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      Hundreds of Thousands Flee Northern Gaza, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — it’s available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Ahead of an anticipated ground invasion, hospitals in Gaza City said they had no way to evacuate thousands of sick and injured patients.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:Gaza’s Hospitals Face ‘Impossible’ Choices With Israel Evacuation Order, with Raja AbdulrahimAs Israeli Invasion Looms, Diplomats Seek to Meet Gaza’s Dire Human NeedsInside Trump’s Backroom Effort to Lock Up the Nomination, with Shane GoldmacherEli Cohen More

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      DeSantis and Haley Diverge on Help for Gaza Refugees

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      The two Republican candidates appeared to diverge on attitudes toward civilians in the Gaza Strip who are bracing for an invasion by Israel.The deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is driving a wedge between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, two of the leading Republican presidential candidates, who deviated sharply on Sunday over whether the United States should help Palestinian refugees from the region ahead of an expected Israeli invasion.In an appearance on the CBS morning show “Face the Nation,” Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, doubled down on remarks he had made one day earlier in Iowa, espousing a hard-line opposition toward helping civilians who have been thrust into the middle of the conflict.“They teach kids to hate Jews,” he said. “The textbooks do not have Israel even on the map. They prepare very young kids to commit terrorist attacks. So I think it’s a toxic culture.”Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador under President Donald J. Trump, pushed back against that view during a CNN interview on Sunday with Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”“America has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists,” she said after being shown a clip of Mr. DeSantis’s initial comments on Saturday.Nearly one million people are grappling with shortages of food, clean water and shelter in Gaza, which is bracing for a land invasion by Israel in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks and the taking of hostages by Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group.Mr. DeSantis argued on Sunday that it would be detrimental to the United States to “import” large numbers of refugees and would fuel antisemitism, echoing comments he made about people in Gaza the day before that drew scrutiny.At a campaign event on Saturday, Mr. DeSantis said, “If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”He added: “The Arab states should be taking them. If you have refugees, you don’t fly people in and take them into the United States of America.”When the CBS anchor Margaret Brennan pointed out to Mr. DeSantis that Arabs are Semites and replayed his remarks, he stood by his words.Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor at the First in the Nation Leadersip Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire on Friday.John Tully for The New York TimesGovernor Ron DeSantis of Florida at the First in the Nation Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire on Friday.John Tully for The New York Times“There was a lot of celebrating of those attacks in the Gaza Strip by a lot of those folks who were not Hamas,” he said.Ms. Brennan suggested that it was a remote possibility that refugees from Gaza could resettle in the United States, saying that they could not even evacuate from their immediate area. Still, Republicans have used the broader conflict to frame their postures on military action and humanitarian aid.In the House, Representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin and Andy Ogles of Tennessee, both Republicans, have announced that they plan to introduce a bill they say would block the Biden administration from issuing visas to Palestinian passport holders.Mr. DeSantis, who served in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps in Iraq, was also asked whether he would advise the Israeli military to stop their attacks on the infrastructure that provides water and electricity to Gaza.“I don’t think they’re under an obligation to be providing water and these utilities while the hostages are being held,” he said.Ms. Haley struck a more sympathetic chord earlier on Sunday, saying that large percentages of Palestinians and Iranians did not support the violence being perpetrated against one another.“There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule,” she said.While the Republican candidates have expressed solidarity with Israel in the wake of the Hamas attacks, they have also clashed with each other over who is most loyal to Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally, and what the role of the United States should be in conflicts overseas.Ms. Haley on Sunday continued to condemn Mr. Trump, her former boss and the Republican front-runner, for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence. She accused Mr. Trump of emboldening U.S. adversaries and drawing attention to himself.“You don’t go and compliment any of them because what that does is that makes America look weak,” she said on CNN, adding: “This isn’t about Trump. It’s not about him.”A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.Ms. Haley also leveled fresh criticism toward President Biden, saying that he should never have agreed to free up $6 billion in frozen oil revenue money for Iran for humanitarian purposes as part of a hostage release deal that was announced in August.Facing blowback over the money’s release, the Biden administration and Qatar agreed last week to deny Iran access to the funds, which White House officials had said had not been spent.“You empowered Iran to go and strengthen Hamas, strengthen Hezbollah, strengthen the Houthis to spread their terrorist activity,” Ms. Haley said.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.Haley Johnson More

