Trump backs Israel and rebukes Starmer over Palestinian state recognition
Amid signs of mounting opposition among his Maga base to Israel's military operation in Gaza, Trump criticized Starmer's plan to grant recognition as 'rewarding Hamas' even after having not taken issue with it when the pair met in Scotland this week.
Talking to journalists onboard Air Force One on his return to Washington, Trump said the US was 'not in that camp', referring to Starmer's pledge, which followed a similar declaration by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, days earlier that France would formally recognize Palestinian statehood.
'We never did discuss it,' Trump said, in reference to Starmer's announcement. He added: 'You're rewarding Hamas if you do that. I don't think they should be rewarded.'
His comments were in line with the US state department, whose spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, called the recognition decision 'a slap in the face' to victims of Hamas's deadly 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the current war.
But they contrasted with his restrained stance when he and Starmer met at Turnberry in Scotland on Monday, after the UK prime minister said Britain would give recognition by September unless Israel met certain conditions, including allowing for a ceasefire in Gaza and allowing UN food aid to enter the territory to feed its population.
'I'm not going to take a position, I don't mind him taking a position,' Trump told reporters when asked if he objected to Starmer's move.
The US president's response to Starmer seemed markedly softer than his riposte after Macron's statehood announcement last week, which angered Israel and its supporters.
'What he says doesn't matter,' Trump told reporters at the White House. 'He's a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn't carry weight.'
The initial softer public posture toward Starmer came as Trump publicly contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, over conditions in Gaza, which numerous international aid agencies have described as famine.
Netanyahu had said that, in contrast to the aid group assessments and searing images of hungry children, no one was starving in Gaza.
Asked if he agreed, Trump said: 'Based on television, I would say 'not particularly', because those children look pretty hungry to me. There's real starvation, you can't fake that.'
Some of Trump's most prominent supporters have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Israel's conduct, amid polling evidence that Americans generally are losing sympathy for a country that has traditionally been viewed as one of the US's closest allies.
Steve Bannon, Trump's former adviser and still one of his leading cheerleaders with his War Room podcast, told Politico that the president's condemnation of the food situation in Gaza would hasten Israel's loss of support among his base.
'It seems that for the under-30-year-old Maga base, Israel has almost no support, and Netanyahu's attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle East war has turned off a large swath of older Maga diehards,' Bannon said. 'Now President Trump's public repudiation of one of the central tenets of [Netanyahu's] Gaza strategy – 'starving' Palestinians – will only hasten a collapse of support.'
Another Trump supporter, the far-right Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, became the latest – and perhaps most surprising – public figure to label Israel's actions in Gaza 'genocide'.
'It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,' she posted on X.
The comments came as a new Gallup poll showed support among Americans for Israel's actions in Gaza down to 32%, the lowest since the organization began asking the question in November 2023 – a month after the murderous Hamas raid that killed almost 1,200 mostly Israeli civilians and led to another 250 to be taken hostage.
Israel's military response has led to about 60,000 Palestinians being killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.
While Gallup's poll showed support for Israel's offensive still high, at 71%, among Republicans, Thom Tillis, a GOP senator for North Carolina who plans to step down at the next election, said Gaza could be a political problem for Trump, the Hill reported.
'I think that the American people at the end of the day are a kind people. They don't like seeing suffering, nor do I think the president does,' Tillis said. 'If you see starvation, you try to fix it.'
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told Fox News that Trump's backing for Netanyahu remained unshaken. 'Let me assure you that there is no break between the prime minister of Israel and the president,' he told Fox News. 'Their relationship, I think, [is] stronger than it's ever been, and I think the relationship between the US and Israel is as strong as it's ever been.'
