The president expanded on his plan for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, suggesting he would build a permanent home for them elsewhere. President Donald Trump said Palestinians wouldn't be permitted to return to the Gaza Strip as part of his plan for the United States to take ownership of the war-torn territory. In a taped interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, a clip of which was released Monday, Trump was asked about his proposal to "own" and rebuild Gaza, first announced last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House. "We'll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities — could be five, six, could be two, but we'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is," Trump said in the interview, a portion of which aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday. More clips from the interview will air Monday night. Trump continued, "In the meantime, I would own this — think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land." Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to the land, Trump said, "No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing, much better." During his initial announcement last week, Trump said that Palestinians and “many people” would be able to live in Gaza after the U.S. took ownership of it. He said, “I envision the world people living there, the world’s people. You’ll make that into an international unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable,” and it could be “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Trump told Baier he wants to build a permanent residence for the millions of Palestinians currently living in Gaza, which he said is not currently habitable after the 16-month-long war between Hamas and Israel. “I’m talking about starting to build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year,” he said, implying that he could try to build a permanent home for Palestinians in those two Arab countries. The feasibility of this plan is unclear: Hamas, which governs the region, has said it will not turn over control. Officials from Egypt and Jordan have also repeatedly refused to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza, arguing that the transfer of large numbers of refugees into their countries could risk the conflict expanding even further across the region. While speaking to reporters Monday night, Trump said threatened to withhold U.S. aid for Egypt and Jordan if they refused to take in Palestinians under his plan for Gaza. "If they don't agree, I would. I would conceivably withhold aid," Trump said. The president's plan drew swift backlash around the globe, in particular from close U.S. allies Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia (which Israel has been seeking to normalize ties with.) Francesca Albanese, the United Nations' special rapporteur for the occupied territories, said on X that Trump's proposal is "nonsense" but "must be taken very seriously." "President Trump has basically declared his intention to commit the int’l crime of forced displacement and resort to unlawful use of force against the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, in violation of the UN Charter — amounting to aggression," she wrote. "The 191 members of the UN who still have an interest in protecting themselves from this madness, better recover from their paralysis and stand united against this imperialist lawlessness." The majority of U.N. members support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Trump's plan would violate. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that Palestinians "must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.” The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Previous U.S. administrations under both Republican and Democratic presidents have supported proposals for a two-state solution in which Palestinians would be able to create their own sovereign state, but that has been rejected by key members of the Trump administration. Trump’s current nominee for the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has said that a Palestinian state is very unlikely under Trump. The president’s former ambassador to Israel during his first term, David Friedman, has also expressed opposition to a two-state solution. Friedman had supported efforts by Israel to operate settlements in the occupied West Bank, which Democratic administrations have rejected. During his first term, Trump changed U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Those moves and the settlements have long been viewed as obstacles in the peace process.

