 The regional implications of Israel's brutal war on Gaza are becoming clearer with a strike on a U.S. outpost in Jordan and an Israeli attack on Damascus. What lies ahead for West Asia? The already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is set to get worse as many countries have cut funding for the UN refugee agency following Israeli allegations via Gazans being further punished. This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. U.S. bases and facilities have been targets of various militias in West Asia ever since Israel began its brutal bombing of Gaza. On Sunday, an attack on an outpost in Jordan led to the death of three U.S. soldiers, the first fatality suffered by the country since October 7th. Now, the U.S. has promptly blamed Iran-backed groups and vowed retaliation, continuing what has become a trend in the region, which is full of its troops. Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike reportedly targeted Damascus on Monday as well. We go to Abdul to understand more. The latest developments in West Asia are the first deaths of U.S. soldiers, three soldiers being killed in Jordan, of course. Now, of course, this was, I think it would be accurate to say maybe that this was building up a number of attacks taking place, very unpopular, the presence of U.S. soldiers in many parts of this region. But tell us about what happened first in Jordan, what is known as Tower 22, and what kind of responses might be likely? Well, on Sunday, the Islamic resistance forces, as they call themselves, which basically is a part of the popular mobilization forces in Iraq, claimed that they basically targeted several U.S. bases in the region, including one on Syria-Jordan border. So the Tower 22, which you basically mentioned, is one of those bases which is there in Jordan, primarily with the consent of the Jordanian government, apparently. And it was targeted in one of those attacks, though it is not, for a very long time, it was not clear where the attacks were really inside Jordanian border or inside Syria. Because initially Jordan denied that the attacks have taken place inside Jordan. And there is a legality, of course, involved there, because the U.S. presence in Syria is illegal, is considered as an occupation, but U.S. presence in Jordan is completely different. And therefore, if, and that becomes an issue. Anyway, that this is for the first time that this, in this attack, three U.S. soldiers were killed, as Joe Biden said in a statement late on Sunday, and at least 34 others were wounded, some of them, of course, seriously. And this is, as you rightly pointed out, for the first time since October 7, that any U.S. soldier has died, though there had been numerous attacks, more than 150 attacks as per the U.S. Ministry of Defense itself have taken place all across the region. So, yeah, Biden in his statement claimed that these attacks were carried out by the quote-unquote Iranian-backed militias, and U.S. retains the right to retaliate it at the time and place of its own choosing. But Iranians have denied any involvement, categorically saying that the resistance forces in different parts of West Asia decide on their own how to attack and whom to attack, and we have nothing to do. And the attack is basically a result of the U.S. own doing when it comes to supporting Israeli war against Palestinians. So, yeah, this is the set of developments which has happened in the last 24 hours related to the attacks on Jordanian base. Also, of course, Syria striking, what do you call it? Syria being struck, on the other hand, by Israel there has been reports of an attack on Damascus also. Yeah, though this is too early to say, but as per the, you can say, this has been the tradition of Israelis to kind of bomb Syria ever since the war began in the country since 2011-12. And this is, though the number of casualties is not clear, there have been scores of people in the past who have died in the Israeli attacks. Some of the Iranian generals who are there to support the Basar al-Assal government in the war against the extremist forces in the country have also been killed in the recent Israeli attacks. So yeah, this set of attack, though it is not yet clear whether it is linked to the attack on the Jordanian U.S. base in Jordan. But yeah, this is part of the larger U.S. and Israel tactics in the region to basically target some of the countries which cannot retaliate in any way because of their own domestic consideration. Because of their own problems and because of the lack of the international institutional support because of, of course, their sovereignty is being violated repeatedly. As Iran also stated in one of his statements which is issued following the attacks on the U.S. base in Jordan. Up to the key question here is what lies ahead for the region because we see that there is an escalating pattern of attacks. Like we were saying, the U.S. presence in many of these countries is extremely unpopular in Iraq. We know that the parliament has actually voted against it in Syria. It's illegal, like you said. And very palpable anger against the U.S. for its outright blatant support to Israel in its genocidal war against the people of Gaza. So are we, you know, are we seeing the possibility of this escalating over time? Well, we are not very sure about how far it will go. But given the statements made by the experts or the even the U.S. president following the attack on Jordan. One, of course, that they will retaliate and that retaliation bringing in Iran explicitly would mean that anything can happen. Iran may be attacked or some of the interests which are considered to be linked to Iran may be attacked and that may provoke retaliation from the forces including Iran. Because there has been incidents of Iranians kind of retaliating U.S. provocations in the past as well. And so if that happens, of course, this is going to be a complete chaos in the region. This may lead to further escalation because the war in Gaza is already escalated at the regional level. Since U.S. has decided with the UK to attack Houthi bases in Yemen, they have carried out more than a dozen of strikes inside Yemen. Including one on Sunday, sorry, on Saturday. Then they have been carrying out retaliatory attacks inside Iraq. Iraqi government has cautioned about it that U.S. is repeatedly violating his sovereignty in the name of attacking the Iran-based militias. Some of the members of the semi-official Popular Operation Forces have also been killed in those attacks. Then Israel, as we already saw what happened in Damascus, Israel has never shied away from attacking Lebanon, violating the Lebanese sovereignty or violating the Syrian sovereignty. So those attacks have been carried out. Israel is considered to have bases, of course, not directly, but secret agencies have bases in some parts of Iraq. So the war in Gaza has basically acquired a regional dimension for a very long time now. But whether it will intensify or not, it depends how U.S. reacts