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Right-wing allies of Benjamin Netanyahu have rejected a US-brokered ceasefire proposal to end the war in Gaza as “total surrender” to Hamas, threatening to bring down the Israeli government if it is enacted.

US President Joe Biden unveiled the contours of a deal on Friday in which the fighting would be halted and Israeli hostages held in Gaza released. The ultimate goal, Biden said, would be an end to the conflict.

After the end of the Sabbath on Saturday night, two senior far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition warned the long-serving premier against accepting the “reckless” deal and urged him to continue the war until the “complete elimination” of Hamas.

The proposal would be “a victory for terrorism and a security danger to the State of Israel,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

“Agreeing to such a deal is not total victory — but total defeat,” he added, threatening to “dissolve the government”.

Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister, said he would not be part of a government that agreed to “end the war without destroying Hamas and returning all the hostages”. He criticised proposals to withdraw the Israeli military from Gaza, release Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and return displaced Gazans to their homes in the north of the shattered enclave.

“We demand the continuation of the fighting until the destruction of Hamas and the return of all the hostages,” he said.

The US, along with Egypt and Qatar, issued a joint statement on Saturday calling on both Hamas and Israel to finalise the terms of the deal as Biden had outlined. All three states have for months attempted to broker an agreement that would halt the fighting in Gaza, but talks have stalled over fundamental gaps between the two warring parties — in particular over whether any ceasefire would be permanent.

In their statement, the three countries added that the proposal “will bring immediate relief both to the long-suffering people of Gaza as well as the long-suffering hostages and their families. This deal offers a road map for a permanent ceasefire and ending the crisis.”

According to Biden, the three-phase agreement would begin with a “full and complete ceasefire” over six weeks, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from “densely populated” areas of Gaza, and the return of some hostages, including Americans, alongside the release of some Palestinian prisoners.

A second phase would involve the release of all hostages and a “permanent cessation of hostilities” combined with a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

The third phase would relate to the “reconstruction” of Gaza, designed to lead to broader stabilisation in the Middle East.

Netanyahu’s office have issued two non-committal statements, saying that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

Netanyahu’s office added that it would “insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.”

Hamas said in a statement that it “positively views” Biden’s speech and that it was ready to deal “in a constructive manner with any proposal that is based on a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal [of Israeli forces] from the Gaza Strip, the reconstruction [of Gaza], and the return of displaced people to their homes, along with the completion of a genuine prisoner swap deal”, as long as Israel “clearly announces commitment to such a deal”.

With pressure mounting within Netanyahu’s own coalition and right-wing base against the ceasefire proposal, opposition leader Yair Lapid on Saturday again offered to provide a “safety net” to the ruling coalition in the event that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich pulled out their parties.

“The Israeli government cannot ignore President Biden’s significant speech. There is a deal on the table and it needs to be done,” Lapid wrote on X.

Tens of thousands of Israelis converged in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night in the weekly demonstration for the release of the Israeli hostages seized by Hamas during its October 7 attack that triggered the war. Some 125 are still being held, with about a third believed by Israeli officials to be dead.

“Yes to the Netanyahu Deal! Bring them home now!” they yelled.

A jury in Boise, Idaho, sentenced Chad Daybell to death on Saturday for the murders of his former wife and his second wife’s two youngest children.

As the judge handed down the death penalty, Daybell stayed still and showed no emotion.

The sentencing came two days after Daybell was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2019 death of his former wife, Tammy Daybell, 49. He was also found guilty of conspiracy charges in the deaths of his second wife, Lori Vallow Daybell’s two youngest children, Tylee Ryan and Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow.

Tylee was nearly 17 when she and JJ, 7, were last seen alive in September 2019 — the same month they had moved with their mother from Chandler, Ariz., to Rexburg, Idaho.

Prosecutors had said they were seeking the death penalty for Daybell if he was convicted. In such cases, the jury hears from the two sides about any aggravating and mitigating circumstances, before deciding whether a death sentence is appropriate.

Prosecutors said Daybell concocted wild, religion-tinged fantasies about people becoming zombies to justify grisly crimes — with the goal, they said, of starting a new life with his second wife, Vallow Daybell, after having an affair with her. They also accused Daybell of insurance fraud in his former wife’s death.

Prosecutor said texts show Tammy was “in the way”

Tammy Daybell, Chad’s then-wife, was found dead in her home in October 2019. The librarian and educator was 49. A coroner did not initially perform an autopsy, saying a heart attack was the apparent cause of death. But suspicions later led Tammy’s body to be exhumed, and the cause of death was changed to homicide: asphyxiation by suffocation.

In her closing argument this week, Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake said Chad Daybell influenced the coroner’s initial ruling by fabricating details about Tammy’s medical condition. It was all part of a plan, Blake said, for Chad to eliminate his wife so he could be with Lori Vallow. Months earlier, Vallow’s brother had shot and killed her husband, Charles.

“A little over 24 hours from reporting his wife’s death,” Blake said in her closing argument, “Chad messages Lori: ‘I know exactly how you feel. I’m feeling sad, but it isn’t for the reason everyone thinks!’”

At the time, Vallow was on a trip to Hawaii. Blake said Vallow had grown frustrated with Daybell, sending him a text saying they couldn’t be together until things changed.

“What needs to change?” the prosecutor asked the jurors. “Tammy’s in the way.”

