Israeli settlers put out a fire by a settler outpost, near the Palestinian town Taybeh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on July 17, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Palestinian man inspects the damage at a mosque, which Palestinians say was damaged by Israeli settlers, in Qusra near Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 26, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Palestinian man with Israeli citizenship went on a shooting rampage in several towns in central Israel on Sunday (June 7, 2026), killing one person and wounding five others, according to Israeli police. The attacker was killed by the police.

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The attack came at a time of heightened tensions following a spate of Israeli settler attacks and the deadly shooting of a Palestinian baby over the weekend in the nearby West Bank. Police identified the attacker as a resident of the Arab town of Taybeh in his 20s, but his precise motives were not immediately known.

The attack began with a shooting on Sunday (June 7, 2026) morning at a gas station near the town of Kokhav Yair, located on the Israeli side of the boundary with the occupied West Bank. Several other shootings were reported in two nearby Israeli towns and close to the Israeli settlement of Salit, inside the West Bank.

Police initially feared a series of coordinated attacks but eventually determined that a gunman and an accomplice who may have served as his driver were involved. The suspected accomplice was arrested later after he tried to stab the police with a glass bottle.

Police said a 35-year-old Israeli man was killed by the gunman in Kokhav Yair, while the Magen David Adom rescue service said five other people were wounded, two severely.

Fears of a widespread attack prompted authorities to order residents to stay at home, and children in the area were kept in lockdown at school for at least three hours.

“Since Oct. 7, the scenario we were expecting was terrorists crossing into our towns from over the boundary. I don’t think that anyone imagined that we would discover the attackers were Israeli citizens,” Oshrit Gani Gonen, the regional council head, told Israeli media, referring to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza.

Security minister posts video reportedly with dead gunman

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the security forces who killed the attacker, while Israel’s hard-line Public Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police force, released a video of himself standing next to what appeared to be a blurred image of the dead gunman.

“This is the end of every terrorist, this is how it should look,” said Mr. Ben-Gvir, who recently led an effort to pass a new law that seeks to impose the death penalty on Palestinian attackers. That law faces legal challenges.

Mr. Ben-Gvir has come under sharp condemnation from other Israeli leaders for making controversial videos, such as his treatment of flotilla activists who were detained after attempting to break the maritime blockade of Gaza.

The West Bank has experienced a surge in deadly violence since the war in Gaza began. Israel has stepped up military operations across the territory, killing hundreds of people. It says raids are aimed at militants, but scores of civilians have also been killed.

The October 7 attack killed around 1,200 people and took 251 as hostages. Israel’s ensuing offensive in Gaza has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, including combatants and civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Israeli strike kills 4 in Gaza

Also on Sunday (June 7, 2026), at least four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a police point in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The dead were taken to a field hospital run by the Red Crescent. At least 10 others were wounded, the charity said.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike, but has said in the past that it will target militants who pose a threat to its troops.

The October 10 U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal attempted to halt the war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire.

Meanwhile, Mr. Netanyahu, in a Cabinet meeting, repeated his pledge to take 70% of Gaza: “We are presently holding more than 60% of the territory, and soon we will reach 70%.” He added that Israel is not allowing Hamas to “rearm or harm us,” in comments released to the media.

The head of the U.S.-created Board of Peace that oversees the ceasefire acknowledged last month that next steps in the truce have stalled over the key issue of disarming Hamas.

Published – June 08, 2026 11:11 am IST

Israeli troops killed a 7-month-old Palestinian baby boy after firing at his parents’ vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was killed on Friday (June 5, 2026) evening, and his parents were wounded while driving in the Tel Rumeida area south of Hebron City, according to the Ministry.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the baby was critically wounded after being struck in the face by the same bullet that injured his mother. He later died of his injuries. His father, Fahd Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University, was shot in the hand. They were travelling from Bethlehem to visit family in Hebron when soldiers opened fire, the agency reported.

Israel’s military has scaled up military operations in the West Bank since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage, which triggered the war in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has so far killed more than 72,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The United Nations said last month that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began, at least 240 of them children.

The Israeli military said on Friday (June 5, 2026) soldiers shot at a vehicle that was perceived to be accelerating toward them in the Hebron area. It said the soldiers responded with single shots, wounding three Palestinians who were evacuated for medical treatment. An initial inquiry found that the wounded were uninvolved civilians and the situation is under review.

At Al-Ahly Hospital in Hebron, the baby’s father told Associated Press reporters that a bullet struck the car’s windshield before piercing his right hand, then his son and wife who were in the back seat. Another bullet struck the vehicle’s hood, according to AP reporters who saw the car.

His wife is in critical condition because there’s shrapnel close to her heart, he said. The family told her that her son, who turned seven months old on Friday (June 5, 2026), was killed, just before heading to funeral prayers.

The baby’s grandmother, Feryal Abu Heikal, was also in the car during the shooting and said they were driving near a checkpoint and stopped when they saw Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in the distance. As the forces fired at them, she initially thought it was warning shots before they were struck, she said.

“The scene was horrific to see a 7-month-old baby with a smashed face,” she said. “What kind of army in the world does this? … What happened to my grandson can’t be easily forgotten.”

The funeral service was held at noon at a nearby mosque. The tiny body was wrapped in the Palestinian flag as people lined up for prayers before taking him in an ambulance for burial. At the ambulance, Abu Haikal was seen crying and hugging the infant’s half-brother.

The British Consulate in Jerusalem said it was “shocked and saddened” by the Israeli killing of the baby, calling on X for an “immediate and transparent investigation and accountability.”

Also on Saturday (June 6, 2026), the Palestinian Red Crescent said eight people were wounded in settler attacks on the town of Huwara, near Nablus, including from tear gas inhalation and rubber-coated metal bullets.

