Israel's Gaza proposal preparations, Arab Americans, South African land and transgender athletes
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Today, Israel's defense minister orders the army to prepare for Gaza residents' departure, as some Arab-American voters say they're standing by Trump after his shock proposal. South Africa's president prepares his state of a nation in the face of U.S. opposition to a land ownership law. And Trump seeks to ban transgender athletes from women's sports.

It's Thursday, February 6th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Jonah Green in New York. And I'm Tara Oaks in London. This episode is brought to you by MeUndies. Underwear drawers are like the Wild West. You never know what you're going to pull out or what shape it's in. So upgrade your collection with the buttery soft comfort of

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Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow for the voluntary departure of residents from the Gaza Strip. Israel's Channel 12 quoting him as saying countries who opposed Israel's military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.

U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to take over Gaza and resettle Palestinians has drawn global condemnation. His plan also got pushback from some Republicans in Congress, including Senator Rand Paul, who tweeted, I thought we voted for America first. The fiercest comments were perhaps from United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law.

It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing. Trump's top aides staunchly defended his proposal, but backed away from some elements of the plan. Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt. The president has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. He has also said that the United States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza.

While Arab American leaders are criticizing Trump's proposal, some voters in the community still think he's the best option for peace.

Reporter Andrea Shalal has been talking to them to find out why. A lot of Arab Americans and Muslims that voted for Donald Trump credit President Trump for helping to bring about the ceasefire. After months and months and months of less than stellar results by the Biden administration, it was really on the eve of the inauguration that the ceasefire was reached. And it's

People also said to me, look, we know this is how this guy operates, right? He says things that are provocative, like buying Greenland. We know it's a negotiating position. I spoke with someone earlier today, Yahya Basha, who's a medical doctor and founder of Muslims for American Progress, who said he wasn't surprised. I don't regret anything I did to get Trump elected. And I hope we see...

There have been proposals like this before, so some people remain skeptical that those plans will actually be executed. A second federal judge has issued an order blocking Donald Trump's plan to curtail birthright citizenship, saying no court in the United States has ever endorsed the Republican president's interpretation of the Constitution.

The Panama Canal Authority says it has not made any changes to charges or rights to cross the canal. The announcement comes after the State Department said that U.S. government ships could make the crossing without paying any fees. The Trump administration has been toying with the plan for reform at the World Health Organization, including putting an American in charge of it as a condition for the U.S. remaining a member.

That's according to two sources familiar with the plan and a document reviewed by Reuters. And Argentina says it will also pull out of the WHO, with President Javier Millay citing deep differences over health management, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over on markets, China is challenging Donald Trump's tariffs at the World Trade Organization and shippers are warning of chaos. Common Crimmins is here with more. So Beijing's move is the first stage of a dispute process, but its ability to get a ruling at the WTO is going to be stymied because the panel that settles trade disputes doesn't really function after the Trump administration blocked appointments to it during his first term.

Meanwhile, there's still a lot of confusion over what Trump's cancellation of the duty-free exemption means for low-value packages from China and Hong Kong. The cancellation affects Chinese retailers like Shein and Timu, and shippers are trying to navigate it all. The U.S. Postal Service did say it will now accept parcels from China and Hong Kong, reversing a 12-hour suspension that had added to the confusion.

And if you want to hear more about tariffs, trade and what Trump wants from it all, check out this week's episode of Reuters Econ World. It's out today on Reuters.com, the Reuters app or wherever you get your podcasts. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to give his State of the Nation address later today. His speech coming a few weeks after signing into law a bill aimed at addressing racial disparities in land ownership. President Trump and his advisor Elon Musk aren't fans.

Trump posted, without citing evidence, that South Africa is confiscating land and certain classes of people were being treated very badly, saying he would suspend aid to the country over the policy. Musk, who is South African-born, accuses his home country of having openly racist ownership laws.

Tim Cox is our chief correspondent for Southern Africa. So land ownership in South Africa is about 80% privately held. It's mostly in white hands. So of the sort of freehold farmland that's out there, about 75% of it is owned by white farmers.

and white people make up about 8% of the population compared to 80% of black people, and black farmers own only about 4%. So you can see from those figures how skewed the ownership is. This is a product of the apartheid history of South Africa.

The bill seeks to redress these very stark disparities by giving the government the power to effectively force landowners to give up their land, in some rare cases even without any compensation.

So far, what we've had is a willing buyer, willing seller model whereby the government tries to get hold of land and then redistribute it to black farmers by paying for it and on a voluntary basis. The trouble is this just has done almost nothing to address the situation. And so what are Trump and Musk's complaints here?

So Trump's claim was that there has already been land seizures going on under this law, but there's not been even a single acre yet because they've only just passed it last month. Musk has been talking up this idea of a genocide against white farmers. This is an idea that tries to connect robberies on remote farms in which a farmer gets killed with land reform and saying that actually they're connected to

The problem with this is that there's about 20,000 murders in South Africa every year, and only 50 of them are of white farmers. So it doesn't really stack up. It's often not really clear what their complaint is. But certainly the white farmers that they're speaking to, their complaint is that this nil compensation is going to violate property rights and scare off investment. The war on women's sports is over.

President Trump has signed an executive order attempting to exclude transgender girls and women from female sports in schools. Schools that don't comply immediately can be cut off from federal funding.

Supporters of the new order say it will restore fairness in sports. But critics and activists say it infringes on the rights of a tiny minority of athletes. For a lot of trans youth out there, it just means, once again, their country's declaring war on them. Kristen Worley is a transgender former professional cyclist. This is Trump's fourth executive order since taking office that restricts transgender rights.

Reporter Dan Trotta has been looking at why this measure may go over differently than some of the others. In general terms, the trans issue has been very partisan. That is, Democrats have supported trans rights and Republicans have sought to restrict them. In this case, there may be a little bit more of an overlap. This issue, when Trump spoke about it at his rallies during the campaign, got huge applause. He

He spent millions and millions of dollars on an advertisement that spoke to this issue. So it seems to have found an audience beyond the other trans issues. The order is a novel interpretation of Title IX. Can you explain how? Title IX is a federal law that bans discrimination in education on the basis of sex.

Obama and Biden both had interpreted that to mean a ban on discrimination against transgender people. Trump now is trying to reverse that and say that what Title IX really does is protects non-transgender women and girls from competing against trans women and girls in sports. It will be interesting to see what the courts say.

And for today's recommended read, a Reuters exclusive on how Ukraine has seen a marked improvement in the accuracy of Russia's North Korean missiles. There's a link to the story in the pod description. And for more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.