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.

Jenin, Palestinian Territories:

Israel launched a large-scale military operation today in the West Bank, where the army said it killed nine Palestinian fighters, while the nearly 11-month Gaza war showed no signs of abating.

Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Gaza war sparked by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

The war has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. It has also caused widespread destruction, displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

In the West Bank in the early hours of Wednesday, the Israeli military launched a series of coordinated raids across four cities — Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem.

Columns of Israeli armoured vehicles entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin.

By midday, they were blocking entrances to the towns and camps, AFP photographers said, with soldiers firing at the camps from which gunfire and explosions were heard.

Israeli bulldozers dug up asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces killed nine people and wounded 15 others in the raids, revising its previous toll of 10 dead.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to “follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank”, Palestinian official media said.

The Israeli army said it had killed nine Palestinian “terrorists”, with no casualties so far on its side.

Soldiers encountered explosives and were exchanging fire with militants, said army spokesman Nadav Shoshani. He declined to say how many were involved or how long the operation would last.

The operation, he added, was not “extremely different (from usual army activity in the area) or special”.

‘This Is War’

Foreign Minster Israel Katz had a different take, however, saying the military was “operating in full force since last night” in a bid to “dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure”.

In a post on X, he accused Iran, Israel’s main foe in the region, of seeking to “establish an eastern front against Israel” based on the “model” for Gaza and Lebanon, where it backs Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively.

“We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of residents and any necessary measures,” Katz said.

“This is a war, and we must win it.”

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 650 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

During the same period, at least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, according to Israeli officials.

While Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, it is rare for these to happen in multiple cities simultaneously.

In recent weeks, Israel’s West Bank operations have focused on the territory’s north, where armed groups are particularly active.

Patients Flee Hospital

Last week, the army announced it had killed a senior Palestinian militant in Lebanon, accusing him of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, issued a statement early Wednesday denouncing an “open war” by Israel.

“With this aggression, which aims to transfer the weight of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank,” the statement said.

Hamas, whose popularity has soared in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, late Tuesday reiterated its call for Palestinians in the territory to “rise up”.

Its statement came in response to comments by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said this week he would build a synagogue at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound if he could.

Ben Gvir, a settler himself, has openly called for the annexation of the West Bank.

In Gaza, families in distress continued to move according to the Israeli army’s evacuation orders.

One of the latest targeted the area around Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, from which “nearly 650 patients have fled”, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.

The medical charity’s website says it has “quickly opened a field hospital and started receiving patients amid a severe lack of supplies and resources”.

MSF said field hospitals are not a solution, “but a last resort in response to Israel’s dismantling of the healthcare system”.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported at least 12 dead, including at least one child and a woman, in new Israeli strikes.

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,534 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
 

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

Jerusalem:

Israel is to build the first West Bank settlement since 2017, announced the Israeli Civil Administration, the country’s governing body that operates in the West Bank, local media reported.

Nahal Heletz, the new settlement, will cover approximately 148 acres (about 600,000 square metres) southwest of Jerusalem, near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, reports Xinhua news agency, quoting the Times of Israel.

The construction is likely years away since obtaining the zoning plans and construction permits would take time, the report further read.

Peace Now, an organisation opposing the settlements, warned that Nahal Heletz “will be an enclave in a Palestinian zone and will bring about friction and security challenges.”

It said Nahal Heletz is designed to disrupt Palestinian territorial continuity and argued that it contributes to Israel’s “de facto annexation” of the West Bank.

It also pointed out that the settlement will be built on land that belongs to Battir, a Palestinian village known for its ancient agricultural terraces recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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

Palestinian children inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Rafah. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political bureau said Friday.

“We proposed that a non-partisan national competency government manage Gaza and the West Bank after the war”, Hossam Badran said in a statement about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas with mediation from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. “The administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian internal matter without any external interference, and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties”, Mr. Badran added.

A Hamas official told AFP the proposal for a non-partisan government was made “with the mediators”.

