The bill also forces the UN and other international organizations funded to assess and report on efforts to combat anti-Israel bias and antisemitism and to vet staff for connections to terrorists.

The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed a $1.2 trillion budget bill, which included a ban on US funding for UNRWA until 2025.

The bill also eliminates funding for the UN Commission of Inquiry against Israel and fully funds the annual US security commitment of $3.3 billion for Israel, which allocates funding for the Iron Dome and other defensive systems.

"The historic ban on US funding to @UNRWA that passed today with an overwhelming bipartisan support, demonstrates what we knew all along: UNRWA is part of the problem and can not be part of the solution. UNRWA will not be a part of Gaza's landscape in the aftermath of Hamas," Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X.

The United Nations Security Council on Friday failed to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal after Russia and China vetoed the measure proposed by the United States.

The resolution called for an immediate and sustained ceasefire lasting roughly six weeks that would protect civilians and allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

The vote in the 15-member council was 11 members in favor and three against, including Algeria, the Arab representative on the council. There was one abstention, from Guyana.

The text marked a further toughening of Washington’s stance toward Israel. Earlier in the five-month-long war, the US was averse to the word ceasefire and vetoed measures that included calls for an immediate ceasefire.

The IDF announced on Thursday that in its four-day operation in Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, it has now killed around 140 terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as arrested around 650 additional terrorists. This was a significant jump from the 90 killed and 160-350 arrested, which the IDF confirmed on Wednesday.

Curiously, the IDF said that all of the Islamic Jihad operatives in the area quickly surrendered, whereas Hamas’s forces were split into two groups, with one large group also surrendering en masse and one large group continuing to resist.

According to the IDF, this second group’s continued fighting could prolong the operation for several additional days.

IDF estimates are that there are an additional 50 Hamas fighters to subdue within the Shifa Complex, of which 20 may have significant roles.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the path toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, delayed by the ongoing war in Gaza, was seeing “very good progress.”

Blinken said at a press conference in Cairo that his visit to the Gulf kingdom on Wednesday had yielded “a very good discussion” with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.

The talks had focused both on the war in Gaza and on relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, where Blinken had made three visits since the start of the war on October 7 following Hamas’s shock attack on Israel.

The US top diplomat said he could not “put a time frame” on normalization, but that discussions were “getting close to a point where we’ll have agreements.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says “the gaps are narrowing, and I think an agreement is very much possible” between Israel and Hamas on a six-week ceasefire that would see some 40 Israeli hostages released.

“We worked very hard with Qatar, Egypt and Israel to put a strong proposal on the table… Hamas wouldn’t accept it. They came back with other demands. The negotiators are working on that right now, but I believe it’s very much doable, and it’s very much necessary,” Blinken tells Al Hadath.

“If Hamas cares at all about the people it purports to represent, then it would reach an agreement because that would have the immediate effect of a ceasefire, alleviating the tremendous suffering of people, bringing more humanitarian assistance in and then giving us the possibility of having something more lasting,” he adds.

The operation, which began early Monday morning, was being carried out by the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit, the 401st Armored Brigade, and other forces.

Troops raided the hospital, the largest medical center in the Gaza Strip, after Israeli intelligence indicated that Hamas operatives, including commanders, had returned to the complex to use it as a command center for planning attacks against Israel and troops in Gaza. It was previously raided by the military in November.

“Over the past day, the troops have eliminated terrorists and located weapons in the hospital area, while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment,” the IDF said in a statement Wednesday morning.

--snip--

“We are talking about many [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] operatives, including battalion commanders, Hamas operatives, including political officials,” [IDF spokesman] Hagari said.

Arab media has reported on a series of grandiose projects by the crown prince, all under the title "Saudi Vision 2030". The first was the futuristic technological city project "NEOM" (short for "neo-mustaqbal" - future in Arabic) in the Tabuk region, located entirely not coincidentally in the northwest of the kingdom, near the Red Sea.

The "NEOM" project itself is located as close to Eilat as possible, which suggests that Israel is supposed to participate one day, and on a declarative level, it is intended to create economic cooperation with Egypt and Jordan - two countries that have already signed peace agreements with Israel.

All these projects were planned shortly before and during the normalization of Israel with the UAE and Bahrain.

The normalization requirements of the Saudi kingdom from Israel are known. The day after the war in Gaza, Israel might have to assess how bin Salman's economic vision integrates with the promotion of local projects: the rehabilitation of Gaza and the promotion of the economy in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria.

--snip--

After 12 a.m., a large number of IDF troops broke into the western area of the Shifa hospital, accompanied by fighter jets. In parallel, there were reports that tanks had completely besieged the area.
Shootout takes place

Following this, IDF soldiers broke into the residential building where Mabhough's family lived, blew up the entrance gate and shot inside. When it became clear that Mabhough was outside his apartment, they ordered his family to leave the house and move to the south of the Gaza Strip.

An additional military force entered the Shifa hospital, where Mabhough was staying. The soldiers asked him through loudspeakers to come out, raise his hands and turn himself in. However, a shootout took place at the scene and Mabhough was subsequently killed.

During the activity, Staff-Sergeant (St.-Sgt.) Matan Vinogradov, from Jerusalem, 20, was killed.

IDF troops allowed hundreds of Palestinian citizens to leave the Shifa hospital compound. As part of the operation and during the encirclement, terrorists opened fire from the hospital compound towards soldier, who returned fire and shot the terrorists.

During the IDF and the Shin Bet's reinvasion of Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza on Monday, they killed Hamas's Interior Ministry Operations Chief Faack Mabhough.

Mabhough has been in charge of all of Hamas's internal security forces both during the war and during peacetime.

Israeli forces killed Mabhough during an exchange of gunfire when he resisted arrest and had been trying to hide within the Shifa complex.

In the room next to his hiding spot, significant Hamas weaponry was located.

The Israel Defense Forces early Monday morning launched a raid on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, amid intelligence that senior Hamas officials were in the area and using the hospital to plan and carry out terror activity, the military said.

One Israeli soldier was killed amid a gun battle with Hamas operatives in the area of the hospital before dawn.

The raid was launched at around 2:30 a.m., with troops of the IDF’s 401st Armored Brigade and other units, including special forces and the Shin Bet security agency, encircling the hospital, the largest medical center in the Gaza Strip.

As troops arrived at the medical center, Hamas gunmen opened fire “from within the hospital compound,” the IDF and the Shin Bet said.