 The death toll in Gaza has crossed 18,000 as Israel's brutal offensive continues and the international community plans to discuss the issue again. What is the latest from the besieged enclave? Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is said to meet US President Joe Biden and leaders of Congress on Tuesday in a desperate bid for more funds. What is happening with the Russia-Ukrain war? 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 that subscribe button. After the failure of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution on the ceasefire in Gaza, this was due to the US veto, of course. The UN General Assembly is set to discuss the situation on Tuesday. This was after Egypt and Mauritania requested a special meeting. Now, UNGA resolutions are not enforceable, although the session will most likely prove once again how most countries in the world are pressing for a ceasefire. Israel, however, continues to be defined and is relentlessly attacking Gaza. We go to Abdul for more details. Abdul, before the weekend, we saw that the UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire was vetoed by the United States and Israel. Of course, welcoming that decision, continuing is assault. But so first of all, could you maybe take us through what is the latest from Gaza, from the situation over there, from the attacks and from the humanitarian perspective? Inside Gaza, the situation is becoming bad towards every day and there is a greater need now. In fact, every day there is a greater need to impose immediate ceasefire, because the people, Palestinians, the number of Palestinians killed is now crossing 18,000. As per the reports from the ground, the number of people injured is crossing 50,000. Palestinians, apart from all these things, the number of displaced is almost equal to the entire population of the pre-war Gaza, around 2.2 million people. If you see, there are ground offensive going on all across Gaza and particularly the southern Gaza, where Israel forces apparently are now dropping weapons from the sky, basically, because they think that the operation needs to continue the way it is continuing in full flesh, despite the fact that the refugee camps, the temporary shelters, wherever people are taking shelter, whether they are run by UNRWA or whether they are managed by the local humanitarian groups, none of them are safe. And therefore, the number of people, we can safely say that almost entire population in Gaza is now without any shelter and there is no place in Gaza which is safe. Of course, this also means that overall humanitarian situation, as we have been talking about all these days, is becoming more and more unmanageable. There is no system there. It is becoming there is complete breakdown in terms of food supply, in terms of supply of medicines, in terms of providing people basic necessities like drinking water. And therefore, the overall situation inside Gaza has completely collapsed in the last few days. And despite all that, there is an intensified attack which Israel is carrying out at this moment all across the besieged Palestinian territory. Abdul, in this context, also interesting to note that Egypt and Mauritania have also moved, have invoked another section of the charter calling for general assembly. What is this about? Well, this is about calling for an immediate general assembly meeting, which basically, of course, as per the rules of the United Nations Charter, will not have any legal validity beyond its having a political, apart from having a political messaging. Just like what we saw during Secretary General invoking article 99 of the United Nations Charter, basically asking the Security Council to meet as it was not meeting for various reasons. For a very long time to discuss the situation in Gaza, this is another attempt. But this time in general assembly to basically unite behind the call for peace by all the countries which basically are concerned about what is happening. As we all know that the Security Council meeting was inconclusive because the US basically exercised its right to veto. And that was the only country we basically voted against. The resolution was demanded the ceasefire in exchange of the release of the hostages. So it is not sure even, of course, legally speaking, even if the entire all 190 plus members of the United Nations General Assembly vote in support of a resolution which asks for a ceasefire in Gaza, it of course will have no legal validity. But of course, it has a political message. So this is the only thing which basically comes out from this particular attempt that this will be an attempt to pressurize the superpowers, the country which veto to kind of listen to the views of the world community and act on implementing some kind of ceasefire inside Gaza. Right Abul, in this context also wanted to ask you about what the global response has been, what is happening in the region with regard to this genocidal war and what has also been the response in recent times of the international community? Well, if you see the US and its allies, particularly the European allies, UK, France and some other countries have continued to kind of express their support to Israeli war inside Gaza. In fact, on Monday, basically all these three European countries, UK, sorry, France, Germany and others basically wrote to the European Union asking to impose sanctions against Hamas to show solidarity with Israel. So when it comes to the United States and its allies in Europe, they continue to support the massacre, the genocide in Gaza. There has been no change in their stance. But of course, the rest of the world is completely, you can see there is a major shift which is happening that is by and large there is a consensus emerging all across the world that there is an immediate need for a ceasefire, no matter what the situation, whether some of those countries who agree with Israel to write Israel's right to self-defense, even they have started calling for ceasefire given the fact that the overall situation in Gaza is now beyond any describable crisis which Wall has seen in last few decades at least. If you see there is in the region, of course, there is Hezbollah and the Yemen which basically have taken actions against Israeli war machine. In fact, there has been an escalation of kind of confrontation between Hamas, sorry, between Hezbollah and Israelis in the recent days, few days. Then the Houthis have said that they are going to completely block the Red Sea, which is crucial for the international trade and crucial for Israel's basically Israel's imports or even exports. So that is one thing which is happening, of course. Also, the attacks on US establishment have also increased in the last few days. There are countries like Iran and there are others, in fact, in the region who have basically started speaking about greater possibility of regional escalation if the war continues for more days. Therefore, the overall situation in the region is quite, you can say, fragile, quite volatile. Anything can happen any moment primarily because Israel does not has stopped listening to their repeated calls for ceasefire and their repeated calls for kind of implementing a larger peace in the region. Thanks, Abdul. We'll come back to you for the other story of the day which also has to do with the war that's Russia-Ukrainian war. