The Senate has passed $95bn (£76.2bn) in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after months of delays and rows – with Joe Biden set to sign the legislation later.

The bill passed the Senate on an overwhelming 79-18 vote late on Tuesday after the House had approved the package on Saturday.

Once signed, the president will start the process of sending weapons to Ukraine, which has been struggling to hold its front lines against Russia.

The legislation would also send $26bn (£20bn) in wartime assistance to Israel and humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza, and $8bn (£6.4bn) to counter Chinese threats in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.

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What US aid package means for war in Ukraine

US officials said about $1bn (£802,000) worth of the aid could be on its way shortly, with the bulk following in the coming weeks.

In an interview with The Associated Press shortly before the vote, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said if Congress had not passed the aid, “America would have paid a price economically, politically, militarily”.

“Very few things we have done have risen to this level of historic importance,” he said.

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On the Senate floor, Mr Schumer said the Senate was sending a message to US allies: “We will stand with you.”

Mr Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell argued there could be dire consequences for the US and many of its allies if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression is left unchecked.

The pair worked with House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, to overcome seemingly intractable Republican opposition to the Ukraine aid.

The House approved the package in a series of four votes on Saturday, with the Ukraine portion passing 311-112.

The $61bn (£48.1bn) for Ukraine comes as the war-torn country desperately needs new firepower and as Mr Putin has stepped up his attacks.

Ukrainian soldiers have struggled as Russia has seized the momentum on the battlefield and gained significant territory.

Mr Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday the US will send badly needed air defence weaponry as soon as the legislation is passed.

“The President has assured me that the package will be approved quickly and that it will be powerful, strengthening our air defence as well as long-range and artillery capabilities,” Mr Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Monday.

Five migrants including a child have died during an attempt to cross the English Channel in a small boat.

A seven-year-old girl, a woman and three men died in the incident off the coast of Wimereux in northern France, local official Jacques Billant said.

The French coastguard said there was a failed attempt to cross the Channel and there were several “lifeless bodies”.

The tragedy came just hours after the UK government’s controversial Rwanda bill – intended to deter migrants from crossing the Channel in small boats – was passed.

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Some 112 people were on board the overcrowded boat, Mr Billant said.

A total of 47 people were rescued, with four taken to hospital, while more than 50 others chose to continue on their journey, the official added.

Charity worker Sandrine, who witnessed the incident, told Sky News she saw two dinghies in difficulty.

“I saw them bringing in the bodies and the father (of the girl who died) fell into my arms,” she said.

“I said to myself: ‘This can’t be possible. He has a child’.

“They tried to resuscitate her but she had died. The helicopters arrived and then there were four other bodies.

“The father saw his daughter die before him.”

Writing on X, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “These tragedies have to stop. I will not accept a status quo which costs so many lives.”

He said ministers are “doing everything we can to end this trade”.

Conservative MP, Robert Jenrick, who resigned as immigration minister over the government’s Rwanda plan in December, urged the EU to grant member states legal cover “to seize these unseaworthy boats” after what he called “another intolerable tragedy”.

Earlier, Sky News filmed a suspected migrant boat attempting to cross the Channel but it is not known if that was the one involved in the deadly incident.

Some suspected migrants were pictured arriving at the Port of Dover on a British Border Force vessel on Tuesday.

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Sky’s Europe correspondent Adam Parsons, reporting from the northern French coast, said at least four vessels were involved in the rescue operation off the coast of Wimereux, as well as helicopters.

Sea conditions were “perfect”, he said [and], “if you were trying to cross the Channel in a small boat, this is the day you would do it, so if you can’t make it on a day like this, it shows how dangerous it is”.

The boat, he said, is believed to have hit a sandbar at around 5am, causing people to enter the water.

The Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and currents are strong, making the crossing on small boats extremely hazardous.

People smugglers typically overload rickety dinghies, leaving them barely afloat and at risk of being lashed by the waves as they try to reach Britain.

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The Rwanda bill, which Rishi Sunak says will curb the illegal trade, is set to finally become law after the House of Lords decided they would no longer oppose it following hours of wrangling. The measure was finally approved at around midnight.

