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      Johnson Says House Will Vote on Stalled Aid to Israel and Ukraine

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      The speaker, who has delayed for months amid G.O.P. opposition to funding for Kyiv, said he would bring up foreign aid legislation along with a bill aimed at appeasing Republican skeptics.Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday said he planned this week to advance a long-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Ukraine and other American allies, along with a separate bill aimed at mollifying conservatives who have been vehemently opposed to backing Kyiv.Mr. Johnson’s announcement, coming after he has agonized for weeks over whether and how to advance an infusion of critical aid to Ukraine amid stiff Republican resistance, was the first concrete indication that he had settled on a path forward. It came days after Iran launched a large aerial attack on Israel, amplifying calls for Congress to move quickly to approve the pending aid bill.Emerging from a meeting in which he briefed G.O.P. lawmakers on his plan, Mr. Johnson said he would cobble together a legislative package that roughly mirrors the $95 billion aid bill the Senate passed two months ago but that is broken down into three pieces. Lawmakers would vote separately on a bill providing money for Israel, one allocating funding for Ukraine and a third with aid for Taiwan and other allies. They would cast a fourth vote on a separate measure containing other policies popular among Republicans.“We know that the world is watching us to see how we react,” Mr. Johnson told reporters. “We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the world like Putin and Xi and in Iran, and they’re watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our interests around the globe — and we will.”It is not clear whether the complex strategy will be successful in the House, where Mr. Johnson has a tenuous hold on his divided conference and a bare majority. Republicans could try to block it from coming to the floor. Even if they did not, the success of the aid package would hinge on a complicated mix of bipartisan coalitions that support different pieces, given resistance among hard-right Republicans to Ukraine funding and among left-wing Democrats to unfettered aid to Israel.And the plan could imperil Mr. Johnson’s speakership, which is teetering under a threat to oust him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Johnson Says the House Will Vote on an Israel Bill in the Coming Days

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      Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday after Iran’s overnight attack on Israel that the House would vote in the coming days on aid for Israel, and he suggested that aid for Ukraine could be included in the legislation.“House Republicans and the Republican Party understand the necessity of standing with Israel,” Mr. Johnson said on Fox News, noting that he had previously advanced two aid bills to help the U.S. ally. “We’re going to try again this week, and the details of that package are being put together. Right now, we’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.”U.S. funding for both Israel and Ukraine has languished in Congress; Mr. Johnson initially refused to take up a $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan passed by the Senate, and the Senate refused to take up a House Republican proposal that conditioned aid to Israel on domestic spending cuts.In recent weeks, Mr. Johnson has repeatedly vowed to ensure that the House moves to assist Ukraine. He has been searching for a way to structure a foreign aid package that could secure a critical mass of support amid stiff Republican resistance to sending aid to Kyiv and mounting opposition among Democrats to unfettered military aid for Israel.But the attacks from Iran have ratcheted up the pressure on Mr. Johnson to bring some kind of package to the floor this week, potentially forcing him to make a decision he has been agonizing over for weeks.He left it unclear on Sunday whether the legislation he said the House would advance this week would also include aid for Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      World Central Kitchen Workers Killed in Gaza Airstrike, José Andrés Says

