Eastern Europe
While 3,000 Israeli citizens have evacuated since Sunday, the Israeli government believes around 10,000 remain in Ukraine.
Items will include dry food, medicine, blankets and heaters to last up to three months in the event of war.
“The more we help Israel in terms of their capability to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, the less likely we’ll have a war,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, adding that the theUnited States should try to provide Israel with “anything that changes the equation.”
El Al is adding additional flights to and from Kyiv • The Jewish Agency plans to return educational emissaries to Israel.
It approves spending over the course of 10 years to help Jewish community institutions and cultural projects, and to provide social and material assistance to Holocaust survivors.
Zvi Magen, a former Israeli ambassador to both Ukraine and Russia, and currently a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, said the Russian president’s main ambition is “to make Russia a global superpower.” That has implications for Israel.
The two leaders discussed Iran’s nuclear program, Russia-Ukraine tensions and the elimination of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. Biden hopes to visit Israel later this year, according to the White House.
Due to the sensitivity of the issue and Israel’s good working relationship with the two countries, officials are treading carefully to avoid appearance that they’re taking sides.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a virtual policy session with an Atlanta synagogue on Monday night, where tensions regarding a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine’s borders were front and center.
There are no plans to evacuate Israelis at this time, says the Foreign Ministry • Jewish Agency informs employees it will ensure they are evacuated should war break out.
U.S. forces have also been put on heightened alert; White House warns Russia of “massive consequences and severe economic costs.”
Jewish organizations estimate that as many as 75,000 Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country are eligible for Israeli citizenship.