President Donald Trump wants to bring back American manufacturing in ways that would reshape the United States economy to look more like China’s. The campaign, which has led to a rapidly escalating trade war with China, has given ample social media fodder to Chinese and American observers alike. Announcing a series of sweeping tariffs in a move dubbed “Liberation Day,” Trump said last week that it will lead factories to move production back to American shores, boosting the U.S. economy after “foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.” In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump announced that he is raising tariffs on goods imported from China to 125%, up from the 104% that took effect the same day, due to “the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets.” Higher targeted tariffs on other countries have been paused for 90 days, although the 10% baseline tariff will remain in place for all countries. Meme-makers and Chinese government officials have in recent days begun pointing out the irony of Trump’s tariff-driven manufacturing pivot through AI-generated satire and political cartoons that have percolated online, with many American users boosting the jokes. One video poking fun at the Trump administration’s attempted pivot to American manufacturing has accumulated millions of views on X since a user posted it on TikTok earlier this week. The clip, seemingly generated with artificial intelligence, showed workers sewing garments and assembling mobile devices in a factory, followed by a screen touting: “Make America Great Again.” Official Chinese accounts have also gotten in on the fun. Last weekend, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, posted a meme appearing to mock Trump for imposing tariffs on several largely barren Antarctic islands inhabited by penguins rather than people. Some have been subtler with their critiques. On Monday, the Chinese Embassy reposted a clip of a 1987 speech by President Ronald Reagan, whose economic agenda hugely influenced mainstream Republican economics today. In it, Reagan staunchly defends free trade.“When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing a patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while, it works. But only for a short time,” Reagan says in the clip, before launching into a list of consequences. Talk of tariffs dominated the trending searches on Weibo, one of the most popular social media platforms in China, on Wednesday. For hours, the top hashtag on the platform translated to: “The United States begs for eggs while fighting a trade war.” While the online memes depict American factory workers toiling away at menial tasks, the Trump administration says that such jobs would be automated in revived U.S. factories and that employees would be doing higher-level work. “Our high school-educated Americans — the core to our work force — is going to have the greatest resurgence of jobs in the history of America to work on these high-tech factories, which are all coming to America,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday on the CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” Trump’s calls to revive domestic manufacturing come as China has pushed to make its economy look more like that of the United States. China, which is trying to reduce its economic reliance on exports, has been struggling to encourage domestic consumption, expanding subsidies for microwaves, rice cookers, smartphones and other goods. At least in the short term, both the U.S. and the Chinese goals are “pipe dreams,” said Ian Johnson, formerly a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “China has been trying for decades to promote consumption or to get people to consume more, but for a variety of reasons Chinese people aren’t willing to do that,” Johnson said in a phone interview Tuesday, citing the lack of social safety net that drives high levels of personal savings. “The government hasn’t changed structural issues that hold back consumption,” Johnson said. “So until they do that, that’s not going to work.” On the U.S. side, Johnson said, “it’s difficult because the government is trying to turn back the clock and I don’t think that’s fully possible, no matter how high the tariffs are.” “You’re never going to bring back, for example, shoe manufacturing or things like that or textile manufacturing to the United States, because it’s still going to be too expensive, even if you put 100% tariffs,” he said.

The truce has faced repeated obstacles and disagreements between the sides, which appear to have made little progress on negotiating the deal’s second phase. Israeli forces were withdrawing from a key corridor that bisects the Gaza Strip on Sunday as part of Israel’s commitments under a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas. “We are preparing to implement the agreement regarding Netzarim axis,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The truce, however, faces a major test over whether the sides can negotiate its planned extension amid external pressures, including President Donald Trump’s controversial Gaza relocation plan, and tensions between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel had agreed to remove its forces from the 4-mile Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that divides northern Gaza from the south, which Israel has used as a military zone during the war. At the start of the ceasefire last month, the Israeli military began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north, sending hundreds of thousands streaming across Gaza on foot and by car. On Sunday, cars heaped with belongings, including water tanks and suitcases, headed north on a road that crosses Netzarim. Under the ceasefire deal, Israel is supposed to allow the cars to cross through uninspected, and there did not appear to be troops in the vicinity of the road, The Associated Press reported. Withdrawing forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal, which paused the 15-month war. Troops remain along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, and a full withdrawal is expected to be negotiated in a later stage of the truce. But the ceasefire is fragile, and its extension is not guaranteed. It has faced repeated obstacles and disagreements between the sides, which appear to have made little progress on negotiating the deal’s second phase meant to extend the truce and lead to the release of more Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The truce also faces many external