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For US President Donald Trump, it’s up to Israel to decide what to do next in Gaza — meaning Washington is offering quiet support for its ally’s plans to expand the offensive in the war-wracked Palestinian territory.While numerous European and Arab capitals urged Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to reconsider his decision to “take control” of Gaza City, Trump this week has effectively given the Israeli prime minister free rein — even if it means pushback from the international community. After nearly two years of devastating conflict, Israel’s security cabinet approved Netanyahu’s plan to “defeat” Hamas, which triggered the war with its October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.Before Israel’s announcement, when asked if he could support such a plan, Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he was focused on securing an increase in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza to help starving Palestinians.”As far as the rest of it, I really, I really can’t say — that’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” Trump said.Then on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed that position, telling Catholic TV network EWTN, “Ultimately, what Israel needs to do for Israel’s security will be determined by Israel.”Trump and Rubio’s comments speak volumes about the US strategy: since Israel-Hamas talks on a ceasefire in Gaza fell apart, Washington has broadly embraced Israel’s views following US envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit last week.Details of Witkoff’s meeting with Netanyahu have not been made public, but it is hard to imagine that Trump’s emissary was not briefed on Israel’s plans.While Washington has amped up the pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip, it has also insisted that all Israeli hostages — dead or alive — be freed from Hamas captivity and the complete annihilation of the militant group.”Our goals are very clear,” US Vice President JD Vance said Friday during talks with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.”We want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again, and we think that has to come through the eradication of Hamas.”Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has offered Israel ironclad support, even while pushing for better humanitarian support.He seemed to throw in the towel on securing a ceasefire following repeated failed efforts at mediation, especially after talks crumbled late last month in Doha when Hamas refused a deal to free the hostages.Hamas still has 49 Israeli hostages abducted during the October 2023 attack, 27 of whom are presumed dead.- Capitulation -The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee — who is prone to making eyebrow-raising statements — slammed all criticism of Israel’s plans for Gaza.”So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved?” Huckabee wrote on social media.”Did UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them?” he said in response to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who called Netanyahu’s approach “wrong.”In his interview with EWTN, Rubio said “as long as Hamas exists, particularly exists as an armed organization, there will never be peace in Gaza.”Rubio said he understood why the famine facing Palestinians in the territory was getting “almost all the media coverage” but lamented what he called a lack of attention to the plight of the remaining Israeli hostages.In recent weeks, Washington has sharply criticized international initiatives to formally recognize a Palestinian state, led notably by French President Emmanuel Macron, warning that it emboldens Hamas not to give up.

Germany will halt the export of military equipment to Israel that could be used in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday, sparking an angry response from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Berlin’s move, in response reaction to an Israeli plan to take control of Gaza City, marks a drastic change of course for Germany, long one of Israel’s staunchest international allies.Merz expressed “deep concern” at the suffering of Gaza’s civilians.It was “increasingly unclear”, he said, how the latest Israeli military plan would help achieve the aims of disarming Hamas and freeing the remaining Israeli hostages.”Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorise any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice,” he said in a statement.Netanyahu spoke to Merz later Friday to express his “disappointment”, said a statement from the prime minister’s office.”Instead of supporting Israel’s just war against Hamas, which carried out the most horrific attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Germany is rewarding Hamas terrorism by embargoing arms to Israel,” it said.- Disarming Hamas ‘imperative’ -Germany’s Central Council of Jews also called Merz’s decision “disappointing”, saying the government should “correct course” and increase pressure on Hamas instead.Israel has until recently enjoyed broad support across the political spectrum in Germany, a country still seeking to atone for the World War II murder of more than six million Jews.Between the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 that started the Gaza war and May this year, Germany approved defence exports worth 485 million euros ($565 million) to Israel.The deliveries included firearms, ammunition, weapons parts, electronic equipment and armoured vehicles, the government said in June.Merz reiterated that “Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’ terror” and that “the release of the hostages and negotiations on a ceasefire are our top priorities”.”The disarmament of Hamas is imperative. Hamas must not play a role in Gaza in future,” he said.But “the new military push agreed by the Israeli security cabinet makes it increasingly unclear how these goals are to be achieved”, he added.- Gaza suffering ‘unbearable’ -Merz’s decision is a dramatic step for Germany, where the chancellor’s tone towards Israel had been sharpening in recent months as the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorated.Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil of the Social Democrats welcomed the “just decision”, saying “the humanitarian suffering in Gaza is unbearable”.A poll published this week by public broadcaster ARD found that 66 percent of Germans expected the government to exert greater influence over Israel to change its actions in Gaza.However, while often voicing concern, Germany had so far avoided major concrete steps. It refrained from following France, Britain and Canada, which have announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state in September, arguing recognition must come at the end of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.Berlin has also opposed the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which had been under review by the bloc.Global alarm has been growing over the suffering in Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment has warned that famine is unfolding.German air force planes have joined others with humanitarian aid airdrops over the war-battered coastal territory.Merz said that “with the planned offensive, the Israeli government bears even greater responsibility” for providing aid to Gaza and again urged “comprehensive access” for UN agencies and aid groups.He also said his government had urged Israel “to refrain from taking any further steps toward an annexation of the West Bank”.Last month, 71 members of Israel’s 120-seat parliament, including members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, passed a motion calling on the government to annex the occupied West Bank.The German-Israeli Society, which promotes closer ties between the two countries, condemned Merz’s move and pointed to a $3.5-billion deal under which Germany had agreed to buy Israel’s Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile shield.The group said that “if Israel were to retaliate in arms deliveries to Germany, the future of German aerial defence looks bleak”.