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      International aid workers from World Central Kitchen, a disaster relief nonprofit that has become a crucial source of food for desperate Gazans, were killed in an airstrike in Gaza, according to José Andrés, the chef who founded the organization.Mr. Andrés said on the X platform that “several of our sisters and brothers” were killed in the airstrike, which was reported late Monday in Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza. He said the Israeli military had carried out the strike, though that could not be immediately confirmed. Graphic video footage from the aftermath showed five dead bodies, three of which had passports on their chests identifying them as citizens of Poland, Australia and Britain. Some of the victims wore protective gear with visible World Central Kitchen patches. The nationalities of the other two could not be immediately confirmed. The Israeli military said in a statement early Tuesday that it was “conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”The military said it “makes extensive efforts to enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, and has been working closely with W.C.K. in their vital efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said that the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was “urgently investigating” the reports that an Australian aid worker had been killed.“I’m very concerned about the loss of life that is occurring in Gaza,” he said. “My government has supported a sustainable cease-fire, we’ve called for the release of hostages, and there have been far too many innocent lives — Palestinian and Israeli — lost during the Gaza-Hamas conflict.”World Central Kitchen has become a key organization in the perilous, politically fraught efforts to distribute humanitarian aid to desperate Gazans. Israel has severely limited the aid that reaches Gaza through land crossings, leaving shipments by sea as an increasingly important means of delivering food to the enclave. A vessel carrying 400 tons of food left Cyprus for Gaza on Saturday. The Israeli military has said that it provided security and coordination to the organization in prior operations.World Central Kitchen said in a statement on Monday that it was “aware of reports” that its staff members were killed “in an I.D.F. attack while working to support our humanitarian food delivery efforts in Gaza,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.“This is a tragedy,” the organization said. “Humanitarian aid workers and civilians should never be a target. Ever.”Mr. Andrés said in his social media post that the Israeli government “needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. “It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon.” Damien Cave More

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      Ocasio-Cortez, in House Speech, Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’

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      Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had called for a permanent cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, but had resisted labeling the conflict a genocide.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned on Friday that Israel’s blockade of Gaza had put the territory on the brink of severe famine, saying publicly for the first time that the nation’s wartime actions amounted to an “unfolding genocide.”In a speech on the House floor, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, forcefully called on President Biden to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel unless and until it begins to allow the free flow of humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip.“If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes,” she said. “It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away.”The comments were a sharp rhetorical escalation by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party’s left wing, and they illustrated the intense pressure buffeting party officials as they grapple with how to respond to Israel’s war tactics and the deepening humanitarian crisis.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, defying party leaders, has been a proponent of a permanent cease-fire since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and has called for putting conditions on American military aid to Israel. But she had resisted describing the ensuing war, which has killed 30,000 Gazans and left the territory in ruins, as a genocide.Israel has firmly denied that the term applies, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez indicated in January that she was waiting for the International Court of Justice to render an opinion on a legal designation. Privately, she has expressed concerns to some allies that the highly contentious term would alienate potential supporters of a cease-fire.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jake Sullivan Makes Covert Trip to Ukraine

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      Jake Sullivan met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his senior officials as additional U.S. aid continued to languish in the House.President Biden’s top national security official made a secret trip to Kyiv on Wednesday, as Ukrainian soldiers holding off Russian troops are running out of munitions and U.S. aid remains stalled in congressional gridlock.Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his senior officials “to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine in its self-defense against Russia’s brutal invasion,” said a national security spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson. “He stressed the urgent need for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the national security supplemental to meet Ukraine’s critical battlefield needs.”The covert trip showed the rising sense of urgency in the White House to pressure Congress to pass billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine, a financial package that the Biden administration says the country needs to defend itself against Russia.The White House has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to push House Republicans to support a $60 billion emergency spending plan for weapons for Ukraine and to bolster armament production in the United States.With that funding held back and future U.S. aid in limbo, the administration last week sent Ukraine a $300 million package that included air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, armor systems and an older version of the Army’s longer-range missile systems known as ATACMS. But that package is most likely going to hold off Russia for only a matter of weeks, U.S. officials have said.“Ukrainian troops have fought bravely, are fighting bravely throughout this war,” Mr. Sullivan said when the package was announced, “but they are now forced to ration their ammunition under pressure on multiple fronts.”Mr. Sullivan’s visit came one day after Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met with other backers of Ukraine in Germany to strategize on how to maintain military support for Kyiv.“Ukraine’s battle remains one of the great causes of our time,” Mr. Austin said. More

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      U.S. Defense Secretary Praises NATO Allies for Commitment to Ukraine

