Bank

NEW YORK — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place by Jan. 20, marking one year since his return to the White House.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street and the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and to support his second-term agenda.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the last year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s.

Trump’s administration, however, has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office. His administration killed a Biden-era regulation that would have capped credit card late fees.

In a joint statement, the banking industry opposed Trump’s proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” the American Bankers Assn. and allied groups said.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to [rein] in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long.”

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) released a plan last February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump’s post, Sanders noted that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Sweet and Kim write for the Associated Press and reported from New York and West Palm Beach, Fla., respectively.

Israeli forces raided Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, firing live ammunition to disperse students during a protest and film screening. At least three students were injured as troops entered the campus and classrooms.

RADIO 2’s Scott Mills has earned £190,000 in panto — but TV fave Alison Hammond is still queen of the Christmas show pay deals.

Despite her opting to sit out the 2025/26 panto season, The Sun understands that no one on the circuit has been able to command her £195,000 fee.

The 50-year-old This Morning host had become a regular — most recently starring as a Magic Mermaid in Birmingham’s production of Peter Pan.

Meanwhile Scott, 52, played Mayor Mills Jack and the Beanstalk in High Wycombe, Bucks.

Fellow BBC host Vernon Kay, who stayed off the stage this time, played in Aladdin there last year.

Catherine Tate, 56, is reported to have pulled in around £120,000 for a 60-show run at The London Palladium.

FEELING THE LOVE

Alison Hammond declares her love for toyboy boyfriend David Putman

PERFECT VISION

Alison Hammond has a new role – helping to give people eye and hearing tests

She made her debut in the panto playing the Wicked Fairy in Sleeping Beauty.

Other lesser known stars taking part in Panto this year include Call the Midwife’s Laura Main and Helen George.

The Sun understands there is set to be a huge shake up of London panto as a series of decade long contracts expire.

A source said: “Many of the famous faces in the Palladium’s panto have been on contracts locking them in for years – some as much as a decade.

“They are now all running out so bosses are ready to shake things up.”

Guterres says pending ban targets groups ‘indispensable to life-saving’ work, undermines ceasefire progress.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to reverse a pending ban on 37 nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

In a statement on Friday, Guterres called the work of the groups “indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work”, according to spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. He added that the “suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire”.

Israel banned the humanitarian groups for failing to meet new registration rules requiring aid groups working in the occupied territory to provide “detailed information on their staff members, funding and operations”. It has pledged to enforce the ban starting March 1.

Experts have denounced the requirements as arbitrary and in violation of humanitarian principles. Aid groups have said that providing personal information about their Palestinian employees to Israel could put them at risk.

The targeted groups include several country chapters of Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF), the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the International Rescue Committee.

To date, Israel has killed about 500 aid workers and volunteers in Gaza throughout its genocidal war. All told, at least 71,271 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

In his statement, Guterres said the NGO ban “comes on top of earlier restrictions that have already delayed critical food, medical, hygiene and shelter supplies from entering Gaza”.

“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he said.

Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced throughout the war, with many still living in tents and temporary shelters.

Israel had maintained severe restrictions on aid entering the enclave prior to a ceasefire going into effect in October. Under the deal, Israel was meant to provide unhindered aid access.

But humanitarian groups have said Israel has continued to prevent adequate aid flow. Ongoing restrictions include materials that could be used to provide better shelter and protection from flooding amid devastating winter storms, according to the UN.

Earlier on Friday, the foreign ministers of Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia warned that “deteriorating” conditions threatened to take even more lives in Gaza.

“Flooded camps, damaged tents, the collapse of damaged buildings, and exposure to cold temperatures coupled with malnutrition, have significantly heightened risks to civilian lives,” they said in a statement.

They called on the international community “to pressure Israel, as the occupying power, to immediately lift constraints on the entry and distribution of essential supplies including tents, shelter materials, medical assistance, clean water, fuel, and sanitation support”.

While a western German city slept through the Christmas holidays, thieves drilled into a bank vault and vanished with millions.

Robbers broke into a vault at a savings bank in western Germany during the Christmas holidays, stealing cash, gold and jewellery estimated to be worth up to $105m, the police and the bank said.