In March, Israeli soldiers fired on a car carrying a family in the northern West Bank, killing four people, including two children, the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said at the time.

Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians are rarely penalised and were indicted in fewer than 1% of cases based on 2,427 complaints alleging wrongdoing between 2016 and 2024, according to Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 from Jordan and sought by the Palestinians for a future state.

The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Published – June 06, 2026 07:50 pm IST

A man stands near graffiti on a mosque wall, which Palestinians say was written by Israeli settlers, near Birzeit in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on May 15, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Donald Trump. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Ramallah:

The Palestinian Red Crescent said an Israeli drone strike in a village in the occupied West Bank killed at least seven people on Wednesday, while the military said it had struck an “armed cell”.

“An Israeli strike in the village of Tamun in the northern West Bank killed seven people,” the group said in a statement.

The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said eight people had been killed.

The Israeli military told AFP its forces were involved in a “counterterrorism operation” in the area.

As part of the operation, an Israeli “aircraft, with the direction of ISA (security agency) intelligence, struck an armed terrorist cell in the area of Tamun”, the military said in a statement.

Violence has soared throughout the West Bank since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 870 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

At least 29 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jerusalem:

The Israeli military on Tuesday said it killed three Hamas members in an air strike near the occupied West Bank city of Tubas, after the Palestinian health ministry reported two dead.

“Three Hamas terrorists who planned an imminent terrorist attack were eliminated” when the Israeli air force struck vehicles in the Aqaba area near Tubas, the military said.

Following the strike, “soldiers conducted a targeted raid in the vicinity of the strike, locating four weapons,” it added.

The Palestinian health ministry had earlier said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in Aqaba killed two Palestinians and wounded one.

All three Palestinians were transported to a hospital in Tubas, it added, but later said Israeli forces raided the same hospital, which the army denied in a statement to AFP.

The Israeli military had earlier told AFP that the air force, “acting on intelligence, struck a terror cell that was about to carry out an attack” in the Aqaba area.

It said an army unit “was then dispatched to collect the bodies and operated in the area of the Turkish Hospital in Tubas”.

However, it added, “they did not enter the hospital.”

Israel often seizes the bodies of Palestinians killed during operations, particularly those who belonged to militant groups, although an AFP journalist present near the hospital at the time of the operation did not see soldiers carrying bodies.

The Palestinian health ministry said the Israeli army besieged the hospital, before breaking into it, shooting inside, “assaulting staff and patients, and arresting a number of them”.

The AFP journalist in Tubas saw Israeli armoured vehicles stationed outside the hospital and soldiers deployed around it.

The journalist saw Israeli soldiers exiting the hospital and detaining staff, some of them wearing scrubs or doctor’s gowns, before loading them into the armoured vehicles.

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 787 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.

Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich
| Photo Credit: Reuters

 Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday (November 11, 2024) announced that 2025 would be the year when Israel will annex the occupied West Bank. The declaration came on a day when Saudi capital Riyadh under the leadership of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman hosted the leaders of various Arab and Muslim countries who condemned the Israeli actions in Lebanon and Gaza Strip.

Mr. Smotrich’s announcement is not yet supported by a resolution of the Israeli government but gives a hint of the thinking in the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where Mr. Smotrich plays a supervisory role for the controversial expansion of settlements in occupied Palestinian areas.

On Monday, in a parliamentary meeting of his Religious Zionist Party which is a partner of PM Netanyahu’s government, Mr. Smotrich asked the Israeli government “to begin the professional and comprehensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure,” to annex the West Bank which Israelis call as Judea and Samaria.

The remarks added to the backdrop in which Saudi Arabia held the extraordinary summit of the Arab and Islamic leaders in Riyadh. Addressing the meeting Prince Mohammed Bin Salman demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in the war in Gaza and called for an end to “massacres committed against the Palestinians and the Lebanese people.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for suspension of Israel from the UN and said Israel is committing “mass genocide”.

Palestinian Presidential spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said the remarks made by Bezalel Smotrich, about imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank confirm the Israeli government’s “intention” to go ahead with taking control of the West Bank by 2025.

The summit was attended by Egypt’s President El Sisi, Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif among others. Iran which is in a military rivalry with Israel did not send President Pezeshkian who cited “executive matters” while skipping the summit in Riyadh. The United Arab Emirates was represented at the summit by Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE who led a delegation to Riyadh.

The UAE which has diplomatic ties with Israel is in a unique position as it was the third Arab country — after Egypt and Jordan — to establish diplomatic relations with Israel during the first tenure of President Donald Trump in 2020. The relation has been considerably downplayed since Israel launched the war in Gaza but despite that the Emirates is one of the few places in the region where Israeli media including its pro-war channels are freely allowed to be aired providing the viewers with a window to the plans that the Israeli government is making for the West Bank, Gaza and the Lebanese territories. 

It is understood that any action on West Bank will have further regional implications as the region, which is the base of the Palestinian Authority, includes embassies and representations from many countries – including India – that recognise the statehood of Palestine forcing a new political and diplomatic reality. But the remarks of Mr. Smotrich have contributed to the regional discussion as the transition in Washington D.C. is being keenly watched here.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, said that annexation of West Bank was discussed last time during the first Presidency of President Trump. “The last time we discussed this issue was in the first term of President Trump,” he said. “And so let’s say that if it will be relevant, it will be discussed again also with our friends in Washington,” he was quoted by Reuters.

Two people have been shot and seriously wounded near the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Two people have been shot and seriously wounded near the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli first responders said on Sunday, September 8, 2024.

Israeli police said the shooter was killed, without providing further details. The border crossing is used by Palestinians, Israelis, and international tourists. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said two people were in serious condition.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.