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A prominent lawmaker in the United States has announced he will return donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), highlighting the powerful pro-Israel lobby group’s waning appeal among Democrats.

Congressman Seth Moulton distanced himself from AIPAC on Thursday, citing the group’s support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Moulton is slated to challenge progressive Senator Ed Markey in next year’s Democratic primaries, ahead of the midterm elections.

The move by Moulton, a centrist and strong supporter of Israel, shows that backing from AIPAC is increasingly becoming a political liability for Democrats after the horrors Israel has unleashed on Gaza.

“In recent years, AIPAC has aligned itself too closely with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government,” Moulton said in a statement.

“I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC’s mission today is to back that government. I don’t support that direction. That’s why I’ve decided to return the donations I’ve received, and I will not be accepting their support.”

For decades, Israel has leveraged its political connections and network of wealthy donors to push for unconditional support for its policies.

In 2022, AIPAC organised a political action committee (PAC) to exert sway in US elections, mostly using its financial might to help defeat progressive candidates critical of Israel in Democratic primaries.

Last year, the group helped oust two vocal critics of Israel in Congress – Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush – by backing their primary challengers with tens of millions of dollars.

I am returning AIPAC donations and refusing to accept any donations or support from them.

The FEC filing I made yesterday reflects that we are returning donations. pic.twitter.com/shBgHmYB1s

Increased scrutiny

But Israel’s war on Gaza has led to an outpouring of criticisms, with leading rights groups and United Nations investigators calling it a genocide.

In light of that outcry, AIPAC’s role in US politics has come under greater scrutiny, particularly in Democratic circles where support for Israel has slipped to historic lows.

Moreover, AIPAC has endorsed far-right candidates like Congressman Randy Fine – who celebrated the killing of a US citizen by Israel and openly called for starving Palestinians in Gaza – which further alienated some Democrats.

AIPAC’s critics often liken it to the National Rifle Association (NRA), the once-bipartisan gun rights lobby that Democrats now reject nearly universally.

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the progressive group Justice Democrats, said AIPAC and its affiliates “are transforming from a lobby that establishment Democrats could rely on to buy a seat in Washington into a kiss of death for candidates who have their support”.

“Our movement’s work to demand the Democratic Party reject AIPAC as a toxic pariah is not only working but ensuring that the pro-genocide Israel lobby’s influence in Washington is waning,” Andrabi told Al Jazeera.

Even on the right of the ideological spectrum, some figures in President Donald Trump’s “America First” movement have been critical of AIPAC’s outsized influence.

In August, the lobby group accused right-wing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of betraying “American values” over her criticism of Israel.

Greene shot back, saying that AIPAC serves the interests of a foreign government. “I’m as AMERICAN as they come! I can’t be bought and I’m not backing down,” she wrote in a social media post.

AIPAC is expected to target some key races in next year’s midterm elections, including the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing off against staunch Israel supporter Haley Stevens.

In 2022, the lobby group helped Stevens defeat then-Congressman Andy Levin, who hails from a prominent Michigan Jewish family, in a House primary.

While it is one of the better-known lobby groups in the US, AIPAC is among dozens of pro-Israel advocacy organisations across the country, including some that also raise funds for candidates, such as NORPAC.

Throughout the assault on Gaza, AIPAC echoed the falsehood that there is no Israeli-imposed famine in the territory and defended the Israeli military’s genocidal conduct while calling for more US aid to the country.

AIPAC argues that it is a thoroughly American organisation with 100 percent of its funding coming from inside the US. It denies taking direction from Israel.

But the lobby group is almost always in full alignment with the Israeli government.

AIPAC members also often meet with Israeli leaders. The group also organises free trips for US lawmakers to travel to Israel and meet with Israeli officials.

‘It’s interesting’

The pro-Israel group’s unflinching support for Netanyahu’s government puts it at odds with the overwhelming majority of Democrats.

A poll this month from the Pew Research Center showed only 18 percent of Democratic respondents have favourable views of the Israeli government.

Still, Democratic Party leaders have continued to associate with AIPAC and accept its endorsement. In August, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar joined lawmakers on an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel.

That same month, AIPAC-endorsed House Minority Whip Katherine Clark earned the group’s praise after walking back comments where she decried the “starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom – who is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028 – also skirted a question about AIPAC in an interview this week.

Asked about the organisation on the Higher Learning podcast, Newsom said AIPAC is not relevant to his day-to-day life.