According to police on Tuesday, the perpetrators used a large drill to bore through a thick concrete wall of a branch of Sparkasse bank in the city of Gelsenkirchen, in North Rhine-Westphalia state. Breaking in from an adjacent parking garage, the thieves gained access to an underground vault room and forced open more than 3,000 safe deposit boxes.

Thomas Nowaczyk, a police spokesperson, said investigators believe the total value of the stolen items could range between 10 and 90 million euros ($11.7m and $105.7m).

German news agency dpa reported that the robbery may rank among the biggest in the country’s history.

Sparkasse confirmed that the branch had been “broken into over the Christmas holidays”, saying that “more than 95 percent of the 3,250 customer safe deposit boxes were broken into by unknown perpetrators”.

The crime is believed to have taken place while businesses were closed for the extended Christmas break. Police suspect the gang may have remained inside the building for several days, using the long holiday weekend to break into the deposit boxes undetected.

The theft only came to light in the early hours of Monday, when a fire alarm was triggered. Emergency responders who arrived at the scene discovered the hole leading into the vault.

Witnesses later told police they had seen several men carrying large bags through the parking garage stairwell overnight between Saturday and Sunday.

Security camera footage also showed a black Audi RS 6 leaving the garage early on Monday morning, with masked individuals inside. The vehicle was later identified as having a licence plate belonging to a car stolen in Hanover, more than 200km (124 miles) northeast of Gelsenkirchen.

Ocean’s Eleven-esque

A police spokesman described the operation as highly organised, comparing it with a Hollywood-style robbery resembling Ocean’s Eleven.

The break-in was “indeed very professionally executed”, he told the AFP news agency.

“A great deal of prior knowledge and/or a great deal of criminal energy must have been involved to plan and carry this out,” he added.

Police said the average insured value of each deposit box was more than 10,000 euros ($11,700). However, officers said several victims had reported that the contents of their boxes were worth significantly more than the insured amount.

On Tuesday, hundreds of customers gathered outside the bank, demanding answers. The branch remained closed for security reasons after threats were reportedly made against staff.

“I couldn’t sleep last night. We’re getting no information,” one man told the Welt broadcaster, saying he had used the safe deposit box for 25 years and stored his retirement savings there.

Nowaczyk, the police spokesperson, said officers remained at the scene to monitor the situation. “We’re still on site, keeping an eye on things,” he said, adding that “the situation has calmed down considerably”.

The bank said it had set up a hotline for affected customers and would contact them in writing as soon as possible. It added that it was working with insurers to determine how compensation claims would be handled.

“We are shocked,” said bank press spokesperson Frank Krallmann. “We are standing by our customers, and hope that the perpetrators will be caught.”

Police said the suspects remain at large, and investigations are ongoing.

A spokesperson for the Sparkasse bank in Gelsenkirchen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Footage shows a massive hole in the vault of Sparkasse Bank in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, where thieves made off with valuables estimated to be worth between 10 and 90 million euros ($11.7 to 105.7 million), police said. Angry customers assembled outside the bank on Tuesday demanding answers.

Reporting from Washington — A bank has seized a Tulare County dairy farm owned by Rep. David Valadao and his family to resolve more than $8 million in loans that have not been repaid, according to court documents.

In November, agriculture lender Rabobank sued Triple V Dairy in Fresno County Superior Court alleging failure to repay loans for cattle and feed totaling about $8.3 million. The Republican congressman is named in the suit along with his wife, four other family members, two other farms and 50 unnamed defendants. Also listed in the suit is a separate farm owned by the family, Lone Star Dairy, in which the congressman has no stake.

Both sides agreed March 28 to hand control of the farm over to the bank until it is sold. The bank appointed a local business owner to oversee the daily operations of the farm and began to sell off livestock and farming equipment to settle the debt.

“Like so many family dairy farms across the country, burdensome government regulations made it impossible for the operation to remain open,” Valadao said in a statement. “While this has been an especially difficult experience, I remain hopeful that sharing my story will help those going through similar situations.”

The next court session in the case is scheduled for July 16.

House rules prohibit Valadao from having an active role in the day-to-day operations of the farm, which was largely managed by his brothers. Valadao lives near Hanford on the property of Valadao Dairy, which is managed by his father and is not involved in the lawsuit.

According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s annual summaries, almost 36% of dairy farms in California shut down between 2001 and 2017. In the last five years, at least 50 dairies in Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties have closed.

