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The U.S. has yet to secure funding commitments for its Gaza reconstruction plan as potential donors voice concerns that disagreements over Hamas disarmament could lead Israel to resume full-scale war in the enclave, sources told Reuters.

Hamas laying down its weapons is a key requirement under Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war. It calls for Israel's military to withdraw troops as Hamas disarms and for Gaza's reconstruction to be overseen by a "Board of Peace" chaired by the U.S. President.

Funding withheld over fears of war restarting, sources say
Push for UN, not Board, to run Gaza funds, diplomats say
No major pledges; Gulf, West hesitate

Two sources with direct knowledge of the Board's planning said that countries were hesitant to commit funds to a rebuilding plan unveiled last month by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, until Hamas disarms.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare reference to Ukraine’s casualty figures on Wednesday – revealing that 55,000 Ukrainian troops are officially listed as killed in action.

“In Ukraine, officially, on the battlefield, the number of soldiers killed is 55,000, including both professional soldiers and people who were mobilized,” he said in a pre-recorded interview with France 2, as per Le Monde.

A “great number of people” are also considered missing in action, Zelensky added.

This is the first time Zelensky has commented on Ukraine’s military death toll since February 2025, when he put the figure at 46,000.

On Jan. 27, the US Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank estimated that the total number of military deaths – including all the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers dead, injured, and missing – is approaching two million.

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Florida legislators are pushing to pass legislation that would ban the use of the term “West Bank” in K-12 public schools and state agencies, including public colleges and universities, and mandate use of the term “Judea and Samaria”.

The West Bank is the internationally recognized term for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River that was seized from Jordan by Israel in 1967. The rightwing Israeli government refers to the area as “Judea and Samaria” in reference to the biblical kingdoms of ancient Israel as part of broader efforts to bolster historical and religious claims to the land. The international community, on the other hand, broadly recognizes the West Bank as occupied land that must be part of a future Palestinian state.

Florida bill seeks to ban use of ‘West Bank’ in schools and state agencies

The bill would mandate use of the biblical term ‘Judea and Samaria’ after a similar effort passed in Arkansas.

Florida legislators are pushing to pass legislation that would ban the use of the term “West Bank” in K-12 public schools and state agencies, including public colleges and universities, and mandate use of the term “Judea and Samaria”.

The West Bank is the internationally recognized term for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River that was seized from Jordan by Israel in 1967. The rightwing Israeli government refers to the area as “Judea and Samaria” in reference to the biblical kingdoms of ancient Israel as part of broader efforts to bolster historical and religious claims to the land. The international community, on the other hand, broadly recognizes the West Bank as occupied land that must be part of a future Palestinian state.

The term “Judea and Samaria” has been embraced by many US Republicans since the first Trump administration, including the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who Donald Trump appointed as ambassador to Israel last year. Arkansas became the first US state to mandate replacing references to the “West Bank” in state institutions with “Judea and Samaria” in April last year. Similar bills have been proposed in the US Congress but have not come up for vote.

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President Donald Trump said Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, should be worried about a U.S. military building up in the region, and hinted at a new round of strikes if Tehran attempts to restart its nuclear program.

"I would say he should be very worried," Trump said of Khamenei during an NBC News interview. "Yeah, he should be."

Trump has been trading bellicose barbs with Khamenei for weeks and had threatened military action in response to a violent crackdown on protesters, in which the Iranian government is accused of killing thousands. He has also said the country needs "new leadership" and repeatedly talked up an "armada" of warships he's deployed to the region.

The U.S. president previously credited himself with preventing mass executions in Iran, and said in the NBC interview that he'd had protesters' backs. He invoked U.S. strikes last summer on Iran's nuclear facilities and said he'd been told Iran is trying to restart its nuclear program.

"We said, 'You do that, we're going to do very bad things to you,'" Trump added.

Khamenei has hit back, accusing the U.S. of trying to "seize control" of the country. He said on Feb. 1 that any country that initiates war with Iran will "face a decisive blow" and warned that a conflict with America would become a regional war.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to meet with Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, this week for direct talks that could lay the groundwork an agreement between the two nations. Trump told reporters this week that he'd like to strike a deal with Tehran. "And if we can't, probably bad things would happen," he said on Feb. 2.

The U.S. president previously credited himself with preventing mass executions in Iran, and said in the NBC interview that he'd had protesters' backs. He invoked U.S. strikes last summer on Iran's nuclear facilities and said he'd been told Iran is trying to restart its nuclear program.

"We said, 'You do that, we're going to do very bad things to you,'" Trump added.

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In Kyiv, hundreds of multi-story residential buildings remain without heating.

While Russian strikes on energy infrastructure and thermal generation have had virtually no effect on the front line, they have plunged civilians in the capital and other cities into darkness and cold during one of the harshest winters in memory.

The resulting mass shutdown of electricity and heating in Kyiv, with temperatures dropping to -20°C (-4° F), has put those who are least protected at risk – the elderly, people with disabilities, those with limited mobility, and those without relatives.

(Photo of Mrs. Bardash). She lives alone in a building that has had no heating for two weeks and practically no electricity after Russian strikes.

It’s only 11°C (52°F) inside, as we can see on the thermometer in her living room.

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French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning.

X and Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI also face intensifying scrutiny from Britain's data privacy regulator, which opened formal investigations into how they handled personal data when they developed and deployed Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok.

Grok, which was built by xAI and is available through X, sparked global outrage last month after it pumped out a torrent of sexualized nonconsensual deepfake images in response to requests from X users.

The French investigation was opened in January last year by the prosecutors' cybercrime unit, the Paris prosecutors' office said in a statement. It's looking into alleged "complicity" in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges.

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