Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state – during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

Despite the fierce international opposition, successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow.

However, expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Under international pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in E1.

Many of its allies and Palestinians argued these would deal a major blow to hopes of a two-state solution, effectively bisecting the West Bank.

But the current Israeli government gave the go-ahead for E1 construction a year ago, expressly to “erase” the idea of a Palestinian state.

Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, the housing ministry has now issued a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the Israeli government last August.

It covers about 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim.

At the time of their unveiling, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is ultranationalist and settler, said the idea of a Palestinian state was “being erased”.

The deadline for bids is 19 October, just days before Israel’s general election on 27 October. That should enable the government to sign deals with contractors that it would be much harder for a future government to cancel.

Trump last month announced “a monumental step toward lasting peace and security” after Hamas said it had accepted a disarmament plan for Gaza.

But Netanyahu said that Hamas had to disarm before Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza, adding it couldn’t be some “fictitious disarmament”.

He said he was now in discussion with US officials about how to go forward.

“They have ideas; some of them are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand our ground on these matters,” he said.

Just months before Israeli elections, the Israeli prime minister is unlikely to want to make concessions.

He has faced calls from his far-right allies to hold a new cabinet vote and end the Gaza plan, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who dismissed the draft as “not acceptable”.

It signals another blow for Trump’s Gaza peace plan which was announced in September last year.

The plan included the creation of the Board of Peace to oversee the agreement’s implementation, as well as the disarmament of Hamas, withdrawal of Israeli troops and reconstruction of Gaza.

In the remains of the Roman theatre, Israeli activist Alon Arad – who heads Emek Shaveh, an Israeli group that aims to ensure that the ancient heritage of the region belongs to all communities – says that the Israeli authorities have bypassed consultation with the local administration and residents of Sebastia.

“The thing is that Israel is not the owner of this place. This is a Palestinian heritage site. And in order to develop it in a positive way, it has to be done with the local community, with the municipality, so they can benefit.”

The Israeli plans would see Sebastia’s entrance moved to the other side of the vast site, away from the village and current car park and shops.

The Palestinian tourism and foreign ministries have expressed their hope that recognition by Unesco may buttress international support for their opposition to Israeli land seizures in Sebastia.

But the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, has portrayed Unesco’s move as enabling Palestinian efforts to diminish historic Jewish ties to the West Bank.

“No vote in an international organisation can change history,” he asserted.

Israeli prosecutors have charged a settler over the killing of a Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank who helped film Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

Yinon Levy was charged with reckless manslaughter over the July 2025 shooting of Odeh Hathaleen, according to Israel’s Southern District Prosecutor’s Office.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem said it was the first time an Israeli had been indicted for killing a Palestinian in the West Bank for nearly three years.

A lawyer for Hathaleen’s family said they hoped the charges marked a “turning point” in the consequences settlers face for violence against Palestinians.

In a letter seen by The Associated Press, Levy said he would fight for his innocence in court.

He wrote that prosecutors should not penalise acts of self-defence and accused them of providing “de facto support for terrorism”, the news agency reported.

A lawyer for Levy, Avichai Hajbi, told the AP the prosecution had made a “mistaken decision”.

The charges against Levy also include ​armed trespassing and malicious property damage during the incident in which settlers operated an excavator in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, leading to a confrontation with residents.

According to the indictment, at some point during the confrontation Levy cocked his gun and fired in the direction of residents, hitting Hathaleen. He then fired another shot into the air, prosecutors said.

Footage of the incident was shared widely online. Levy has previously denied firing the shot that killed Hathaleen.

The indictment is the first since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel which triggered the Gaza war and led to a rise in settler violence in the West Bank, B’Tselem said.

At least 1,110 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since then, according to the UN. At least 41 Israelis have been killed either by a Palestinian armed group or civilian in the West Bank during the same period, the UN said.

B’Tselem described the decision to indict Levy as the “exception that proves the rule”.

“The impunity Israel grants to soldiers and settlers who harm Palestinians is not a failure of the system – it is a central component of a policy designed to allow the violence to continue and escalate,” it said.

Mattan Berner-Kadish, an Israeli-American activist who was at the scene, told the BBC: “I think the general reaction is happiness that anything is happening while also feeling that it should be a murder charge and a longer maximum sentence.

“Mixed feelings but also certainly pleasantly surprised and happy there might be consequences,” he added.

Hathaleen, a teacher and father-of-three, was a prominent voice against settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

He featured in the 2025 Oscar-winning film No Other Land, that follows the legal fight between the Israeli government and Palestinians over Masafer Yatta, a West Bank community of about 20 villages.

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled to allow the demolition of homes and expulsion of more than 1,000 villagers in 2022.

Levy, a leader of an outpost farm, was sanctioned by the UK in 2024 because he “used physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities”, the UK government said at the time.