Valadao grew up in the dairy business and in 1992 became a partner in the family’s Central Valley dairy. Working on local agricultural interests through the California Milk Advisory Board and the Western States Dairy Trade Assn. spurred an interest in politics, and Valadao was elected to Congress after serving in the state Assembly.

Valadao’s stake in the Triple V and Valadao dairies has consistently made him one of the poorest members of Congress. According to his annual financial disclosure report, Valadao’s stake in each dairy is worth between $1 million and $5 million, but lines of credit against the farms and equipment give him an estimated net worth of negative $17.5 million.

Valadao is currently seeking a fourth term representing the 21st Congressional District, which stretches across rural portions of Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties.

The latest from Washington »

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sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of California’s delegation

Incursion follows Israeli defence minister’s order for military to ‘act forcefully’ against the Palestinian town.

Israeli forces have carried out mass arrests and forced dozens of families from their homes in the town of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank, on the second day of a sweeping military operation ordered by Israel’s defence minister.

Israeli forces sealed off entrances to Qabatiya while rounding up and interrogating dozens of residents on Saturday, local sources told Al Jazeera. They converted several homes into military interrogation centres, displacing their occupants, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

Israel’s Army Radio reported that the town is subject to a “full curfew”.

The crackdown follows an order by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ​to “act forcefully … against the village of Qabatiya”, where he claims a Palestinian alleged of carrying out a stabbing and car-ramming attack in northern Israel hails from.

In a statement on Friday, Israel’s military said it had deployed troops from multiple divisions, along with border police and members of the Shin Bet security service, into Qabatiya. It said forces had raided the attack suspect’s home and were preparing to demolish it.

Rights groups have long condemned Israel’s practice of demolishing the family homes of Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis, describing it as an illegal form of collective punishment.

Israel’s military claimed its forces would “scan additional locations in the village” and “work to arrest wanted individuals and locate weapons”.

“There is a sense of fear among people in town,” one resident told Al Jazeera. “There are Israeli threats and Israeli incitement.”

The Israeli military raids on Saturday also extended elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, including to several villages surrounding Ramallah and Hebron, Wafa reported. Israeli forces assaulted and arrested eight people from the towns of Dura, Abda and Imreish near Hebron, according to the news agency.

Israeli military incursions and attacks across the occupied West Bank have been a near-daily occurrence during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have arrested nearly 21,000 Palestinians. As of December 1, some 9,300 Palestinian prisoners were in Israeli jails, more than a third of them detained without charges.

Palestinian prisoners have been tortured, sexually abused and even killed in custody.

Fourteen countries, including France, Britain, Canada, Germany and Japan, condemned on Wednesday Israel’s recent decision to approve new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. They called on the Israeli government to reverse the decision and to stop expanding settlements. 

In a joint statement published by the French Foreign Ministry, the countries said: “We, States of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom condemn the approval by the Israeli security cabinet of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank.”      

The statement added: “We recall our clear opposition to any form of annexation and to the expansion of settlement policies.”   

Earlier, the Israeli government’s security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. This brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69.

READ: Shtayyeh: Settler population in West Bank and Jerusalem hits 881,000

Christmas celebrations return to Bethlehem as thousands gather in Manger Square for the first time since 2022.

Thousands of people have gathered in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve for the first public celebrations since 2022 after the city cancelled or muted festivities for two years out of respect for the thousands killed during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Families filled Manger Square in the occupied West Bank city as a giant Christmas tree returned to the plaza, replacing a nativity display used during the war that showed baby Jesus amid rubble and barbed wire, symbolising the devastation in Gaza.

The celebrations were led by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Catholic leader in the Holy Land, who arrived in Bethlehem from Jerusalem in the traditional Christmas procession and called for “a Christmas full of light”.

Scout bands from towns across the West Bank marched through Bethlehem’s streets, their bagpipes draped with tartan and Palestinian flags.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, its forces have carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank, arresting thousands of Palestinians and sharply restricting movement between cities.

Palestinians say the intensified military presence, road closures and checkpoint delays have deterred visitors, paralysing the tourism sector on which Bethlehem’s economy depends.

The vast majority of those celebrating were local residents, with only a small number of foreign visitors.