challenges, including Trump’s proposal to relocate the population of Gaza and take ownership of the Palestinian territory. Israel has expressed openness to the idea, while Hamas, the Palestinians and the broader Arab world have rejected it outright. Tensions flared again Sunday when Saudi Arabia condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remark that Palestinians could establish a state in Saudi Arabia, citing the country’s large size. Netanyahu’s comments, made in a Channel 14 interview last week, sparked backlash and further strained relations between the two nations, which before the war had appeared to have been moving toward a landmark normalization agreement. Saudi Arabia said his remarks “aim to divert attention from the successive crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.” Qatar, a key mediator in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, also condemned the comments Sunday, describing them as “provocative.” The United Arab Emirates, which reached a diplomatic recognition deal with Israel in 2020, also condemned Netanyahu’s remarks late Saturday. While Trump’s plan is saddled with moral, legal and practical obstacles, it may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic to try to ratchet up pressure on Hamas or as an opening gambit in a bargaining process aimed at securing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s response to Netanyahu’s comments would appear to have rattled such a plan. At home, Netanyahu is also under heavy pressure from his far-right political allies to resume the war after the first phase so that Hamas, which carried out the deadliest attack on Israelis in their history, can be defeated. He faces pressure from Israelis who are eager to see more hostages return home, especially after the gaunt appearances of the three male captives freed Saturday stunned the nation. Netanyahu was sending a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in talks between the sides, but the mission included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough in extending the truce. Netanyahu is also expected to convene a meeting of key Cabinet ministers this week on the second phase of the deal. According to local health officials, close to 48,000 people have died in the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when 1,200 were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

The Duke of Sussex called on competitors to overcome a "moment of difficulty and division in many parts of the world" as he opened the latest edition of the Invictus Games in Canada. Prince Harry was speaking at the opening ceremony in Vancouver with his wife Meghan, on Saturday. The couple initially watched from the stands, cheering and clapping for the UK's team as their competitors walked on the stage. Their public appearance came just hours after US President Donald Trump spoke about the couple in an interview, saying "I'll leave him alone" when asked whether he thought Prince Harry should be deported from the US. "He's got enough problems with his wife," the president added. "She's terrible." The prince founded the Invictus Games in London in 2014, with this year marking the seventh edition of the competition for wounded military veterans. The next nine days of competition will see more than 500 athletes competing in 11 different events, including winter sports for the first time. The ceremony included musical performances by Katy Perry, Coldplay's Chris Martin and Nelly Furtado. Giving an emotional speech at the ceremony, Prince Harry, who himself served in Afghanistan and saw some of his comrades suffer life-changing injuries, told the crowd of 40,000: "We gather here in Vancouver in a spirit of unity. "Beyond any differences, here at the Invictus Games we are grounded in mutual respect, competing fiercely, but believing in one another." The prince honoured Canada's indigenous First Nations peoples in his speech, thanking them for hosting the games. And he told the competitors: "Over the past decade I've lost count of the times we've heard you tell us that the Invictus Games saved you. "Respectfully, I disagree. Invictus didn't save you. You saved yourself." The ceremony also saw British group Coldplay take the stage, with frontman Chris Martin playing the Invictus Anthem, which he penned in 2014. Canadian singer Nelly Furtado performed her 2000s global hit I'm Like a Bird and invited dance crew ILL-Abilities on stage as part of her set. Pop star Katy Perry closed off the show, performing some of her repertoire including chart-topper Roar. Trump says 'I'll leave Harry alone' Earlier, US President Donald Trump told the New York Post he would not be in favour of deporting the prince, who moved to the US in 2020. Some activists have questioned the Prince Harry's US visa status after he admitted previously taking illegal drugs in his memoir, Spare. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, filed a lawsuit asking for the prince's immigration records, suggesting he had lied on his visa form or was given special treatment when he and the duchess moved to Southern California in 2020. Trump has previously suggested that if Prince Harry was found to have lied "appropriate action" would be needed. But when asked on Friday by the New York Post whether the prince would be deported, Trump said: "I don't want to do that. I'll leave him alone. "He's got enough problems with his wife. She's terrible." He added that he believed "poor Harry is being led around by the nose". Former actress Meghan has in the past been a vocal critic of Trump, calling him "divisive" and a "misogynist", while Trump has previously called Meghan "nasty". In the interview, the president also praised Prince Harry's older brother, Prince William, "a great young man". Admitting past drug use does not automatically result denial of a US visa, but it can cause delays, and lying on a visa form can lead to deportation. US presidents do not normally get involved in individual visa decisions. The couple have not responded to Trump's comments. The prince was inspired to set up the games after seeing the 2013 Warrior Games in the US, where injured and retired service personnel competed. The first edition of the games was held in London in 2014, with subsequent competitions being staged in the US, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany. The 2017 games in Toronto was also where Prince Harry was pictured with his then-girlfriend Meghan for the first time. She has joined him at every edition of the competition since.