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Israel on Thursday, where he will meet with officials 'to discuss next steps in addressing the situation in Gaza', a US official told AFP.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
3 minutes ago
- Scottish Sun
Hamas vows to never lay guns down unless demand is met as thugs share sick clip of hostage ‘forced to dig his own grave'
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) HAMAS says it will never lay guns down unless an independent Palestinian state is established and its capital is Jerusalem. It comes as the militant group - declared a terrorist organisation by the UK and the US - released a sick video showing an emaciated Israeli hostage in a tunnel. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 Hamas fighters stand in formation ahead of a hostages' release in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip in February Credit: AP 5 The distressing video shows an emaciated Evyatar holding a shovel and saying this is where he thinks he'll be buried 5 Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen amid a hunger crisis in Gaza on Saturday Credit: Shutterstock Editorial The militant group said it was giving a statement "in response to media reports quoting US envoy Steve Witkoff, claiming [Hamas] has shown willingness to disarm". It said: "We reaffirm that resistance and its arms are a legitimate national and legal right as long as the occupation continues. "This right is recognised by international laws and norms, and it cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights - first and foremost, the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." Hamas also released a video showing an Israeli man - Evyatar David - being held hostage in what looks like a tunnel. Evyatar, 24, was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival on October 7. The distressing video shows him telling the camera that he is digging his own grave. His family have given permission for media outlets to show the video. It comes as at least 51 people - including 27 aid workers - have been killed so far on Saturday in Israeli attacks across Gaza. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in the devastating war on Gaza amid a deepening hunger crisis - coupled with Israel's cruel blockage of aid delivery. Last week, indirect talks between Hamas and Israel ended in deadlock, stalling efforts to secure a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and a deal for the release of hostages. Starmer vows UK will recognise Palestine in weeks unless Israel ends crisis – but critics blast 'reward' for Hamas Hamas has dominated Gaza since 2007, but has been militarily weakened by Israel in the war. Israel considers the disarmament of Hamas a key condition for a deal to end the war. But Hamas has repeatedly said it will not lay down its guns. Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a future independent Palestinian state would be a platform to destroy Israel. For this reason, Netanyahu added, Israel must have security control over Palestinian territories. He also criticised the UK and Canada, among other countries, for their plans to recognise a Palestinian state. The war began when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza. 5 A Hamas fighter next to displaced Palestinians in January Credit: AP 5 A plane drops humanitarian aid in Gaza on Saturday Credit: Getty More to follow... For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos. Like us on Facebook at TheSunUS and follow us on X at @TheUSSun
The Guardian
4 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Gaza hospitals say 18 killed by Israeli fire as aid site shootings continue to rise
Hospitals in Gaza say Israeli fire killed more than a dozen people on Saturday, eight of them while trying to get food, as malnutrition-related deaths continue to rise in the territory. The bloodshed comes a day after Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, visited an aid distribution site run by the Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Global outrage has grown over Israel's restrictions on aid and the deadly unrest surrounding the GHF sites, with daily reports of shootings at all four locations since the group took over aid distribution at the end of May. The UN says 859 Palestinians have been killed during that time in the vicinity of these sites, and more than 500 have been killed along the routes of food convoys. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three who were in the area around a distribution site. Nasser Hospital also said Israeli forces killed five Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid in the south. In a statement to the Associated Press, GHF said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites'. Both the GHF and the Israeli army have said they only shoot if there is a threat, or fire warning shots to disperse crowds. Doctors in Gaza have reported treating an increasing number of gunshot and shrapnel wounds in patients who were trying to get food at the aid sites. 'We weren't close to them [the troops] and there was no threat,' a witness, Abed Salah, who was among crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, told AP. 'I escaped death miraculously.' Officials added that 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza, with five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who accompanied Witkoff on the trip on Friday, claimed the GHF sites were delivering 'more than one million meals a day' and called the distribution 'an incredible feat'. Reports from aid workers, doctors, and journalists in Gaza paint a different story, with UN-backed food security experts saying this week that the 'worst-case scenario of famine' is now playing out in Gaza. Seven Palestinians died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, including a child, the territory's health ministry said on Saturday. This brings the total deaths among children from causes related to malnutrition in Gaza to 93 since the war began. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion After international outcry, airdrops of aid have resumed, and several European countries have announced plans to join the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating the drops, but aid groups say this delivers only a fraction of what aid trucks can supply – and are also dangerous. What is really needed, they say, is to open the land borders and restore the full flow of aid. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient + inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,' Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X on Saturday. The German government, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, joined calls for Israel to deliver more aid on Saturday, saying that the current amount remains 'very insufficient'. The criticism came after the German military completed its first food airdrops into Gaza. In Tel Aviv, Witkoff joined families of hostages protesting, as they urged the Israeli government to end the war and release their loved ones. Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP: 'The war needs to end. The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so.' Negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and a deal for the release of hostages ended in deadlock last week, with Witkoff blaming Hamas for a 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire'. Hamas said on Saturday that it would not lay down arms unless an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state is established.
