Israel's defence minister called on Friday for the police to take over law enforcement in the occupied West Bank from the military, which has come under fire from the right for trying to remove settlers harassing Palestinians.

The measure, if implemented, would be a step towards Israeli annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory -- something several ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government openly call for.

(Corrects official title of analyst in paragraph 19)

By Timour Azhari

RIYADH, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Increasingly dragged into a war it did not choose, Saudi Arabia is building regional defensive alliances that it hopes will keep its enemies at bay and help it respond more robustly to attacks by Iran and its network of regional allies.

But nascent attempts to construct a multinational maritime coalition in the Red Sea, and the decision to bring Turkey into a defence pact with the kingdom and Pakistan, have so far failed to ward off attacks, analysts and diplomats said.

The top US priority now in the Iran war is no longer its nuclear program but to bring gasoline prices down for American consumers, the vice president said Thursday, with the treasury secretary adding that new economic punishment to wear down Tehran is imminent.

The comments by Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent illustrate the powerful leverage Tehran has gained by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.

Kuwait's once prosperous oil sector has stood largely paralysed for months, with petroleum exports plummeting as fighting raged across the Gulf -- triggering the country's largest crisis in decades.

Half a year into the war, Kuwait remains a hostage to its uncompromising need to access the Strait of Hormuz -- where the war between the US and Iran has choked off the once plentiful energy exports that moved across its waters.

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

PANAMA CITY, Aug 13 (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday said that it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely and would ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran as ceasefire talks have floundered, global oil supply is dropping and regional tensions are rising.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the U.S. military has the capability to maintain a naval presence in the region to enforce its blockade of Iran, which has inflicted severe economic damage on the country.

By Steve Holland and Kanishka Singh

Aug 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, may visit Israel next week for talks on Gaza, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The plans were reported earlier by Axios, which also said that Kushner was planning to meet mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey as well next week in Cairo.

US President Donald Trump's envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner will visit Israel next week in hopes of bridging gaps on a Gaza plan rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, officials said Friday.

Kushner and Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza of Trump's so-called Board of Peace, tasked with implementing the deal, will visit both Israel and key mediator Egypt.

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the top US priority in the Iran war was keeping oil and gasoline prices low for Americans, with preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon ranking second.

The remarks contrasted with President Donald Trump's repeated framing of the fight: that entering the war had the sole objective of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, even if that meant short-term economic sacrifices for Americans.

Some sailors have reportedly tried throwing themselves into the sea, basic supplies can run short and sanitation is going awry: life on America's giant Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is increasingly difficult as the Iran war drags on.

The ship -- now in its ninth month of deployment -- is expected to be replaced in the Middle East by another carrier, the George Washington, in a move sure to be welcomed by the Lincoln's crew and their loved ones.

DUBAI, Aug 13 (Reuters) - The Strait of Hormuz is "under Iran's control and management", the recently appointed head of Iran's Basij paramilitary unit said on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States had "total control" of the strategic waterway.

Hossein Taeb said the U.S. had sought to disrupt what he described as the Islamic Republic's popularity in the region by launching another war in the Strait of Hormuz, but had once more been defeated despite claiming Iran had neither an air force nor a navy.