He denied the allegations to the BBC in 2024.

He was also sanctioned by the US under the Biden administration but those sanctions were subsequently lifted under President Donald Trump.

Additional reporting by Mallory Moench

One person has been killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the country’s health ministry says, after the Israeli military said it was responding to a “blatant violation of the ceasefire” by the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

A man died and 12 other people were injured when the roof of a prayer hall at the cemetery of the town of Tibnin was hit, according to Lebanese media.

Strikes were also reported to the west in the town of Mansouri, where the Israeli military issued its first evacuation order for more than a month.

Hezbollah has not commented on the events, which came as Israeli and Lebanese officials attended US-sponsored talks in Rome aimed at maintaining the ceasefire.

In late June, the three countries agreed a trilateral framework that should see the Israeli military gradually withdraw from territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Two weeks ago, the Lebanese army was allowed to deploy to one of the first “pilot zones”, after Israeli troops pulled out of the village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh.

Hezbollah has rejected the agreement, saying the provisions linking Israel’s withdrawal to the group’s disarmament crossed “all red lines”.

The Israeli military announced that it had begun carrying out “precise strikes” in southern Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon, about 30 minutes after its Arabic spokesperson had told residents of Mansouri to evacuate ahead of “forceful action” there.

Both statements accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire but gave no further details.

However, an Israeli military source told Israeli media that displaced residents of Mansouri had returned to their town “under the auspices of the Lebanese army, which established a checkpoint in the area in violation of the agreements”.

The source said the town was inside the Israeli-declared “security zone” – a 10km (six-mile) deep strip of occupied Lebanese territory running along the border – and “military activity that endangers the lives of Lebanese civilians” was taking place there.

The evacuation order was the first issued in southern Lebanon since 14 June, when residents of 29 towns and villages were told to flee their homes.

Earlier on Wednesday, the mayor of Mansouri, Haidar Madihli, told local media that Israeli warplanes had carried out four strikes on buildings and villas in the Ghazaleh neighbourhood on the outskirts of the town, causing extensive damage to the targeted structures.

The strikes triggered a wave of displacement, with families filling cars with their belongings and heading towards Tyre, the largest city in the south, Madihli said.

He added that around 120 families had returned to Mansouri after the 19 June ceasefire, but that the number had steadily fallen as Israeli strikes intensified. In recent days, only 40 to 50 families remained in the town.

The evacuation order came as the UN’s humanitarian office said more than 820,000 people displaced in Lebanon by the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah had begun returning to their home areas following a reduction in hostilities.

However, the UN said about 360,000 other people remained displaced across Lebanon, including 26,000 living in government shelters.

Lebanon was drawn into the war between Israel, the US and Iran on 2 March, when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader.

Israel responded by launching a bombing campaign across Lebanon and invading a significant part of the country’s south.

At least 4,333 people have been killed during the conflict, including 392 women and 253 children, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Since the ceasefire was announced, the ministry has recorded the killing of 353 people.

Israeli authorities say 38 Israeli soldiers and four civilians have been killed on both sides of the border during the conflict.

UN aid agencies also reported that needs remain high, even though food insecurity has eased a little following the October Israel-Hamas ceasefire that ended a two-year-long war which left much of Gaza destroyed and most Palestinians displaced.

Last Friday, The US-led Board of Peace backed by the Security Council and established under the 20-point peace plan announced an agreement to move to disarmament and the next stage of the ceasefire, with Hamas declaring it was accepting the roadmap. 

The Israeli Government reportedly said Sunday it had “serious security concerns” over the proposal and would not withdraw from Gaza ahead of full disarmament.

What you need to know

• Israeli airstrikes, shelling and shooting continued across the Gaza Strip over the weekend, the UN relief agency, OCHA, said, killing over 25, according to news reports
• An Israeli attack near a Gaza hospital on Saturday destroyed critical medical supplies as UN agencies reported shortages of key medicines and essential items amid soaring food prices
• In the occupied West Bank, an intensifying pattern of settler violence meant that July stands alongside March this year as the deadliest month for Palestinians in settler attacks since the war erupted in October 2023, according to OCHA updates
• The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continued to observe daily Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace over the weekend

Fresh Israeli strikes in Gaza

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that more than 150 fatalities, including dozens of civilians, were documented in July, the highest reported monthly death toll since the beginning of the year, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday.

Most strikes targeted western Gaza, “within the less than half of the Strip”, where virtually all 2.1 million of the enclave’s residents are now concentrated, he said.

Fresh Israeli attacks also hit the area of Al-Aqsa Hospital on Saturday, damaging an adjacent medical storage facility and destroying essential medical supplies, including some delivered by the World Health Organization (WHO), Mr. Haq said.

