Two More Die as Israel-Palestinian Unrest Simmers, Political Faultlines Widen

Clashes broke out in the town of Jenin during the Israeli raid, according to witnesses. (File/AFP)
Clashes broke out in the town of Jenin during the Israeli raid, according to witnesses. (File/AFP)
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Two More Die as Israel-Palestinian Unrest Simmers, Political Faultlines Widen

Clashes broke out in the town of Jenin during the Israeli raid, according to witnesses. (File/AFP)
Clashes broke out in the town of Jenin during the Israeli raid, according to witnesses. (File/AFP)

A growing wave of unrest between Israelis and Palestinians claimed two more lives on Monday, after a poll showed plummeting support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party amid a divisive plan to rein in the Supreme Court's powers.

A Palestinian teen was killed during a military raid in the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, while hospital officials said the mother of two Israeli sisters killed last week in their car by a suspected Palestinian gunman had died of her injuries.

The poll, for Channel 13 News, showed Likud would lose more than a third of its seats if an election were held now, and Netanyahu would fail to gain a majority with his hard-right coalition partners.

In a sign of Israel's fracturing political faultlines, thousands of Israelis marched towards Eviatar, an evacuated outpost in the West Bank, in support of the expansion of settlements.

Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged this year, with frequent military raids and violence by Israeli settlers amid a spate of Palestinian attacks. More than 90 Palestinians and at least 19 Israelis and foreigners have been killed since January.

Tensions have risen following Israeli police raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound last week, which triggered rocket attacks on Israel that were met with Israeli strikes in Gaza, south Lebanon and Syria.

The Palestinian health ministry said 15-year-old Mohammad Balhan sustained gunshot wounds to his head, chest and abdomen after an Israeli raid near the occupied West Bank city of Jericho.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces operated in the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp, adjacent to Jericho, to apprehend Palestinians suspected in involvement in attacks against Israelis.

The military said that during the raid suspects opened fire and hurled explosives at its forces, who responded with live fire and hit some of the suspects, but no soldiers were wounded.

An eyewitness said he saw some people hurling rocks at the military after they raided the camp.

"I had just left my house when I saw military forces and people throwing stones," said Fayez Balhan, the teen's father.

After carrying another wounded person to an ambulance, the father noticed a young man lying on the ground, who turned out to be his son, he told Reuters.

The Palestinian Prisoners Association said the Israeli military arrested at least two people during the raid.

"We urge the world to hold this (Israeli) government accountable for its crimes," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said at the start of the weekly government session.

Pro-settler march

Separately, hospital officials said the mother of two Israeli sisters who were killed last week in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank had died of her wounds.

Lucy Dee, 48, succumbed to her wounds, Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital said in a statement.

Her daughters Maia and Rina Dee, 20 and 15, were killed on Friday when their car was shot at by a suspected Palestinian gunman. Israeli forces are still trying to track the assailant down.

In a separate part of the West Bank, thousands of Israelis, including government ministers, marched towards Eviatar waving Israeli flags and chanting religious slogans and songs as a Palestinian counter-protest was held nearby. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 191 Palestinians were injured by Israeli security forces.

"Now they understand why I have been pushing for the establishment of a national guard," far-right security chief Itamar Ben-Gvir said at the demonstration.

Ben-Gvir, a hardline Jewish settler, joined Netanyahu's coalition with an expanded law-and-order portfolio including a beefed-up national guard for use mainly in crime- and rioting-hit Arab communities.

Netanyahu agreed to bring Ben-Gvir's initiative for cabinet approval after the security chief backed Netanyahu's pause of the judicial overhaul proposal, which has triggered nationwide street protests.

Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital - territories Israel captured in a 1967 war.

US-sponsored statehood talks have been stalled since 2014 while Jewish settlements have expanded, developments which Palestinians say have undermined the chances of a viable state being established.



Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

 A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

 A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move the country's far-right finance minister said on Sunday was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.  

The decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.  

The latest approvals come days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- all of which are considered illegal under international law -- had reached its highest level since at least 2017.  

"The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalize 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet," the statement said, without specifying when the decision was taken. 

Smotrich is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself.  

"On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state," he said in the statement.  

"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path." 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently condemned what he described as Israel's "relentless" expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.  

It "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State", he said earlier this month.  

Since the start of the war in Gaza, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state have proliferated, with several European countries, Canada and Australia recently moving to formally recognize such a state, drawing rebukes from Israel.  

A UN report said the expansion of settlements was at its highest point since 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data.  

"These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years," Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually between 2017 and 2022.  

"These developments are further entrenching the unlawful Israeli occupation and violating international law and undermining the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." 

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 are 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.  

While all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law, some wildcat outposts are also illegal in the eyes of the Israeli government.  

Many of these, however, are later legalized by Israeli authorities, fueling fears about the possible annexation of the territory. 

US President Donald Trump has warned Israel about annexing the West Bank.  

"Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened," Trump said in a recent interview to Time magazine.  

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has soared since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023 following Hamas's attack on Israel.  

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,027 Palestinians in the West Bank -- both gunmen 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. 


Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)

The head of Iraq's highest judicial body said Saturday that the leaders of armed factions have agreed to cooperate on the sensitive issue of the state's monopoly on weapons.

However, the powerful Kataib Hezbollah group said that it would only discuss giving up its arms when foreign troops leave the country.

"The resistance is a right, and its weapons will remain in the hands of its fighters," the group said in a statement.

The leaders of three other pro-Iran factions designated by Washington as terrorist groups said that it is time to restrict weapons to state control, although they too have stopped short of committing to disarm -- a long-standing US demand.

Faiq Zidan, the head of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, in a statement thanked "faction leaders for heeding his advice to coordinate together to enforcing the rule of law, restrict weapons to state control, and transition to political action after the national need for military action has ceased".

After Iraq's general elections in November, the United States demanded that the new government exclude six groups it designates as terrorists and instead move to dismantle them, Iraqi officials and diplomats told AFP.

But some of the groups have increased their presence in the new parliament and are members of the Coordination Framework, a ruling alliance of Shiite parties with varying ties to Iran that holds the majority.

The blacklisted groups are part of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces, a former paramilitary alliance that has integrated into the armed forces. But they have also developed a reputation for sometimes acting on their own.

They are also part of the Tehran-backed so-called "Axis of Resistance" and have called for the withdrawal of US troops -- deployed in Iraq as part of an anti-ISIS coalition -- and launched attacks against them.

These groups include the powerful Asaib Ahl al-Haq faction, which won 27 seats in the elections.

Earlier this week, the group's leader, Qais al-Khazali, a key figure in the Coordination Framework, said "we believe" in "the slogan to restrict weapons to the state", and "we are now part of the state".

Two other groups, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya and Kataeb Imam Ali, said on Friday that it is time to "limit weapons to the state".


Israeli Military Says Killed Two Palestinians in West Bank

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Military Says Killed Two Palestinians in West Bank

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's military said it killed two Palestinians in the north of the occupied West Bank Saturday, accusing one of throwing "a block" and the other an explosive at its soldiers.

In a statement the military said that during an operation "in the area of Qabatiya, a terrorist hurled a block toward the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist".

"Simultaneously, during an additional operation in the Silat al-Harithiya area, a terrorist hurled an explosive toward the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist."

Both locations are near the city of Jenin.

The Israeli military reported no injuries among its troops.

The Palestinian health ministry said that a 16-year-old boy died "from wounds caused by a bullet of the Israeli occupation forces", according to the official Wafa news agency.

It also reported that a 22-year-old man was killed by "a bullet to the chest during an occupation forces raid" on Silat al-Harithiya.

Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

It has not subsided despite the truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them gunmen, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.