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One minute, they were celebrating Gaza’s ceasefire. The next, they were killed

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  Thirteen-year-old Zakariya Barbakh had spent most of his life shuffling between hospitals across Gaza, the  occupied West Bank  and Israel. Born without a lung, he had struggled to breathe. Doctors had predicted he would need a transplant if he were to reach adulthood. But the last  15 months of war in Gaza  had made that impossible. When the  ceasefire between Israel and Hamas  went into effect on Sunday, Zakariya was ecstatic. “Mom, now we can go look for my lungs!” his mother recalled him saying. Less than 24 hours later, Zakariya was shot dead. Doctors at Nasser Hospital say an Israeli sniper fired the fatal shot in the southern city of Rafah on Monday. Zakariya’s family told CNN he had been looking for wood to use for cooking and heating. “He didn’t die from his disease; he ended up dying at the hands of the occupation. All he wanted was to have lungs to breathe, what did he do to deserve this? What did this child do?” his mother said, unable to...
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State Department issues immediate, widespread pause on foreign aid

  Secretary of State Marco Rubio halted spending Friday on most existing foreign aid grants for 90 days. The order, which shocked State Department officials, appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine. Rubio’s guidance, issued to all diplomatic and consular posts, requires department staffers to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” according to the document, which was obtained by POLITICO. It is effective immediately. It appears to go further than President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which instructed the department to pause foreign aid grants for 90 days pending review by the secretary. It had not been clear from the president’s order if it would affect already appropriated funds or Ukraine aid. The new guidance means no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the U.S. government, according to three current and two former officials familiar with the new guidance. Th...
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Israel says it won’t withdraw from Lebanon by Sunday deadline

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  The Israeli government says its military will not withdraw from Lebanon by Sunday’s deadline, in violation of a   ceasefire agreement   that ended months of conflict with Hezbollah. Israel was expected to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon as part of the deal but the Israeli government said some its forces would remain in southern Lebanon, blaming Lebanon for failing to uphold its end of the agreement. “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) withdrawal is conditional upon the Lebanese army deploying in southern Lebanon,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “Since the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by Lebanon, the gradual withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States.” US National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said on Friday the United States was working with partners on a “short” and “temporary” extension of the ceasefire. A Lebanese security source told CNN on Friday it had no...
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