“I haven’t thought about AIPAC, and it’s interesting. You’re like the first to bring up AIPAC in years, which is interesting,” he said.

In response to Moulton’s comments on Thursday, AIPAC issued a defiant statement, accusing the Democrat of “abandoning his friends to grab a headline”.

It was a major talking point in the final months of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign: If re-elected, the Republican leader pledged to make in vitro fertilisation (IVF) free for those seeking to get pregnant.

“Under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump told NBC News last year, adding that his plans would cover “all Americans that get it, all Americans that need it”.

“We’re going to be paying for that treatment. Or we’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”

While that campaign promise remains unrealised, the Trump administration took a step on Thursday to make the procedure more accessible.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump announced a collaboration with the company EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, to offer lower-priced fertility drugs on his upcoming prescription marketplace, TrumpRx.

“ EMD Serono, the largest fertility drug manufacturer in the world, has agreed to provide massive discounts to all fertility drugs they sell in the United States, including the most popular drug of all, the IVF drug Gonal-F,” Trump told reporters.

Expanding TrumpRx project

The announcement marks the third major pharmaceutical company to agree to provide discounted products on TrumpRx, a direct-to-consumer website slated to launch in 2026.

Trump had threatened drug companies in September with a 100-percent tariff on their products unless they started to build manufacturing facilities in the US.

But that tariff was postponed after the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer announced a deal with TrumpRx on September 30, a day before the tax hike was slated to hit. AstraZeneca, another power player in the industry, followed suit last week.

In Thursday’s news conference, Trump once again credited his tariff threats with bringing the companies to heel.

“They’ll bring a significant portion of their drug manufacturing back to the United States,” Trump said of EMD Serono. “That’s for a lot of reasons, but primarily because of the election result, November 5th, and maybe most importantly because of the tariffs.”

In addition to the forthcoming discounts from EMD Serono, Trump indicated he would encourage insurance companies to expand coverage for IVF treatments.

In the US, laws vary by state as to whether health insurance must cover fertility treatments like IVF. Trump touted the guidance as a breakthrough in making reproductive healthcare more accessible and affordable.

“Effective immediately, for the first time ever, we will make it legal for companies to offer supplemental insurance plans specifically for fertility,” Trump said.

“ Americans will be able to opt in, do specialised coverage, just as they get vision and dental insurance.”

Those plans typically come at an extra fee, on top of regular health insurance rates. That raises questions about how effective the new insurance guidance will be.

More than 26 million Americans – roughly 8 percent of the population – are uninsured, according to US census data. Even more lack access to supplemental policies for dental and vision care.

The American Dental Association, an industry professional group, estimates more than 22 percent of US adults lacked dental insurance as of 2021.

Trump seemed to acknowledge gaps in coverage during his remarks, but he maintained that the new government guidance would offer some adults a pathway to parenthood.

“They’re going to get fertility insurance for the first time,” he continued. “So I don’t know.  I don’t know how well these things are covered.”

A campaign-trail controversy

The Republican leader also credited a 2024 court decision with propelling him to focus on IVF treatments.

IVF involves removing eggs from a patient’s ovaries and fertilising them in a laboratory environment. These eggs are then inserted into the patient’s uterus or frozen for future use.

The use of such treatments is on the rise in the US: In 2023, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine found that 95,860 babies were born as the result of an IVF procedure.

But in February the following year, a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court prompted fears about whether IVF would remain widely available.

In a novel decision, the court – located in a strongly conservative state – ruled that embryos created through IVF could be considered children under state law, thereby making the destruction of such embryos potentially a criminal act.

The decision sent shockwaves throughout the IVF industry, with clinics in Alabama temporarily suspending services. Discarding embryos is standard practice in IVF: Generally, more eggs are collected than will ultimately be used, and not all fertilised eggs will be suitable to start a pregnancy.

Within weeks, the Alabama state legislature stepped in to shield IVF providers from prosecution. But the ruling created lingering concerns that IVF could be targeted by anti-abortion rights advocates.

On Thursday, Trump revisited that controversy, which happened in the midst of his re-election bid. He called the court’s ruling a “bad decision” and credited it with helping to make him aware of IVF.

“I wasn’t that familiar with it,” Trump said. “Now I think I’ve sort of become the father.”

Senator Katie Britt, who represents the state of Alabama, echoed that evaluation, praising Trump for taking steps to protect IVF.

