Israeli Settlers Kill Palestinian in West Bank, Military Strike Kills 5 Others 

22 August 2024, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: A view of a damaged car destroyed by Israeli forces during a raid on Tulkarm refugee camp. (Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)
22 August 2024, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: A view of a damaged car destroyed by Israeli forces during a raid on Tulkarm refugee camp. (Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)
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Israeli Settlers Kill Palestinian in West Bank, Military Strike Kills 5 Others 

22 August 2024, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: A view of a damaged car destroyed by Israeli forces during a raid on Tulkarm refugee camp. (Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)
22 August 2024, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: A view of a damaged car destroyed by Israeli forces during a raid on Tulkarm refugee camp. (Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa)

Israeli settlers shot dead one Palestinian and wounded three others in the occupied West Bank's Bethlehem, while five others were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck a militant operations center in the camp, and that troops were separately blocking routes and conducting searches in the West Bank following reports of an abduction.

It was looking into reports on the settler raid, it added.

Palestinians regularly accuse Israeli security forces of standing by and allowing groups of violent settlers to attack their houses and villages and the incidents have attracted increasing concern internationally.

The US and a number of European countries have imposed sanctions on violent settlers and called repeatedly on Israel to do more to curb the attacks.

In parallel to escalating settler attacks, clashes with the Israeli military in the West Bank have risen sharply since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last year as Israeli forces have stepped up operations against armed groups, including Iranian-backed Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested in military raids, and at least 637 have been killed, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures. Many of them are armed fighters but others are stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians.

At least 30 Israelis - civilians and soldiers - have been killed by Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank in the same period, official Israeli figures showed.



Dozens Feared Dead after Dam Bursts in Eastern Sudan

 Sudanese queue to fill on water Port Sudan on August 26, 2024, after a dam collapsed as a result of heavy rain. (AFP)
Sudanese queue to fill on water Port Sudan on August 26, 2024, after a dam collapsed as a result of heavy rain. (AFP)
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Dozens Feared Dead after Dam Bursts in Eastern Sudan

 Sudanese queue to fill on water Port Sudan on August 26, 2024, after a dam collapsed as a result of heavy rain. (AFP)
Sudanese queue to fill on water Port Sudan on August 26, 2024, after a dam collapsed as a result of heavy rain. (AFP)

Surging waters have burst through a dam, wiped out at least five villages and left an unknown number of people dead in eastern Sudan, officials said on Monday, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war.

Torrential rains caused floods that overwhelmed the Arbaat Dam on Sunday just 40km (25 miles) north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

"The area is unrecognizable. The electricity and water pipes are destroyed," Omar Eissa Haroun, head of the water authority for Red Sea state, said in a WhatsApp message to staff.

He said he had seen the bodies of gold miners and pieces of their equipment wrecked in the deluge, and likened the disaster to the devastation in the eastern Libyan city of Derna in September last year when storm waters burst dams, swept away buildings and killed thousands.

On the road to Arbaat on Monday a Reuters reporter saw people burying a man and covering his grave with driftwood to try to prevent it from being washed away in mudslides.

The dam was the main source of water for Port Sudan, which is home to the country's main Red Sea port and working airport, and receives most of the country's much-needed aid deliveries.

"The city is threatened with thirst in the coming days," the Sudanese Environmentalists Association said in a statement.

CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE

Officials said the dam had started crumbling and silt had been building during days of heavy rain that had come much earlier than usual.

Sudan's dams, roads and bridges were already in disrepair before the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Forces began in April 2023.

Both sides have since funneled the bulk of their resources into the conflict, leaving infrastructure badly neglected.

Some people had fled their flooded homes in five devastated villages and headed to the mountains where they were now stranded, the health ministry said.

On Monday, the government's rainy season taskforce said 132 people had been killed in floods across the country, up from 68 two weeks ago. At least 118,000 people have been displaced by the rains this year, according to United Nations agencies.

The conflict in Sudan began when competition between the army and the RSF, who had previously shared power after staging a coup, flared into open warfare.

The two sides had been seeking to protect their power and extensive economic interests as the international community promoted a plan for a transition towards civilian rule.

Overlapping efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire, including Saudi- and US-led talks in Jeddah, have not eased the fighting and half of the 50 million population lack sufficient food.