Israeli | Pakistan

US Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna said he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with US-made rifles during a West Bank visit this week that he cast as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation as he weighs a 2028 presidential run. Speaking with Reuters on Thursday in a Palestinian village, Khanna said his group’s van was surrounded by settlers wielding M4 rifles a day earlier while touring a part of the southern West Bank, where residents face frequent settler attacks. “We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” said Khanna, a progressive lawmaker from California in the US House of Representatives. “And these hoodlums come in with machine guns, M4, an American-made machine gun, and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans,” Khanna said, referring to the Israeli military. US Democratic Represen...

An Israeli strike in Gaza prior to the kickoff of the FIFA World Cup clash between Argentina and Egypt killed a top Palestinian aid official who helped organise screenings of the game across the strip, according to media reports. The Associated Press said the blast that killed Mohamed al-Wahidi, an official with Egypt’s relief arm in Gaza, turned “what was supposed to be a moment of celebration — the live screening of a potential upset against Argentina by an Arab team — into a reminder of how the near-daily Israeli strikes are continuing to kill civilians despite a truce reached in October”. The report also quoted Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiya, the director of Shifa Hospital, as saying that the strike that killed al-Wahidi on Tuesday hit a car in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City at dusk. He said three others were killed in the attack, including the driver, Ahmed Daghmush, 33, and two brothers, 10-year-old Hamza al-Deri and 8-year-old Fari, According to the publication, the Israeli military said that al-Wahidi wa...

Israeli forces blow up homes in Aitaroun, carry out an explosion in Houla, Lebanese media reports

Palestinian Mohammad Salameh was building a home for his family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where his recently engaged son was meant to start married life. Instead, before construction was complete, a group of Israeli settlers seized the property. Video filmed earlier in the week and verified by Reuters showed at least six settlers moving around on the roof of the two-storey house, which sits below a nearby hill. Salameh said appeals to the Israeli military and police brought no help. Now he fears his home, which like many others in the Palestinian territory is surrounded by Israeli settlements and smaller outposts, is lost forever. Other houses in the area could suffer the same fate, he said. “Only God knows, if there is law and order then they will leave,” Salameh said. “If they succeed in taking one, then the rest will follow.” Reuters was unable to reach the settlers for comment. One of them could be seen walking on the house’s roof on Thursday. An Israeli settler sits on the roof of the Palestinia...

BEIRUT - The death toll from the Israeli aggression on Lebanon since March 2 has risen to 4,297, with 12,196 others wounded, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

UNITED NATIONS - The continued expansion of areas under Israeli control in Gaza since October’s ceasefire agreement is placing civilians at greater risk and severely constraining humanitarian operations, the UN and humanitarian partners warned on Wednesday.

GAZA - Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least six people, including a child, in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, health officials in the Palestinian enclave said.

Lebanon says 3,912 killed in Israeli attacks since March 2; Israel reports 36 deaths, including civilians

United States Vice President JD Vance on Thursday issued a rare rebuke of Israel during a White House press briefing, criticising Israeli lawmakers who had opposed the memorandum of understanding signed between the United States and Iran. Under the deal, the two sides have agreed on a framework to end the war, reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a 60-day timeline for further talks. Vance’s comments come amid rising tensions between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” Vance told reporters. “Anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation.” Talking about the MoU itself, the vice president noted that Iran will “have to perform” and honour its end of the deal. “If they don’t perform as we’ve said before, they don’t get any of the bene...

European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar exchanged words on X after Kallas reportedly compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to South Africa’s apartheid-era policies. Saar said he was severing “all contact” with the EU official after Kallas posted that the EU remains committed to a constructive relationship with Israel. In a post on X addressed to Saar, the EU’s top diplomat said: “I value our dialogue and engagement, and I’m open to continue in that spirit, respectfully and constructively.” Kallas added that the EU remains committed to the two-state solution and has reiterated that the bloc has condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In a post on social media, Saar said Kallas had reportedly “compared Israel to the racist apartheid regime” during a visit to Mexico and that as a result he was severing contact until she retracted the comments. In subsequent posts on X, the Israeli ...

