Israel’s plan to seize Gaza City and take full security control of the enclave has drawn global condemnation. Sir Keir Starmer has been told to “sit this one out” after he urged Israel to reconsider its decision. Listen to the Daily as you scroll.
Friday 8 August 2025 17:36, UK
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Friedrich Merz this afternoon to express his disappointment at Germany’s decision to halt arms exports to Israel, his office has said.
Merz made the decision following Israel’s announcement that it plans to expand military operations in Gaza, which Merz said “deeply concerned” Germany.
Netanyahu’s office said the decision from Berlin “is rewarding Hamas terrorism,” adding that Israel’s goal is to “free Gaza from Hamas and enable a peaceful government to be established there”.
Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel has launched a blistering attack on Sir Keir Starmer after the British PM’s public condemnation of Israel’s plan to take military control of Gaza City.
Starmer said Israel’s decision “is wrong” and urged its government to “reconsider immediately”.
Responding on X, Mike Huckabee said Israeli hostages are being starved in Gaza and asked Starmer if Britain had dropped food to the Nazis during the Second World War.
“Israel has already sent two millions tons into Gaza and none of it is even getting to hostages,” Huckabee said, adding Starmer “ought to sit this one out”.
So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved? Did 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 UK would be speaking German!
Mike Huckabee, US ambassafor to Israel
Israel’s plan to fully take over Gaza is in “total contradiction to the will of the international community, international law and common sense”, a Palestinian diplomat has told reporters.
Riyad Mansour, who represents Palestine at the UN, said it is the “duty” of the rest of the world to act.
“Enough is enough,” he added. “We don’t need more wars, more killing, more agonies, more occupation, more genocide.
“What we need is to stop this machine of war and to open doors for peace.”
Watch his remarks in the video below…
The decision by Israel’s security cabinet to approve a plan to take control of Gaza City has sparked condemnation both within Israel and internationally.
The Palestinian Authority warned that the decision will lead to an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” inside Gaza, while the UN’s human rights chief has called for the planned takeover to be “immediately halted”.
Inside Israel, opposition leader Yair Lapid blasted the decision as “a disaster that will lead to many more disasters,” adding it would lead to the deaths of more hostages and many soldiers as well as “political collapse”.
The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters said that the government “is leading us toward a colossal catastrophe for both the hostages and our soldiers”.
There has been no explicit statement from the White House or Donald Trump on the plan, but here’s some other international reaction:
Israel’s decision to take over Gaza City “must have consequences for EU-Israel relations”, Antonio Costa has said.
The EU Council chief added that this will be assessed by the Council and urged the Israeli government to reconsider.
“The situation in Gaza remains dramatic, and the decision by the Israeli government will only further worsen it,” he said on X.
(Israel’s decision) undermines fundamental principles of international law and universal values. Such a decision must have consequences for EU-Israel relations, to be assessed by the Council.
Antonio Costa, EU Council President
He’s been warned against a full military occupation by 600 former Israeli military officials. But after 22 months of war, that’s exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu wants.
What would long-term occupation mean for Gazans, Israel, the Middle East and the world? What would it be like for those living in Gaza? Will the Israeli hostages be returned?
And is there any other option in Netanyahu’s eyes?
Niall Paterson is joined on the Sky News Daily by a Palestinian aid worker in Gaza and Professor Yossi Mekelberg, senior consulting fellow for the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, to answer those questions.
Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app
By Diana Magnay, international correspondent
The north used to be the breadbasket of the Gaza Strip.
Strawberry fields in Beit Lahia, olive and citrus groves, wheat fields, the agricultural university in Beit Hanoun.
It seems impossible even to imagine that now. We flew down across the northern border on a Jordanian air flight, with a meagre eight tonnes of humanitarian aid ready to go. Eight tonnes when the IPC, the body which has classified Gaza as being on the brink of famine, estimates the population needs 2,038 tonnes daily.
What was once cropland is barren and scorched. Villages and agricultural structures are in ruins. There is a ragged uniformity to the greyness as we flew south and past Beit Lahia towards Gaza City, as though dust from the rubble of a million ruins has sprinkled over the land like ash from a volcano.
Gaza City is Benjamin Netanyahu’s next target. Not that he hasn’t savaged it to date, but there is a cityscape left standing.
Buildings ripped and torn by the monstrous force of artillery, no life or colour or vibrancy from the sky in what was once a bustling port city, with ancient mosques and churches, bookshops, villas and cafes along the seafront.
Now, like a rash of giant pebbles, a mass of tents stretches down towards the Mediterranean, home to tens of thousands of the 800,000 or so who are still living here.
And Israel plans once again to displace them before the IDF seizes full control.
Watch Magnay’s report from a plane dropping aid into Gaza.
Balcony collapses in desperate scramble to reach aid
There is an anonymity from the sky, though.
You cannot see the excitement that our camera teams capture on the ground as young children point to the planes.
You do not see the balcony collapsing after an aid package lands on it, and the sheer weight of too many people desperate for food causes them all to fall.
You do not see the misery of a disabled father whose son was hit by a falling pallet, who our camera crews locate as he lies in intensive care.
Aid drops are dehumanising and cruel. It is not the fault of the countries that deliver them. They are doing what they can. But they are a terrible way of delivering aid.
“Are we dogs to them? They’re throwing aid at us from the sky, are we dogs? They’re hunting us.” That’s what Fadia al Najjar, a mother who had lost her son in a shooting at an aid distribution point, told our Gaza crew in al Mawasi earlier in the week.
As I looked down over the apocalyptic catastrophe that is Gaza now, I could not forget her words.
JD Vance said the UK and the US “may have some disagreements” about how to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
He has been speaking alongside David Lammy, with the pair to hold talks on a range of topics including the situation in the Middle East.
The final question before David Lammy and JD Vance hold their private meeting goes to the UK foreign secretary.
Lammy is asked whether he feels his relationship with the US vice president could help discussions over a ceasefire in Gaza.
“The prime minister is either meeting or discussing these issues with President Trump on a weekly basis, and I am doing the same with secretary of state Rubio or vice president Vance,” he says.
“The truth is, what we all want to see is a ceasefire.
“What we all want to see is the hostages come out, and we are hugely concerned by the humanitarian suffering that we’re seeing in Gaza particularly.”
Lammy says he is “hugely concerned” about the decision made by Israel’s security cabinet to take control of Gaza City and the impact that could have on hostages.
“We’ll be able to discuss these issues in the hours ahead,” he adds.
At his UK visit to see David Lammy, JD Vance is now asked about whether Donald Trump was given a heads-up about Israel’s intention to take control of Gaza City.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved a plan to seize the city late last night, while also signalling Israel intends to take full security control of the entire Gaza Strip.
“I think the president obviously has been very clear about his goals and about what he wants to accomplish in the Middle East,” Vance says.
“Our goals are very clear. We want to make it so that Hamas can’t attack innocent people and 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 says the US has been in “constant negotiations” and conversations over the past 24 hours about how to get more aid into Gaza.
“It’s a tough situation, of course we’re not going to know exactly how to solve a very complicated problem,” he adds.
“As the president said himself, people in some ways have been fighting for thousands of years. If it was easy to bring peace to that region of the world, it would have been done already.”
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