Severe medicine shortages

In addition to airstrikes destroying critical supplies, OCHA highlighted already critical shortages of key medicines to treat chronic diseases, including insulin and materials needed for cardiac treatment, dialysis supplies and critical diagnostic and monitoring equipment.

“More supplies required to prevent and control infections are pending Israeli approval to bring into Gaza,” the UN Deputy Spokesperson said.

Right now, alcohol-based disinfectants, which are essential for hygiene and routine infection prevention, are largely unavailable, he added.

Priced out

Even with an increased number of commercial and humanitarian trucks reaching Gaza, high market prices are making basic food items unaffordable for four in 10 households, according to a World Food Programme (WFP) survey of families in the war-torn Strip.

Nearly one in two households said that they had completely run out of food at home, with 22 per cent experiencing this more than 10 times in the month preceding the survey.

A severe cooking gas shortage has left families waiting weeks for an eight kilo canister that lasts barely half a month, with black market prices beyond reach for most, and forcing thousands to burn hazardous waste or firewood if they want to make a hot meal, WFP warned.

Learn more about UN efforts in Occupied Palestinian Territory here.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continued to observe daily Israeli violations of Lebanon’s airspace, roadblocks and activities in its territorial waters despite a 17 April conditional ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Lebanese Government reached via US-led talks.

Between Thursday and Sunday, peacekeepers recorded 125 air violations, with the combined total overflight time exceeding 418 hours. Surveillance and armed drones were observed near or above UNIFIL positions in both sectors.

“Peacekeepers also report extensive military activity on the ground in south Lebanon, including significant engineering works and active troop movements,” the UN Deputy Spokesperson said. 

More than 4,300 people have been killed and 12,200 more have been injured in Lebanon since Iran-backed Hezbollah militants joined the regional war triggered by US-Israeli attacks on 2 March, according to national authorities. 

Learn more about UNIFIL here.

Uganda has unveiled a statue of Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of Israel’s prime minister, who was killed during the Entebbe hostage rescue mission 50 years ago.

Uganda’s army chief Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba said the monument honoured his courage and selfless service.

Netanyahu was the only Israeli soldier killed in the raid, which rescued more than 100 hostages, after two Palestinians and two Germans hijacked an Air France flight that had taken off from Tel Aviv and diverted it to Uganda’s international airport.

Kainerugaba described the mission as “one of the most significant episodes in modern history” and spoke of the now close ties between the two countries as a “remarkable journey”.

The statue of Netanyahu, striding forward with a machine gun in his hands, stands outside the old airport terminal where the rescue happened.

During the operation, three hostages – Jean-Jacques Mimouni, Pasco Cohen and Ida Borochovitch – also died, and Dora Bloch was later murdered in hospital in the capital, Kampala, while being treated there.

“May their memories continue to inspire future generations in the pursuit of peace, justice and human dignity,” the army chief said.

The hijackers and three accomplices who joined them in Uganda were also killed, as well as at least 45 Ugandan soldiers, in fighting with the Israelis.

Acknowledging the deaths of the soldiers, Kainerugaba said they had “fought valiantly… in what they believed was a justified cause. Of course, today, we know that the government of Idi Amin, which they served, was a brutal dictatorship which did not represent the Ugandan people.”

The Paris-bound plane, which had taken off from Tel Aviv on 27 June 1976, made a stop in Athens, which is where the hijackers, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, boarded the aircraft.

They took control and forced the plane to divert to Libya, where it refuelled. The Airbus A300 then flew to Uganda, where Amin welcomed it as it landed.

The hijackers demanded $5m and the freeing of 53 militants jailed in Israel, France, Germany, Switzerland and Kenya in return for the hostages. Some of the hostages were released on 30 June and 1 July, but Israelis and Jews remained.

On 3 July, after flying from Israel via Kenya, elite commandos landed at Entebbe and launched the operation that lasted less than 90 minutes.

The rescue mission was celebrated in Israel but was a profound humiliation to Amin.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Entebbe a decade ago where he said: “I learned from my brother that you need two things to defeat the terrorists: clarity and courage.”

Kainerugaba called what happened half a century ago “a painful chapter in our history” but, he added, Uganda-Israel relations have developed into a “partnership characterised by mutual trust, respect and co-operation”.

“We’ve been displaced from place to place, and now we have nowhere left to go,” says Umm Mohammed al-Shawish.

She is desperately searching for somewhere to live after Israel moved yellow concrete blocks that mark out where it controls in the Gaza Strip.

Families living in al-Tuffah in northern Gaza woke on Monday to find the blocks had been moved westwards into the centre of Salah al-Din road, a key north-south route through Gaza.

Nearby, an Israeli flag was flying on top of an earth barrier around 3m (10ft) tall.

