Congress has a new spending deal; Lloyd Austin is in the hospital
The Up First newsletter: Breaking a shutdown and preserving a war between Israel and Hezbollah with the armed forces
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Congressional leaders reached an agreement yesterday that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year and avoid a government shutdown. The text must now be finalized, and Congress must pass the bills before the Jan. 19 deadline. The defense figure is $886 billion and the non-defense spending is $704 billion.
At the same time, Blinken is trying to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s deputy leader was killed in a presumed Israeli strike last week.
Art after the First Pandemic: Six Artists’ Stories of How Israel and Palestine Perished in the Afterglow of the Alaska Airlines Flight
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to inform the president and the White House of his recent hospitalization for a bad reaction to a surgery. Austin remains at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The Federal Aviation Committee ordered the grounding and immediate inspection of about 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes this weekend after an Alaska Airlines aircraft suffered a mid-flight emergency. A door plug blew out on the plane, leaving a hole next to two empty seats.
Respiratory illnesses have increased after Christmas, though levels are far below where they were before the Pandemic. People wonder how they were able to avoid infections while in close contact with roommates and family. Here is the science behind the spread.
Art plays a big role in Israel and the Palestinian community. Many artists have been faced with heavy emotions through their craft in the aftermath of the attacks. Six Israeli and Palestinian artists share stories of fear, anger, sadness and pain with NPR as they reflect on how the war in Gaza has affected their lives. Take a look at the photos of what they’ve been working on.
Israeli Prime Minister Tony Blinken looks to plan for a post-war Gaza as bombardments rage on: Israel, Israel, and Hezbollah
Blinken did not offer specifics on potential contributions. Financial and in-kind support from the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be essential to the success of any plan.
The four Arab countries and Turkey promised to help rebuild Gaza after the war, according to Tony Blinken. But those nations also want to see an end to the fighting in Gaza and concrete steps toward the eventual creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, something Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed not to allow.
The Secretary of State was going to be in Tel Aviv to discuss the future of Gaza with Israeli leaders. Aid groups were hampered by heavy bombardment and fighting that shook refugee camps, forcing Palestinians to find safety and complicating efforts to get relief to the population.
Tuesday morning, an Israeli drone hit a car in southern Lebanon, killing three people inside, security officials in the area and the state news agency said. There was no immediate word on the identities of the three.
Hezbollah said its drone strike on the base in northern Israel on Tuesday was further retaliation for the killing of Arouri and of a senior Hezbollah commander in an Israeli bombing Monday.
As Blinken arrived in Israel, exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah continued their spiral since last week’s killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh Arouri in Beirut.
The conflict in Gaza: State of the affairs after the 1948–-1945 Israeli-Israeli War and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority
The World Health Organization has been unable to deliver supplies to the north for two weeks. Plans for the delivery of medical supplies and fuel for water and sanitary facilities were rejected by the military.
In October, Israeli forces cut off the northern part of Gaza and the situation is worse there. Many people who remain there face shortages of food and water.
The fighting was making it hard for aid to reach the people in need. The military has evacuated several warehouses, distribution centers, health facilities and shelters. Some bakeries in the central city of Deir al-Balah have been forced to shut down. A staffer of the U.N. was killed and five other staffers were jailed by the military after the warehouse was hit.
The sound of gunfire was background as families in Nuseirat fled to other parts of the camp. Some people tried to head south on the Gaza’s main north-south road but were turned back by Israeli tanks, he said. In leaflets, the military had told people evacuating to use another road, along the coast.
It was built to house Palestinians who were evicted from their homes in the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948, but since then it has become a densely populated town with refugees and their descendants living there.
Since the war began, Israel’s assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,200 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, and more than 58,000 have been wounded, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The death toll doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Almost all of the population of Gaza has been forced from their homes by fighting, and a small group of residents are facing a lack of food, water, and medicine because of an Israeli siege.
Large swaths of the cityscape in northern Gaza have been demolished by the Israeli military. There are pockets of militant that Israel says are there. The southern city of Khan Younis is where ground troops have been fighting for weeks and there are urban refugee camps in central Gaza.
The US and Israel are deeply divided over what to do with Gaza after Hamas is defeated. The Palestinian Authority has been told by American officials to take control of the Gaza Strip. Israeli leaders haven’t put forward a concrete plan beyond open-ended military control over the territory.
