Israeli finance minister dismisses UK’s condemnation of settlement expansion

“The British Mandate in the land of Israel is over.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has dismissed UK criticism regarding Israel’s decision to issue a tender for more than 1,200 new housing units in the occupied West Bank under Israel’s E1 settlement project.

Addressing the British Foreign Secretary directly in a video he shared on X, Smotrich said that "the British Mandate in the land of Israel is over” and that he will not be intimidated or deterred by “threats or sanctions”.

US ambassador Tom Barrack questions Israel’s occupation of Golan Heights

“They still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria's.”

Speaking to Mario Nawfal, US ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said that Israel continues to occupy the Golan Heights in Syria, contrary to UN resolutions and international consensus affirming Syrian sovereignty.

Barrack’s comments come after Nawfal asked whether he believes Israel would annex Lebanese territory. 

In 2019, Donald Trump signed an executive order recognising Israel’s control over the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, reversing decades of US and international policy.

Trump says he views Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’

“I view the Strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now."

Addressing a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, US President Donald Trump said he views the Strait of Hormuz as “an American territory” and reiterated that the US “cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon."

Former Israeli prime minister says Israel’s international standing is at historic low

“We are at the most terrible low point of Israel's standing in the world since the founding of the state.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said that Israel’s global reputation has hit a historic low, adding that they have “lost the United States” and “the world.”

Lebanese PM claims state 'regaining sovereignty' in country's south

In a visit to a military base, Lebanon's prime minister Nawaf Salam touted the army's presence in the country's south as a victory for state sovereignty.

As part of the country's negotiations with Israel, the Lebanese military has been moving into "pilot zones" in southern Lebanon in order to secure a gradual Israeli military withdrawal.

Heralded by some as a re-establishment of state sovereignty, the plan has faced staunch criticism from others accusing Israel of prolonging its occupation of the country's south and placing unrealistic demands on Lebanon's military.

'I'm the owner': Israeli troops ransack house in Qusra

Israeli soldiers were filmed taking over a home and throwing the owner's belongings over the balcony in Qusra, a village in the occupied West Bank.

In the video, a Palestinian man can be heard asking the soldier who he is, before the soldier replies that he is "the owner" of the home.

Just south of Nablus, Qusra made headlines in recent weeks as Israeli settlers besieged Palestinian families for days on end, forcing UN humanitarian workers to intervene.

Iran's Speaker of Parliament Ghalibaf touts 'new regional order' in Iraq visit

In a visit to Iraq, Iran's Speaker of Parliament Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf said his trip reflected a "strengthening of the new order in the region" in the wake of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Iran has been eager to demonstrate its influence in Iraq in recent months, with funeral processions for the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proceeding through several Iraqi cities in early July.

Ghalibaf's current trip also included an event marking 40 days since Khamenei's burial. The visit come as the US leans on Iraq's Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to disarm the country's militias and distance itself from Iran.

Chief Sephardic Rabbi says 'no such thing as Palestinian people'

In an address at the Gush Katif museum in Jerusalem, Israel's Chief Sephardi Rabbi David Yosef asserted Israel's right to all of occupied Palestine, declaring that "Gaza is ours" and "we will return there".

Rabbi Yosef added that "there is no such thing as a Palestinian people" and "they do not have rights".

One of Israel's two main spiritual leaders, the Rabbi's remarks come amid unprecedented settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Family mourns son killed in West Bank settler attack

Palestinians bid farewell to 17 year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh who was killed during an attack by settlers in his town of Sair in the occupied West Bank.

Local eyewitnesses describe how settlers began shooting and burning homes during Friday prayers.

'We can't sleep at night': Family in Qusra under siege by Israeli settlers

A Palestinian family remain under siege by illegal Israeli settlers in Qusra, occupied Palestine, for the second week.

Palestinian-American Louis Ridi spoke to MEE about the restrictions and violence the family has faced. He owns one of the homes under siege in the town in the occupied West Bank and gained media attention last week when he made the trip from the US back to his family home in Qusra to support his family.

He reunited with his elderly mother and brother and his neighbours in his home, where they have been unable to leave or get food and other supplies without co-ordination with the Israeli army.

His neighbours have been sheltering in his house with their two young children after Israeli soldiers occupied their home under the reasoning that they would protect them from the settlers. The army has yet to remove them.

📰 Kites flown by Palestinian children in Gaza are now being cited by the Israeli military as justification for further strikes and displacement across the Strip.

Israel warned Hamas it would intensify strikes in Gaza if kites continued to be launched from the Strip toward Israeli settlements, Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Sunday.

🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-warns-strikes-evacuations-over-kites-launched-palestinian-children-gaza

Israeli forces conduct overnight raids and arrests in the West Bank

According to local reports, Israeli forces conducted raids and arrests overnight in various Palestinian cities across the occupied West Bank, including Hebron, Jenin, and the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah.

📰 Israeli forces fired phosphorus shells and carried out air strikes and heavy artillery attacks across several areas of southern Lebanon overnight and early Saturday, Lebanese state media reported.

Heavy Israeli artillery fire targeted the town of Mansouri, the area around Bayt al-Sayyad and the outskirts of Majdal Zoun early on Saturday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Israeli forces also carried out extensive attacks overnight in Mansouri, Majdal Zoun and Bayt al-Sayyad, the agency said.

🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-reportedly-use-phosphorus-shells-indiscriminate-attacks-southern-lebanon

Israel threatens Gaza strikes over kites flown by Palestinian children

Israel has threatened to launch further strikes in Gaza over paper kites flown by Palestinian children.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the kites would be treated as drones and described them as an “act of war”, ordering Israeli forces to respond “forcefully”. Israeli officials said the measures could include targeting Hamas commanders they hold responsible for the launches.

Over the weekend, Israeli media reported that several kites, believed to have been launched from Gaza, had landed near Nahal Oz Kibbutz, an illegal Israeli settlement adjacent to Gaza.

Israeli military sources acknowledged that the kites were being flown by Palestinian children and said no suspicious materials had been found on them or that they posed any danger to the public.

The far right wants "to imitate the very thing that they hate" | Faisal Devji | UNAPOLOGETIC

"They want to imitate the very thing that they hate. It's a hatred born out of intimacy, in a sense, which is what most hatreds are."

Faisal Devji on why the far right imitates the very thing it claims to hate.

Full episode available on our channel
UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim.

Mélenchon condemns Ben Gvir remarks on killing Palestinians in Gaza

Jean-Luc Mélenchon has condemned remarks by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir after he called for the killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

Speaking at a rally in France, the France Unbowed (LFI) leader referred to comments he said Ben Gvir made calling for the killing of “30 to 40 Palestinians every night”.

Mélenchon accused France of failing to condemn what he described as genocide in Gaza, saying the government’s position had made the country “complicit in Israel’s crimes”.

He also said Israel’s actions in Gaza, as well as its military operations in Lebanon and Syria, were being encouraged by the failure of the international community to uphold international law.

Mélenchon is seeking to return to the French presidential race in 2027, with Gaza and France’s foreign policy among the issues he has made central to his campaign.

Sliman Mansour, one of the leading figures in contemporary Palestinian art, has died aged 79.

In a post to Mansour's Instagram account, his family announced his death, writing: “The final chapter has been written. With hearts heavy beyond words, we share that our beloved father has passed away.

“To the world, he leaves behind a life filled with beauty, memory, and a legacy that will continue to live through all those he touched. But to us, we lost a father, our source of love, strength and home,” they wrote.

Born in Birzeit, near Ramallah, in 1947, Mansour graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 1970, and became a prominent figure in Palestinian art for more than five decades.

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Syrian Druze chief says community ‘an integral part’ of Israel

Speaking in Syria’s Sweida on Monday, Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al-Hijri said his community is “an integral part of Israel”, which he says is a “state of knowledge and civilisation”. 

Back in July, al-Hijri had suggested that Syria’s Sweida province be integrated into Israel while speaking at an event marking the first anniversary of violent sectarian unrest in the southern province. 

Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, there have been outbursts of violence between different sects and communities in the country, including in Sweida and the coastal Alawite heartland of Latakia.

Analyst says US lacks leverage to force global isolation of Iran

When US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out “Operation Economic Outcast”, he told the world, "You are either with us or against us.”
 
Every country has to cut ties with Iran, or the US says it will sanction them.
 
So is Trump’s D-Day an attack of historic proportions? Or an administration out of ideas?
 
MEE’s Mathilda Mallinson speaks to Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington.

Ben Gvir celebrates Israeli raid on Unrwa office in occupied West Bank

"On my shift there is no Unrwa, no management, they will not be here."

Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, posted a video of himself sitting at what he said was the director’s desk of Unrwa in Qalandiya Refugee Camp, celebrating the raid on the UN agency. 

On Tuesday, Israeli forces stormed Unrwa vocational centres in Qalandiya and Kufr Aqab that serve about 16,000 Palestinian refugees across the occupied West Bank.