Israel’s security cabinet has voted to expand the war in Gaza, marking a major escalation at a time when it is under intense domestic and international pressure to end the conflict.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany won’t authorize any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza “until further notice,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday, in a strikingly quick response by one of Israel’s strongest international backers to a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet to take over Gaza City.

Mark Chandler, former director of Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East and Africa Center and professor of practice at Coastal Carolina University, says “everything about a