The United States envoy to Israel lashed out at British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over criticism of Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza, joining senior Israeli figures who have also pushed back.

“So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved?” Ambassador Mike Huckabee said in a post on X on Friday.

He was responding to a statement by U.K. Prime Minister Starmer describing Israel’s decision to “further escalate its offensive in Gaza” as “wrong.” Starmer led the international condemnation of the Israeli government’s military escalation in the Gaza Strip, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to take over Gaza City. 

The Israeli plan, approved early Friday by the government’s security cabinet, involves disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, establishing Israeli security control of Gaza, and setting up a new administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. 

The military escalation comes amid increasingly urgent international condemnation over the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Even Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest European allies, has suspended some arms exports to Israel in response. 

Huckabee referred to events of the Second World War in his response to Starmer, saying: “Did [the] UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? Ever heard of Dresden, PM Starmer? That wasn’t food you dropped. If you had been PM then, [the] UK would be speaking German!”

The German city of Dresden was largely destroyed after being subjected to some of the heaviest bombing of World War II by British and American forces. 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also defended his government’s plan, saying on X that countries that “condemn and threaten sanctions will not weaken our resolve.”