JD Vance skirts question about whether Israel informed Trump of Gaza City plans

US Vice President JD Vance has been asked whether President Donald Trump was informed in advance of Israel’s plans to fully take over Gaza City.

“I’m not going to speak to private conversations between the Israeli government and our government,” Vance answered, adding that he expected Trump to address Israel’s announcement.

“But our goals are very clear,” the US vice president told reporters during a meeting with his British counterpart, David Lammy.

“We want to make it so that Hamas can’t attack innocent people. We want to solve the humanitarian problems in Gaza. We’re working incredibly hard, the president and the entire team, to make sure that happens.”

Vance also said that the US will not be recognising a Palestinian state, a move some of its major allies, including the UK, have announced plans to make.

The US has provided Israel with unwavering support since it launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, funnelling billions of dollars to the Israeli military and blocking efforts at the UN and other international arenas to end the conflict.

Experts say Israel would not be able to move forward with its plan to take total military control of Gaza without that backing from Washington.

Trump also previously said he wants the US to “take over” Gaza and turn the enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East” – a proposal that was firmly rejected by Palestinians and widely condemned as amounting to ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s Gaza plan ‘must have consequences for EU-Israel relations’, says Costa

Israel’s decision to take over Gaza City “must have consequences for EU-Israel relations”, EU Council President Antonio Costa says on X, adding that this will be assessed by the council and that he urged the Israeli government to reconsider.

“Not only [does the decision] violate the agreement with the EU announced by the High Representative on July 19 but also undermines fundamental principles of international law and universal values,” Costa, who heads the European Council that represents EU member states, added in his statement.

I strongly urge the Israeli government to reconsider its decision to take over Gaza City. Such an operation — together with the continued illegal expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the massive destruction in Gaza, the blockade of humanitarian aid, and the spread of famine…

— António Costa (@eucopresident) August 8, 2025

Netanyahu says Germany ‘rewarding Hamas’ by halting arms exports

The Israeli prime minister has “expressed his disappointment” over Germany’s decision to suspend some weapons transfers to Israel during a call with German Chancellor Merz.

“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,” Netanyahu’s office said in a readout of the talks.

It added that Israel’s goal “is not to take over Gaza, but to free Gaza from Hamas and enable a peaceful government to be established there”.

‘Germany has international law obligations to halt arms exports’

Leon Castellanos-Jakiewicz, a senior researcher in international law at the TMC Asser Instituut in The Hague, says it remains to be seen what Germany’s decision to suspend weapons export permits to Israel means for the Israeli war on Gaza.

“The chancellor has said that all weapons that would be used in Gaza will not be exported. We need to know what that means,” Castellanos-Jakiewicz told Al Jazeera, noting that Berlin’s move does not amount to a blanket suspension.

“The language is important because other weapons which the German government deems not to be used in Gaza could still be exported,” he explained.

He said Germany has international legal obligations regarding the arms trade, particularly as a signatory to the UN Arms Trade Treaty and under the EU’s common arms exports policy.

“According to these instruments, if there is an overriding risk or a clear risk that humanitarian law and human rights law will be violated with those weapons, then the export should be stopped,” Castellanos-Jakiewicz said.

“So I’m sure that the German authorities – in this case, the minister of economic affairs and the foreign office and ministry of defence, who are in charge of making these risk assessments – have been checking their export licences against the criteria of international law.”

More from Gaza City

We have more testimonials from Gaza City, where Palestinians face renewed uncertainty and fear over Israel’s push to take over the city.

Samira Shahd struck a note of defiance, saying that she has been in a “displacement journey” for nearly two years now as a result of Israel’s bombardment. “Now we are here in Gaza City, which will be our last destination,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The Israelis have said they wanted to occupy Gaza and wanted us to go to southern Gaza. There is nothing in Gaza but tents, and we will never leave here. We don’t have any energy to move towards the south. We will stay here till we die here.”

Nader Abu Shahla said he will never be displaced again. “I had enough displacement and I had enough starvation,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Going to the south is useless. If the Israelis want to storm the tents, it’s OK, let them take our tents. My final decision is to stay here and die here.”


