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Arab World

Israel Surprises Khan Yunis… Netanyahu to Address US Congress

22 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Yunis: Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abdullah Abu Al-Khair/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
22 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Yunis: Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abdullah Abu Al-Khair/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Israel Surprises Khan Yunis… Netanyahu to Address US Congress

22 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Yunis: Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abdullah Abu Al-Khair/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
22 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Yunis: Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abdullah Abu Al-Khair/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

The Israeli army on Monday surprised the residents of Khan Younis with a new ground military operation, more than three months after withdrawing from the southern Gaza city.

The Israeli army in a statement claimed the attack in eastern Khan Younis resulted from intelligence information indicating Hamas was attempting to regroup.

Eyewitnesses and journalists in Gaza told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Israeli army issued on Monday new evacuation orders to residents in Khan Younis.

Thousands of Palestinians were seen fleeing southern areas of the territory before the Israeli army launched a large-scale attack and quickly sent tanks back into the greater Khan Younis area.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington upon an invitation from the US Congress to address a joint session on Tuesday.

Netanyahu has tried to mitigate the impact of his visit amidst a US political crisis following President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race.

“Israel remains America's indispensable and strong ally in the Middle East,” he told reporters before taking off.

On Thursday, an Israeli delegation will travel to Doha to discuss new demands for a Gaza truce and hostage-prisoner exchange.

But on Monday, several leading rabbis of the right-wing religious Zionist community came out against a hostage deal with Hamas.

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Arab World

Israeli Settlers Forcibly Enter Palestinian Home and Kill Sheep in Latest West Bank Attack

This picture shows sheep grazing on a field in Kafr al-Labad with the Israeli settlement of Avnei Hefetz seen in the background, near the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on December 18, 2025. (AFP)
This picture shows sheep grazing on a field in Kafr al-Labad with the Israeli settlement of Avnei Hefetz seen in the background, near the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on December 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Settlers Forcibly Enter Palestinian Home and Kill Sheep in Latest West Bank Attack

This picture shows sheep grazing on a field in Kafr al-Labad with the Israeli settlement of Avnei Hefetz seen in the background, near the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on December 18, 2025. (AFP)
This picture shows sheep grazing on a field in Kafr al-Labad with the Israeli settlement of Avnei Hefetz seen in the background, near the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on December 18, 2025. (AFP)

Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank overnight, breaking in and killing sheep, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. It was the latest in a surge of attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the territory in recent months.

Israeli police said they arrested five settlers.

The settlers killed three sheep and injured four more, smashed a door and a window of the home, and fired tear gas inside, sending three Palestinian children under the age of 4 to the hospital, said Amir Dawood, who directs an office documenting such attacks within a Palestinian governmental body called the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.

Police said they arrested the five settlers on suspicion of trespassing onto Palestinian land, damaging property and dispensing pepper spray, not tear gas. They said they are investigating.

CCTV video from the attack in the town of As Samu’, shared by the commission, showed five masked settlers in dark clothing, some with batons, approaching the home and appearing to enter. Sounds of smashing are heard, as well as animal noises. Another video from inside shows masked figures appearing to strike sheep in the stable.

Photos of the aftermath, also shared by the commission, show smashed car windows and a shattered front door. Bloodied sheep lie dead as others stand with blood staining their wool. Inside the home, photos show broken glass and the furniture ransacked.

Dawood said it was the second settler attack on the family in less than two months. He called it “part of a systematic and ongoing pattern of settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians, their property and their means of livelihood, carried out with impunity under the protection of the Israeli occupation.”

During October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, the most since the United Nations humanitarian office began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the UN recording at least 136 by Nov. 24.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — in the 1967 war. It has settled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, in addition to over 200,000 in contested east Jerusalem.

Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Cabinet Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force. Earlier this week, Smotrich said the Israeli cabinet had approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements, another blow to the possibility of a Palestinian state.

Arab World

Palestinian Authority Says Israel Tightening Control Over West Bank with New Settlements

Israeli bulldozers level land at the evacuated Israeli settlement of Sanur, near the West Bank city of Jenin, 23 December 2025. (EPA)
Israeli bulldozers level land at the evacuated Israeli settlement of Sanur, near the West Bank city of Jenin, 23 December 2025. (EPA)
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Palestinian Authority Says Israel Tightening Control Over West Bank with New Settlements

Israeli bulldozers level land at the evacuated Israeli settlement of Sanur, near the West Bank city of Jenin, 23 December 2025. (EPA)
Israeli bulldozers level land at the evacuated Israeli settlement of Sanur, near the West Bank city of Jenin, 23 December 2025. (EPA)

The Palestinian Authority condemned on Tuesday Israel's recent approval of 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing it of tightening its control over Palestinian land.

On Sunday, Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the authorities had greenlit the settlements, saying the move was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry decried the approval as a "dangerous step aimed at tightening colonial control over the entirety of Palestinian land", calling it a continuation of "apartheid, settlement, and annexation policies that undermine the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people".

"The decision provides political cover for accelerating the plunder of Palestinian lands, expanding settlement infrastructure... alongside an escalating pace of settler terrorism against members of our people and their properties," it said in a statement.

The latest move brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, Smotrich's office said.

Excluding east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.

Smotrich's office said the 19 newly approved settlements were located in what it described as "highly strategic" areas, adding that two of them -- Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank -- would be re-established after being dismantled two decades ago.

Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, the statement said.

Israel's decision came days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- all of which are illegal under international law -- had reached its highest level since at least 2017.

US President Donald Trump recently warned that Israel "would lose all of its support from the United States" if it annexed the West Bank.

Israel has occupied the territory since 1967, and violence there has surged following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023 with Hamas's attack on Israel.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,028 Palestinians in the West Bank -- both fighters and civilians -- since the start of the fighting in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period, according to Israeli data.

Arab World

Germany Deports Man to Syria for First Time Since 2011

People attend a protest against reelection of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, near Syria's embassy, Berlin, Germany May 26, 2021. (Reuters)
People attend a protest against reelection of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, near Syria's embassy, Berlin, Germany May 26, 2021. (Reuters)
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Germany Deports Man to Syria for First Time Since 2011

People attend a protest against reelection of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, near Syria's embassy, Berlin, Germany May 26, 2021. (Reuters)
People attend a protest against reelection of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, near Syria's embassy, Berlin, Germany May 26, 2021. (Reuters)

Germany deported a man to Syria for the first time since the civil war began in that country in 2011, the interior ministry in Berlin announced on Tuesday.

A Syrian immigrant previously convicted of criminal offences in Germany was flown to Damascus and handed over to Syrian authorities on Tuesday morning, the ministry said.