The Israeli plan, approved early Friday by the government’s security cabinet, involves disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, establishing Israeli security control of Gaza, and setting up a new administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.
The military escalation comes amid increasingly urgent international condemnation over the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Even Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest European allies, has suspended some arms exports to Israel in response.
Huckabee referred to events of the Second World War in his response to Starmer, saying: “Did [the] UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? Ever heard of Dresden, PM Starmer? That wasn’t food you dropped. If you had been PM then, [the] UK would be speaking German!”
The German city of Dresden was largely destroyed after being subjected to some of the heaviest bombing of World War II by British and American forces.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also defended his government’s plan, saying on X that countries that “condemn and threaten sanctions will not weaken our resolve.”