Unemployment in Bethlehem surged from 14 percent to 65 percent during the genocidal war on Gaza, Mayor Maher Nicola Canawati said earlier this month. As economic conditions deteriorated, about 4,000 residents left the city in search of work, he added.

Israeli raids and settler attacks

The return of Christmas celebrations comes despite continued raids and large-scale military incursions across the occupied West Bank, even after a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has been repeatedly violated by Israeli forces, took hold in October.

The raids often entail mass arrests of Palestinians, home searches and demolitions, as well as physical assaults that sometimes lead to deaths.

Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have reached their highest level since the United Nations humanitarian office began recording data in 2006. The attacks have involved killings, beatings and the destruction of property, often under the protection of the Israeli military.

Earlier on Wednesday, more than 570 Israeli settlers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem under police protection, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Palestinians say such incursions violate the longstanding status quo governing Islam’s third-holiest site.

Israel’s security cabinet has also signed off on plans to formalise 19 illegal settlements across the West Bank, in a move Palestinian officials say deepens a decades-long project of land theft and demographic engineering.

The United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and other countries condemned the move on Wednesday.

“We call ‍on ⁠Israel to reverse this decision, as well as the expansion of settlements,” said a joint statement released by the UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.

“We ‌recall that such unilateral actions, ‌as part ⁠of a wider intensification of the settlement policies in the West Bank, ‌not only violate international law but also risk fuelling instability.”

The Chase Celebrity Christmas Special is airing on Christmas Eve on ITV

Bradley Walsh is left gobsmacked after one star banks a ‘rare’ amount of cash on The Chase Celebrity Christmas Special.

The festive episode airs on Christmas Eve and sees comedian Lucy Porter, Countdown host Colin Murray, Strictly Come Dancing vocalist Tommy Blaize, and actor and comedian Asim Chaudhry take on five Chasers, who are dressed in festive costumes.

In an exclusive clip obtained by The Mirror, it sees Lucy, 52, impress during the cash builder round. At the start of the round, it sees host Bradley, 65, say: “Now, you and I, we’ve known each other a long while. You love quizzing, don’t you?”

To which Lucy admits: “I do, I do. My dad used to, when I was a kid, if we had dinner, you didn’t get pudding unless you could answer a quiz question.

“So, every time I would answer a question, he’d need to give me a slice of Viennetta or an Arctic roll!”

Lucy then gets stuck into the cash builder round, where each correct answer is worth £1,000. In the 60 seconds, Lucy is able to correctly answer ten questions, earning an incredible £10,000.

After the impressive cash builder round, the audience and Lucy’s fellow teammates erupt into cheers.

Meanwhile, host Bradley says: “Well that was very, very rare that we get five figures in a cash builder. Ten grand, congratulations, time to face a Chaser!”

Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Anne Hegerty, Paul Sinha, Jenny Ryan, and Darragh Ennis will all appear on the special festive instalment of the ITV quiz show.

The fancy dress theme this year is Christmas Lunch. The Beast is a Christmas Pudding, The Vixen is a Brussels sprout, The Menace is a Pig in Blanket, The Sinnerman is a Turkey and the The Governess is a Christmas Cracker.

Anne looks glamorous has ever in a blonde curly wig with a glitzy red ballgown for the special occasion where the others don eye-catching costumes to get into character.

The Chase Christmas Special airs on Wednesday 24 December at 5.55pm on ITV1.

For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new **Everything Gossip** website

California joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia Monday in a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from being defunded and closed by the Trump administration.

The legal action filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore. accuses Acting Director Russell Vought of trying to illegally withhold funds from the agency by unlawfully interpreting its funding statute. Also named as defendants are the agency itself and the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

“For California, the CFPB has been an invaluable enforcement partner, working hand-in-hand with our office to protect pocketbooks and stop unfair business practices. But once again, the Trump administration is trying to weaken and ultimately dismantle the CFPB,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said, in a press conference to announce the 41-page legal action.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Established by Congress in 2010 after the subprime mortgage abuses that gave rise to the financial crisis, the agency is funded by the Federal Reserve as a method of insulating it from political pressure.

The Dodd-Frank Act statute requires the agency’s director to petition for a reasonable amount of funding to carry out the CFPB’s duties from the “combined earnings” of the Federal Reserve System.

