New York City police said on Saturday they had taken into custody more than two dozen people in connection with Friday’s pro-Hamas protests at the Brooklyn Museum.

Six of the 29 individuals were arrested and charged with offenses including assault and criminal trespassing, while 16 people were released with orders to appear in court and another seven were issued summonses and released, a New York City Police Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

On Friday, anti-Israel protesters took over parts of the art museum in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, hanging a banner above the main entrance, occupying much of the lobby and scuffling with police, according to witnesses.

The museum said it closed an hour early because of the disruption, including skirmishes between police and protesters that took place inside and outside the building.

“There was damage to existing and newly installed artwork on our plaza,” a museum spokesperson said in an email. “Protesters entered the building, and our public safety staff were physically and verbally harassed.”

Hundreds of demonstrators were marching through Brooklyn when some of them rushed the entrance, according to a Reuters witness. Security guards prevented many from entering but some managed to get inside.

A banner was hung from atop the neoclassical facade proclaiming, “Free Palestine, Divest From Genocide.”

An anti-Israel organization named “Within Our Lifetime” urged demonstrators to “flood Brooklyn Museum for Gaza.” It said activists occupied the museum to compel it to disclose any Israel-related investments and to divest any such funding.

Demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza have continued in the United States, largely on university campuses.

On Saturday, hundreds of students and faculty walked out of the University of Chicago’s graduation ceremony, the Chicago Tribune reported.

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An aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israel had accepted a framework deal for winding down the Gaza war now being advanced by U.S. President Joe Biden, though he described it as flawed and in need of much more work.

In an interview with Britain’s Sunday Times, Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu, said Biden’s proposal was “a deal we agreed to — it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them.”

“There are a lot of details to be worked out,” he said, adding that Israeli conditions, including “the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas as a genocidal terrorist organization” have not changed.

Biden, whose initial lockstep support for Israel’s offensive has given way to open censure of the operation’s high civilian death toll, on Friday aired what he described as a three-phase plan submitted by the Netanyahu government to end the war.

The first phase entails a truce and the return of some hostages held by Hamas, after which the sides would negotiate on an open-ended cessation of hostilities for a second phase in which remaining live captives would go free, Biden said.

That sequencing appears to imply that Hamas would continue to play a role in incremental arrangements mediated by Egypt and Qatar – a potential clash with Israel’s determination to resume the campaign to eliminate the Iranian-backed Islamist group.

Biden has hailed several ceasefire proposals over the past several months, each with similar frameworks to the one he outlined on Friday, all of which collapsed. In February he said Israel had agreed to halt fighting by Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that began on March 10. No such truce materialized.

The primary sticking point has been Israel’s insistence that it would discuss only temporary pauses to fighting until Hamas is destroyed. Hamas, which shows no sign of stepping aside, says it will free hostages only under a path to a permanent end to the war.

In his speech, Biden said his latest proposal “creates a better ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power.” He did not elaborate on how this would be achieved, and acknowledged that “there are a number of details to negotiate to move from phase one to phase two.”

Falk reiterated Netanyahu’s position that “there will not be a permanent ceasefire until all our objectives are met.”

Netanyahu is under pressure to keep his coalition government intact. Two far-right partners have threatened to bolt in protest at any deal they deem to spare Hamas. A centrist partner, ex-general Benny Gantz, wants the deal considered.

Hamas has provisionally welcomed the Biden initiative.

“Biden’s speech included positive ideas, but we want this to materialize within the framework of a comprehensive agreement that meets our demands,” senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera on Saturday.

Hamas wants a guaranteed end to the Gaza offensive, withdrawal of all invading forces, free movement for Palestinians and reconstruction aid.

Israeli officials have rejected that as an effective return to the situation in place before Oct. 7, when Hamas, committed to Israel’s destruction, ruled Gaza. Its fighters precipitated the war by storming across the border fence into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

The post Netanyahu Aide: Biden’s Gaza Plan ‘Not a Good Deal’ But Israel Accepts It first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Iran’s hardline former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run for president in the country’s June 28 election, organized after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran’s state television reported on Sunday.

However he could be barred from the race: the country’s cleric-led Guardian Council will vet candidates, and publish the list of qualified ones on June 11.

Ahmadinejad, a former member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, was first elected as Iran’s president in 2005 and stepped down because of term limits in 2013.

He was barred from standing in the 2017 election by the Guardian Council, a year after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned him that entering was “not in his interest and that of the country.”

A rift developed between the two after Ahmadinejad explicitly advocated checks on Khamenei’s ultimate authority.

In 2018, in rare criticism directed at Khamenei, Ahmadinejad wrote to him calling for “free” elections.

Khamenei had backed Ahmadinejad after his 2009 re-election triggered protests in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds arrested, rattling the ruling theocracy, before security forces led by the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) stamped out the unrest.

The post Iran’s Ex-President Ahmadinejad to Run in Presidential Election first appeared on Algemeiner.com.