Germany will bar the use of components made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from core parts of the country's 5G networks, in two steps starting in 2026, the nation's top security official said Thursday.

Germany, which has Europe's biggest economy, has long mulled what to do about components made by Chinese suppliers in its new-generation cellphone networks.

The 32-members of NATO on Wednesday formally declared Ukraine on an "irreversible" path to membership in the Western military alliance, offering a bare but more binding assurance of protection once its war with Russia ends.

NATO member countries individually and in Wednesday's joint statement from their summit in Washington announced a series of steps aimed at bolstering Ukraine's defenses. That includes the U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark announcing that the first NATO-provided F-16s would be in the hands of Ukrainian military pilots by this summer.

China accused NATO on Thursday of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same "chaos" to Asia, a reflection of its determination to oppose strengthening ties between NATO members and Asian nations such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

The statement by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson came a day after NATO labeled China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine.

A slight majority of Israelis supports ending the war in Gaza as part of a cease-fire deal that would free all hostages held by Hamas, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think-tank, found that 56% of Israelis favor a complete cease-fire to return all the hostages and Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. That figure stands in contrast to a key position of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in ongoing cease-fire talks – that Israel won’t commit to ending the war as part of any deal.

The United Nations is warning that Israel’s order for Palestinians to leave Gaza City will fuel mass suffering and is insisting that civilians must be protected and their needs must be met whether they flee or stay.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday that this warning from the U.N. humanitarian office means that all parties involved in the conflict in Gaza must respect international humanitarian law at all times. Protection of civilians and the infrastructure for their survival are key requirements of the law.

The U.S. has agreed to send Israel hundreds of 500-pound bombs from a shipment that the Biden administration withheld because of concerns about Israeli operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to three U.S. officials.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced in May that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah over concern for the well-being of hundreds of thousands civilians sheltering there.

President Joe Biden's imperiled reelection campaign hit new trouble Wednesday as House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said merely "it's up to the president to decide" if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to beat Republican Donald Trump.

Late in the evening, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because "the stakes could not be higher."

For many French voters of diverse backgrounds, last Sunday's parliamentary election results were a relief, seemingly an embrace of the country's ethnic variety instead of a victory for xenophobic far-right forces.

"It was a moment of joy, a light at the end of the tunnel," Loven Bensimon said about the ballot results. She celebrated Sunday with thousands of others who rallied against the far right at Place de la Republique in Paris around a giant patchwork French flag that read, "France is the fabric of migrations."

A suspected attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a Liberian-flagged tanker in the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Wednesday, as authorities acknowledged the rebels launched their longest-range attack yet on a U.S.-flagged vessel near the Arabian Sea.

The attacks come after an unexplained pause of a week and a half. The rebels may be regrouping ahead of the arrival of a new U.S. aircraft carrier to the region after the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower began heading home.

Incessant rains Wednesday halted the search for 30 people believed trapped under a landslide that engulfed an unauthorized gold mine on Indonesia's Sulawesi island over the weekend, killing at least 23 people.

More than 100 villagers were digging for grains of gold on Sunday in the remote and hilly village of Bone Bolango in Gorontalo province when tons of mud plunged down the surrounding hills and buried their makeshift camps.