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Gantz in Washington Wednesday to Defend ‘Settlements,’ Israeli Measures in West Bank

Gantz and Blinken during a meeting in Jerusalem last March (Reuters)
Gantz and Blinken during a meeting in Jerusalem last March (Reuters)
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Gantz in Washington Wednesday to Defend ‘Settlements,’ Israeli Measures in West Bank

Gantz and Blinken during a meeting in Jerusalem last March (Reuters)
Gantz and Blinken during a meeting in Jerusalem last March (Reuters)

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced he will travel Wednesday to the United States, where he expects to meet with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in Washington to tackle issues of interest for both countries.

Although his office did not give details of the nature of the meeting, a source in his ministry said Gantz will try to defend the Israeli government’s decision to build about 4,000 new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The source said that Washington had strongly criticized the settlement decision, as well as the recent Israeli operations in the West Bank and Jerusalem, particularly the assassination of Palestinian-US journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the brutal assault on her funeral processions.

Gantz will carry with him the results of the investigation conducted by an Israeli officer into the assassination.

Earlier this month, the Israeli Defense Minister had arranged to attend two Jewish events held in the US by his ministry, the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, to raise funds for the Israeli army.

However, the assassination of Abu Akleh pushed Gantz to ask to meet US officials.

Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for an "immediate and credible investigation" into the circumstances of the killing of Abu Akleh.

Blinken announced that he spoke to Shireen's brother and expressed deep condolences for her loss, and deep respect for the work that she did as a journalist for many years.

US President Joe Biden has accepted an invitation to visit Israel in June and show support for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett against the two men’s opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Despite the announcement, the Biden administration had appealed several times to the Bennett government in recent weeks, warning against approving new settlement projects.

The US envoy to Israel, Thomas Naides, said he and other Biden administration officials have made it clear to Israeli officials several times in the last two weeks that the administration is opposed to the construction of new settlements and asked Israeli authorities not to move ahead with it.

Few days following Naides’ comments, the Israeli Civil Administration, a military body, said the Higher Planning Committee met last Thursday to give green light to the building of 3,988 new settler units.

Political sources in Tel Aviv expressed their fear of an angry US reaction to the Committee’s decision that would push the Biden administration to cancel or postpone the president’s visit to Israel.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post newspaper said that Bennett decided to take rightward steps to strengthen his Yamina party and prevent further defections from it.

It said Bennett will visit Elkana in Samaria on Tuesday, his first public visit to a West Bank settlement since becoming prime minister 11 months ago.

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Arab World

Lebanon War Toll Rises to 2,055 Dead as Israel Pounds Country's South

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Deik Qanoun al-Nahr on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Kawnat HAJU / AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Deik Qanoun al-Nahr on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Kawnat HAJU / AFP)
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Lebanon War Toll Rises to 2,055 Dead as Israel Pounds Country's South

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Deik Qanoun al-Nahr on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Kawnat HAJU / AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Deik Qanoun al-Nahr on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Kawnat HAJU / AFP)

Lebanese official media reported extensive Israeli strikes across the country's south on Sunday as the health ministry said at least five people were killed and the war's overall toll rose to 2,055 dead.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli attacks on around 30 locations in the country's south on Sunday, with additional strikes on the adjacent West Bekaa area.

The health ministry said an Israeli strike on Qana killed five people, including three women, and wounded 25 others, while the NNA said the raid targeted "homes and infrastructure.”

A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Tyre shows rocket trails fired from Lebanon toward neighbouring Israel on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Kawnat HAJU / AFP)

An AFP photographer in the southern town saw huge destruction as an excavator worked to clear debris and first responders carried a body out from under the rubble.

The ministry raised the overall toll in Lebanon to 2,055 dead, including 165 children and 87 health workers, since war erupted on March 2.

In south Lebanon's Bazuriyeh, Hassan Berro, a rescue worker from the Risala Scout association -- which is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement -- said: "Our emergency center was hit and completely destroyed, along with all its contents, including beds and medical equipment."

The AFP photographer saw windows shattered and debris covering several hospital beds in the building, where walls and ceilings were also damaged.

Hezbollah said it launched attacks on Israeli targets across the border and inside Lebanon, including against troops in the southern town of Bint Jbeil, where the NNA reported heavy fighting.

Israel's army on Sunday accused Hezbollah of using the town's hospital compound "for military purposes.”

Officials from Lebanon, Israel and the United States are due to hold direct talks in Washington on Tuesday, a move Hezbollah has rejected.

Commenting on the planned talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that "we want the dismantling of Hezbollah's weapons, and we want a real peace agreement that will last for generations.”

