US State Department moves $1 billion aid package . dollars for weapons for Israel to Congress, reported Reuters, citing two American representatives.
The chairmen and leading members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Congress are the ones who review major arms deals with other countries.
US President Joe Biden said last week that he had delayed the delivery of bombs to Israel over fears they could be used in a major offensive against the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.
Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch an offensive against Rafah without ensuring the safety of civilians.
Biden's support for Israel's operation against the Palestinian Islamist movement "Hamas" put the US president at a political disadvantage, especially with regard to young supporters of the Democratic Party, ahead of this year's US presidential election, Reuters notes.
Israel launched its military operation against "Hamas" in the Gaza Strip, after on October 7 last year militants of the Islamist movement carried out an unprecedented attack on the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians rallied in northern Israel to mark the anniversary of the flight and forced resettlement of Palestinians during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel. They demanded that the refugees be given the right to return, reported Reuters, quoted by BTA.
Many of the approximately three thousand people who joined the procession in the vicinity of the city of Haifa made demands to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
The demonstrators marked the anniversary of the ``Nakba,'' or ``catastrophe,'' when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation.
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Many of them had Palestinian flags and wore the traditional Palestinian kufiya scarves on their heads, and the event they participated in is an annual event called the "March of Return". The event is one of the rare mass demonstrations by Palestinians who are given permission to take place by Israeli authorities amid the war in Gaza.
Many marchers held bottles of water and some pushed baby carriages as they walked along the dirt road. One of the participants in the procession held aloft a watermelon cut in two - one of the symbols of the Palestinian cause following Israeli bans on the use of the Palestinian flag, which is red-green-black, the same colors that can be seen on the cut watermelon.< /p>
During the 1948 war, about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes.
Today, Arabs make up a fifth of Israel's population. They are Israeli citizens, but many of them identify with Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
Israel is against the return of Palestinian refugees from the war because it considers it a demographic threat. Israel itself defines itself as the nation state of the Jewish people. In the past, positions have been heard from the Israeli side on the issue that Palestinian refugees should either settle in their host countries or in a possible future Palestinian state.
The anniversary of the Nakba falls today, as it is commemorated by Palestinians every year on May 15, according to the Associated Press.