US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will stop paying military aid to Israel, according to DIE ZEIT. The president made the statement in an interview with Fox News, the outlet reported on Tuesday. The move concerns a multibillion-dollar program supporting Israel's security.
Coverage of the announcement was carried by several German outlets. Spiegel reported that Washington intends to halt military assistance to Israel going forward. n-tv.de reported that an authority in Jerusalem was caught off guard by the president's announcement of what it described as a premature end to US military aid. Tagesspiegel raised the question of whether electoral tactics played a role in the decision.
The reporting available does not specify the size of the aid package, the timing of any cutoff, or how the Israeli government has formally responded beyond the surprise described by n-tv.de. DIE ZEIT's headline frames the decision as the end of billions in assistance to Israel.
What to watch next: whether the US administration sets out a formal timetable for ending the aid, and how Israeli officials respond on the record.
