 10.42am: The RAF took part in last night’s raids on Gaddafi’s ships, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. Chief of the Defence Staff Strategic Communication Officer Major General John Lorimer said RAF jets hit boats used to shell and mine the rebels’ western stronghold of Misrata. He said: The RAF attack was mounted against the naval base at Al Khums, the nearest concentration of regime warships to the port of Misrata which Colonel Gaddafi has repeatedly attempted to close to humanitarian shipping. As well as hitting two corvettes in the harbour, the Royal Air Force Tornadoes successfully targeted a facility in the dockyard constructing fast inflatable boats, which Libyan forces have used several times in their efforts to mine Misrata and attack vessels in the area. 10.33am: A Syrian opposition group has predicted large post-prayer protests throughout Syria today as it coordinates with Kurdish groups on Azadi (Freedom) Friday. The group said it would only participate in dialogue with the regime if it put a stop to violence. Today, it became clear to anyone that the security and military approach, which the Syrian regime has used since day one of our revolution, has failed and had serious consequences on Syria as a country, and on the regime itself too. Thus, the minister of media and information has announced a comprehensive national dialogue in all the provinces … We at the local coordinating committees, while emphasising the importance of ending the military and intelligence solution and immediately transitioning to the political process, we declare the following: peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience in all provinces shall continue until all our demands in our initial statements have been fulfilled. The group also set out its expectations for today: • Expecting larger protests in every single city and town throughout Syria. • Azadi Friday [Azadi is the Kurdish word for freedom] is expected to have large turnout in the predominately Kurdish areas around Al Qamishli, in north-eastern Syria. • Day of protest: today is the 70th day of demonstration in our beloved Syria. • Since the beginning of our revolution, we were protesting in a peaceful way and will keep it like that until the end. 10.23am: Martin Chulov in Tripoli, Libya , witnessed the aftermath of Nato’s first air strikes against Gaddafi’s ships in the port overnight. The stern of the ship, what looked like a small frigate, was ablaze after at least one missile struck it around 11pm. There were three strikes in total last night on targets in the capital. They came as the government was delivering its response to Barack Obama’s address on the Middle East. In a word, the Libyans were “underwhelmed”. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the speech had come on the same day as a renewed initiative by the African Union, which called for an immediate ceasefire monitored by international observers and a gradual transition to democratic choices. Of the US and European backing for the Nato strikes, he said: “Media information is not valid legally. This is no legal basis for action. It is not Obama who decides whether Muammar Gaddafi remains leader or not. It is the Libyan people who decide this.” 10.10am: Patience is running out with Yemen ‘s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh (left), Tom Finn reports from the Yemeni capital Sana’a, where more vast protests are expected today . Saleh continues to prevaricate on whether he will sign a Gulf council deal to stand down with immunity from prosecution. One of the hitches is that he wants opposition leaders to sign up to the deal, Tom reports. This is maybe his last chance. People have become so disillusioned with these negotiations. If he isn’t willing to put his name on paper on Sunday we could see a serious escalation of protests … It has reached the stage of complete disillusionment. Meanwhile thousands of people have gathered in Sana’a for more protests today. We are witnessing an escalation of protests now in Yemen. The country is slowly coming to a standstill. It is a question of when rather than if now. We are expecting even bigger scenes [today]. I’ve just been down to the edge of Old Sana’a. There are literally thousands of people making their way to the university. The traffic has come to a standstill. _ 9.34am: Muammar Gaddafi has popped up on Libyan state TV again, ITN reports. It also quotes a government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim denouncing Obama’s speech: It is not Obama who decides whether Muammar Gaddafi leaves Libya or not… Obama is still delusional. He believes the lies that his own government and media spread around the world … It’s not Obama who decides whether Muammar Gaddafi leaves Libya or not. It’s the Libyan people. _ 8.19am: Welcome to Middle East Live on what looks set to be another busy Friday. There’s been a mixed reaction to Barack Obama’s Middle East speech . On the surface it sounded radical. If you take out the two neutral words “people” and “region”, the two most prevalent words in it were “must” and “change” . _ But the substance of the speech was more cautious than it sounded. The Guardian’s Middle East editor Ian Black was struck by Obama’s failure to mention Saudi Arabia The complete omission of Saudi Arabia was a glaring oversight … Strikingly, Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive countries in the Arab world and a key US ally and oil supplier, got not a single mention in the 5,400-word speech. And on Israel-Palestine, Obama said nothing new, Ian writes: Nor did Obama offer any really new ideas on the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, reiterating the “unshakeable” US commitment to Israel’s security. Support for the 1967 border has long been the basis for any workable settlement, even if mention of it annoys Israeli rightwingers. It was clearly intended as a sharp reminder to Binyamin Netanyahu of where the parameters lie. But he did clearly oppose the “symbolic” recognition by the UN of an independent Palestinian state in September, an idea for which momentum has been growing internationally in the absence of any peace negotiations … Netanyahu will be pleased at Obama’s exclusion of the Palestinian movement Hamas as a negotiating partner. Overall, though, the US president did not go beyond what he said on the conflict in his big Cairo speech in June 2009. But he was right to repeat the now-familiar mantra: “The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.” Nevertheless US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney accused Obama of throwing “Israel under the bus” . On Syria, US politicians said Obama should have called for Bashar al-Assad, the president, to go now. His 2008 Republican rival John McCain said: “I would have liked for him to say [Assad] should step down,” according to Politico. And Mark Kirk, the Republican who holds Obama’s former Senate seat, said: “He should have been harder. He should have called on [Assad] to step down.” Here’s a round up of the latest Middle East news: • Nato planes have hit eight Gaddafi warships. “Given the escalating use of naval assets, Nato had no choice but to take decisive action to protect the civilian population of Libya and Nato forces at sea,” said Rear-Admiral Russell Harding, Nato’s deputy commander of the mission. • South African photographer Anton Hammerl was killed in the Libyan desert in April, his family said today. “It is intolerably cruel that Gaddafi loyalists have known Anton’s fate all along and chose to cover it up,” his family said in a statement on Facebook. • The Syrian government claims it is withdrawing forces from the besieged border town of Talkalakh. Opposition groups say at least 35 people have been killed in the town in the last four days . • David Cameron provoked a storm of protest after he welcomed the crown prince of Bahrain to Britain in a high-profile photo call on the steps of 10 Downing Street. Denis MacShane, Labour’s former Europe minister, criticised the prime minister for “rolling out the red carpet”. • Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh has said he will now sign a Gulf council deal for him to step down. Yemen’s opposition rejected Saleh’s promise, accusing the embattled leader of stalling. Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Syria Bashar Al-Assad Libya Muammar Gaddafi Bahrain Egypt Yemen Nato Matthew Weaver Paul Owen guardian.co.uk