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Sirens Sound Across Tel Aviv as Projectiles are Intercepted Near Blinken's Hotel

A usually crowded beach in Tel Aviv is nearly deserted on August 25, 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)
A usually crowded beach in Tel Aviv is nearly deserted on August 25, 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)
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Sirens Sound Across Tel Aviv as Projectiles are Intercepted Near Blinken's Hotel

A usually crowded beach in Tel Aviv is nearly deserted on August 25, 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)
A usually crowded beach in Tel Aviv is nearly deserted on August 25, 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)

Air raid sirens echoed across Tel Aviv on Wednesday as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to end a visit. Smoke, apparently from an intercepted projectile, could be seen in the sky above the hotel where Blinken was staying.

Blinken urged Israel to use its recent tactical victories against Hamas to seek a war-ending deal and bring back dozens of hostages, before leaving Wednesday for Saudi Arabia as part of his 11th visit to the region since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Both sides appear to be dug in. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to annihilate Hamas and recover dozens of hostages held by the group. Hamas says it will only release the captives in return for a lasting cease-fire, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

 

 

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Arab World

Israel Is Ramping up Annexation of West Bank, UN Rights Chief Says 

Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
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Israel Is Ramping up Annexation of West Bank, UN Rights Chief Says 

Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)

Israel has significantly expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the State of Israel, in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.

The report to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council later this month comes amid growing fears of annexation amid US policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts in areas of the West Bank seen as part of a future Palestinian state.

"The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime," UN High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report, urging the international community to take meaningful action on Israel’s advancing settlement.

"Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers," he said.

Israel disengaged from the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year, alleging a chronic anti-Israeli bias. Its military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.