Your people back into their homes, you dont escalate to deescalate. And obviously now, with the iranian retaliation, israelis are in their shelters as they go into the new years holiday weekend. Ben . Yeah. I think, you know, since October 7th, the Biden Administration has had a number of goals, one was to provide support to israel as it aims to go after hamas, but then also one of the principle goals of u. S. Diplomacy since October 7th had been avoiding deescalation into lebanon, precisely because i think there was an understanding that lebanon could be kind of the Trip Wire to this broader regional war that essentially, you know, it is one thing if there is a conflict In Gaza, that alone is destabilizing enough and is obviously brought a tremendous Human Toll and has grinded on for a full year. But the concern has always been that if israel launched a Ground Operation and significantly escalated things in lebanon that could draw iran into a conflict in a direct way as were seeing to
permanent ceasefire. the national security minister said ending the war before hamas was defeated would constitute a failure . where that leaves negotiations at the un is anyone s guess. the security council is due to hold another vote on urgent humanitarian pauses . but that was again postponed this afternoon as they work on the language. clearly, if neither side is prepared to give, then there doesn t appear much a resolution can achieve. our correspondent nada tawfik gave us an update on developments at the un deputy un ambassador robert wood said diplomacy takes time. so still unclear how the united states will vote on this, but there is a real disagreement over this mechanism. some saying that itjust wouldn t be practical on the ground, including the united states, saying that israel won t let anything get into gaza without inspecting it itself. others, including the arab group, believing that israel as a party to the conflict, should not be in full control of that aid
just ahead, u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin is on his way to israel as washington faces calls to press for an end to the heavy bombardment of gaza. and we will speak to a man whose father is still being held hostage by hamas. why he says israel should be doing more to bring his father and the other hostages home. plus, donald trump is doubling down on his anti-immigrant rhetoric. we will look at what he s vowing to do if re-elected. thanks for joining us. u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin will be sitting down with israeli officials in the hours ahead on his second trip to the country since the october 7th attack by hamas. austin s visit comes after a stop in bahrain, and once in israel, a u.s. official says he will get updates on the war but he s also expected to press israeli officials to define specific operational milestones in the ongoing battle. meantime, the israel defense forces says it s uncovered the biggest hamas tunnel in gaza. that tunnel, which the idf
anniversary of russia s invasion of ukraine. we are trying to the russian presidents and national address just ahead and china s top diplomat is in moscow to meet with his russian counterpart as the u.s. warns a beijing could increase its support for russia s war efforts. plus, the earthquake hit areas and turkey in desperate need of access to health care and military aid, we are live in scandinavia. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with paula newton! it s so the coming hours, u.s. president joe biden s had to meet with nato secretary general and leaders of the group known as the bucharest nine during his final day in poland. the book resonant is made up of nations that sits on the most eastern part of that nato alliance. you see that country there. that meeting only one day after mr. biden delivered a rallying cry to declaring ukraine will never be a victory for russia. he repeatedly called out putin a by name and just as he did a day earlier in kyiv, h
you for what you re doing and god you for what you re doing and god you all. presidentjoe biden with a pretty defiant speech stressing the united states and nato allies, support for ukraine will not waiver speaking of course in the run up to the first anniversary of russia s full scale invasion of ukraine. he has been in warsaw and a cheering crowd there that as he put it, president putin lust for power and land would fail. he painted the struggle as a generational one for freedom he said that autocrats had grown weaker over the last year and all of that, of course follows what president vladimir putin was saying in moscow this morning when he delivered a fiercely anti western and nationalistic address to russian parliamentarians. putin accused the west of provoking the war in ukraine of starting the war of escalating the conflict of trying to defeat russia it s self. the white house called his allegations absurd while ukrainian officials said that his speech was laden with c