_{Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City, August 8}

Netanyahu ‘using military for a political end’

Rob Geist Pinfold, an international security lecturer at King’s College London, says there is “no military logic whatsoever” to Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City.

“Israel’s military are very much against this plan. They say that their soldiers are tired, they don’t have the resources available, this will endanger the hostages and captives that Hamas holds … in the Gaza Strip,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This is purely a political plan with political logic. It’s using the military for a political end.”

Geist Pinfold said that the political end is “to make Gaza even more unlivable” and more chaotic than it already is, and to displace all of the residents of the territory.

“It will force [Palestinians in Gaza] to live in the south of the territory, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation, which will then lead to one of two things,” he said.

“Either Gaza will become so uninhabitable that those Palestinians will leave en masse. Or, as Netanyahu alluded to in his remarks yesterday, the Arab states or unknown Arab powers step in and provide the governance for those Palestinians, but without imposing any conditions on Israel, like Israel committing to a Palestinian state.

“That’s Netanyahu’s long-term game here.”

UN Security Council to meet on Saturday to discuss Gaza

That’s an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting. Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members were calling for this meeting. The only Security Council member that was against holding this meeting tomorrow was the United States.

Nevertheless, it will go forward – at 3pm New York time on Saturday.

And the US will veto anything the UNSC will say, pointless.

Palestine’s UN envoy slams Israel’s plan for Gaza

Riyad Mansour says that it is the duty of the international community to act to stop Israel from completing its announced military takeover of Gaza City and the Strip at large.

“This escalation by the Israeli government is going in total contradiction to the will of the international community, international law and common sense”, Mansour said.

He added that opinion polls indicate that the plans are against the wishes of people inside Israel as well.

More from Netanyahu, Katz on Israel’s Gaza City takeover plan

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says on X that “Gaza will be demilitarized, and a peaceful civilian administration will be established, neither the Palestinian Authority, nor Hamas, nor any other terrorist organization.”

His comments come after the Israeli security cabinet approved a plan for the military takeover of Gaza City, and on the heels of comments from Netanyahu himself yesterday, which said that Israel seeks complete military control of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz also took to X a short while ago, saying that “the army is already preparing today for the full implementation of these decisions” around the plan.

Israeli security officials are roundly opposed to Netanyahu’s escalation plans, making this clear either through public statements or leaks to the press.

On international condemnation of the plan, Katz said, “Countries around the world that condemn or threaten to impose sanctions will not weaken our resolve.”

Hundreds sign on to academics’ letter defending Palestine Action in UK

More than 350 academics from around the world have now signed on to a letter released earlier this week to express support for Palestine Action, an activist group in the UK that was recently proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation.

The letter was launched on Wednesday with signatories including some big names such as Judith Butler, Angela Davis and Naomi Klein. It comes as the group Defend Our Juries is planning a large protest outside the British Parliament tomorrow “in defiance” of the Palestine Action ban.

The activist group was banned in July after a high-profile incident in which the group claimed responsibility for damaging two Voyager military aircraft at the Brize Norton air force base.

Observers say the move infringes on freedom of expression and assembly, and more than 200 people have been arrested for expressing support for Palestine Action since it was proscribed.

In their letter, the academics said the ban “represents an attack both on the entire pro-Palestine movement and on fundamental freedoms of expression, association, assembly, and protest”.

_{Palestine Action supporters hold placards during a demonstration at Parliament Square in London, July 12}

Israeli soldiers launch more raids on occupied West Bank

Israeli soldiers and armoured vehicles have launched multiple military actions in the West Bank in the past several hours, including in the village of Tayasir, east of Tubas.

The Wafa news agency quoted local sources as saying Israeli forces stormed the village with several vehicles, deployed infantry forces and raided a commercial store in the centre of the village. No injuries or arrests were reported.

Other local sources said Palestinian Authority forces detonated explosives set by armed Palestinian groups before raids on Tubas.

Israeli forces also stormed the village of Kafr Qaddum, located east of Qalqilya, and set up a military checkpoint to inspect vehicles.

In Dahr al-Abed, south of Jenin, Israeli forces uprooted and destroyed dozens of olive trees on land belonging to a Palestinian.