Since Sunday morning, Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes and gunfire across Gaza, says medics

Call came after the Israeli army reported a drone attack from Lebanon targeting military positions in northern Israel

Lebanese authorities say Israeli attacks since March have killed nearly 3,700 people

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a military vehicle in southern Lebanon killed three soldiers, the Lebanese military said on Saturday, laying bare Israel’s continued aggression just days after the countries discussed a conditional truce during talks in the United States. Israel has launched an invasion into Lebanon, claiming it seeks to root out Hezbollah, which engaged in the wider Middle East war by launching retaliatory missiles against Israeli forces in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader. Meanwhile, Lebanon has vowed that it will disarm Hezbollah over time, but has also denounced Israel’s invasion, accusing it of employing scorched-earth tactics to drive civilians out of southern towns and villages. In the latest incident, the Lebanese army said two officers and a soldier were killed in a strike on a military vehicle on the road between Khardali and Nabatieh. Tehran rejects claims it is using Lebanon as ‘bargaining chip’, urges Beirut to focus on ‘real foe’ Hezbollah dubbed the a...

Islamabad - The Foreign Ministers of the group of eight Arab-Islamic states have condemned in the strongest terms the continued incursions by extremist Israeli settlers, into Al-Aqsa Mosque, Al-Haram Al-Sharif, under the protection of the Israeli forces, as well as the raising of the Israeli flag within its courtyards.

Pakistan, along with seven other Muslim countries, on Tuesday condemned the “continued incursions by extremist Israeli settlers into Al Aqsa Mosque” in the strongest terms, calling for an immediate cessation of all such provocative practices. According to a joint statement released by the Foreign Office (FO), the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkiye, Indonesia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates condemned “in the strongest terms the continued incursions by extremist Israeli settlers, into Al Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli forces, as well as the raising of the Israeli flag within its courtyards”. “They stress that these provocative and unacceptable actions constitute a flagrant violation of international law, the relevant United Nations resolutions, and the historical and legal status quo at the holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem. The FO added that the foreign ministers reaffirmed their “categorical rejection” of any attempts to alter the historical and legal ...

Strikes hit five towns despite ceasefire; US deploys F-22s, refueling aircraft at Israeli bases, airports

Ireland aims to pass a law curbing goods trade with settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by mid-July, with Israel, some US lawmakers and business groups opposing the move, Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said on Tuesday. Ireland’s government, one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s war on Gaza, first promised to sanction Israeli settlements in October 2024. The legislation has since been held up by pressure from opposition politicians who aimed to extend the ban also to the services trade, on one side, and international company lobbyists seeking to scrap the bill, on the other. Sources told Reuters last October that the bill was set to be limited to goods. Prime Minister Micheal Martin confirmed that last week and said widening the scope to services was neither “implementable” nor “viable”. Limiting the bill to goods only will impact just a handful of products imported from Israeli-occupied territories, such as fruit that are worth just €200,000 ($234,660) a year, Ireland’s Central Statistics Of...

Pakistan, along with seven other nations, condemned on Sunday the “appalling, degrading, and unacceptable actions of extremist Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir” against participants in the Gaza-bound flotilla while they were in Israeli detention. Last week, Israel’s far-right national security minister posted a video on showing the detained activists kneeling with their hands tied and foreheads on the ground, sparking international condemnation. The video, shared on X by the firebrand minister, was published after Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla’s vessels at sea and began detaining hundreds of foreign activists at the southern port of Ashdod. The footage also shows Ben Gvir heckling and waving an Israeli flag among the detained activists. Later, the flotilla’s organisers said the activists were subjected to abuse in Israeli custody, with several hospitalised for injuries and at least 15 reporting sexual assaults, including rape. On Sunday, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkiye, Indonesia, ...

France announced on Saturday it had banned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from entry for a video mocking bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. “From today, Itamar Ben Gvir is banned from entering French territory” after “his reprehensible actions towards French and European citizens” who were part of the humanitarian flotilla, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X. He added that, along with Italy, he was also calling for European Union-level sanctions against the far-right Israeli minister. Ben Gvir’s actions follow a long list of hatred and violence against Palestinians, Barrot wrote. The ban follows a global outcry after Ben Gvir published a video on Wednesday showing the heavy-handed treatment of foreign activists from the flotilla. In the video, dozens of activists are seen forced to kneel with their foreheads to the ground and their hands tied. The clip, which was captioned “Welcome to Israel”, also showed Ben-Gvir heckling the activists...