The Sun
4 minutes ago
- The Sun
Ed Miliband's dash for Net Zero could cost every UK household £389 a year by 2030, bombshell research warns
ED Miliband's Net Zero policies will cost every household £389 a year by 2030, Tory analysis today reveals. The Labour government has pledged to totally decarbonise Britain's energy grid within the next five years. 4 They plan to do this by splurging vast amounts on new wind and solar farms as well as banning new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. Brits have already spent £700 million this year to pay wind farms to STOP producing energy because the National Grid cannot cope with energy surges. The government's dash to go green will send the cost of bills rocketing to a whopping £22.8 billion by 2030, Tory number crunchers say. This will leave the government's pledge to cut £300 from energy bills in tatters, according to the research. Instead it will end up adding another £389 to the cost of household bills for 27 million UK Brits. Tory MP Nick Timothy - who carried out the research - said: 'Energy becomes more expensive with each day Ed Miliband remains in office. 4 'While Miliband blames fossil fuels for higher bills, he is pumping up prices by throwing more government-imposed costs onto energy bills. 'Wind and solar are being propped up by a complicated web of hidden cash to hoodwink you into thinking they are cheap. But they are not. 'Renewables will cost billions more. This is Ed Miliband's world – and you're paying for it.' Sir Keir Starmer is under massive pressure to act on UK energy costs - which are some of the highest in the world. In stark contrast the US - which uses more fossil fuels - has far lower prices. Donald Trump used a meeting with the PM in Scotland earlier this week to launch a blistering attack on wind farms for pushing up prices and scarring the countryside. In toe-curling scenes, the PM sat ashen-faced as the US President unleashed both barrels on his wind farm push - branding them a 'con job'. Speaking at his Turnberry golf course, Mr Trump fumed: 'Wind is the most expensive form of energy, and it destroys the beauty of your fields and your plains and your waterways.' Urging the PM to lift the ban on new oil and gas drilling, he added: 'You can take a thousand times more energy out of a hole in the ground this big - it's called oil and gas.' The analysis carried out by Mr Timothy's office looked at the hidden cost of renewable energy by trawling through official figures and research papers. 4 It found that Brits pay billions of pounds to subsidise the building of renewable energy plants, like wind and solar. But the National Grid - which carries electricity from power plants to peoples homes - is very old and cannot cope with large surges of energy. This results in a barmy situation which means the government actually PAYS wind farms to stop turning when it is too windy. Some £700m has already been paid this year to turn wind farms off. Wind farms are also paid more for their energy than fossil fuel providers, the analysis found. Offshore wind will cost £113 per MWh under the latest contracts. The average cost of electricity last year was £72 per MWh. These direct subsidies for renewables inflate the cost of energy bills. There are also extra costs known as 'Balancing Costs' - the name given to the process the National Grid has to pay to ensure balance and supply of power is maintained daily. These charges end up being passed onto consumers in higher bills, researchers said. The study found the hidden cost of renewables on our bills was £12.3BN in 2023/24. This is predicted to hit £22.8BN by 2030. This is just the estimated cost to Brits's bills over the next few years - and the overall cost of going green by 2050 is far higher. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated it will cost a massive £803 billion to hit Net Zero by 2050. 4 A spokesman for the department for Net Zero said: 'These claims are fundamentally misleading. 'They wilfully ignore the benefits of clean power and wrongly assume the required network infrastructure will not be built over the next five years. 