US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, US, June 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

US President Donald Trump has denied that Israel is committing a so-called “genocide” in Gaza, arguing that the Jewish state is instead fighting a justifiable war to remove the Hamas terrorist group from the Palestinian enclave.

While he prepared to board Air Force One in Pennsylvania on Sunday, reporters asked Trump whether he agrees with the characterization of Israel’s war in Gaza as being a “genocide.”

“I don’t think it’s that. They’re in a war,” Trump said.

“Some horrible things happened on Oct. 7,” Trump told reporters, referring to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. “It was a horrible, horrible thing. One of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

During the Oct. 7 onslaught, which launched the ongoing war in Gaza, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people, kidnapped 251 hostages, and perpetrated rampant sexual violence while rampaging across southern Israel.

Trump emphasized the urgency of providing more humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip and claimed the US is spearheading efforts to ensure that hunger does not intensify throughout the enclave.

“We want the people fed. We’re the only country that’s really doing that. We’re putting up money to get the people fed. And Steve Witkoff is doing a great job,” Trump continued, referring to his envoy to the Middle East.

Several international organizations and human rights groups have accused Israel of committing a so-called “genocide” in Gaza, claims which Israel has fiercely denied.

Despite the mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israeli officials maintain that they are taking extensive measures to minimize civilian suffering while pursuing legitimate military objectives against Hamas. The Israeli government has coordinated with international partners, including the US and Egypt, to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries, allowing shipments of food, water, medicine, and fuel through designated crossings despite ongoing hostilities. Israel emphasizes that it warns civilians before operations, encourages evacuations, and targets Hamas infrastructure embedded within civilian areas only when necessary. Officials argue that Hamas’s tactics, such as using hospitals, schools, and densely populated neighborhoods to shield fighters, make civilian casualties tragically unavoidable.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah Chief Naim Qassem gives a televised speech from an unknown location, July 30, 2025, in this screen grab from video. Photo: Al Manar TV/REUTERS TV/via REUTERS

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem threatened Israel directly for the first time in months in a televised speech on Tuesday, saying missiles would fall on it if it resumed a broad war on Lebanon.

His comments came as Lebanon‘s cabinet met to discuss the fate of Hezbollah‘s arsenal, after Washington pressured Lebanese officials to commit to disarming the Iran-backed terrorist group and amid fears that Israel could intensify strikes if they fail to do so.

Qassem said that, should Israel engage in a “large-scale aggression” against Lebanon, Hezbollah, Lebanon‘s army, and Lebanon‘s people would defend themselves.

“This defense will lead to missiles falling inside the Israeli entity, and all the security they have built over eight months will collapse within an hour,” he said.

A US-brokered ceasefire in November brought an end to months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. The war killed much of Hezbollah‘s leadership – including Qassem’s predecessor Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – and destroyed much of its arsenal.

Qassem said the war had killed 5,000 Hezbollah fighters and wounded 13,000, the first official toll the Islamist group has given. But he said the organization remained in good order, with fighters ready to make “the harshest sacrifices” if needed.

Minutes after he spoke, dozens of men on motorcycles carrying Hezbollah‘s yellow flags emerged from its strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs for the second day in a row.

REJECTS ‘EXTERNAL DICTATES’

Washington and Beirut have been in talks since June on a US roadmap to fully disarm Hezbollah in exchange for a halt to Israeli strikes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying five points in south Lebanon, and funds to rebuild areas destroyed by Israeli bombardment during the war.

But with little progress on disarmament, Washington’s patience began wearing thin and it pressured Lebanon‘s ministers to swiftly make a public pledge so that talks could continue.

Qassem pushed back against the conditions, saying Israel must implement the ceasefire in full by halting its military activities in Lebanon before any other discussion.

“Solve the problem of the [Israeli] aggression, and then we will discuss the issue of the weapons,” he said.

Addressing Lebanese officials, he said: “I hope you don’t waste time on the storms stirred up by external dictates.”

Ali Larijani, former chairman of the parliament of Iran, attends a press conference after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 15, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has appointed Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to the supreme leader, as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.

The appointment takes place amid institutional changes following a 12-day air war with Israel in June, the Islamic Republic’s most severe security challenge since a war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s.

A former member of the Revolutionary Guards, Larijani held the same top security position from 2005 to 2007 and was parliamentary speaker from 2008 to 2020. He now replaces Ali Akbar Ahmadian, who had become SNSC secretary in 2023.

On Sunday, Iran revived an Iraq war-era Defense Council to review defense plans and enhance the capabilities of its armed forces in a centralized manner.

Both the Defense Council and the SNSC are headed by Iran’s president.