Prior to this year that was interpreted to mean the Federal Reserve’s gross revenue. But an opinion from the Department of Justice claims that should be interpreted to mean the Federal Reserve’s profits, of which it has none since it has been operating at a loss since 2022. The lawsuit alleges the interpretation is bogus.

“Defendant Russell T. Vought has worked tirelessly to terminate the CFPB’s operations by any means necessary — denying Plaintiffs access to CFPB resources to which they are statutorily entitled. In this action, Plaintiffs challenge Defendant Vought’s most recent effort to do so,” the federal lawsuit states.

The complaint alleges the agency will run out of cash by next month if the policy is not reversed. Bonta said he and other attorney generals have not decided whether they will seek a restraining order or temporary injunction to change the new funding policy.

Prior to the second Trump administraition, the CPFB boasted of returning nearly $21 billion to consumers nationwide through enforcement actions, including against Wells Fargo in San Francisco over a scandal involving the creation of accounts never sought by customers.

Other big cases have been brought against student loan servicer Navient for mishandling payments and other issues, as well as Toyota Motor Credit for charging higher interest rates to Black and Asian customers.

However, this year the agency has dropped notable cases. It terminated early a consent order reached with Citibank over allegations it discriminated against customers with Armenian surnames in Los Angeles County.

It also dropped a lawsuit against Zelle that accused Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and other banks of rushing the payments app into service, leading to $870 million in fraud-related losses by users. The app denied the allegations.

Monday’s lawsuit also notes that the agency is critical for states to carry out their own consumer protection mission and its closure would deprive them of their statutorily guaranteed access to a database run by the CFPB that tracks millions of consumer complaints, as well as to other data.

Vought was a chief architect of Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint to reduce the size and power of the federal bureaucracy during a second Trump admistration. In February, he ordered the agency to stop nearly all its work and has been seeking to drastically downsize it since.

The lawsuit filed Monday is the latest legal effort to keep the agency in business.

A lawsuit filed in February by National Treasury Employees Union and consumer groups accuses the Trump administration and Vought of attempting to unconstitutionally abolish the agency, created by an act of Congress.

“It is deflating, and it is unfortunate that Congress is not defending the power of the purse,” said Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser, during Monday’s press conference.

“At other times, Congress vigilantly safeguarded its authority, but because of political polarization and fear of criticizing this President, the Congress is not doing it,” he said.

The Israeli security cabinet has approved 19 new settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank as the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves to prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state.

As Netanyahu’s government has made the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory a priority, the United Nations has said Israeli settlement expansions in 2025 have reached their highest level since 2017.

“These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually from 2017 to 2022.

Under the current far-right government, the number of settlement and outposts in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem has risen by nearly 50 percent – from 141 in 2022 to 210 now. An outpost is built without government authorisation while a settlement is authorised by the Israeli government.

Nearly 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population of 7.7 million people lives in these settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

Here’s everything you need to know about the newly approved settlements and what they mean for the future of Palestinian statehood.

Where are the new settlements?

The new settlements are spread across the West Bank – home to more than three million Palestinians – from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south.

Most of them are close to the densely populated Palestinian villages of Duma, Jalud, Qusra and al-Lubban Asharqiya in the Nablus governorate and Sinjil in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, according to Peace Now, an antisettlement watchdog group based in Israel. Other locations identified by the watchdog for the new settlement areas are in the northwestern West Bank, in the Salfit governorate, near the Palestinian towns of Sa’ir and Beit Sahour, and other areas near Bethlehem and in the Jericho governorate.

Israel’s construction spree is entrenching the occupation and squeezing Palestinians out of their homeland. Settlements dot the West Bank and are often connected by Israeli-only highways while Palestinians face roadblocks and security checks, making their daily commutes harrowing experiences.

Israel has also built Separation Barrier that stretches for more than 700km (435 miles) through the West Bank restricting movement of Palestinians. Israel says the wall is for security purposes.

Under a dual legal system, Palestinians are tried in Israel’s military courts while crimes committed by settlers are referred to a civilian court.

Israel’s latest approval also includes settlements in Ganim and Kadim, two of the four West Bank settlements east of Jenin that were dismantled as part of Israel’s 2005 disengagement plan, a unilateral withdrawal ordered by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Israel controls most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory Palestinians want to be part of a future state along with Gaza. Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a 1967 war. It later annexed East Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as their future capital.

