Here is a look at situation seperate from the release of the two American hostages……
With shipments of humanitarian aid currently stalled on Gaza’s southern border, President Biden said Friday that truckloads of much needed essentials could begin to move into the blockaded enclave from Egypt as soon as this weekend. “I believe in the next 24 to 48 hours, the first 20 trucks will come across the border,” he said.
Essential supplies like food and fuel are running out ahead of an anticipated ground invasion, and the health care situation has grown increasingly dire. Over 60 percent of primary health care centers have been shut down, and hospitals were running out of power, medicines, equipment and staff, the United Nations said in a report.
Here are other developments:
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In Washington, the Biden administration tied its request for aid for Israel to Ukraine, formally asking Congress for $105 billion in emergency funding that would include $10.6 billion in military support for Israel and $61.4 billion for Ukraine. The request also included about $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Israel, Gaza and Ukraine.
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Israeli authorities began to evacuate the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, the military and the city’s municipality said, as cross-border fire continued between Israeli forces and armed groups in Lebanon.
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Deadly violence is surging across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where 13 Palestinians and one Israeli officer were killed in clashes on Thursday, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.
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The Israeli military continued to prepare for an expected ground assault into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, with scores of troops gathered in staging areas near the border of the enclave, although the timing of the next phase of the operation remained in doubt. “The order will come,” Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, told infantry soldiers in a video distributed by his office…..