Netanyahu's office says US military aid to Israel will end gradually

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a statement saying that American military aid to Israel will be wound down gradually, presenting the change as a joint step by Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. According to the text published by News.co.il, the office said Israel's economy is now strong enough to end US military assistance step by step, and that the two countries are moving from a relationship of aid to one of partnership.

Israeli outlets described the statement as a clarification following comments by Trump. Ynet reported that the message runs counter to what the US president had said, and that, as it had previously reported, the aid would be stopped gradually rather than at the end of the year. Channel 12 News (N12) political correspondent Dafna Liel wrote that the Prime Minister's Office had issued a further clarification after Trump's remarks, saying Israel would work to phase out the military aid over time.

What the Prime Minister's Office said

The statement, posted in full by journalist Amit Segal, places the decision in a longer arc of Netanyahu's own record. It says that in 1996, during his first term, Netanyahu pledged that Israel would gradually give up American economic assistance, then worth 1.2 billion dollars a year according to the office, and that he kept that commitment. Three decades on, the office said, Netanyahu has concluded that the Israeli economy can also do without US military aid, again on a gradual basis.

The office described the Israeli economy as strong and stable and said the move reflects the strength of the alliance between the two countries and its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. It called the step a joint one by Netanyahu and Trump.

The statement also pointed back to an interview Netanyahu gave in May to the CBS programme "60 Minutes", in which, according to his office, he said he wanted to reduce American financial aid to zero over time. The office presented that interview as the moment he first set out the direction now being taken.

Two kinds of aid

The statement draws a distinction that matters for readers following the story. The aid Netanyahu pledged to phase out in 1996 was economic, or civilian, assistance: direct financial support to Israel's economy. The aid now under discussion is military assistance, the funding the United States provides for Israel's defence needs. In the office's telling, ending the first was a precedent for ending the second.

A question of timing

The central point of difference in the coverage is the pace of the change. Ynet framed Netanyahu's statement as contradicting Trump, and its account indicates that the US president's remarks had suggested a sharper end point, with aid ending at the close of the year. The Israeli government's position, as set out by the Prime Minister's Office, is that the process will be gradual. None of the reports quote Trump's own words directly, so his exact statement is not set out in the material available here.

The reports also differ slightly on how long it took for this statement to follow Trump's remarks. Ynet said the Prime Minister's Office message came a week and a half after the US president's announcement. Liel, in an updated version of her N12 post, wrote that this was a second statement from the office, issued a few days after an earlier English-language response to Trump's comments.

What the Prime Minister's Office is

The Prime Minister's Office is the Israeli government department that serves the prime minister and issues his official statements. Its messages are often released in Hebrew for the domestic audience and in English for foreign media and governments. According to N12, the earlier response on this subject had been issued in English, while the latest clarification was released to Israeli media.

How the story was reported

The statement circulated within minutes across several Israeli news channels on the messaging app Telegram, including Ynet's alerts service, the News.co.il channel, the N12 news channel and Amit Segal's channel. Ynet's headline emphasised the contrast with Trump, while News.co.il and Segal reproduced the text of the office's message. Liel's N12 post was edited several times as further detail emerged.

What the reports do not say

The reports do not give a timetable for the phase-out, the current level of US military aid, or how much would be reduced each year. They do not quote Trump's original remarks or report any response from the White House or the US administration to the Israeli statement. Nor do they say whether the change requires new agreements between the two governments or action by the US Congress.