Arab World

Israeli Strike Kills Infant Girl in South Lebanon during Father's Funeral

A member of civil defense personnel holds the body of Taleen Saeed, 1.5 years old, killed in an Israeli strike in the village of Srifa, at the Al Kharab mosque in Tyre, Lebanon, April 12, 2026. REUTERS
A member of civil defense personnel holds the body of Taleen Saeed, 1.5 years old, killed in an Israeli strike in the village of Srifa, at the Al Kharab mosque in Tyre, Lebanon, April 12, 2026. REUTERS
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Israeli Strike Kills Infant Girl in South Lebanon during Father's Funeral

A member of civil defense personnel holds the body of Taleen Saeed, 1.5 years old, killed in an Israeli strike in the village of Srifa, at the Al Kharab mosque in Tyre, Lebanon, April 12, 2026. REUTERS
A member of civil defense personnel holds the body of Taleen Saeed, 1.5 years old, killed in an Israeli strike in the village of Srifa, at the Al Kharab mosque in Tyre, Lebanon, April 12, 2026. REUTERS

Wrapped in bloodied bandages, Aline Saeed, seven, barely survived the Israeli strike on her home in south Lebanon last week. She was there to bury her father as hopes of a truce spread across the region, but a new strike killed her infant sister and other relatives.

The strike on the Saeed family home in the village of Srifa took place on Wednesday, the first day of a US-Iran ceasefire that many in Lebanon hoped would apply to their country, too. Instead, Israeli strikes killed more than 350 across Lebanon and left the Saeed family with four more relatives to bury.

"They said it was a ceasefire. Like all these people, we went up to the village. We went to the casket to read the prayers and walk home... suddenly we felt like a storm was landing right on us," said Nasser Saeed, Aline's 64-year-old grandfather, who also survived, Reuters reported.

On Sunday, he joined other relatives in the southern port city of Tyre to pick up the bodies wrapped in green cloth. One of them, a fraction the size of the rest, contained his granddaughter Taleen, Aline's sister.

She had not yet turned two.

With bandages to his head and right hand and scratches on his face, Saeed mourned in silence as the women around him turned their faces up to the sky and screamed in agony.

The Israeli military said that it did not have enough details to look into the incident, adding that it takes measures to reduce harm to civilians in its strikes against Hezbollah militants.

TALEEN 'BORN IN WAR AND DIED IN WAR'

"This isn't humanity. This is a war crime," Saeed told Reuters at the hospital where Aline's mother, Ghinwa, was still being treated.

"Where are the human rights? If a child - a child! - is wounded in Israel, the whole world jumps up. Are we not people? Are we not humans? We're like them!" he said.

Taleen was born in 2024, in the last round of fierce clashes between Hezbollah and Israel.

"She was born in the war and died in the war," said Mohammed Nazzal, Ghinwa's father.

FIERCE BOMBARDMENT CONTINUES

Iran wants a ceasefire for Lebanon as part of talks with the United States, which concluded on Sunday without a breakthrough. But Israel wants to pursue talks with Lebanese officials through a separate track.

Heavy bombardment on Lebanon has continued, with nearly 100 people killed on Saturday.

Dr. Abbas Attiyeh, head of emergency operations at Tyre's Jabal Amel hospital, said last week's bombardment was one of the heaviest in recent years and many of the patients arriving at his hospital were children.

"The challenges we're facing now are the numbers of wounded that come at the same time, within the same 30 minutes or hour," Attiyeh told Reuters.

Arab World

Ben Gvir, Settlers Storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir - REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir - REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
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Ben Gvir, Settlers Storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir - REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir - REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday morning with a group of settlers, under the protection of Israeli police.

The Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported that “during the incursion, settlers performed Talmudic prayers in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in a new provocative step aimed at imposing a new religious reality at the site and entrenching temporal and spatial division.”

The Jerusalem Governorate said the move comes amid escalating violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in occupied Jerusalem, and continued restrictions on worshippers’ access.

In a video filmed at the site and published by his office, Ben Gvir said: “Today, I feel that I am the owner of this place,” according to Reuters.

He added: “There is still more to be done, and more that needs to be improved. I continue to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more. We must continue to move forward step by step.”

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the visit in a statement, describing it as “a flagrant violation of the historical and legal status quo at the Noble Sanctuary, a desecration of its sanctity, an escalation that is condemned, and an unacceptable provocation.”

A spokesperson for Ben Gvir said the minister is seeking to secure more entry permits for Jewish visitors and to allow prayers at the site.

The spokesperson added that Ben Gvir prayed at the site. Netanyahu’s office has not yet commented. Previous visits and statements by Ben Gvir had prompted Netanyahu to issue statements affirming that there is no change in Israel’s policy of maintaining the status quo.