An Israeli strike killed one person in southern Lebanon on Friday, the Lebanese health ministry said, with Israel accusing the slain man of being a Hezbollah intelligence operative.The latest attack, despite a November ceasefire, comes a day after Israeli strikes killed seven people in the eastern Bekaa Valley, two of them members of leftist militant group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).The man killed in Friday’s strike, Mohammad Shahadeh, ran a local news website and colleagues took to social media to offer their condolences to his family.Lebanon’s official National News Agency said his car was hit on the main Sidon-Tyre road, along the Mediterranean coast in the country’s south.Social media users circulated an obituary released by militant group Hezbollah, which described him as a “martyr on the road to Jerusalem”, the term the group uses for members killed in fighting with Israel.Israel’s military said Shahadeh was “responsible for intelligence” in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force.A military statement said he had “operated to advance the force buildup and operational readiness of Hezbollah’s Radwan force” during hostilities which escalated into two months of full-blown war in September.The PFLP meanwhile mourned “commander and Central Committee member Mohammad Khalil Wishah” and “field commander Mufid Hassan Hussein, who were martyred yesterday (Thursday) in a treacherous Zionist assassination crime on the road between Syria and Lebanon”.The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying Wishah was part of the PFLP’s “military-security department in Syria” since his predecessor was assassinated in an Israeli air strike in Beirut in September.The military alleged that Wishah “recently operated to advance military operations against Israeli targets”.Israel has repeatedly struck Lebanon despite last year’s truce and has threatened to continue its attacks until Hezbollah has been disarmed.This week, the Lebanese government agreed an end of year target for the disarmament of the militant group and tasked the army with drawing up a plan by the end of August.

Israel’s military will “take control” of Gaza City under a new plan approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, touching off a wave of criticism Friday from both inside and outside the country.Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, Netanyahu faces mounting pressure to secure a truce to pull the territory’s more than two million people back from the brink of famine and free the hostages held by Palestinian militants.Israel’s foe Hamas denounced the plan to expand the fighting as a “new war crime”, while staunch Israeli ally Germany took the extraordinary step of halting military exports out of concern they could be used in Gaza.Under the newly approved plan to “defeat” Hamas, the Israeli army “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside combat zones”, the premier’s office said Friday.Before the decision, Netanyahu had said Israel planned to seize complete control of the Gaza Strip, but did not intend to govern it.”We don’t want to keep it,” the premier told US network Fox News on Thursday, adding Israel wanted a “security perimeter” and to hand the Palestinian territory to “Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us”.Israel occupied Gaza from 1967, but withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005.Netanyahu’s office said a majority of the security cabinet had adopted “five principles”, including demilitarisation of the territory and “the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.The new plan triggered swift criticism from across the globe, with China, Turkey, the UK and the UN’s rights chief issuing statements of concern.In a major shift, meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced his country was halting military shipments to Israel, saying it was “increasingly difficult to understand” how the new plan would help achieve legitimate aims.”Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorise any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice,” he said.- ‘March of recklessness’ -Reactions in Israel were more mixed.Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid denounced the cabinet’s move as “a disaster that will lead to many other disasters”.He warned on X that it would result in “the death of the hostages, the killing of many soldiers, cost Israeli taxpayers tens of billions, and lead to diplomatic bankruptcy”.The main campaign group for hostages’ families also slammed the plan, saying it amounted to “abandoning” the captives.”The cabinet chose last night to embark on another march of recklessness, on the backs of the hostages, the soldiers, and Israeli society as a whole,” the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said.An expanded Israeli offensive could see ground troops operate in densely populated areas where hostages are believed to be held, local media have reported.Other Israelis, meanwhile, offered their support. “As they take control of Gaza, they will eliminate Hamas completely — maybe not completely, but at least a good percentage of them,” said Chaim Klein, a 26-year-old yeshiva student. The Israeli army said last month that it controlled 75 percent of the Gaza Strip, mainly from its positions in the territory along the border.Out of 251 hostages captured during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the military says are dead.