Trump’s Nominee for Ambassador to Israel Avoids Direct Answers on West Bank Annexation

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Trump’s Nominee for Ambassador to Israel Avoids Direct Answers on West Bank Annexation

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)

Mike Huckabee, facing a US Senate hearing for his confirmation as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, is facing close questioning from Democrats on his views on the potential for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, but he avoided giving direct answers.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, asked Huckabee whether he thought it would be wrong for a Jewish settler to push a Palestinian family off land they own in the West Bank.

Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian, stood by past statements that Israel has a “Biblical mandate” to the land. He also responded by saying he believed in the “law being followed” and “clarity,” but also that “purchasing the land” would be a “legitimate transaction.”

Huckabee also said that any Palestinians living in an annexed West Bank would have “security” and “opportunity,” but wouldn’t answer Van Hollen’s questions about whether they would have the same legal and political rights as Jewish people.

Four pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted the hearing in the Senate to decry Huckabee’s ardent support for Israel.

One blew a shofar, a ram’s horn used for Jewish religious purposes, and another shouted, “I am a proud American Jew!” then “Let Palestinians live!”

Police quickly grabbed the protesters, but their shouts could still be momentarily heard in the Senate hallway.

Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and one-time Republican presidential hopeful, has taken stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that sharply contradict longstanding US policy in the region.

He has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the occupied West Bank and has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian people.

In an interview last year, he went even further, saying that he doesn’t even believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”



Gaza Civil Defense Says Six Killed in Israeli Strikes

A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)
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Gaza Civil Defense Says Six Killed in Israeli Strikes

A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least six people on Saturday across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

"Our teams have recovered at least six dead," civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He said a couple were killed with their two young children in a pre-dawn strike on a house in the Amal quarter of the southern city of Khan Younis.

Another two people were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the territory, he said.

The Israeli military said it was unable to comment on individual strikes without their "precise geographical coordinates".

Israel resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

Gaza's health ministry said Friday that at least 3,673 people had been killed in the territory since then, taking the war's overall toll to 53,822, mostly civilians.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Gunmen also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Palestinians were enduring "the cruelest phase" of the war in Gaza, where more than a dozen food trucks were looted following the partial easing of a lengthy Israeli blockade.

The World Food Program called on Israel "to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster", saying: "Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity."

Aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip restarted on Monday for the first time since March 2, amid mounting condemnation of the Israeli blockade, which has resulted in severe shortages of food and medicines.