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More

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      Republican Speaker Fight Has Parallels in the Gingrich Era

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      The current chaos is not the first time Republicans have found themselves rocked by a vacancy at the top.The House speaker had been unceremoniously dumped by colleagues unhappy with his performance and overly optimistic political predictions. Those who would typically be considered next in line had made too many enemies to be able to secure the necessary numbers to take his place. The House was in utter chaos as bombs fell in the Middle East.Today’s relentless Republican turmoil over the House speakership has striking parallels to the tumult of 1998, when House G.O.P. lawmakers were also feuding over who would lead them at a crucial period.Then as now, personal vendettas and warring factions drove an extraordinary internal party fight that threw the House into chaos. The saga had multiple twists and turns as Republicans cycled through would-be speakers in rapid succession — just as the G.O.P. did this week. And in the end, they settled on a little-known congressman as a compromise choice.It’s not clear how the current speaker drama will end; Republicans left Washington on Friday after nominating their second candidate for speaker of the week, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, with plans to return on Tuesday for a vote but no certainty that he could be elected.Back in 1998, Republicans moved swiftly to fill their power vacuum in just one day, unlike the present situation, where they have let unrest fester for more than a week while struggling to overcome deep internal divisions and anoint a new leader.“That was pretty chaotic,” said Representative Harold Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who was already a veteran lawmaker at the time and is now the dean of the House as its longest-serving member. “But it didn’t last very long.”Both dramas began when a Republican speaker lost the faith of some key colleagues. Hard-right Republicans precipitated their party’s current crisis by forcing out Representative Kevin McCarthy of California from the speaker post as punishment for working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown. Twenty-five years ago, Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican whose closest allies were turning on him, announced he would not run again for speaker.Mr. Gingrich, whose scorched-earth tactics had returned Republicans to the majority in 1995 after four decades in the minority wilderness, was finally burned himself after predicting Republican gains in that November’s elections, only to lose seats.Representative Richard K. Armey of Texas, who held the same majority leader position then as Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana does today, was a potential replacement, as was Representative Tom DeLay, the powerful No. 3 Republican whip who was also from Texas. But both had political baggage likely to keep them from the top job, and Mr. Armey faced a fight just to remain in the No. 2 slot.Neither even bothered going through the motions of seeking their party’s nomination, as Mr. Scalise did successfully on Wednesday — only to discover quickly that he lacked the support to be elected, leading to his abrupt withdrawal.“Both of them were toxic, and they knew it,” Fred Upton, the recently retired moderate Republican from Michigan who was in the House at the time, said of Mr. Armey and Mr. DeLay.Sensing an opportunity, Robert Livingston, an ambitious Louisiana Republican who commanded a solid bloc of supporters as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, jumped into the speaker’s race and cleared the field. He won the Republican nomination without opposition in mid-November.Mr. Livingston went about setting up his new leadership operation as Republicans plunged ahead with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton growing out of his relationship with a White House intern. Many Republicans believed the impeachment push had cost them in the just-concluded election, but pursuing Mr. Clinton was a priority of Mr. DeLay, whose nickname was the Hammer, and he was not one to be deterred.Then Saturday, Dec. 19, arrived, with the House set to consider articles of impeachment even as Mr. Clinton had ordered airstrikes against Iraq over suspected weapons violations — an action that Republicans accused him of taking to stave off impeachment.Mr. Livingston, who had not yet assumed the speakership but was playing a leadership role, rose on the floor to urge Mr. Clinton to resign and spare the nation a divisive impeachment fight. But Mr. Livingston himself had acknowledged extramarital affairs a few days earlier to his colleagues. Democrats began shouting “no, no, no” as he spoke.“You resign,” shouted Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California. “You resign.”To the amazement of everyone present, Mr. Livingston did just that, saying that he would set an example for the president and that he would not run for speaker. The House was stunned as lawmakers absorbed the news — similar to the surreal atmosphere last week when it became clear that Mr. McCarthy would be removed as speaker after hard-right Republicans moved to oust him and eight of them joined Democrats in pushing through a motion to vacate the chair.Dennis Hastert became the longest-serving Republican speaker in history before Democrats won the House back in 2006. He was later convicted of paying to cover up sexual abuse.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA mad scramble was on to identify a new speaker candidate. Names of prominent and seasoned House Republicans were bandied about, but Mr. DeLay, a singular force in the chamber, was not about to accept one of them as a potential rival.He turned to a fairly innocuous Illinois Republican who had watched Mr. Livingston from the back row of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, a former wrestling coach who served as Mr. DeLay’s chief deputy and would not be a threat to usurp much of his influence. Mr. DeLay and others told Mr. Hastert that he needed to step up to unify Republicans.By the end of the day, Republicans had approved articles of impeachment against Mr. Clinton and coalesced around Mr. Hastert as the next speaker — a rapid resolution that Mr. Upton noted was lacking in the present speaker drama. He said Republicans should have moved much more quickly after the vote to depose Mr. McCarthy to install someone rather than recessing for the week.“It would have been over and done with,” Mr. Upton said.Mr. Hastert went on to be the longest-serving Republican speaker in history before Democrats won the House back in 2006. But his public career ended in disgrace when he was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in 2016 for paying to cover up admitted sexual abuse of young wrestlers committed long before he rose to surprising power in Congress.Mr. DeLay, his patron, was forced from Congress by ethics issues but ultimately had his conviction on campaign finance violations thrown out of court. Mr. Livingston went on to become a successful Washington lobbyist. Mr. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. Mr. Gingrich remains a voice in G.O.P. politics. And Republicans still struggle with speaker issues. More