Thursday was not the first time Trump has gestured at lowering costs for the fertility procedure. In February, he also issued a presidential order calling on his administration to start “protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs”.

“ Mr President, this is the most pro-IVF thing that any president in the history of the United States of America has done,” Britt told Trump on Thursday. “You are the reason why the Republican Party is now the party of parents.”

Addressing the US birthrate

Trump, who previously called himself the “fertilisation president”  during a Women’s History Month event, also framed the new measures as progress towards increasing the US birthrate.

In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that fertility remained at a historic low, rising slightly in 2024 to 1.6 births per woman.

Those numbers have fuelled a push within the Republican Party to ignite a new baby boom, with right-wing figures like tech billionaire Elon Musk going so far as to call the low birthrate “the biggest danger civilization faces by far”.

At Thursday’s meeting, top figures in the Trump administration echoed those concerns, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

“We are below replacement right now,” he said, referencing the number of births needed to outpace deaths in the US. “That is a national security threat to our country.”

Mehmet Oz, who serves under Kennedy as the administrator for Medicaid services, took a more positive approach, framing the new IVF guidance as the beginning of a reversal of that downward trend.

“There are going to be a lot of Trump babies,” Oz quipped. “I think that’s probably a good thing. But it turns out the fundamental creative force in society is about making babies.”

But it remains to be seen if insurance companies and employers will follow through with Trump’s guidance to offer supplemental fertility benefits for adults seeking to get pregnant.

Most Americans receive health insurance as part of their workplace benefits. Senator Britt argued the guidelines would put employers “in the driver’s seat”, allowing them to shape the benefits they offer to their workers.

“Employers are going to be able to decide how to cover the root causes of infertility, things like obesity and metabolic health, and other things that are impacting infertility,” she said. “We want employers to be the ones that can make those decisions, not the government.”

But for Democrats, the guidance fell far short of what Trump promised on the campaign trail.

A federal grand jury in Maryland has indicted John Bolton, United States President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, over his handling of classified documents, charging him with retaining and transmitting national defence information.

The indictment, filed in federal court in Maryland on Thursday, charges Bolton with eight counts of transmission of national defence information and 10 counts of retention of national defence information, all in violation of the Espionage Act.

Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison if Bolton is convicted, but any sentence would be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.

Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement that his client “did not unlawfully share or store any information.”

Bolton served as US ambassador to the United Nations as well as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term before emerging as one of the president’s most vocal critics. He described Trump as unfit to be president in a memoir he released last year.

The charges come two months after FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office, seeking evidence of possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to remove, retain or transmit national defence records, according to partially unsealed search warrants filed in federal court.

In his Maryland home, agents seized two cellphones, documents in folders labelled “Trump I-IV” and a binder labelled “statements and reflections to Allied Strikes”, according to court documents.

In Bolton’s office, agents found records labelled “confidential”, including documents that referenced weapons of mass destruction, the US mission to the United Nations, and other materials related to the government’s strategic communications, according to court records.

The indictment levied Thursday alleges Bolton transmitted confidential information via personal email, used private messaging accounts to send sensitive documents that were classified as top secret and illegally retained intelligence documents in his home, according to the Department of Justice.

Bolton is accused of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information about government activities with relatives, according to the indictment.

The indictment says the notes Bolton shared with the two people included information he gleaned from meetings with senior government officials, discussions with foreign leaders, and intelligence briefings.

Prosecutors said a “cyber actor” tied to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s personal email after he left government service and accessed classified information. A representative for Bolton told the government about the hack but did not report that he stored classified information in the email account, according to the indictment.

“These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career – records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021,” Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in an emailed statement. “Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime.”

Trump, who campaigned for the presidency on a vow of retribution after facing a slew of legal woes once his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has dispensed with decades-long norms designed to insulate federal law enforcement from political pressures.

In recent months, he has actively pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department to bring charges against his perceived adversaries, even driving out a prosecutor he deemed to be moving too slowly in doing so.

Asked by reporters at the White House about the Bolton indictment on Thursday, Trump said: “He’s a bad guy.”

Bolton served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term from 2018 to 2019. In that time, he clashed with the president over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea before getting fired in 2019.

He has subsequently criticised Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government, including in a 2020 book titled The Room Where it Happened, which portrayed the president as ill-informed on foreign policy.

The search warrant affidavit said a National Security Council official had reviewed the book manuscript and told Bolton in 2020 that it appeared to contain “significant amounts” of classified information, some at a top-secret level.

