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The US embassy in Jerusalem plans to offer consular services for the first time at an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. A statement posted Wednesday to the US embassy's account on the social platform X said consular officers "will be providing routine passport services" to US citizens Friday in the West Bank settlement of Efrat. The embassy said a similar outreach service is planned in the coming months in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit, calling the services part of its "efforts to reach all Americans." The US embassy has previously provided consular services in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The move continues a shift in policy under US President Donald Trump's administration, which has been far friendlier to Israeli settlements in the West Bank than past US presidents. "We welcome the historic decision by the US embassy in Jerusalem to extend consular services to American citizens in Judea and Samaria," Israel's Foreign Ministry said o
The European Union's top diplomats are set to meet Monday with the director of the Board of Peace in Brussels after a shaky and controversial embrace of U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to secure and rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. Nikolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician and U.N. diplomat chosen by Trump to manage the Board of Peace, will meet the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and foreign ministers from across the 27-nation bloc. The EU diplomats are also expected to discuss the war in Ukraine and fresh sanctions on Russia. Just across the Mediterranean Sea from the Middle East, the EU has deep links to Israel and the Palestinians. It now plays a crucial oversight role at the Rafah border crossing, and is the top donor to the Palestinian Authority. The question of whether to work with the Trump-led board has split national capitals from Nicosia to Copenhagen. The EU is supportive of the United Nations' mandate in Gaza. EU members Hungary and Bulgaria are fu
At least 12 people were killed and 24 wounded - including three children - in Israeli strikes in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley Friday, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. Another two people were killed by an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp earlier in the day. Israel said it had hit "command centers" of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Bekaa Valley. There was no immediate statement from Hezbollah. Local television footage from the scene of one of the strikes in the Bekaa showed the targeted site appeared to be an apartment building, and emergency crews were fighting a fire and searching in the rubble for survivors. Earlier Friday, another Israeli strike had hit a Palestinian refugee camp in the port city of Sidon, killing two people. The Israeli military said it hit a "Hamas command center" in the Ein el-Hilweh camp. Hamas acknowledged that two of its members had been killed in the strike but called the claim that a command center was struck a "flimsy pretex
An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian graduate student who led protests at Columbia University against Israel and the war in Gaza. In a ruling made public Tuesday, the judge, Nina Froes, said she had terminated the case because of a procedural misstep by government attorneys, who failed to properly certify an official document they intended to use as evidence. The Trump administration may appeal the decision. But the ruling marked the latest setback for the federal government's sweeping effort to expel pro-Palestinian campus activists and others who expressed criticism of Israel. Last month, a separate immigration blocked the government's attempt to deport a Tufts University graduate student, Rumeysa Ozturk, over an op-ed criticizing the school's response to the war in Gaza. Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident of the US for the last decade, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He was arrested
Israel has asked a court to revoke the citizenship of two men convicted of terrorism offences, in what appears to be the first test of a law allowing the deportation of Palestinian citizens convicted of certain violent crimes. Court documents filed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday argued that the severity of the crimes, along with payments those found guilty allegedly received from a Palestinian Authority fund, justify revoking citizenship and expelling the individuals convicted of violent attacks. Roughly one in five Israeli citizens is Palestinian. When the law passed, critics said it was one instance in which Israel's legal system treats Jewish and Palestinian citizens differently. Rights groups argued that basing a deportation law on Palestinian Authority payments effectively limited its application on the basis of race and excluded Jewish Israelis - including settlers convicted of attacks against Palestinians - from the threat of having their citizenship ...
Israeli military strikes on Monday killed three people west of Gaza City, according to the hospital where the casualties arrived. Shifa Hospital reported the deaths amid the months-old ceasefire that has seen continued fighting. The Israeli army said Monday it is striking targets in response to Israeli troops coming under fire in the southern city of Rafah, which it says was a violation of the ceasefire. The army said it is striking targets "in a precise manner." The four-month-old US-backed ceasefire followed stalled negotiations and included Israel and Hamas accepting a 20-point plan proposed by US President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack into Israel. At the time, Trump said it would lead to a "Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace." Hamas freed all the living hostages it still held at the outset of the deal in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the remains of others. But the larger issues the ...