Daybell responded to Vallow’s message, Blake added, by saying that being with Vallow was the only thing that mattered to him.

“Lori manipulates Chad with sex,” Blake said. “From the minute he met her, he wanted to be with her — and she knew it.”

Two children were found buried on Daybell’s property

Blake also described how Vallow began asking Daybell about possible plans involving Tylee and JJ.

“About a month after Charles’ passing, Lori’s asking Chad, ‘Do you think there is a perfectly orchestrated plan to take the children?’” Blake said, displaying an image of Vallow’s text message to Daybell in court.

“There is a plan being orchestrated for the children,” Daybell replied in the exchange of messages. “I was shown last night how it fit together again.”

The children’s bodies were found in June 2020 and buried on property in Rexburg owned by Daybell. Horrific and heart-wrenching photos from the scene were shown to the jury early in the trial.

“Tylee’s DNA was found on a pickax and a shovel that were in the defendant’s garage,” Blake told the jury as she reviewed the evidence in her closing argument on Wednesday.

Blake said Daybell used a numerical system to rate members of his and Vallow Daybell’s family, with higher numbers reserved for people whom he assessed as being overtaken by dark forces.

“Chad said if someone’s a zombie, the body has to die,” Blake told the jury.

Chad Daybell also was charged with two counts of insurance fraud. Prosecutors say he maxed out Tammy’s life insurance policy the month before she died, with himself as a beneficiary. Less than a month after Tammy’s death, he married Lori Vallow in Hawaii.

Couple was driven by odd beliefs, witnesses said

Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell were indicted together on the murder charges in May 2021; their cases were split at Daybell’s request.

Vallow Daybell was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison last year for the three deaths in Idaho.

Melanie Gibb, a confidante of Vallow Daybell’s, testified last year that she saw her friend become increasingly involved with Chad Daybell, with the pair telling her that they had been married in a previous life. They spoke of being joined for eternity and leading 144,000 people in the end times, as described in the Book of Revelation, Gibb said.

Gibb said the couple also shared beliefs about people being overtaken by dark, evil energy. The criminal indictment cites text messages between the pair “regarding death percentages for Tammy” Daybell, as well as messages about her being in limbo, and Tammy “being possessed by a spirit named Viola.”

In addition to the charges in Idaho, Vallow Daybell has been extradited to Arizona to face chargesrelated to her former husband’s death in July 2019 and an attempt on the life of her niece’s ex-husband.

NPR’s Juliana Kim contributed reporting.

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Narendra Modi is poised to return for a third five-year term as India’s prime minister, according to four exit polls published on Saturday that projected a clear victory for his Bharatiya Janata party and its smaller allies.

Polls conducted by four Indian TV stations and agencies all showed the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance winning a comfortable majority of between 353 and 392 seats in India’s 543-seat Lok Sabha, or lower house.

That leaves Modi with a strong mandate to form the next government, taking him into a second decade as prime minister.

In India’s last election in 2019 the NDA won 352 lower house seats. The Election Commission of India is due to report official results on 4 June.

The exit polls were released after a final round of voting in the marathon election ended on Saturday afternoon and a ban on the publication of opinion polls, imposed when voting in the seven-phase election started on 19 April, was lifted.

The election was held in stages because of the logistical challenges of casting and counting ballots and securing polling stations in a country with diverse geographies and nearly 1bn registered voters.

The results give the first indications of the shape of India’s next parliament after an election that many saw as a referendum on Modi’s decade in power. 

If the polls’ predictions are confirmed on Tuesday when official results are reported, the victory will bolster Modi’s image as one of the world’s strongest leaders at the helm of a fast-growing economy, at a time when its geopolitical clout is growing.

Exit polls have in the past had a mixed record on predicting India’s elections, but in recent years proved to be a more reliable indicator of voters’ decisions. In 2014 and 2019 the exit polls correctly forecast victories for the BJP-led NDA, but were numerically inaccurate, projecting fewer seats than Modi’s bloc actually won. 

“I think this is exactly how things will pan out and we will see a resounding victory for Modi, for the BJP a third consecutive time around without any difficulty,” Shazia Ilmi, a national spokesperson for the BJP, told the Financial Times.

India’s 73-year-old leader campaigned on the slogan of “Modi’s guarantee”, a reference to government welfare programmes that benefit hundreds of millions of Indians, and his record on reducing poverty and developing the world’s fifth-biggest economy. India’s GDP grew at a better than expected rate of 7.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the three months to March, and its economy has been one of the world’s fastest-growing since the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the campaign the opposition INDIA alliance sought to attack the BJP on its economic record, including persistently high unemployment, and accused it of seeking to cripple the opposition by jailing two state leaders and freezing some Congress bank accounts on the eve of the election. 

Hours before the exit poll results were published, senior members of the opposition alliance, including Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, claimed that the opposition were themselves set to win. 

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that the INDIA alliance would get “at least 295+ seats” — winning the election. Kharge claimed the exit poll surveys were “government surveys because they have the means to manipulate data”. 

Madhavi Arora, lead economist at Emkay Global Financial Services in Mumbai, said in a note that the results “suggest a solid win for the NDA”, with “better traction for the BJP” in states like Maharashtra and southern India where opposition parties are strong. 

“While [the] final outcome may diverge from exit polls, a political continuity is likely to be good for risk assets in the immediate run and macro stability for the medium term,” she wrote.

This is a developing story . . .