'Only by sprinting to clean power by 2030 can the UK take back control of its energy and protect both family and national finances from fossil fuel price spikes.' IT was the most excruciating television I have seen in years. Sitting next to the Prime Minister, Donald Trump said Labour's taxes on North Sea oil and gas 'make no sense' and he called Ed Miliband's wind farms a 'con job'. Keir Starmer looked like a rabbit in the headlights, because he knew what Trump said was true. The eco policies this Labour government is pursuing simply make no sense. They are spinning us a lie. The government tells us we must urgently hit Net Zero targets because the cost of fossil fuels are unaffordably high. But renewables cost more money and push up bills. They say Britain must build more wind and solar farms so we can wean ourselves of foreign gas and become energy sufficient. But at the same time No10 bans new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea - leaving us more dependent on imports. And the government tells us this dash to go green will create thousands and thousands of new jobs. Yet the trade unions who actually represent energy workers say Labour's zealous eco policies could cause tens of thousands of well-paid British workers to be laid off. It is a mad Alice in Wonderland world where down is up and up is down. Ed Miliband has gone through the Looking Glass. His policies are the stuff of the Mad Hatter. And today I can reveal that Labour's Net Zero drive will cost an estimated £23 billion a year by 2030. That is the equivalent of slapping another £389 a year onto the cost of living for households. It is a cost this country cannot afford. Let me give you a few examples to show you just how barmy our energy policy has become under 'Red Ed'. First- the oil and gas industry. Just weeks after winning the election, Labour banned new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea. Furious trade unions said that up to 30,000 UK jobs could be lost, but their dire warnings fell on deaf ears. But the most ridiculous thing is that Britain still imports oil and gas taken from the very same seabed from Norway. So, Norway gets to keep the taxes, profits and jobs, while the UK goes without. It is a grotesque example of self-harm. Second - the bizarre case of the Drax power station in North Yorkshire. It imports wood from halfway around the world to burn, yet the UK taxpayer has spent billions of pounds in green subsidies on the power station. This simply makes no sense. Third - the sky high cost of wind and solar energy. Labour has set the UK insane targets to quadruple offshore wind and double onshore wind in just five years. But energy produced by these wind farms is actually MORE expensive. Ed Miliband has promised wind farms a fixed price of £113 per MWh for the next 20 years. That is 50 per cent HIGHER than the average cost of electricity. The cost of building new wind and solar farms is also enormous. An estimated £40 billion a year will be spent upgrading the National Grid, and rolling out new pylons and battery storage sites. Worst of all, wind and solar are even paid NOT to produce energy. This is because our creaking National Grid cannot handle big surges of energy. So when it is particularly windy they have to pay wind farms to switch off. This year alone we have paid £700 million to wind farms to STOP generating power. It is bananas. Brits also have to pay for environmental levies. These are extra charges baked into energy bills to pay for the development of new greener energy supplies. Labour are sending environmental levies hurtling towards £14.8 billion in 2030. The PM promised he would cut energy bills by £300 by the next election. But the opposite is true. They are getting bigger and bigger. No wonder President Trump thinks we are mad. Our energy costs are twice those in America. As a result their economy is booming while ours is stagnating. The US President could see the truth and was unafraid to say it. Britain needs to completely change course. It's time to junk the clean power target and support energy policies that actually work. We should take the US President's advice and 'drill baby drill' in the North Sea. We should expand nuclear energy. And we should ditch our expensive green energy levies and subsidies. Otherwise we remain Ed Miliband's mad world – and we will all pay the price.