The government will “manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the initial phase after the war, paving the way for general elections” said the official, who did not want his name disclosed.

Mr. Badran’s remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, Gaza territory along the border with Egypt. This condition conflicts with Hamas’s position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

Mr. Netanyahu said on Thursday that control of the Philadelphi corridor is part of efforts to prevent “weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt.”

The negotiations are occurring in Doha, Qatar and Cairo, Egypt with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the return of hostages still held there by Hamas.

The war began on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

West Bank:

An Israeli citizen mistakenly entered the Palestinian town of Qalandiya, situated between Jerusalem and Ramallah, in West Bank and was soon met with aggression from local residents, leading to a violent confrontation.

Videos circulating on social media show a mob of Palestinians chasing the Israeli vehicle, hurling stones at it. The driver attempted to flee but ultimately lost control, crashing into a concrete divider near a military checkpoint, a Times of Israel report said. The man reportedly suffered minor injuries before being rescued and transported to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital.

היהודי הגיע פצוע למחסום קלנדיה, לאחר שנזרקו אבנים לרכבו, והתנגש בבטונדות של המעבר. כוחות מגב משטרה ומד״א הוקפצו לאירוע.
המשך לקלנדייה pic.twitter.com/IpGOuCn7Ig

— כל החדשות בזמן אמת (@Saher95755738) June 29, 2024

Other footage revealed that the vehicle was set ablaze by the Palestinian attackers.

The car of the Jew who accidentally entered Qalandia was set on fire. רכבו של היהודי שנכנס בטעות לקלנדיה, הוצת. pic.twitter.com/PAZkT3z9cY

— Rat Bastard (@RRespawned) June 29, 2024

This incident comes amid a backdrop of escalating violence in the West Bank, an area under Israeli occupation since 1967. Last week, the Israeli military reported the death of a soldier and serious injury to another during an operation in Jenin, a city known for its militant presence. The Israeli army frequently conducts raids in Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp as part of its ongoing security operations.

The West Bank has seen a significant surge in violence, especially following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on October 7. Palestinian officials report that at least 553 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the conflict began. Meanwhile, attacks by Palestinians have resulted in the deaths of at least 15 Israelis, including soldiers, in the same period, according to news agency AFP.

Jerusalem:

The Israeli military has approved permission for Israelis to return to three former West Bank settlements they had been banned from entering since an evacuation ordered in 2005, the defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The three settlements, Sa-nur, Ganim and Kadim, are located near the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus, both of which are strongholds of armed groups in the northern West Bank.

A fourth settlement, Homesh, was cleared for entry last year after parliament passed an amendment to the so-called “disengagement law” of 2005. Permission from the military, which has overall control of the West Bank, was required for any return to the other three former settlements.

The military announced the move on the day three European states said they would formally recognise the State of Palestine, and as Israel’s military offensive against the Palestinian group Hamas continued in the Gaza Strip.

It took the decision despite international pressure on Israel to curb settlement expansion in the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state alongside Gaza.

“The Jewish hold on Judea and Samaria guarantees security, the application of the law to cancel disengagement will lead to the development of settlement and provide security to residents of the area,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement, using the Biblical names for the West Bank that are often used in Israel.

There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian Authority.

Last year’s amendment to the disengagement law was seen as opening the way to re-establishing former West Bank settlements evacuated in 2005 under a plan overseen by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Under the plan, which was opposed by the settler movement at the time, all 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were ordered to be evacuated. Most settlements in the West Bank were unaffected apart from the four that will now be accessible again.

More than 500,000 Jewish settlers are now estimated to be living in the West Bank, part of territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with a further 200,000 living in East Jerusalem.

For Palestinians and most of the international community, the settlements are considered illegal. Israel disputes this, citing the Jewish people’s historical, biblical and political links to the area as well as security considerations.

Despite international opposition, settlements have continued to expand strongly under successive Israeli governments.

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