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a legal case against Trump over alleged fraud in his businesses, was charged with lying on a mortgage application, drawing accusations of political vindictiveness by the White House.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on September 25 on charges of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation, which he denies. Trump has feuded with Comey since the Russia investigation, which examined possible ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Moscow.

Israel has again delayed the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt to allow for the movement of people, with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying it could be open on Sunday, as Israeli attacks killed at least three Palestinians in southern Gaza.

In a statement on Thursday, COGAT – an Israeli military unit that is responsible for civilian matters in the occupied territory – said coordination was under way with Egypt to set a date for reopening the Rafah crossing for movement of people after completing the necessary preparations.

COGAT said the Rafah crossing would remain closed to aid, claiming that the truce deal did not include its reopening. All humanitarian supplies bound for Gaza, it said, would instead pass through the Karem Abu Salem (called Kerem Shalom in Israel) crossing after Israeli security inspections.

Italian news agency ANSA quoted Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar as saying Rafah will probably be reopened on Sunday, without providing more details.

The crossing was due to be opened on Wednesday under the terms of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement that took effect last week.

For Palestinians in Gaza, the Rafah crossing was long the only connection to the outside world and also the only exit that was not directly controlled by Israel. Last May, Israeli forces raided the crossing, seized control of it and razed its buildings.

For the first time in 20 years, Israeli forces directly controlled the border crossing and deployed soldiers all across the Philadelphi Corridor, where they remain today.

As part of the US ceasefire deal, which calls for their gradual withdrawal, Israeli forces remain in approximately 53 percent of Gaza, including most of Rafah, raising questions about its use.

Seventy million tonnes of rubble

Following the ceasefire deal last week, the United Nations said there has been little progress in aid deliveries into Gaza and that assistance must enter at scale to meet urgent humanitarian needs.

With famine conditions present in parts of Gaza, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher said on Wednesday that thousands of aid vehicles would now have to enter Gaza weekly to ease the crisis, with medical care also scarce and most of the 2.2 million population displaced.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told Al Jazeera Palestinians in northern Gaza are in “desperate need” of food and water as thousands have returned to total destruction.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the al-Mawasi area in the south of the Gaza Strip, Ingram said that in order to scale up humanitarian aid deliveries, multiple crossings into the enclave must be opened.

“The stakes are really high,” she said. “There are 28,000 children who were diagnosed with malnutrition in July and August alone, and thousands more since then. So, we need to make sure it’s not just food coming in, but malnutrition treatments, as well.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office said the aid that had entered since Israel’s assault partially subsided was a “drop in the ocean”.

“The region urgently requires a large, continuous and organised inflow of aid, fuel, cooking gas, and relief and medical supplies,” it said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the office also said that as many as 70 million tonnes of rubble and debris litter the territory after Israel’s two-year bombardment.

“This rubble includes thousands of homes, facilities, and vital infrastructures,” it said. “The process of removing this massive rubble faces severe obstacles, most notably the lack of heavy equipment and machinery due to the Israeli occupation’s ban on their entry, the complete closure of border crossings, and the deliberate prevention of bringing in the materials and machinery necessary to recover the bodies of victims,” it added.

Israeli violations continue

The statement comes after Israel imposed new restrictions on aid entering Gaza earlier this week and postponed reopening the Rafah crossing, accusing Hamas of being too slow in returning the rest of the deceased captives.

The group says it has handed over all bodies it could recover. The armed wing of Hamas said the handover of more bodies in Gaza, reduced to vast tracts of rubble by Israel’s bombardment, would require the admission of heavy machinery and excavating equipment into the blockaded enclave.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by killing at least 24 people in attacks since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators.

“The occupying state is working day and night to undermine the agreement through its violations on the ground,” he said.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the bodies of 29 people killed in Israeli attacks have arrived at the enclave’s hospitals in the last 24 hours. This includes 22 bodies recovered from under rubble, three who succumbed to their wounds, and four people killed in new Israeli attacks.

At least three people were killed in Israeli air strikes in eastern Khan Younis on Thursday, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The health ministry also said the bodies of 30 Palestinians killed during the war were returned on Thursday, taking the number of bodies it has received since Monday to 120.

Authorities in Gaza say the bodies exhibit signs of torture, including hanging and rope marks, bound hands and feet, and gunfire at close range.

The bodies – dozens of which have yet to be formally identified – showed “conclusive evidence of field executions and brutal torture”, the office said.