to what it claims to be Iran-backed attacks on its base in Jordan. And if that happens, then, of course, there is no limit to which the war can extend too. We should only hope that U.S., but, of course, that being hopeful about U.S. taking a rational stand and trying to find out a better way out of this conflict in Palestine in Gaza is the only hope. If that is not taken, of course, the war is going to escalate regionally even further, going to intensify regionally further in the near future. Right. Do stay back. Abdul, we'll come back to you for the next story. Shortly after the International Court of Justice delivered its historic verdict, Israel swung into action, not by seizing its bombing and murder of Palestinians, but by accusing the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees of involvement in the Hamas attack on October 7th. There was an allegation that a few members of UNARWA were involved in this operation. Now, the allegations were quickly picked up by a host of countries led by the U.S., which announced that they would no longer contribute financially to UNARWA. This puts the entire population of Gaza at further risk to find out what happened and why we go back to Abdul. Abdul, welcome back. A very brutal decision, it seems, from all these Western countries. But could you first take us to what happened? What are the kind of allegations that Israel is making that prompted these countries to sort of so quickly cut aid without any kind of proof or evidence or anything? Well, Israel has claimed that some of the members who are working with United Nations Relief and Work Agency, the UNARWA, the Refugee Agency, which basically is responsible for taking care of almost more than millions of refugees, basically, all across Palestine and in the region. They're involved in the October 7th attacks. They have been involved. The details of it was apparently published by the New York Times again, without any evidence. Of course, there has no evidence been provided. All of this is based on the claims made by Israel, and at least claiming that they have carried out an investigation and found out that these people were involved. And on the basis of these allegations, a large number of countries, including the U.S., have basically suspended for a while the funding of UNARWA. And apparently, this is half of the funding which UNARWA receives, particularly at a time when it needs more money, it needs more financial and other kind of support, because given the extent of displacement caused by Israeli bombing since October 7th, inside Gaza, most of the shelters are overcrowded. Inside Gaza, it has been forced to convert schools into shelters and so on and so forth. So given the fact that at a time when it needs more international backing, most of the countries, of course, only on the allegation made by Israelis, have decided to withdraw their funding. And most of these countries are, of course, U.S. and its European allies. And the sad part is they are the primary funders. More than half of the UNARWA funding comes from that. So yeah, that is the situation. More and more countries, by the way, are announcing, in fact, in last 24 hours, four more countries have, most of the Europeans have announced that they are suspending the funding of UNARWA. It seems that this is an attempt to kind of politically dismantle the mandate of UNARWA and kind of add into the Israeli campaign of displacing Palestinians, make them desperate to move out from Gaza, because when the humanitarian aid carried out by UNARWA is affected, there will be very less hope at this moment because other aid, despite the UN resolution, despite the ICJA verdict, is not filtering in. In fact, Israel has imposed much more restrictions on the movement of aid inside Gaza in the last 24 hours. So it seems that this is a larger political plot carried out by Israel in support of its western allies, primarily the U.S., to cut the funding. So yeah, that is the situation. Of course, UNARWA has denied all those allegations, but since there is a pressure, of course, there may be investigation, at least for the kind of, because of the need to kind of convince some of the countries to restart the funding. Abdo also, could you maybe take us through what is a humanitarian situation right now, especially if this kind of funding is, you know, a bidding stop. I believe UNARWA has said that it will be difficult to carry on after February if this is what the situation prevails. Exactly, as I was saying before, because UNARWA is the primary aid-giver, in particularly in Gaza at this moment, when the war is at its, for the last four, more than four months, is going on and almost 1.8, 1.9 million Palestinians are displaced. Majority of them are living with in the camps which are run by UNARWA. And as I said before, most of these camps are overcrowded. There is no water facilities. There is not enough food. There is not enough medicine. Most of the people are forced to live in the open, in open air and are surviving on the basic facilities, basic amenities provided by UNARWA in particular. Of course, there are other agencies working, but mostly UNARWA. So if the funding is affected, and I'm not sure whether UNARWA will be able to survive till February also, if this drastic level of funding reduction happens, and that would mean that the humanitarian situation, which is already in a very bad situation, there are everyday, we have already talked about how hunger is affecting majority of the Palestinians. There is a danger that most of the Palestinian kids will not have enough food and will be stranded for life, because there is not enough nutrition food available. Hospitals are attacked. There is not enough medical facilities. Hence, there are diseases which are completely curable, are acquiring epidemics scale, and all of this is primarily because there is not enough humanitarian aid coming inside Gaza. As I said before, despite the UN Security Council resolution, despite the International Court of Justice verdict that more aid should be provided and despite the claims made by the US itself, that they are working for greater availability of humanitarian aid, none of these are working. They are all rhetoric at this moment, and over and above the funding of the agency, which is doing some work on the ground is also affected. It would mean a complete disaster for the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, and it will be adding into the Genocidal Act, as we were talking about, of Israel in particular, because that will force majority of the Palestinians to, of course, take desperate measures, and that is completely unacceptable. But yeah, this is what is the situation at the moment. A very bleak picture. We will come back to you soon in a couple of days with late mode for more details. And that's all we have in today's daily debrief. We'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. In the meanwhile, do visit our website and follow us on all the social media platforms.