US President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a formal review of former President Joe Biden’s AUKUS defense pact with Australia and Britain to allow Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, a US defense official said.

Australia, which sees the submarines as critical to its own defense as tensions grow over China’s expansive military buildup, said it remained committed to the project and looked forward to working closely with the US on the review.

As well as causing alarm in Australia, the review could also throw a wrench in Britain’s defense planning. AUKUS, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, is at the center of a planned expansion of Britain’s submarine fleet.

“We are reviewing AUKUS as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the President’s America First agenda,” the US official said of the review, first reported by Financial Times.

“Any changes to the administration’s approach for AUKUS will be communicated through official channels, when appropriate.”

AUKUS was formed in 2021 to address worries about China’s growing power.

It envisages Australia acquiring up to five US Virginia-class submarines from 2032. Then, Britain and Australia would design and build a new class of submarine, with US assistance. The UK would take first delivery in the late 2030s, with delivery to Australia in the early 2040s.

Before that, the US and Britain would start forward rotations of their submarines in 2027 out of an Australian naval base in Western Australia.

Vocal skeptics among Trump’s senior policy officials include Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, who cautioned last year that submarines were a scarce, critical commodity, and US industry could not produce enough to meet American demand.

Submarines would be central to US military strategy in any confrontation with China centered in the First Island Chain, running from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China’s coastal seas.

“My concern is why are we giving away this crown jewel asset when we most need it,” Colby said last year.

Only six countries operate nuclear-powered submarines: the US, the UK, Russia, China, France and India.

A spokesperson for Australia Defense Minister Richard Marles said the US had informed Australia and the UK of the review.

“AUKUS will grow both US and Australian defense industry as well as generating thousands of new manufacturing jobs,” the spokesperson said.

A British government spokesperson called AUKUS “one of the most strategically important partnerships in decades” that also produces “jobs and economic growth in communities across all three nations.”

“It is understandable that a new administration would want to review its approach to such a major partnership, just as the UK did last year,” the official said, adding that Britain will “continue to work closely with the US and Australia … to maximize the benefits and opportunities” of AUKUS.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but one official told Reuters the Trump administration “is regularly reviewing foreign agreements to ensure they align with the American people’s interests – especially those initiated under the failed Biden foreign policy agenda.”

US Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said AUKUS was “critical to ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific” and the administration should work to strengthen it and the US submarine industrial base.

“Anything less would play directly into China’s hand,” said Kaine, who represents Virginia, where US submarines are built.

Australia’s biggest defense investment

AUKUS is Australia’s biggest-ever defense project, with Canberra committing to spend A$368 billion ($240 billion) over three decades to the program, which includes billions of dollars of investment in the U.S. production base.

On Tuesday, Britain announced plans to invest billions of pounds to upgrade its submarine industry, including at BAE Systems in Barrow and Rolls-Royce Submarines in Derby, to boost submarine production as announced in Britain’s Strategic Defence Review. Under this, it will build up to 12 next-generation attack submarines of the model intended to be jointly developed by the UK, US and Australia under AUKUS.

In the US Congress on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “we’re having honest conversations with our allies” and added in reference to Australia: “We want to make sure those capabilities are part of how they use them with their submarines, but also how they integrate with us as allies.”

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who signed a previous agreement to acquire French submarines shelved in favor of AUKUS, told CNBC last week it was “more likely than not that Australia will not end up with any submarines at all, but instead, simply provide a large base in Western Australia for the American Navy and maintenance facilities there.”

AUKUS expert John Lee at Washington’s conservative Hudson Institute think tank said the Pentagon review was aimed at determining whether it could afford to sell up to five submarines when it was not meeting its own production targets.

Kathryn Paik, a Biden White House official now at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said providing submarines to Australia would not sacrifice US readiness but instead boost collective deterrence.

“This review most definitely makes our allies in Canberra and London concerned, and could cause them to doubt US reliability as an ally and partner,” she said.

Multiple aid workers were killed after a bus was attacked in Gaza on Wednesday night, according to a US-backed humanitarian aid organization which accused Hamas of carrying out the assault.

Hamas has yet to respond to the allegations.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid initiative, said that a bus carrying more than two dozen of its team members was attacked by Hamas at around 10 p.m. local time.

“We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage,” GHF said in a statement.

The group was en route to a distribution center in the area west of Khan Younis, GHF said, adding further details would be provided once they became known.

“We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,” the GHF said in a statement.

The GHF also accused Hamas of repeatedly threatening the organization in recent days.

On Sunday, Hamas media said its forces have “full authority and mandate to strike decisively against any entity or individual collaborating with the enemy’s plans or with any rogue, criminal, or traitorous elements that violate the law and the traditions of our people.”

“All agents, thieves, and armed criminal gangs are considered legitimate targets for the resistance and its security apparatus,” the militant group said.