Canada's outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told a group of business leaders he believes President Donald Trump might be serious about annexing his country. Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the "51st state" because he wants to access the country's critical minerals. "Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing," the prime minister said. His comments were made behind closed doors at a Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto, but were captured in part by a microphone and were reported on by several Canadian media outlets. The summit was attended by more than 100 business leaders and public policy experts, and was hosted by the Canadian government's newly created advisory council on Canada-US relations. Trudeau's comments come after Trump threatened Canada with a 25% tariff on all its exports to the US, with the exception of energy exports that would be taxed at a lower rate of 10%. The tariffs were to be imposed earlier this week, but Trump granted Canada - as well as Mexico, who had been threatened with similar tariffs - a last-minute reprieve for 30 days in exchange for more efforts to bolster security at their shared borders. Trump had suggested repeatedly, both in posts on his social media platform Truth Social and in remarks to reporters, that Canada could become a US state instead to avoid the tariffs. He has also referred to the country's prime minister as "Governor Trudeau". "What I'd like to see - Canada become our 51st state," Trump said earlier this week at the Oval Office, when asked about what concessions Canada could offer. Trump first mentioned the idea of absorbing Canada at a dinner with Trudeau in December, shortly after he first threatened the tariffs. At the time, Canadian officials dismissed it as a joke. But Trudeau's comments on Friday suggest a shift in how Canada might be perceiving Trump's remarks. An Ipsos poll conducted in January shows that the majority of Canadians (80%) oppose their country becoming part of the US, and would never vote 'yes' in any referendum on the issue. Such a move would also require the approval of both chambers of Congress in the US, and would need a supermajority of 60 votes to get through the Senate. In Canada, Trump's threats have caused nationwide anxiety. Around three-quarters of Canadian exports are sold to the US, and steep tariffs on those goods could deeply hurt Canada's economy and risk thousands of job losses. Some provincial politicians have been launching "buy local" campaigns to encourage Canadians to spend their money at home instead of the US. Some Canadians have cancelled trips to south of the border in protest. But officials have also tried to push closer ties with the US in the wake of the tariffs, saying that Canada was open to establishing a Canada-US alliance on energy and critical minerals. Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who has been in Washington DC this week to meet his American counterparts, said closer collaboration would be a "win-win" for both countries. At Friday's summit, Trudeau said Canada was facing the possibility of "a more challenging, long-term political situation with the United States", and must find ways to strengthen its own economy and trade ties in the years ahead.

