This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Thursday the 9th of May,

these are our main stories.

The United States says it's reviewing other weapons deliveries to

Israel after it paused one shipment of arms as it tries to stave off any major

Israeli offensive on Raffer in the Gaza Strip.

EU ambassadors have reached an agreement to use the profits from frozen Russian assets to fund weapons for Ukraine.

Flood rescue efforts in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Allegre have been

suspended because of more torrential rain and strong winds.

Also in this podcast, Arangutan Diplomacy. Malaysia says it's going to start giving some

of the critically endangered animals as gifts to major buyers of its palm oil.

U.S. officials have signaled to Israel that more arms shipments could be delayed if the Israeli military pushes ahead with a full ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Raffa, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge from the fighting.

The US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed on Wednesday that the Biden administration

had paused the supply of thousands of large powerful bombs to Israel over concerns

that it was about to launch a major offensive in Raffer, a move the U.S US strongly opposes.

Mr Austin told a Senate hearing, it was still weighing up whether to withhold other shipments.

Our commitment to Israel's security is ironclad. As you've seen from the very beginning, we have flowed

billions of dollars of security assistance at very rapid pace into Israel.

And so we're going to continue to do what's necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to

defend itself.

But that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term

security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in RFA.

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