Israeli settlements and outposts are Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land and they can range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high-rises. About 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Peace Now.

The latest approval comes at a time when the United States has been working with Israel and Arab allies to move the Gaza ceasefire into a second phase. After a meeting on Friday of top officials from the US, Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar in the US city of Miami, Florida, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Israel of committing repeated violations of the ceasefire that began in October.

Israel still controls nearly half of Gaza’s territory since a ceasefire was announced on October 10 after more than two years of a genocidal war killed more than 70,000 Palestinians.

Has settlement construction spiked in recent years?

The new settlements bring the total number approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Smotrich, who is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself.

In May, Israel approved 22 new settlements in the West Bank, the biggest expansion in decades.

The UN chief has condemned what he described as Israel’s “relentless” expansion of settlements in occupied Palestinian 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”, Guterres said this month.

Palestinians have also been facing increasing settler violence since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

According to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), settlers have attacked Palestinians nearly 3,000 times over the past two years.

Settler attacks often escalate during the olive harvest from September to November, a vital time of year that provides a key source of income for many Palestinian families.

Settlers are often armed and frequently accompanied or protected by Israeli soldiers. In addition to destroying Palestinian property, they have carried out arson attacks and killed Palestinian residents.

Every West Bank governorate has faced settler attacks over the past two years, data from OCHA shows.

Are the settlements legal under international law?

No. The UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Committee of the Red Cross all consider Israeli settlements as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which outlaws settler activity.

In a landmark judgement in July 2024, the ICJ, the UN’s top court, found that Israel’s occupation, settlement activity and annexation measures are illegal. In its nonbinding advisory opinion, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

The judges pointed to a wide list of policies – including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians – all of which it said violated international law.

Two months later, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian territory within a year.

But Israel has defied the resolution by the global body backed by its ally – the United States. Washington has extended diplomatic cover to Israel against numerous UN resolutions.

Since returning to power in January, US President Donald Trump has adopted a permissive stance towards Israeli settlement activity, breaking with longstanding US policy.

In 2019, he said Israeli settlements in the West Bank were not inherently illegal under international law. Trump also revoked his predecessor President Joe Biden’s sanctions on several settlers and groups accused of perpetrating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

US sanctions on settlers under Biden came under Washington’s long-held policy that settlements are the biggest impediments to the two-state solution to the conflict.

However, Trump and his officials have repeatedly said Israel cannot annex the West Bank. “It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” Trump told Time magazine in October. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

What will the new settlements mean for the future of a Palestinian state?

The growing settlements – together with other projects undertaken by Netanyahu’s government like the E1 settlement plan that will split the West Bank – are further squeezing Palestinians in occupied territory.

Settlement expansions have drawn criticism from the international community, including Israel’s European allies, who said the steps undermine prospects for a two-state solution.

But Netanyahu and his far-right cabinet, including Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have doubled down on their rhetoric against a Palestinian state.

“On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state,” Smotrich said in his statement on Sunday.

In June, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway slapped sanctions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir for inciting violence.

Several European nations, including the UK and France, as well as Australia recognised Palestinian statehood in September in a push for the two-state solution.

Israel condemned the move, and Netanyahu said he won’t allow a Palestinian state. He has previously boasted how he scuttled the 1993 and 1995 Oslo peace accords by boosting settlement expansion in occupied territory.

“It’s not going to happen. There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said in an address in September. “For years, I have prevented the creation of that terror state against tremendous pressure, both domestic and from abroad.”

Palestinian officials condemn the actions as part of a ‘systematic policy of displacement’ in the occupied territory.

Israeli forces have stormed towns in the occupied West Bank and demolished a residential building.

Soldiers fired stun grenades and tear gas on Monday as they carried out the demolition in East Jerusalem. Palestinian officials accused Israel of a campaign of displacement in the city, saying the operation was part of a systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.

Scores of Palestinians were displaced as Israeli bulldozers tore through a four-storey residential building. Activists called it the largest such demolition in the area this year.

Three bulldozers destroyed the building with 13 apartments in the Wadi Qaddum neighbourhood of the Silwan district, south of Jerusalem’s Old City, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents reported.

Israeli forces cordoned off surrounding roads, deployed heavily across the area and positioned security personnel on the rooftops of neighbouring houses. During the operation, a young man and a teenage boy were arrested.

