Netanyahu weighing expanding Israeli operations in Gaza: Reports
Israeli media has reported that the Israeli Prime Minister has been weighing expanding operations in Gaza. Israel’s Channel 12 reported the plan could include efforts to seize the entire enclave, but a decision would be made during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Israeli media also reported the plans being considered involve the military launching operations in areas where captives are believed to be held.
Israel’s Herzog calls on ICRC to act ‘by all means’ to help captives
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog says he has spoken by phone with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric and urged the humanitarian organisation to urgently intervene to get aid to Israeli captives in Gaza.
In a post on X, Herzog referred to “horrifying images” of captives Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, who were seen gaunt and frail in recent released footage from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“I stressed that their lives are in imminent danger,” Herzog said of his conversation with Spoljaric. “I asked of her that the Red Cross should act immediately and by all means at its disposal, in order to assist the hostages, and provide them immediately with food and critical medical care.”
The ICRC, which has acted as an intermediator in past captive exchanges between Hamas and Israel, has so far not had access to captives held in Gaza.
On Sunday, Hamas’s Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said the group is open to the ICRC delivering aid to Israeli captives, but that humanitarian corridors must first “be opened in a normal and permanent manner for the passage of food and medicine to all our people in all areas of the Gaza Strip”.
I spoke now with the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, and told her that the horrifying images of Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, their bones protruding from starvation and neglect, reveal the terrible extent of their suffering and…
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) August 4, 2025
Germany should consider Israel sanctions: MP
A senior lawmaker in German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition has said Berlin should consider sanctions on Israel including a partial suspension of weapons exports or the suspension of a European Union-wide political agreement, according to a report.
The call by Siemtje Moeller, the deputy leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) parliamentary faction, reflects a sharpening of rhetoric from Berlin against Israel which has yet to yield any major policy changes however.
Moeller, whose SPD joined a coalition with Merz’s conservatives this year, wrote a letter to members to her party after returning from a trip to Israel with Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul last week.
“My assessment is that the Israeli government will move little without pressure,” she said in the letter as reported by the Reuters news agency.
Recognition of a Palestinian state should not be “taboo”, she said, adding that Israeli statements that there were no restrictions on aid to Gaza were not convincing.
Moeller also called for the immediate and unconditional release of the captives held by Hamas. She said Hamas must no longer play a role in a political future in Gaza.