Mr Sunak has pledged the first flights will take off “in 10 to 12 weeks”.

Human rights groups have described the legislation as inhumane and cruel.

If you want to understand why people are still risking everything to cross the Channel, let me take you to a quiet street near Dunkirk, where chaos is in the air.

A group of around 40 or 50 people – migrants who have just failed in their latest attempt to cross the Channel – are being corralled down the road. They are tired and bruised. The police are around them, like teachers trying to take control of an unruly school trip.

Behind, police officers on foot, shouting instructions in French that almost nobody can understand. The group turns, as one, and heads down a side road that leads to a field.

“Non, non,” shouts the policeman, exasperated. His head rolls back. “NON,” he bellows, then runs after them.

These people are mostly strangers to each other, united by the single aim of reaching Britain. We had seen the group 12 hours earlier, crossing another field, clearly on their way to a nearby beach, but then they disappeared from our sight, heading off down an alleyway between houses.

Like so many people, they had attempted to make the crossing, and failed. This time, according to one of those we spoke to, the cause was the police, patrolling these beaches throughout the night.

As the group tried to take a boat to the shore, the police punctured it, rendering the vessel useless.

But that’s not all. They also claimed the police had used rubber bullets to disperse them.

Bich, a Vietnamese woman who we find sitting on the ground, tearfully exhausted, rolls up her trouser to expose a nasty, vivid bruise.

“We went towards the boat but the police shot at us. They destroyed the boat and it sank. And then they shot me.”

“Plastic pistols,” is how another man described the weapons, showing me a much bigger bruise on his thigh. A third has a circular bruise, with a dot in the middle, as if he has been hit by the top of a canister.

The group was a varied bunch. Very often, over the years of talking to migrant groups of northern France, they have been united by background – one boat is full of Iraqi Kurds, say, while another is packed with Afghans.

But here, we found an international group.

Yes, Kurds, Iraqis and Afghans, but also Syrians, Vietnamese, Sudanese and, hidden behind a cap and jumper pulled over his mouth and nose, a man who told me he was from Morocco.

Some have been determined to reach Britain ever since they left their home countries. Others are more pragmatic. One more told me he had wanted to stay in France but had just been told he was going to be deported.

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“We have problems but we are being deported, so we want to go to Britain for a better life,” says one. “Deport, deport,” shouts another man.

So Britain may represent his last chance at asylum as a host of European nations start to increase the number of deportation orders they issue.

The European Union has just concluded a long-debated agreement on migration, intended to toughen both its borders and its resolve.

Sweden, France, Italy and plenty of others are using much tougher rhetoric about removing people from their territory who have been refused asylum. And the results are beginning to be seen.

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Germany, which opened its doors to more than a million people fleeing Syria, is among those increasing its number of deportations, with 20% more migrants sent away in the first two months of this year compared with the same period of 2023.

And then, of course, there is the UK’s Rwanda plan, designed to deter people from making these crossings, backed by the prime minister’s unequivocal promise to bring down the number of small boats crossing the Channel.

If they knew about the Rwanda plan, and certainly some did, then they shrugged it off as either ineffective, unjust or simply untrue.

“The UK cannot send me to Africa after what you have done to my country and my area,” said one Syrian man. He knew about the Rwanda policy and said it was “not true”.

“It is not safe in Rwanda so you cannot send people there,” insisted another person, perhaps unwittingly getting to the nub of so many parliamentary exchanges.

“There are people who are trying to escape from Rwanda because of what is happening there. So you cannot say it is safe.”

There is a great deal stacked up against these groups of migrants. The British government doesn’t want them to come, they claim the police in the Dunkirk area have attacked them, the crossing is dangerous and expensive and there is a growing tide of antipathy towards migrants across much of Europe.

Yet none of these people seem deterred, promising to persevere, resolutely sure that reaching British shores will be a panacea to their woes.

“We will be back tomorrow,” says a young man with a wispy beard and a wide smile. “We want to get to the UK.”

His friend next to him simply grinned at me. “UK is good,” he said, with a thumbs-up.

The group amble off, back towards their camp near Grande-Synthe, a town that has become a magnet for migrants. They are exhausted and, in some cases, battered. But they will try again. Soon.