And to exchange hostages, for palestinian prisoners. But even if a deal is reached, israeli prme minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists there will be a fresh Military Offensive in rafah. There has been Widespread International concern that an Israeli Ground operation could endanger more than one million palestinians sheltering there. Our correspondent Anna Foster Injerusalem has more on where negotiations stand as of saturday. Were at that point in proceedings where, through the afternoon, ive been watching in the regional media, various briefings, everything from saying were on the verge of an agreement the framework of an agreement everything through to israel saying no, they wont agree to a ceasefire to end the war permanently. The key thing at this point in time is this is the moment where we hear these briefings and hear Different Things from different sides but until we get some sort of official word, potentially from the egyptian mediators, in charge of the talks in cairo, really a
I can tell you, at some point, it only takes a matter of less than a week from the time the president authorizes a drawdown package for us to get at least the first shipment or so into ukraine. look, that time frame of a week has been what has been going on so far with the so-called lighter weapons, ammunition, drones that the u.s. has already been sending. it will now be a major test of transport capability to get these heavier weapons to the border and get the ukrainians able to be able to ship them out to the donbas clear across ukraine. time is of the essence. even john kirby said they know they are running against the clock. yeah, and at this point, doesn t seem to be much significance between the weaponry that we provided for them before that was more defensive and now obviously this does appear to be a move toward more offensive weaponry we re sending their way. barbara starr, thank you. joining us to discuss is retired u.s. army brigadier general steven anderson.
To do about it. reporter: that s right. good afternoon, jon. ben roads, one of the president s top national security aides, had a conference call with reporters last evening and did say there would be military aid now given by the u.s. to those syrian rebels, but, you know, military aid could be all kinds of things that s not lethal. it could be communications equipment, etc. and so later in the evening white house officials started putting out the word, well, yes, we ll be arming the rebels, but they haven t spelled out specifically what we re sending. some reports suggested it ll be machine guns, other lighter weapons. as you know, critics of the president like john mccain, the republican senator, have been saying you need heavy artillery, anti-aircraft, you need all kinds of things to help the rebels who are really struggling against president assad right now. take a listen to the stakes in all this that ben rhodes laid out last night in this call. it s particularly urgent right