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      Haley Slams Trump and Ramaswamy Over Israel Remarks

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      Nikki Haley on Friday knocked two of her Republican presidential rivals, Donald J. Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, over their recent comments on Israel, underscoring the deepening divide within the party around the “America First” anti-interventionist stance that Mr. Trump made a core part of his first campaign.Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley suggested, lacks moral clarity and has not left “the baggage and negativity” of the past behind, an apparent reference to Mr. Trump’s still-simmering animosity toward Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over events that include his congratulating President Biden on winning the 2020 election. Mr. Ramaswamy, meanwhile, sounds more like a liberal Democrat than a Republican, Ms. Haley said.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” Ms. Haley said of Mr. Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner, in a news conference in Concord, N.H., after filing to get on the state’s primary ballot.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump who has been running on her foreign policy experience, said the next president of the United States needed to be someone who “knows the difference between good and evil, who knows the difference between right and wrong.”“You don’t congratulate or give any credit to murderers, period,” she said. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, accused Ms. Haley of using Democratic talking points and said that “there has been no bigger defender and advocate for Israel than President Trump.” But Mr. Trump has drawn scorn from both sides of the political aisle for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence.His tone shifted on Friday, though, as he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he had “always been impressed by the skill and determination of the Israeli Defense Forces.” A second post said simply: “#IStandWithIsrael #IStandWithBibi.”Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy campaign, dismissed Ms. Haley’s remarks on Friday — including Ms. Haley’s accusation that he sounded like a member of the group of progressives known as “the squad” — as a scripted attack from a candidate whom Ms. McLaughlin sought to portray as beholden to special interests.“Pre-canned quip brought to you by the Boeing squad,” she said in an email, invoking Ms. Haley’s tenure of less than a year on the corporate board of Boeing.Ms. Haley’s dig at Mr. Ramaswamy on Friday escalated an ongoing feud between the G.O.P. rivals that has pitted those with more traditional conservative positions, who believe the United States should play a major role abroad, against those espousing anti-interventionist views, who want Americans to focus on issues at home.Mr. Ramaswamy was sharply rebuked by his opponents over his conversation with Tucker Carlson on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, earlier this week.He called the Republican response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel another example of “selective moral outrage” and argued that politicians on both sides of the aisle had largely ignored other atrocities, citing fentanyl deaths in the United States and the accusations of genocide of ethnic Armenians by Azerbaijan.“It comes down in most cases — some people do have ideological commitments that are outdated that are earnest — but a lot of it comes down to money, the corrupting influence of super PACs on the process,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.In a statement on Friday, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, another Republican candidate in the race, condemned Mr. Ramaswamy’s remarks, saying that he was “pulling out the oldest and most offensive antisemitic tropes possible.”He added: “To say that outrage is fueled by donor money and the media is beyond offensive. It is morally wrong and it is dangerous.”Mr. Ramaswamy accused critics and even conservative media outlets of taking his words out of context. Ms. McLaughlin, his campaign spokeswoman, said in an email on Friday that he was talking about Azerbaijan, not Israel.But Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator, was not persuaded. In a tense exchange between the two men on Thursday night, Mr. Hannity said that Mr. Ramaswamy had a history of retreating from his incendiary statements and had made wild claims without backing them up.“What are the financial corrupting influences that Nikki Haley is taking a position on?” he said. “We’ve got pictures of dead babies decapitated, burned babies’ bodies. We’ve got the equivalent of what would be, population-wise in the U.S., over 37,000 dead Americans. So, how much more evidence do you need? What are you talking about?”Mr. Trump, during his time in the White House, virtually did not challenge Israel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.As his United Nations ambassador, Ms. Haley forcefully spoke out in support of the president’s formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as his decision to cut American funding to Palestinian refugees. She has since made her foreign policy credentials and staunch support for Israel pillars of her campaign. Her sparring with Mr. Ramaswamy over foreign policy on the national debate stage in particular helped to boost her in the polls, propelling her to the second position behind Mr. Trump in New Hampshire.On the trail and on the Republican media circuit this week, Ms. Haley has been talking up her on-the-ground experience in the Middle East and calling for the elimination of Hamas. In town halls in New Hampshire on Thursday, she ratcheted up her criticism of Mr. Trump for his reaction to the Israel-Hamas war, saying the former president was too focused on himself.In a small room crowded with reporters at the New Hampshire State House on Friday, Ms. Haley again pitched herself as “a new generational conservative leader” who knew how to negotiate with world leaders.“I know what it takes to keep Americans safe,” she said. She later added: “You don’t just have Israel’s back when they get hit. You need to have Israel’s back when they hit back, too.” More

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      Trump Criticizes Netanyahu and Israeli Intelligence in Florida Speech