When the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt finally reopened this week, Palestinian officials heralded it as a "window of hope" after two years of war as a fragile ceasefire deal moves forward. But that hope has been sidetracked by disagreements over who should be allowed through, hourslong delays and Palestinian travellers' reports of being handcuffed and interrogated by Israeli soldiers. Far fewer people than expected have crossed in both directions. Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients - along with two companions for each - would be allowed to leave. But over the first four days of operations, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to United Nations data. Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that they say i
Israeli strikes pounded Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 24 Palestinians, including two babies, according to health officials in the territory, where a fragile ceasefire has come under increasing strain. Israel said it killed three militant leaders and others who posed a threat to its forces, and that some strikes came in response to a Hamas attack that seriously wounded one of its soldiers. Deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly disrupted the truce since it took effect on October 10. The escalating Palestinian toll has prompted many in Gaza to say it feels like the war is continuing unabated. Among the Palestinians killed on Wednesday were at least five children, seven women and an on-duty paramedic, according to hospital officials. "The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues," said Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post. "Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?" Israel strongly denies accusations that i
Palestinians in Gaza watched with hope and impatience Sunday as workers laid the groundwork to reopen the territory's Rafah border crossing with Egypt, its lifeline to the world. Israel says the crossing is scheduled to resume Monday as its ceasefire with Hamas moves ahead. "Opening the crossing is a good step, but they set a limit on the number of people allowed to cross, and this is a problem," said Ghalia Abu Mustafa, a woman from Khan Younis. Israel said the crossing had opened in a test, and the Israeli military agency that controls aid to Gaza said residents could begin crossing Monday. But only a small number of people can cross at first. "We want a large number of people to leave, for it to be open so that sick people can go and return," said Suhaila Al-Astal, a woman displaced from the city of Rafah who said her sick daughter needed help abroad. "We want the crossing to be open permanently." Israel's announcement came a day after Israeli strikes killed at least 30 ...
Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians Saturday, one of the highest tolls since an October agreement aimed at stopping the fighting. The strikes hit locations in northern and southern Gaza, including an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent in Khan Younis, officials at hospitals that received the bodies said. The casualties included two women and six children from two different families. The strikes came a day before a border crossing is set to open in Gaza's southernmost city, a reminder that the death toll is still rising even as a ceasefire agreement inches forward. All of the territory's border crossings have been closed since the start of the war and Palestinians see the Rafah crossing with Egypt as a lifeline for the tens of thousands in need of treatment outside the territory, where the majority of medical infrastructure has been destroyed. Shifa Hospital said the Gaza City strike killed a mother, three children and one of their relatives
The Trump administration has approved a massive new series of arms sales to Israel totalling USD 6.67 billion and to Saudi Arabia worth USD 9 billion. Both sets of sales were announced by the State Department late Friday as tensions rise in the Middle East over the possibility of US military strikes in Iran. They were made public after the department notified Congress of its approval of the sales earlier Friday. The sales also were announced as President Donald Trump pushes ahead with his ceasefire plan for Gaza that is intended to end the Israel-Hamas conflict and reconstruct and redevelop the Palestinian territory after two years of war left it devastated, with tens of thousands dead. The Saudi sale is for 730 Patriot missiles and related equipment that "will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a Major non-NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf Region," the ...
Israel turned over the bodies of 15 Palestinians on Thursday, just days after recovering the remains of the last Israeli hostage, a Gaza Health Ministry official said. This marks the last hostage-detainee exchange between Israel and Hamas carried out as part of the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire reached in October. The Red Cross said it helped facilitate the return of the bodies. They were taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesperson at the health ministry. The return of all remaining hostages, living or dead, had been a key part of the first phase in the ceasefire that paused the war. Israel agreed to return 15 Palestinian bodies for each hostage recovered, according to the ceasefire terms. It's unclear if the bodies released Thursday were of Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli custody or bodies taken from Gaza by Israeli troops during the war. Israel has released roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners under the ceasefire deal, many who
Israel said Sunday its military was conducting a "large-scale operation" to locate the last hostage in Gaza, as Washington and other mediators pressure Israel and Hamas to move into the next phase of their ceasefire. The statement came as Israel's Cabinet met to discuss the possibility of opening Gaza's key Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and a day after top US envoys met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about next steps. The return of the remaining hostage, Ran Gvili, has been widely seen as removing the remaining obstacle to moving ahead with opening the Rafah crossing, which would signal the ceasefire's second phase. The return of all remaining hostages, alive or dead, has been a central part of the first phase of the ceasefire that took effect on Oct 10. Before Sunday, the previous hostage was recovered in early December. While Israel has carried out search efforts before for Gvili, more detail than usual was released about this one. Israel's military said it was search
Top US envoys met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, urging his government to move into the second phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. Netanyahu met with US President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Middle East adviser, according to the prime minister's office, which did not give details. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the talks, told reporters the envoys had been working closely with Netanyahu on recovering the remains of the last hostage in Gaza, and on the next steps for demilitarising the territory. The US is anxious to keep the Trump-brokered deal moving, but Netanyahu faces pressure to wait until Hamas returns the hostage's remains. The biggest signal of the second phase would be the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Ali Shaath, the head of a future technocratic government in Gaza that is expected to run day-to-day affairs, said Thursday the border ..