Blinken to visit Middle East in effort to rally support for cease-fire
CBSN
Tel Aviv — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make another trip to the Middle East next week as the U.S. attempts to ramp up support for a cease-fire proposal in the Israel-Hamas war announced last week by President Biden.
Blinken will make stops in Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar, the White House said, where he "will discuss with partners the need to reach a cease-fire agreement that secures the release of all hostages."
The announcement comes just one day after international scrutiny over an Israeli airstrike on a school in the central Gaza refugee camp of Nuseirat, where thousands of Palestinian civilians had been sheltering. Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, said at least 35 people were killed in the strike.
Zhytomyr, Ukraine — Exactly 1,000 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Russia's defense ministry accused Ukrainian forces on Tuesday of firing six U.S.-made and -supplied ATACMS missiles at the Russian region of Bryansk. If confirmed, it could be the first time Ukrainian troops had taken advantage of President Biden easing restrictions over the weekend on Ukraine's use of the U.S.-made missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russian territory.
President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S.-made and supplied missiles deeper into Russia — a major policy shift announced over the weekend after months of intense lobbying by Kyiv — has drawn a furious response from Moscow. While there was no immediate reaction directly from the man who launched the nearly three-year war on his neighboring nation, lawmakers aligned with President Vladimir Putin in Russia said Monday that the move was unacceptable and warned it could lead to a third world war.
Tel Aviv — After more than a year of bombing and homelessness, Gazans are looking to a new administration in Washington for help. President-elect Donald Trump's election victory has raised hopes and fears among the five million residents of the Palestinian territories — the warn-torn Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.