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      The attacks were a major focus of Mr. Trump’s remarks to a crowd of superfans in his home state, which has a significant number of Jewish voters.Former President Donald J. Trump, who frequently paints himself as the fiercest defender of Israel to ever occupy the White House, on Wednesday criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech in Florida just days after deadly Hamas attacks rocked the country.Speaking to a crowd of supporters in West Palm Beach, a few miles from his residence at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump related a story he said he had never told about Israel’s role in the killing of Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, by an American drone strike in 2020.Mr. Trump said that Israel had been working with the United States on a plan for the attack, but that he had received a call shortly beforehand to let him know that Israel would not take part. The United States proceeded anyway.“But I’ll never forget,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing.”He then criticized Israeli intelligence, pointing in part to failures to anticipate and stop Hamas, the Islamic militant group, from executing such a large-scale and devastating attack. “They’ve got to straighten it out,” Mr. Trump said.At the same time, Mr. Trump, who frequently paints himself as a staunch ally of Israel, vowed that he would “fully support” the country in its war against Hamas.The attacks were a major focus of Mr. Trump’s remarks in Florida, which is home to a significant number of Jewish voters. As he has recently, Mr. Trump attacked President Biden, blaming him for the assault and repeating a falsehood about U.S. funds to Iran, a longtime backer of Hamas. He also repeated his suggestion that the bloodshed would not have happened if he were president.But, in a new flourish, Mr. Trump then tied the current conflict to his conspiracy theories and lies about the 2020 election.“If the election wasn’t rigged,” he said, “there would be nobody even thinking about going into Israel.”Mr. Trump also appeared to blame the Biden administration for clashes on Israel’s northern border, which the former president attributed to Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militant organization in Lebanon committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. He then repeatedly called Hezbollah “very smart.”Mr. Trump’s appearance in West Palm Beach marked a bit of a homecoming. He has held a flurry of campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire, and last week, he traveled to New York to attend a civil fraud trial he faces there.In Florida, he spoke at a convention center for a meeting hosted by Club 47 USA, which describes itself as the largest pro-Trump club in America and a “corporation formed to support” the former president’s agenda.The friendly crowd, Mr. Trump said, accounted for his decision to recount the story about the strike against Mr. Suleimani. “Nobody’s heard this story before,” he said. “But I’d like to tell it to Club 47, because you’ve been so loyal.”Mr. Netanyahu commended Mr. Trump at the time. But some in Israel were more muted, wary that Iran might retaliate against Israel for the American attack.Mr. Trump has been critical of Mr. Netanyahu before, telling the Axios reporter Barak Ravid that he was particularly incensed after the prime minister congratulated Mr. Biden for his 2020 election victory.Mr. Trump also criticized Mr. Netanyahu in a Fox News Radio interview that is expected to air on Thursday. In a clip from that interview that aired on television on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Netanyahu “was not prepared and Israel was not prepared.”He again suggested Israeli intelligence had been deficient, saying, “Thousands of people knew about it and they let this slip by. ”Mr. Trump’s remarks in Florida drew near-immediate criticism from the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, his closest rival in the primary.“Terrorists have murdered at least 1,200 Israelis and 22 Americans and are holding more hostage, so it is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for President, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel, much less praise Hezbollah terrorists as ‘very smart.’” Mr. DeSantis said on X, formerly known as Twitter.Mr. Trump used his appearance on Wednesday to knock Mr. DeSantis, whom he leads by double-digits in most polls, in his own backyard.