- ‘Extremist agenda’ -Gaza residents said they feared for the worst, as they braced for the next onslaught.”They tell us to go south, then back north, and now they want to send us south again. We are human beings, but no one hears us or sees us,” Maysa al-Shanti, a 52-year-old mother of six, told AFP. Hamas on Friday said the “plans to occupy Gaza City and evacuate its residents constitutes a new war crime”.It warned Israel that the operation would “cost it dearly”, and that “expanding the aggression means sacrificing” the hostages.International concern has been growing over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment has warned that famine is unfolding.The World Health Organization said at least 99 people have died from malnutrition in the territory this year, with the figure likely an underestimate.In late July, Israel partially eased restrictions on aid entering Gaza, but the United Nations says the amount allowed into the territory remains insufficient.Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network in the Gaza Strip, told AFP that lengthy inspection procedures at entry points meant few trucks could come in — “between 70 to 80 per day — carrying only specific types of goods”.The UN estimates that Gaza needs at least 600 trucks of aid per day to meet residents’ basic needs.Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,258 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s military will “take control” of Gaza City under a plan proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and approved by his security cabinet, his office said in a statement Friday.Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, Netanyahu faces mounting pressure at home and abroad for a truce to pull the territory’s more than two million people back from the brink of famine and free the hostages held by Palestinian militants.Under the plan to “defeat” Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside combat zones”, the premier’s office said.Before the decision, Netanyahu said Israel planned to take full control of Gaza but did not intend to govern it.He told US network Fox News on Thursday that the military would seize complete control of the Gaza Strip, noting that Israel did not want “to keep” the territory, which it occupied in 1967 but withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005.Netanyahu said Israel wanted a “security perimeter” and to hand the Palestinian territory to “Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us”.”That’s not possible with Hamas,” he added.His office on Friday said a majority of the security cabinet had adopted “five principles”, including demilitarisation of the territory and “the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.The plan drew criticism from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said it was “wrong” and “will only bring more bloodshed”.”This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages,” said Starmer, who has threatened to recognise a Palestinian state.- ‘March of recklessness’ -United Nations rights chief Volker Turk similarly said that “the Israeli Government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza Strip must be immediately halted”.The main campaign group for hostages’ families also denounced the plan, saying it amounted to “abandoning the hostages”.”The cabinet chose last night to embark on another march of recklessness, on the backs of the hostages, the soldiers, and Israeli society as a whole,” the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said.The Israeli army said last month that it controlled 75 percent of the Gaza Strip, mainly from its positions in the territory along the border.An expanded Israeli offensive in Gaza could see ground troops operate in densely populated areas where hostages are believed to be held, Israeli media have reported.Out of 251 hostages captured during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the military says are dead.Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid denounced the cabinet’s move on Friday, calling it “a disaster that will lead to many other disasters”.He said on X that the plan would result in “the death of the hostages, the killing of many soldiers, cost Israeli taxpayers tens of billions, and lead to diplomatic bankruptcy”.- ‘Extremist agenda’ -Gaza residents said they feared for the worst, as they braced for the next onslaught.”They tell us to go south, then back north, and now they want to send us south again. We are human beings, but no one hears us or sees us,” Maysa al-Shanti, a 52-year-old mother of six, told AFP. Following Netanyahu’s remarks on Fox, Hamas lambasted the prime minister. “Netanyahu’s plans to escalate the aggression confirm beyond any doubt his desire to get rid of the captives and sacrifice them in pursuit of his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda,” the group said in a statement.International concern has been growing over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment has warned that famine is unfolding.The World Health Organization said at least 99 people have died from malnutrition in the territory this year, with the figure likely an underestimate.In late July, Israel partially eased restrictions on aid entering Gaza, but the United Nations says the amount allowed into the territory remains insufficient.Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network in the Gaza Strip, told AFP that lengthy inspection procedures at entry points meant few trucks could come in — “between 70 to 80 per day — carrying only specific types of goods”.The UN estimates that Gaza needs at least 600 trucks of aid per day to meet residents’ basic needs.Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,258 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.