The 90-day funding freeze was being “felt all over” by humanitarian organizations working on the ground, a spokesperson for Refugees International told NBC News. Aid agencies are sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump’s mission to upend the U.S. Agency for International Development, which they say is already hampering efforts to provide assistance to Palestinians reeling from 15 months of war in Gaza. Medical supplies, food deliveries and other vital humanitarian supplies were already being held up in other parts of the world by the administration’s 90-day freeze on all foreign aid, and humanitarian organizations are warning that the situation in Gaza could become even more dire if there is a similar delay there The pause was being “felt all over” by humanitarian organizations working on the ground, said Jesse Marks, the senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International, a Washington based nonprofit. USAID has been a major funder of support for Palestinians in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In a November news release, the agency said it had invested over $600 million in economic support funding for Palestinians since 2021. This was in addition to over $1.2 billion dedicated to humanitarian assistance for Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched multipronged attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage, marking a major escalation in the conflict. More than 47,000 people have died in the enclave since then, although researchers have estimated that the death toll is likely much higher. USAID also announced in November that it planned to dedicate $230 million in additional funding to support economic recovery and development programs in Gaza and the West Bank. That same month, Amy Tohill-Stull, director of USAID’s West Bank and Gaza mission, said in a statement that the U.S. commitment to the Palestinian people remained “steadfast.” But the agency’s future is now deeply uncertain after Trump, in one of his first acts in office last month, paused development assistance from USAID for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, dubbed a “special government employee” by the White House, also said Monday that he and Trump were in the process of shutting it down. Trump has since suggested that the U.S. should seek ownership of Gaza. Having made conflicting comments Tuesday on whether Palestinians would be able to stay in the enclave under such a proposal, on Thursday he suggested they could live in “far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” After the State Department took control of USAID this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News the move was “not about getting rid of foreign aid,” but that reforming the United States’ international aid programming could be necessary. The White House decision came days after an Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees came into effect in a move that the world body warned will jeopardize humanitarian aid efforts in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Trump administration has also vowed to extend a suspension on UNRWA funding brought in by its predecessors after Israel accused workers with the agency of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to be Israel’s biggest arms provider. Washington spent at least $17.9 billion on military aid for Israel in the first year of Israeli forces’ deadly offensive in Gaza, according to a November report for Brown University’s Costs of War project. On the ground, the pause in USAID funding was already having tangible effects, agencies warned. The day after Trump signed his executive order, the International Medical Corps also warned that it could soon have to halt lifesaving medical support in the enclave if a stop-work order remains in place. The global nonprofit, which said it had received $68 million from USAID in support of its operations since Oct. 7, 2023, has used the funding to operate two large field hospitals in central Gaza, including one in the city of Deir al-Balah and another in the nearby town of Al Zawaida. “These facilities provide 24/7 lifesaving medical care to roughly 33,000 civilians per month, in a highly dangerous and insecure environment where healthcare infrastructure has been decimated,” the organization said in a statement late last month. It also warned that if the stop-work order remained in place, it would be unable to continue those efforts beyond this week or so. Asked by NBC News whether that was still the case on Wednesday, the IMC declined to comment on the record. Over the weekend, IMC updated its website to state that the U.S. government had provided funding to cover hospital services through at least mid-April. It did not expand further. As of Friday, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said she had not seen major impacts of the USAID cuts on the ground in northern Gaza, but she said, “that doesn’t mean they’re not happening” there or elsewhere. And she warned that the brief moment of relative stability afforded in Gaza under the current ceasefire underway was fragile as aid organizations on the ground look to provide vital services and supplies to families amid the pause in fighting. Oxfam America President and CEO Abby Maxman also cautioned in a statement Saturday that “dismantling USAID would be a callous, destructive political power play that would have deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies and extreme poverty.” “By dismissing almost all USAID staff, the Trump administration is recklessly throwing away decades of critical experience and expertise in the global fight against poverty, hunger, disease and inequality,” she said.

The Israeli military said the reservist admitted to having “severely abused” Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military detention center near the border with the Gaza Strip. JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier who was found to have struck Palestinian detainees while they were restrained and blindfolded has been sentenced to seven months in jail by an Israeli military court. The Israeli military on Thursday announced the court had accepted a plea agreement with the soldier, a reservist who it said admitted to having “severely abused” Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military detention center near the border with the Gaza Strip. “The defendant was convicted of several incidents in which he struck detainees with his fists and his weapon while they were bound and blindfolded,” the military said. It did not name the soldier or detail the charges he was convicted of. The military statement did not identify where the Palestinian detainees were from, why they had been detained or whether they had since been charged with or convicted of crimes or released from detention. In addition to seven months’ imprisonment, the court handed the soldier a suspended sentence and demoted him to the rank of private. The military said the soldier had served as a security guard at the detention center but did not say what rank he had held. Israeli media reported the soldier’s jail sentence included time that he had already spent in detention. The military court found that other masked soldiers had participated in the abuse but that their identities had not been determined, the military said, without saying how many. The convicted soldier had beaten the detainees in front of other soldiers, some of whom had told him to stop, the military said, adding that a recording of the abuse had been found on the mobile phone of the convicted soldier. The military has been investigating allegations that soldiers had abused Palestinians from Gaza held in military detention since the start of the war in October 2023. The military on Thursday did not say whether investigations were still ongoing or if any other soldiers had been charged. In July last year, right-wing Israeli protesters broke into the Sde Teiman detention facility and another Israeli military compound after investigators arrived to question soldiers about suspected abuse. Sde Teiman was opened after the war started and held captured Palestinians from Gaza. Israel said last year that it would close the facility.