The GHF was established amid Israeli accusations that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza and profiting off its sale but the organization has been controversial from the get-go and criticized by multiple international aid agencies.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains desperate.

Restrictions imposed by the Israeli military on aid routes, ongoing airstrikes, a lack of security and the continuous displacement of tens of thousands of people are aggravating an already alarming situation, according to the United Nations and other aid agencies. The supplies that do get in risk getting looted and only a fraction of what is needed is getting in.

Multiple Palestinians have been killed by gunfire near aid distribution sites since GHF began operations.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The bodies of two deceased hostages were recovered from southern Gaza in a military operation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet security agency announced Wednesday evening.

Yair Yaakov was killed during by Islamic Jihad militants during the Hamas-led terror attack on October 7, 2023. Yaakov, who was 59 years old at the time, was killed in Kibbutz Nir Oz and his body taken into Gaza.

His partner, Meirav Tal, and two of his children were taken hostage and subsequently released during a previous hostage agreement.

The body of an additional hostage has also been recovered, according to the IDF and Shin Bet, but the second name has not yet been made public at the request of the family.

“Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the families who lost their dearest,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement.

“Alongside the pain and mourning, we feel a measure of relief knowing that the two will be laid to rest with dignity — and that the unbearable suffering their loved ones have endured for 614 days may now be eased, if only slightly,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in a statement.

“We repeat our demand to the decision-makers to reach a full and comprehensive agreement that will bring home all 53 remaining hostages — even if that requires ending the fighting.”

The recovery of these two bodies comes less than a week after the Israeli military recovered the bodies of Judy Weinstein-Haggai, 70, and Gadi Haggai, 72, who were also killed during the attack on Nir Oz. Last week, the Israeli military also recovered the body of Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta.

According to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, 53 hostages remain in Gaza, one of whom has been held since 2014. Of these, at least 20 are believed to be alive and 31 dead, according to the Israeli government. There are grave concerns about the conditions of two hostages, the government has said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Thousands of activists from around the world are expected to descend on Egypt on Thursday for a “Global March to Gaza,” a movement aiming to break the Israeli blockade that has pushed the territory to the brink of famine.

The march puts Egypt in an awkward position as it tries to balance its ties with Israel and the United States against its public condemnation of the war’s brutal toll on Gaza’s civilians. A key mediator with direct channels to both Hamas and Israel, Cairo has been wary of the conflict spilling over into its territory. It has kept its side of the Rafah crossing closed to Palestinians, even as anger at Israel’s actions continues to rise at home.

In a statement Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he expects the Egyptian government “to prevent the arrival of jihadist demonstrators to the border of Egypt-Israel and not to allow them to carry out provocations and to try to enter into Gaza.”

This will “endanger the security of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers and we will not allow it,” Katz added.

The international activists will be joined by another convoy of 2,000 protesters arriving from Tunisia. That group arrived in Libya, which neighbors Egypt, on Wednesday, organizers said.

Among those joining the march are Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, a former South African lawmaker and grandson of Nelson Mandela, and Hala Rharrit, a former US State Department diplomat who resigned from her US government position during the Biden administration over Washington’s handling of the Gaza war.

As Israel’s war in Gaza enters its 21st month, high-profile international campaigners are becoming increasingly active in their attempt to break the siege.

On Monday, Israel intercepted a Gaza-bound aid ship, the “Madleen,” detaining its passengers and taking them to Israel.

Among the activists on board was Swedish climate and human rights activist Greta Thunberg and French member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan. Thunberg departed Israel on Tuesday and Hassan remains in Israeli detention.

Israel imposed a full humanitarian blockade of Gaza on March 2, cutting off food, medical supplies and other aid to the more than 2 million Palestinians in the territory for 11 weeks.

Faced with growing international pressure, it began allowing a trickle of aid in late May. But humanitarian organizations say it is only a fraction of the aid that entered the enclave before the war.

Organizers of the Global March to Gaza have said that they have reached out to Egyptian authorities, informing them of their plans and asking for cooperation and protection but have received no response.

The Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement that activists must obtain permits ahead of their arrival in Cairo.

“Egypt stresses the importance of adhering to these established regulatory measures to ensure the safety of visiting delegations due to the sensitive security conditions in this border area since the onset of the crisis in Gaza,” the ministry said, adding that “that no requests or invitations will be considered or responded to if submitted outside the framework specified by the regulatory provisions.”

Organizers said they followed “all the required protocols detailed in this statement.”

On Thursday, organizers said 170 people are currently facing delays and deportations at Cairo airport, but that thousands of participants are already in Egypt and are determined to continue their march.

Egyptian authorities “have no reason not to support this march,” Rharrit said, adding that delegations across the world had informed Egyptian embassies of their plan well ahead of time.

“There have been meetings with Egyptian ambassadors. Egyptian authorities have not said no,” she said, adding that the march is “in line with everything Egypt has been trying to do diplomatically.”