Joe Biden asks the US Congress for $14.3 billion for Israel – L’Express

More than 1,400 people were killed on Israeli territory by Hamas men, the majority of them civilians who were shot, burned alive or died of mutilation on the day of the deadly Hamas attack, according to Israeli authorities. According to the Israeli army, around 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in the counter-offensive which allowed Israel to regain control of the attacked areas. On the Palestinian side, 4,137 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

Joe Biden is asking the US Congress for a huge budget increase of more than $105 billion to help both Israel and Ukraine, the White House announced on Friday.

The Democratic president, who will have difficulty finding political consensus with Republicans in the midst of a crisis, is demanding 61.4 billion dollars (of which 30 would be spent on arms) for the Ukrainian war effort, 14.3 billion (of which 10 .6 in arms) to help Israel, a little over 9 billion to respond to humanitarian crises including in Gaza. The White House argues that this money, to manufacture defense equipment for these two countries and replenish the stocks of the American army, will partly return to arms factories in the United States.

Palestinian Hamas in Gaza said Friday it had released an American woman and her daughter kidnapped during its attack on Israeli territory on October 7 and detained since then in Gaza.

The military spokesperson for the Islamist movement said in a statement that the two hostages had been released “for humanitarian reasons, following mediation from Qatar.” The release of these two hostages also aims “to prove to the people American and the entire world that the allegations made by (Joe) Biden and his fascist administration (about Hamas) are baseless,” he added.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets on Friday to show their support for the Palestinians in Gaza, including a few thousand in Cairo’s emblematic Tahrir Square, AFP journalists noted.

On the 14th day of the war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas, rallies are also taking place in most cities in Egypt, local media reported. In Tahrir Square, they chanted “Bread, freedom, Arab Palestine”, hijacking one of the slogans of the 2011 “revolution” in Egypt which overthrew President Hosni Mubarak.

In Baghdad, Iraq, a few thousand people also demonstrated, including many sympathizers of Hachd al-Chaabi, a coalition of armed factions close to Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy and supporter of Hamas.

Emmanuel Macron promised this Friday to the families of French hostages from the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip that France would do everything “so that they return safe and sound to France”, reported the Elysée.

“The head of state assured them of his full mobilization as well as that of all state services to obtain their release,” declared the presidency after a videoconference with these families. “Everything will be done to ensure that they return safe and sound to France. The President of the Republic reiterated to the families his support and that of all French people in the face of this terrible ordeal and his determination to fight tirelessly against all forms of terrorism,” she added.

Emmanuel Macron, surrounded in particular by his Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna, the Secretary General of the Elysée Alexis Kohler and his diplomatic advisor Emmanuel Bonne, held this videoconference at midday from the presidential palace.

The toll of French victims killed in Hamas attacks against Israel has risen again with a total of 30 dead and seven still missing, a diplomatic source announced this Friday. “Thirty of our nationals died in these attacks and seven are still missing, including at least one French woman taken hostage,” said this source.

The toll increased by two additional victims, while the number of missing remains unchanged. “There are probably other French people taken hostage,” added this same source, without further details.

Israel will evacuate the town of Kyriat Shmona, on its border with Lebanon, which has been under high tension since the attack launched by Hamas on October 7, the Israeli army announced on Friday.

The Israeli authorities “announced the implementation of a plan to evacuate the inhabitants” of this town of approximately 25,000 inhabitants “into reception houses financed by the State”, indicated the army in a press release .

The human toll from the strike on the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza on Tuesday is “probably at the bottom of a range between 100 and 300” dead, according to an American intelligence note of which AFP was able to consult extracts on Thursday. . This summary sent to Congress affirms, as Joe Biden declared on Wednesday, that Israel “probably did not bomb the hospital in the Gaza Strip”.

“We are still working on the quantification of deaths and our estimate may change, but this human toll still represents a staggering loss of human life,” estimates the office at the origin of this note, the ODNI, which coordinates the whole American intelligence agencies.

Palestinians in Gaza were hoping for the arrival of humanitarian aid this Friday. But we would certainly have to wait until Saturday, says the UN. The Egyptian channel AlQahera News, close to Egyptian intelligence, affirmed Thursday evening that the Rafah crossing point, between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, the only one not controlled by Israel, would open this Friday. Humanitarian aid convoys, waiting to go to this cramped enclave where 2.4 million Palestinians live, have been blocked for days in Rafah, as the conflict enters its 14th day.

“We need unhindered access and to deliver our vital aid safely. Time is running out,” called Unicef ​​on Friday morning on X. Visiting the Rafah crossing point, the secretary general of UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for the “rapid passage” of humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory. Joe Biden “thinks” that the first aid trucks will enter Gaza “in the next 24 to 48 hours”

Russia said Thursday that the United States’ decision to block a UN resolution which called for a “humanitarian pause” between Hamas and Israel will have “monstrous consequences” in terms of the loss of civilian lives. “In the context of a confrontation which is gaining momentum and risks going beyond the borders of the Middle East region and acquiring a sectarian dimension, the consequences of such a step are monstrous,” the ministry said. Russian Foreign Affairs in a statement.

Deeming it “disappointing” the fact that this resolution which could have contributed to “stopping the escalation of tensions and reducing violence against civilians” was not adopted, Moscow judged that the American veto “clearly demonstrates the real aspirations of Washington for the Middle East region.

Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported. At least 75 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or Israeli settlers since October 7. In the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, seven people including a 16-year-old teenager were killed “during an attack by the occupation (Israel, Editor’s note) in the Nour Shams refugee camp (north)”, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.