“This kind of language only is going to galvanize groups that want to kill Americans,” said former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos. President Donald Trump’s calls for the United States to “take over” and “develop” the Gaza Strip have handed jihadist terrorist groups a rallying cry to recruit and inspire attacks against Americans at home and abroad, security experts and former intelligence officials say. Trump’s comments this week, proposing that the United States would control the Palestinian enclave while its residents would be forced to relocate abroad, have caused shock and outrage around the world — and terrorists will pounce on that anger to attract more support and organize attacks, experts said. “I think every CIA station chief in the Middle East woke up this morning with a migraine headache, because there’s a potential for a generational counterterrorism nightmare here,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who worked in the region, said Wednesday in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." Polymeropoulos highlighted the language Trump has used in recent days — that the United States would "take over" and "own" Gaza. “These are triggering mechanisms for Islamic extremist groups,” he said, adding, “This kind of language only is going to galvanize groups that want to kill Americans." U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have repeatedly warned in recent months of a heightened global terrorist threat, mainly due to the fallout from the 15-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Israel launched an invasion of Gaza after Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians. More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting in the enclave, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Islamic State and other jihadist extremists have seized on the Gaza conflict and the suffering of Palestinian civilians as material for propaganda and to encourage attacks on governments painted as enemies of Muslims, said Lucas Webber, senior threat analyst at Tech Against Terrorists, a nonprofit organization. “This most recent development will hypercharge these existing trends and provide fodder for the Islamic State to tap into it and leverage it to build support, empower its rhetoric, recruit and even incite violence,” Webber said. Pro-ISIS propagandists have already started to highlight Trump’s comments on social media, portraying his language as a vindication of their labeling the United States as an enemy of Muslims, according to Webber. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called Trump’s remarks “literally bulletin board recruiting material today for our terrorist enemies, whether or not we ever go into Gaza.” “The idea that we’re going to clear Gaza out of Palestinians, that drives young men to extremist groups, to violence, to groups that are based around violence,” Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The White House has defended Trump’s comments, saying he has shown a willingness to question conventional wisdom about the Middle East and scored a breakthrough in his first term by securing an agreement between Israel and four Arab countries to establish diplomatic ties. Brian Hughes, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the same lawmakers and former officials now criticizing the president once “claimed the Middle East would devolve into violence after President Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem or recognized the Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.” “The truth is President Trump is the only president to broker a peace agreement between four Muslim-majority countries and Israel," Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in an email. "He’s the only modern-day president to have a record of success in the Middle East." Both Murphy and Polymeropoulos previously sharply criticized Trump’s decision in his first term to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, warning of possible violence or potential damage to relations with Arab allies. Trump has defended his remarks on Gaza and renewed his calls for a U.S. takeover, though he said Thursday it would not involve American boots on the ground. In past decades, suicide terrorist attacks have spiked in response to the U.S. or other foreign militaries’ occupying, or being perceived to be occupying, territory that terrorists see as their homeland, according to research by Robert Pape, a professor of international relations at the University of Chicago. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation touched off “the largest suicide terrorist campaign in modern times,” said Pape, who has compiled a database of thousands of suicide attacks worldwide. As the United States has scaled back its military footprint in the Middle East, the relative terrorist threat against it has receded since the U.S. war in Iraq, he said. But Trump’s vow to exert U.S. authority over Gaza gives groups like ISIS a major boost and puts Americans in the crosshairs, Pape said. “It’s really been quite some time since they’ve had this shot of energy,” he said. “A group like Al Qaeda has been desperate for something like this.” Jihadist militants will most likely try to organize terrorist attacks against U.S. targets to signal to Washington that they will not tolerate a possible U.S. occupation, he said. “They will start attacking Americans to deter us from starting down this road again,” Pape said. Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI official who worked on counterterrorism cases, said Trump’s language could prompt Palestinian militants to focus on targeting Americans abroad and possibly inside the United States, something not seen since the 1970s and ’80s. And jihadist extremists will seize on his words to stoke anger and paint a picture of the United States as a foreign occupier, he said. “Global jihadist groups will also use a narrative of the United States occupying Arab lands as a rallying cry for new recruits,” said O’Leary, senior vice president at the Soufan Group, a global security consultancy. O’Leary and other former government officials said Trump’s statements were especially worrying as they coincide with a time of uncertainty and upheaval at U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In recent days the Trump administration has launched a review of the conduct of FBI agents who worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol, and it is seeking to drastically reduce the federal workforce by offering so-called buyouts to employees at the FBI, the CIA and elsewhere. “The addition of the Gaza announcement coupled with the erosion of our security services could really elevate the terrorist threat,” O’Leary said. Trump’s proposal to take control of Gaza — and potentially expel the roughly 2.2 million Palestinians living there — has sparked fury and confusion in the Middle East and around the world. Many foreign government officials, regional analysts and human rights groups say his plan amounts to ethnic cleansing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sought to play down and walk back his comments Wednesday. But Trump doubled down Thursday, defending his proposal and saying the United States could take over Gaza without needing to send U.S. troops. Trump said on Truth Social that Palestinians could be “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” His contradictory comments added fresh confusion about the future of Palestinians in Gaza. Even if Trump renounces his comments or never follows through on his ideas about U.S. control of Gaza, jihadist militants now believe the United States — which has already invaded one Muslim country in the Middle East — has its sights set on the Gaza Strip, Pape and other analysts said. The damage has been done, Pape said. “We’re not getting ourselves out of this by somehow spinning the facts.”

Trump on Thursday signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, accusing it of improperly targeting the United States and Israel. LONDON — Dozens of countries, including Germany, South Africa and Mexico, said Friday that President Donald Trump’s decision to sanction the International Criminal Court would “erode the international rule of law.” The joint statement by 79 countries came hours after Trump signed an executive order slapping financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC staff and their family members, alleging the court has improperly targeted the United States and Israel. “Such measures increase the risk of impunity for the most serious crimes and threaten to erode the international rule of law, which is crucial for promoting global order and security,” the 79 countries, including Canada and France, said in a statement publicly released by numerous governments. The statement added that “sanctions could jeopardize the confidentiality of sensitive information and the safety of those involved—including victims, witnesses, and court officials, many of whom are our nationals.” The signatories said the sanctions may result in the ICC having to close its field offices. "We regret any attempts to undermine the court’s independence, integrity and impartiality," they said, crediting the "ICC’s indispensable role in ending impunity, promoting the rule of law, and fostering lasting respect for international law and human rights." The United States and Israel are among a minority of around 40 countries that never signed up to the ICC, an international court based in the Netherlands that seeks to hold to account the perpetrators of war crimes, like genocide. But after some historic cooperation between Washington and the ICC, Trump's executive order Thursday accused the world body of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammad Deif and Ismail Haniyeh. The warrants relate to events on and since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorist attacks killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 others taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. Since, then Israel has launched a military offensive that has killed more than 47,500 people in the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials. The court said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and intentionally targeting civilians in Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Israel, which also does not recognize the ICC, dismissed those charges as false and antisemitic. The court's "recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest," the executive order said. Its signing appeared timed to coincide with Netanyahu's visit to Washington, in which Trump made the surprise announcement that he wanted the U.S. to take control of the Gaza Strip, shocking and outraging many officials, activists and experts around the world. Washington’s historical relationship with the ICC is a complex one. The administration of President Bill Clinton was involved in negotiating the 1998 Rome Statute on which the ICC is based. But the U.S. opposed the final draft because of fears it “could subject U.S. soldiers and officials to politicized prosecutions,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Clinton later signed the statute but asked it not be sent to the Senate for ratification until these concerns were addressed.

Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy will be freed on Saturday, the militants said. Hamas prisoners’ media office said it expected 183 Palestinians to be freed in exchange. Hamas on Friday announced the names of three Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners and detainees after a delay that underlined the obstacles hanging over a fragile deal meant to end the war in Gaza. Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, both taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri during the cross-border Hamas-led attack on Oct 7, 2023, and Or Levy, abducted that day from the Nova music festival, will be handed over on Saturday, Hamas said. The Hamas prisoners’ media office said Israel was expected to free 183 Palestinians in exchange, including 18 who have been serving life sentences, 54 serving long sentences and 111 who were detained in the Gaza Strip during the war. Earlier the Palestinian militant group accused Israel of breaching their ceasefire accord and held off announcing the names of the three Israelis until a 4 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET) deadline had passed. It was not immediately clear whether the delay would affect the scheduled exchange on Saturday. Hamas accused Israel of delaying the entry of hundreds of trucks carrying food and other humanitarian supplies agreed under the truce deal that took effect on January 19, and holding back all but a fraction of the tents and mobile homes needed to provide shelter to people returning to their bombed-out homes. “This demonstrates clear manipulation of relief and shelter priorities,” Hamas said in a statement. COGAT, the Israeli military agency that is overseeing the aid deliveries into Gaza, denied the accusation and warned that Israel would “not tolerate violations by Hamas.” The spat compounds the uncertainty around the ceasefire that had already mounted following U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement this week that he expected Gaza to be taken over by the United States. Trump said on Tuesday he wanted to move the population of Gaza to a third country like Egypt or Jordan and place the small coastal enclave under U.S. control to be developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. The statement underlined the fragility of the deal reached last month with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the United States. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed Trump’s vision for Gaza as a “remarkable” plan, but it was immediately rejected by Arab countries, Palestinian groups including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and many Gazans, who said they would rebuild their homes and restaurants themselves. However Israeli leaders have repeated that Palestinians who wish should be able to leave and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the army on Thursday to prepare a plan to allow for the departure of Gaza residents who wanted to go. So far, 13 Israeli hostages of the 33 children, women and older men set to be released in the first, 42-day phase of the agreement have come home, and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been released in exchange. Five Thai hostages have also been returned. Work on the second stage of the multi-phase agreement, aimed at securing the release of around 60 male hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, has begun and an Israeli negotiating team was expected to fly on Saturday to Doha, Israeli media reported on Friday. However the accusations levelled by Hamas against Israel underscored how little trust there was between the two sides following more than 15 months of the bloodiest episode in the decades-long conflict. The Israeli military said on Friday that commanders were conducting situational assessments ahead of the next phase of the agreement currently being discussed, with troops deployed at various points around the Gaza Strip. Israel has rejected accusations that it is dragging its feet on enabling the entry to aid supplies as “a completely unfounded claim,” saying it has allowed in thousands of trucks, including tents and shelters. But hundreds of thousands of people are still marooned in tents and other makeshift shelters worn out by months of use as the fighting raged last year. So far, despite accusations of ceasefire breaches levelled by both sides, the truce has held, leaving the way still open to an end to the war and rebuilding densely populated Gaza, which now lies in ruins. Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages in Israel’s heaviest loss of life in a single day since the founding of the state in 1948. In response to the terrorist attack, Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the narrow enclave.