عاجل| مصادر محلية: أجهزة أمن السلطة تفجر عبوات ناسفة معدة للتصدي لاقتحامات الاحتلال في مدينة طوباس. pic.twitter.com/Fd7tsnITiZ

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 8, 2025

Israel Switches Propaganda Tactics

Everything you need to know about Israel's new hasbara.

Gaza Takeover: Israel Launches New Stage of "Indefinite, Genocidal Military Campaign"

Israel's security cabinet has announced the approval of a plan to occupy Gaza City, moving its ongoing military offensive north and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians to camps in central Gaza. Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani emphasizes that the new strategy is simply "the first phase of a larger plan" for the permanent displacement, occupation and annexation of the entire Gaza Strip, as confirmed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent interview with Fox News. "We are dealing here with a genocide," says Rabbani, where "Israel is acting in the full confidence that whatever it does, it will enjoy, if not the support, at least the consent of its key sponsors and allies in the West."

DEBUNKED: 14 Israeli LIES About Gaza Famine

UK’s Gaza complicity established? Money paid to US contractors to help Netanyahu

A new investigation by Times Radio has found that the UK government led by Keir Starmer hired US planes to spy over Gaza to help Benjamin Netanyahu in his ongoing atrocities. Rifat Jawaid says this exposes the double-standard of the UK PM and his colleagues who were shedding crocodile tears for the suffering of those living in Gaza only a few days ago.

Palestinians receive rotten aid, with Nora Barrows-Friedman

The Genocide in Gaza (Using Israeli Sources)

"There’s nothing left to occupy": Palestinians condemn Netanyahu’s decision to take control of Gaza

Palestinians in Gaza City expressed frustration at news that Israel's security cabinet had approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, a move expanding military operations in the shattered Palestinian territory.   Sabrin Naaim, who has been displaced several times during the war and is now in Gaza City, said, “It's unfair for us to leave. Where should we go to?... There's nothing we can do. I say let us die where we are, it is better.”  

A United Nations spokesperson said that any decision that expanded Israel's military operations in Gaza was "deeply alarming," and it would risk "catastrophic consequences" for millions of Palestinians and further endanger the lives of remaining Israeli hostages.  

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, said that the administration respects Israel's right to defend itself and "it has the right to determine how it does that."  

"Netanyahu’s decision to occupy Gaza — it’s like there’s nothing left to occupy in the first place. We’re already dying, a hundred thousand deaths every day," said another displaced Palestinian.

Children in Gaza 'like zombies' because of severe malnutrition, US doctor says

A doctor from the US who has just returned from Gaza said the level of starvation is “catastrophic”. Mark Brauner added young children "become delirious, they have hallucinations... they essentially become almost like zombies".

Palestinians in Gaza are fearing more destruction and displacement, after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to take over Gaza City was approved by his security cabinet. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that since 27 July, when Israel resumed allowing air drops, more than 1,000 aid packages have been air dropped in Gaza by nine different countries.

The military added that it rejects what it calls "false claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza". Humanitarian agencies have warned that air drops are not enough to help, and the packages often land far from the people who need them.

BBC still using Israeli talking points, like more than 1,000 packages in 11 days is anything worth while. (32 trucks worth, avg 2.8 truck loads per day)

Forced displacement ‘absolutely forbidden’ under int’l law: Former UN expert

Michael Lynk, a former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has stressed that Gaza is already considered under international law and by the UN to be occupied by Israel despite the withdrawal of settlers and troops in 2005.

“Not because there are boots on the ground by the Israeli army but because Israel exercises what in an international legal test is ‘effective control’,” Lynk told Al Jazeera. “That it is able to determine who or what got into the Gaza Strip … and who or what left the Gaza Strip.”

As such, international humanitarian law remains in force in Gaza, Lynk explained. “You will not hear any Israeli spokesperson using the term occupation, and yet the rest of the world will call it an occupation and say that Israel will have to abide by the strict terms of international law,” he said.

Forced displacement is “absolutely forbidden” under international law unless done on a temporary basis in order to keep civilians safe during a conflict, Lynk added.