“He didn’t have a lot of political skill, to put it mildly,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Mr. DeSantis was “falling like a very badly injured bird from the sky.”The event in West Palm Beach began with a panel of right-wing media figures and influencers discussing their experiences with the former president.Representative Matt Gaetz, one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies in Washington, was slated to speak but instead appeared only briefly at the start of Mr. Trump’s remarks.Mr. Trump praised Mr. Gaetz, but he did not mention his role in the paralysis currently seizing Capitol Hill.Mr. Gaetz last week successfully pushed to remove Representative Kevin McCarthy of California as the House’s speaker. The body has been without a leader ever since, which has left it unable to fully conduct regular business. More

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      Israel Violence Underscores the GOP Divide on Foreign Policy

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      The fighting in Israel has become another flashpoint in the Republican presidential primary, further revealing the foreign policy divide among candidates scrambling to distinguish themselves in a race dominated by former President Donald J. Trump.“I will always condemn antisemitism, appeasement and weakness on the radical left, but I will also call out weakness or confusion among conservatives as well,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said during a speech about Israel on Tuesday at the Hudson Institute in Washington.In a departure from his usually noncombative campaign style, Mr. Scott criticized both Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who along with Mr. Trump have outlined anti-interventionist foreign policy positions. Mr. Scott highlighted Mr. Ramaswamy’s comments on Israel earlier this year (he has shifted his stance on cutting U.S. military aid to Israel), and Mr. DeSantis’s characterization of the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” which Mr. DeSantis later walked back.Former Vice President Mike Pence also attacked several candidates in remarks on Saturday in which he criticized Republicans who “embraced the language of isolationism and appeasement.” He named Mr. Trump, Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. DeSantis as voices that have “run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world.”Those three men, who have espoused anti-interventionist stances on issues like Ukraine, strongly condemned the attack on Israel. Mr. Trump has said he would “stand strongly” with Israel, claiming that the attacks “would never have happened” if he were president. Mr. DeSantis called on Israel to respond with “overwhelming force” and said the United States would stand fully behind Israel. Mr. Ramaswamy said that the U.S. should “stand ready to provide additional military supplies.” Mr. Ramaswamy hit back at Mr. Pence in a social media post Tuesday night and again criticized Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, who said over the weekend that the attacks in Israel amounted to “an attack on America because they hate us just as much.”Mr. Ramaswamy called comments from both of them “histrionics” that “are unhelpful and unserious.”Anti-interventionist positions got some support this week from the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who mocked Ms. Haley for suggesting that the attack on Israel was also an attack on America and said: “Wars beget more war. The bigger the conflict, the uglier and longer-lasting the consequences. These are not complex observations but seem lost on our leadership class.”While the Republican Party has shifted away from hawkish foreign policies over the past decade, a move that accelerated with Mr. Trump’s rise, Mr. Pence and Ms. Haley have outlined more traditional stances. But aside from Ms. Haley, who has risen in the polls and attracted increased donor attention, the other candidates expressing more hawkish views are polling in the low single digits.Maggie Astor More