Residents were told the demolition order was issued because the building had been constructed without a permit.

Palestinians face severe obstacles in obtaining building permits due to Israel’s restrictive planning policies, activists say, a policy that they assert is part of a systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.

Israel’s security cabinet has recently approved the recognition of 19 new settlements in the West Bank, expanding the total number approved this year to 69 as the government continues its settlement push.

‘Systematic policy of displacement’

The Jerusalem governorate, affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, condemned the demolition.

“The building’s destruction is part of a systematic policy aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinian residents and emptying the city of its original inhabitants,” the governorate said in a statement.

“Any demolition that expels residents from their homes constitutes a clear occupation plan to replace the land’s owners with settlers.”

The Jerusalem municipality, an Israeli authority whose jurisdiction over East Jerusalem is not recognised under international law, said the demolition was based on a 2014 court order.

Israeli human rights groups Ir Amim and Bimkom said the demolition was carried out without warning despite a scheduled meeting on Monday to discuss steps to legalise the building.

“This is part of an ongoing policy. This year alone, around 100 East Jerusalem families have lost their homes,” the groups said, calling Monday’s demolition the largest of 2025.

Escalated attacks

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli forces damaged agricultural land and uprooted trees in the northern town of Silat al-Harithiya.

In the city of Halhul, north of Hebron, Israeli forces stormed several neighbourhoods with large numbers of military vehicles, deployed sniper teams and took up positions across the city.

Al Jazeera Arabic journalists reported that Israeli vehicles entered Halhul through multiple checkpoints, including Nabi Yunis, while closing the Halhul Bridge checkpoint linking the city to Hebron.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have also sharply escalated attacks across the West Bank.

More than 1,102 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, about 11,000 wounded and more than 21,000 arrested, according to Palestinian figures.

A Canadian lawmaker who was denied entry to the occupied West Bank, alongside fellow politicians and civil society leaders, has dismissed Israel’s claims that the delegation posed a threat to public safety.

Jenny Kwan, a Canadian MP with the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), questioned whether Canada’s recognition of an independent Palestinian state earlier this year contributed to Israel’s decision to block the group.

“How is it that members of parliament are a public safety concern?” she said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “How is it that civil society organisations who are doing humanitarian work… [are] a security concern?”

Kwan and five other MPs were among 30 Canadian delegates denied entry to the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday after Israel deemed them a risk to public safety.

The delegation, organised by nonprofit group The Canadian-Muslim Vote, was turned back to Jordan at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing, which connects Jordan with the West Bank and is controlled by Israel on the Palestinian side, after an hours-long security check.

Kwan said another female MP in the group was “manhandled” by Israeli border agents while attempting to keep an eye on a delegate who was being taken for additional interrogation.

“She was shoved – not once, not twice, but multiple times – by border agents there,” Kwan said. “A member of parliament was handled in that way – If you were just an everyday person, what else could have happened?”

The delegates had been expected to meet with Palestinian community members to discuss daily realities in the West Bank, where residents have faced a surge in Israeli military and settler violence.

They were also planning to meet with Jewish families affected by the conflict, said Kwan, who described the three-day trip as a fact-finding mission.

“I reject the notion that that is a public safety concern,” she said of the delegation’s mission.

Lack of information

Global Affairs Canada, the country’s Foreign Ministry, did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions about the incident.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Tuesday afternoon that the ministry was in contact with the delegation and had “expressed Canada’s objections regarding the mistreatment of these Canadians while attempting to cross”.

The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s repeated requests for comment.

In a statement to Canada’s public broadcaster CBC News, the Israeli military agency that oversees affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, COGAT, said the Canadian delegates were turned back because they arrived “without prior coordination”.

COGAT also said the group’s members were “denied for security reasons”.

But the delegates said they had applied for, and received, Israel Electronic Travel Authorization permits before they reached the crossing. Kwan also said the Canadian government informed Israel ahead of time of the delegation’s plans.

“I’m not quite sure exactly what kind of coordination is required,” Kwan told Al Jazeera.

“We followed every step that we’re supposed to follow, so I’m not quite sure exactly what they mean or what they’re referring to.”

Canada-Israel ties

Canada, a longstanding supporter of Israel, faced the ire of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it joined several European allies in recognising an independent Palestinian state in September.

