New US House speaker to introduce stand-alone funding bill for Israel

Congressman Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said on Sunday that he expects to advance a funding bill to support Israel exclusively, as President Joe Biden is pushing for a $106bn combined aid package for both Ukraine and Israel.

"We're going to move a stand-alone Israel funding bill this week in the House," Johnson said in an interview on Fox News.

"There are lots of things going on around the world that we have to address and we will," Johnson said, without explicitly mentioning Ukraine. "But right now what’s happening in Israel takes the immediate attention, and we’ve got to separate that and get it through.”

Biden's budget request calls for $106bn, the majority of which would go to bolster Ukraine's defenses against Russia, and the remainder of the money split between Israel, the Indo-Pacific region and immigration enforcement along the US-Mexico border.

Biden's budget request also includes a call to fund the “potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries”, raising fears of US support for the displacement of Palestinians from the besieged enclave.