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      Despite doubts about further U.S. aid, the American defense secretary told a meeting of Kyiv’s backers that the fight against Russia “remains one of the great causes of our time.”With additional American aid still in doubt, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Tuesday called for “creative, adaptable and sustainable ways” to continue arming Ukraine and praised European allies who were trying to bolster Kyiv’s military as the war against Russia entered a critical stretch.Mr. Austin, in Germany for the start of a semiregular meeting of nearly 50 nations who are supplying Ukraine’s forces, said that allies would “dig deeper to get vital security assistance to Ukraine.” He singled out Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden for recent donations of weapons and noted the Czech Republic’s efforts to provide 800,000 artillery shells — the first tranche of which could arrive on the battlefield within weeks.Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin would send Ukraine 10,000 rounds of badly needed artillery shells, 100 armored infantry vehicles and transport equipment in a new infusion of support worth 500 million euros, about $544 million.“Things are progressing sometimes in small steps, sometimes in larger steps, but the main thing is the constant supply of ammunition,” Mr. Pistorius told journalists in Germany, according to local news reports.The United States remains the single largest donor of military support to Ukraine, and last week, Washington pledged an additional $300 million of air defense missiles, artillery rounds and armor systems. The latest package also included attack missiles with a range of about 100 miles that dispense clusters of small munitions and can do damage over a wide area, though they are still at least a week from arriving.Yet Ukrainian forces are expected to burn through the new American aid within a few weeks, and it is unlikely that the Biden administration will be able to send much more unless Republicans in Congress agree to a $60 billion emergency spending plan to ship additional weapons to Ukraine and bolster armament production in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden and Irish Leader Use St. Patrick’s Day Visit to Address Gaza

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      Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, at the White House, referred to his own country’s struggles when saying that “the Irish people have such empathy for the Palestinian people.”President Biden on Sunday used what is normally a festive St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the White House to acknowledge the growing international concern, including among the Irish, over the humanitarian situation of Palestinians amid Israel’s military action in Gaza.“The taoiseach and I agree about the urgent need to increase humanitarian aid in Gaza and get the cease-fire deal,” Mr. Biden said alongside Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s prime minister, or taoiseach, an outspoken critic of Israel’s war against Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. As hundreds of Irish American leaders and government staff members applauded, Mr. Biden said that a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians was “the only path to lasting peace and security.”The celebration in the White House, with plenty of green dye, shamrocks and Guinness, is typically a chance for Mr. Biden to break from speeches about foreign policy and threats to American democracy to celebrate his Irish American heritage. But during his trip to the United States, Mr. Varadkar made clear that he would raise his concerns over the war in the Middle East with the American president.The prime minister in a way was speaking to a domestic audience back in Ireland, which, given its own history of resistance to British rule, is one of the more supportive European nations to Palestinians. Ireland was the first European Union nation to call for a Palestinian state and the last to permit the opening of a residential Israeli embassy.“Mr. President, as you know, the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that’s unfolding before our eyes in Gaza, and when I travel the world, leaders often ask me why the Irish people have such empathy for the Palestinian people,” Mr. Varadkar said. “The answer is simple: We see our history in their eyes.”While Mr. Varadkar said that he supported the administration’s efforts to secure a deal for a temporary cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages, he also directly called out Israel’s bombing tactics. While Mr. Biden has struck a sharper tone recently with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the White House has said there are no plans to leverage military aid to Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Faces Losses Without More U.S. Aid, Officials Say

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      William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, described an increasingly dire situation.Senior intelligence officials warned on Monday that without additional American aid, Ukraine faced the prospect of continued battlefield losses as Russia relies on a network of critical arms suppliers and drastically increases its supply of technology from China.In public testimony during the annual survey of worldwide threats facing the United States, the officials predicted that any continued delay of U.S. aid to Ukraine would lead to additional territorial gains by Russia over the next year, the consequences of which would be felt not only in Europe but also in the Pacific.“If we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea,” William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, told Congress.The assessment marked a sharp turn from just a year ago, when Ukraine’s military appeared on the march and the Russians seemed to be in retreat.Over the course of just over two hours of testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. Burns and the director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, described an increasingly dire situation for Ukraine, one in which Russia is producing far more artillery shells and has worked out a steady supply of drones, shells and other military goods from two key suppliers.“It is hard to imagine how Ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard-fought advances it has made against the Russians, especially given the sustained surge in Russian ammunition production and purchases from North Korea and Iran,” Ms. Haines said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More