“You know and I know over the last six months, we’ve heard constant refrain coming both from the United States and from Israel with respect to wanting to see the Palestinian population in Gaza either ‘thinned out’ … or perhaps removed altogether,” he said.

“All of that would be certainly a war crime, quite likely also a crime against humanity. And if it’s part of a larger aim to try to destroy a people, in whole or in part, then it’s also genocide.”

Israeli plan for Gaza will go ahead unless US changes tack: Expert

Michael Lynk, the former UN expert, says Netanyahu likely suspects that as long as he has support from the United States, “he can do what he wants”.

“I would be surprised if you see the rest of the international community doing very much beyond perhaps threatening weapons sales suspensions or threatening free trade suspensions. That would be meaningful,” Lynk said.

“But unless and until the United States decides to break with this, I think this full invasion and occupation of Gaza will go ahead.”

The US has provided Israel with unwavering diplomatic and military support for decades, funnelling billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Israeli military since it launched its bombardment of Gaza in October 2023.

Washington has also blocked efforts at the UN and other international arenas to end the Israeli war or hold Israeli officials accountable for alleged war crimes against Palestinians.

Trump says ‘looking into’ reports Somaliland open to taking in Palestinians

Trump has been asked to comment on reports that Somaliland expressed an openness to taking in Palestinians displaced from Gaza in exchange for US recognition of the area’s independence.

“We’re looking into that right now. Good question, actually, and another complex one, as you know. But we’re working on that right now – Somaliland,” the US president said during a news conference at the White House.

As we’ve been reporting, Trump said in February that he wants Palestinians to leave Gaza so that the US can “own” the territory and turn it into the “riviera of the Middle East”.

Palestinians have rejected efforts to force them out of Gaza, while human rights groups have condemned such a push as amounting to ethnic cleansing and a violation of international law.

Israel’s plans for Gaza mean ‘worst is yet to come’: Amnesty chief

Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard says the Israeli cabinet’s approval of plans to expand Israel’s war on Gaza, including the takeover of Gaza City, is “utterly outrageous and revolting”.

“Nothing can justify the additional mass atrocities that an expanded military operation in Gaza City will entail,” Callamard said in a statement.

She said Israel’s push will result in “extraordinary” levels of suffering for Palestinians already facing starvation across Gaza, as well as amount to a violation of international law.

“Just as we thought we had already seen the cruellest, most painful chapters of this genocide unfold – through Israel’s continued and escalating use of starvation as a method of warfare – plans to escalate the military operations in Gaza City indicate that indeed the worst is yet to come,” she added.

UAE comes out against Israel’s plans to ‘occupy Gaza’

A statement from the country’s foreign ministry condemning “in the strongest terms” the Israeli prime minister’s announcement yesterday adds the Emirates to the growing list of states and NGOs speaking out against Netanyahu’s plan.

The statement warns “the disastrous consequences of this decision, which will result in more innocent victims in the Strip and exacerbate the humanitarian tragedy”, and calls on the international community, specifically the US, to step in to stop the slaughter.

Qatar condemns Israel’s plans to occupy Gaza

Qatar has become the latest country to slam Israeli PM Netanyahu’s announcement that Israel seeks to militarily control the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, its Foreign Ministry condemned the plan in the “strongest terms”, saying it considers it “a dangerous development that threatens to exacerbate the humanitarian suffering resulting from the ongoing war in the Strip, exacerbates its disastrous repercussions, and undermines efforts aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire”.

Qatar has played a central role in this conflict for its duration, acting as a key mediator in all previous agreements between Israel and Hamas for pauses in fighting and the exchange of prisoners.

Like many other nations in the wake of Netanyahu’s announcement yesterday, Qatar called on the international community to step in and prevent more bloodshed.

Foreign ministers of five countries condemn Israeli plan to seize Gaza City

The foreign ministers of Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have strongly condemned the Israeli security cabinet’s decision to launch a new large-scale military operation in Gaza.

“The plans that the Government of Israel has announced risk violating international humanitarian law,” the ministers said in a joint statement.

Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City, escalating military operations in the devastated Palestinian territory. The move drew renewed criticism at home and abroad on Friday, as concerns mounted over the nearly two-year-old war.