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      Trump and Other GOP Candidates Use Israel-Gaza to Criticize Biden

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      Republicans renewed their opposition to President Biden’s decision to unfreeze $6 billion for humanitarian purposes as part of recent hostage release negotiations.Republican presidential candidates seized on the Hamas attack on Israel Saturday to try to lay blame on President Biden, drawing a connection between the surprise assault and a recent hostage release deal between the United States and Iran, a longtime backer of the group.Former President Donald J. Trump, who has frequently presented himself as a unflinching ally of Israel and who moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018, blamed Mr. Biden for the conflict.While campaigning on Saturday in Waterloo, Iowa, he said the attacks had occurred because “we are perceived as being weak and ineffective, with a really weak leader.”On several occasions, Mr. Trump went further, saying that the hostage deal was a catalyst of the attacks. “The war happened for two reasons,” he said. “The United States is giving — and gave to Iran — $6 billion over hostages.”In exchange for the release of five Americans held in Tehran, the Biden administration agreed in August to free up $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenue funds for humanitarian purposes. The administration has emphasized that the money could be used only for “food, medicine, medical equipment that would not have a dual military use.”A senior Biden administration official responded to the comments by Mr. Trump — as well as to criticism by other Republican candidates — by calling them “total lies” and accusing the politicians of having either a “complete misunderstanding” of the facts or of participating willingly in a “complete mischaracterization and disinformation of facts.”Another Biden administration official, Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement, “These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not the time to spread disinformation.”Mr. Trump, the G.O.P. front-runner, was not alone in assailing Mr. Biden, as the entire Republican field weighed in on the attacks on Saturday.In a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida faulted the Biden administration for its foreign policy decisions in the Middle East.“Iran has helped fund this war against Israel, and Joe Biden’s policies that have gone easy on Iran has helped to fill their coffers,” he said. “Israel is now paying the price for those policies.”In a statement issued through the White House, Mr. Biden pledged solidarity with Israel and said that he had spoken with Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s prime minister.“The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel,” Mr. Biden said.Yet while the G.O.P. candidates rallied around Israel on Saturday, there is a divide in the party between foreign policy hawks and those who favor a more isolationist approach.In addition to criticizing Mr. Biden on Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence had harsh words for fellow Republicans who prefer a more hands-off approach to conflicts abroad.“This is what happens when @POTUS projects weakness on the world stage, kowtows to the mullahs in Iran with a $6 Billion ransom, and leaders in the Republican Party signal American retreat as Leader of the Free World,” Mr. Pence wrote on X. “Weakness arouses evil.”Other Republican candidates, including Nikki Haley, who was an ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism.“Make no mistake: Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization backed by Iran and determined to kill as many innocent lives as possible,” Ms. Haley said in a statement.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey echoed the criticism of his Republican rivals in a social media post, calling the release of $6 billion by the Biden administration to Iran “idiotic.” Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Mr. Hutchinson similarly sought to connect the attack with the release of humanitarian funds for Iran.Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur, called the attacks “barbaric and medieval” in a post on X.“Shooting civilians and kidnapping children are war crimes,” he wrote. “Israel’s right to exist & defend itself should never be doubted and Iran-backed Hamas & Hezbollah cannot be allowed to prevail.”Michael Gold More