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will be in Washington on Tuesday to meet with US leaders in a desperate bid to gain more funds. The situation does not look very good for Zelensky. The Ukrainian counter-offensive is ground to halt. There are reports of differences in the country's leadership and across the West, many influential voices are calling for re-examining the aid provided for the war. Recently, US republicans blocked more military aid to Ukraine due to internal political squabbles. We go back to Abdul to understand what is happening with Ukraine in the war. Welcome back, Abdul. So Zelensky meeting Joe Biden in a very crucial time, things do not look very good for Ukraine at this point of time. And last week, we saw what happened to that resolution regarding the sanction of funds as well. So could you elaborate a bit more on the political and military context that's taking place? Zelensky is visiting US on Tuesday primarily because he wants to push for the $60 billion aid, which of course, as you rightly pointed out, was rejected by the republicans in the US Congress, primarily because there is a growing concern in the US about the amount of money they are spending in Ukraine where nothing concrete is happening. Their so-called attempts to kind of push back Russians has not resulted in any actual material physical gains. And in fact, the Russians are now pushing for further expansion of their control inside the region. And that basically has forced Zelensky to look for additional funds. There is one more thing which one should remember that the funds which were coming from other partners, the NATO countries or the European countries is also not flowing as per the expectations which Ukrainians had. And that basically would mean that if this dries out, if this continues for a longer time, the Ukrainians will have no financial and military backing, which will ultimately lead to them conceding more and more ground to the Russians. And that's the calculation with which Zelensky is visiting. And one should remember that this is not easy primarily because the popular opinion inside US is basically gradually shifting away from Ukraine. In fact, there are surveys which point out that majority of the people in US do not feel very happy about the fact that a large amount of their money is basically spent in Ukraine without any concrete results on the ground. And so the Republicans, it seems, have read it in some way. And they have been basically been very vocal in the recent days about continuing the policy of financing the Ukrainian war. And therefore they have in fact been vocal about what they call the result-oriented funding. And this is the context in which Zelensky is visiting. This is exactly the time Zelensky was there in US last year also and where there was a proposal, a ridiculous proposal which was rejected by the Russians and rest of the players involved. But yeah, this is one should remember that this is exactly the time when the last time Zelensky was there in the US. So it has been a year. Yeah. Ryan Abdul, we don't talk about the war that often these days, but what seems to have happened is definitely a kind of a deadlock. The Ukrainians not being able to make substantial gains in any part, like you said. And some recent articles exposing the kind of issues that went into the counteroffensive which did not really work. So a lot of doubt across many parts of the world, especially populations, but it does seem that governments nonetheless continue to spread. The governments of the West are continue to back Ukraine on its policies and the European Union also meeting to discuss some of these issues also, although there is dissent inside as well. Exactly. So see, when it comes to political backing, saying that we are with Ukraine that has not gone down, the rhetorical support to the Ukrainian war has not gone down. In fact, there is a push within these European countries. There is a section which basically wants the aid, the military aid, which these countries are providing. In fact, UK has announced that they are going to provide navy artillery or tanks to basically Ukrainian forces. So yes, there is continuous military and political backing to Ukrainian war, to Ukraine's war effort, but the amount of which that's what one needs to see that the rhetorical and military support, the actual material support, of course, there is a pressure within these countries, because none of these countries are doing financially quite well, including the US, and they basically are looking for ways to kind of find an excuse to kind of reduce their amount of finances, which is basically draining their own finances. And therefore, you will see that there is an attempt to kind of balance the lack of material support with the more fierce rhetorical support to Ukrainians. This is one. Also that there are reports, of course, not confirmed about growing disenchantments with the Ukrainian leadership among the European countries, primarily because they think that there is some kind of attempt to kind of shuffle the money, which basically is for money and material support, which is primarily to fight against the Russians, is basically used for some other purposes, which are not accountable. And so all of these basically, the lack of trust in the Ukrainian leadership, the lack of results on the grounds, and their own financial compulsions have basically pushed some of these countries to talk about more aggressively about providing support to Ukrainians, but at the same time, looking ways to kind of reduce it in one way or another. So this basically has to happen. It is now the two years, the war is going to complete two years in few months. And for continuously for two years, providing the similar amount of financial support to Ukrainians, of course, has its own financial and political implications. And most of these countries are facing it. And if it continues, they will face more in the coming days. Thank you for the analysis. We'll watch what happens in the U.S. on Tuesday. What is a pitch Zelensky makes for more read and how it is received by the Republican Democrat leadership. Thank you so much. That's all we have in today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow for another episode. In the meanwhile, do visit our website, peoplesispatch.org. Follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button.