The al-Shawish family home was destroyed during the war. On Sunday, they had to flee again after the Israeli military called to warn of an attack on a nearby building. Their only shelter was a tent, which was torn apart by the strike.

“We are going to die here,” Mohammed al-Shawish said. “Death is better than humiliation. No-one is standing with us.”

Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas last October, Israel agreed to withdraw its forces from across Gaza to a designated demarcation – the Yellow Line.

The deal was meant to leave Israel in temporary control of the area behind the Yellow Line – equating to 53% of Gaza’s territory. However, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) controlled more than 60%. In May, he said publicly that his “directive” was to move to 70%.

Hamas accuses Israel of violating the October ceasefire agreement by moving the Yellow Line westwards. A senior Israeli government official said Israel rejected Hamas’s claims outright. The BBC was told: “IDF deployments and security lines are operational measures taken to protect Israeli citizens and prevent Hamas from rebuilding its terror army. Israel will continue to act against any ceasefire violations.”

The Israeli military initially marked the Yellow Line with concrete blocks, before moving some markers further into Gaza. But Israel has now constructed a network of barriers, having started soon after the ceasefire. The barriers now stretch more than 42km (26 miles) and cover 85% of Israel’s Yellow Line, with the longest section already 13.8km (8.5 miles).

Experts have told the BBC that the earthworks suggest Israel is planning for a long occupation of the strip. In some areas the earth barrier effectively moves the de facto “border” – the Yellow Line – deeper into Gaza, further increasing the deadly no-go zone for Gazans.

One section of the embankment near the al-Mawasi camp is more than 1.5km beyond where the Yellow Line was originally mapped. Another section in Khan Younis is positioned more than 500m over it.

The landmark nuclear deal between the US and Saudi Arabia is dependent on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords recognising the State of Israel, President Donald Trump has said.

“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!)… which pertains only to non-military use… will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Trump’s remarks come after criticism from experts that the deal could run the risk of future nuclear proliferation in an already unstable region.

Saudi Arabia has previously said it would not recognise Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In 2020, Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, which secured the historic normalisation of relations between Israel and two Arab nations, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.

Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan have since also signed the accords.

Saudi Arabia has not so far responded to Trump’s remarks.

And it was not immediately clear if the condition of joining the Abraham Accords was stipulated in the text of the deal – which has not been released – or that Saudi Arabia had agreed to that condition, or would be forced to join the accords.

Meanwhile Israel welcomed Trump’s statement.

Posting on X, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Saudi Arabia joining the accords “would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East”.

The statement did not mention the nuclear deal. However, Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat said previously his country “can manage it” if Saudi Arabia had nuclear power for peaceful means.

Israel itself is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, but it neither confirms nor denies that this is the case.

The US-Saudi deal, whose signing was announced on Wednesday, is described as a “peaceful nuclear co-operation agreement” that will provide “great access for American companies in the Saudi nuclear energy programme” by the US energy department.

The nuclear issue has been at the centre of the months-long US-Israeli conflict with Iran.

Israeli air strikes in Lebanon have killed one person, the country’s health ministry said, a day after the two countries signed a deal aimed at paving the way to a lasting peace.

Lebanon’s state news agency said an Israeli drone hit the southern town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, and later reported further strikes in the area, with at least two more people wounded.

The Israeli military said it carried out the drone strike on an individual who posed a threat ⁠to its forces, without providing details.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group – which was not involved in negotiating Friday’s US-brokered agreement – rejected it and accused the Beirut government of undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the agreement reached in Washington “historic” and “a blow to Iran and Hezbollah”.

Under the four-point framework, Israel will withdraw its forces from the South Litani area, with the Lebanese army taking exclusive control of the vacated territory.

But Israeli forces are permitted to remain in an expanded security area in southern Lebanon.

On Saturday Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem accused the Lebanese government of making damaging concessions.

“The framework agreement in Washington is humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty. This agreement is null and void,” he said.

Qassem criticised provisions linking Israel’s withdrawal to the group’s disarmament, saying ‌they crossed “all red lines”.

He accused Lebanese authorities of committing a “grave blunder” which “may even lead to the annexation of these lands”, and vowed that Hezbollah would continue its armed resistance.

Later on Saturday Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces had been ordered to “prepare for an extended stay in the security zone” – referring to an area up to 10km (six miles) inside Lebanese territory.

Lebanon was pulled into the conflict on 2 March, when Iran-backed Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel in retaliation to an Israeli strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader.

Israel responded with an air campaign across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 4,192 people since the current round of hostilities began, according to the Lebanese health ministry. More than 11,600 have been injured, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced, Lebanon says.

Israel say 36 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed on both sides of the border.

A US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on 16 April failed to stop the fighting.

Israel and Lebanon agreed in June to renew their fragile ceasefire, and the US said it would help guide the creation of “pilot zones in which the Lebanese Armed Forces will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”.