“Israel will not allow you to shove a terror state down our throats,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

The recognition came after months of mass protests in Canada and other Western countries demanding an end to Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 people since October 2023.

Rights advocates also called for action to stem a surge in deadly Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Against that backdrop, members of the Canadian delegation questioned whether their entry refusal was part of an Israeli effort to prevent people from witnessing what is happening on the ground in the Palestinian territory.

“‘What are they trying to hide?’ is the question that comes to mind,” Fawad Kalsi, the CEO of the relief group Penny Appeal Canada and one of the delegates, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

Kwan, the Canadian MP, raised a similar question, saying, “If people cannot witness” what is happening on the ground in the West Bank, “then misinformation and disinformation will continue”.

She added that she also saw foreign doctors being turned back to Jordan at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing as they tried to bring medicine and baby formula into the West Bank.

“If we as members of parliament could face denial of entry,” she said, “imagine what is going on on the ground with other people, and the difficulties that they face, that we do not know about.”

A new wave of Israeli policies is changing the reality and boundaries on the ground in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli government has approved the formalisation of 19 so-called settlement outposts as independent settlements in the occupied West Bank. This is the third wave of such formalisations this year by the government, which considers settlement expansion and annexation a top priority. During an earlier ceremony of formalisation, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “We are advancing de facto sovereignty on the ground to prevent any possibility of establishing an Arab state in [the West Bank].”

Settlement outposts, which are illegal under international law, are set up by a small group of settlers without prior government authorisation. This does not mean that the settlers, who are often more ideological and violent, do not enjoy government protection. Israeli human rights organisations say that settlers in these so-called outposts enjoy protection, electricity and other services from the Israeli army. The formalisation opens the door to additional government funds, infrastructure and expansion.

Many of the settlement outposts formalised in this latest decision are concentrated in the northeastern part of the West Bank, an area that traditionally has had very little settlement activity. They also include the formalisation of two outposts evacuated in 2005 by the government of Israeli then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

While these government decisions may seem bureaucratic, they are in fact strategic in nature. They support the more ideological and often more violent settlers entrenching their presence and taking over yet more Palestinian land, and becoming more brazen in their attacks against Palestinians, which are unprecedented in scope and effect.

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem estimates that settler attacks against Palestinians have forcibly displaced 44 communities across the West Bank in the past two years. These arson attacks, vandalism, physical assault and deadly shootings are done under the protection of Israeli soldiers. During these settler attacks, 34 Palestinians were killed, including three children. None of the perpetrators has been brought to justice. In fact, policing of these groups has dropped under the direction of Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is a settler himself.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently sounded the alarm about Israel’s record-breaking expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and the unprecedented levels of state-backed settler violence. In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Guterres reminded states that all settlements are illegal under international law. He also warned that they erode Palestinian rights recognised under this law, including to a state of their own.

In September, United States President Donald Trump said he “will not allow” Israel to annex the West Bank, without offering details of what actions he would take to prevent such a move.

But Israel is undeterred. The government continues to pursue its agenda of land grab, territorial expansion and annexation by a myriad of measures that fragment, dispossess and isolate Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and continues its genocidal violence in Gaza.

More than 32,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank for nearly a year. The Israeli army continues to occupy Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin refugee camps and ban residents from returning. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have demolished and damaged 1,460 buildings in those camps, according to a preliminary UN estimate. This huge, destructive campaign has changed the geography of the camps and plunged more families into economic and social despair.

This is the state hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank find themselves in because of Israeli restrictions, home demolitions and land grabs. The Israeli army has set up close to 1,000 gates across the West Bank, turning communities into open-air prisons. This has a direct and devastating effect on the social fabric, economy and vitality of these communities, which live on land that is grabbed from under them to execute the expansion of illegal settlements, roads and so-called buffer zones around them.

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Israeli practices and policies over the past two years have cost the Palestinian people 69 years of development. The organisation recently reported that the Palestinian gross domestic product (GDP) has shrunk to 2010 levels. This is visible most starkly in Gaza, but it is palpable in the West Bank as well.

The results of these policies and this reality are Palestinians leaving their homes and Israel expanding. During the summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a local news station he was on a “historic and spiritual mission”, in reference to the vision of the Greater Israel that he said he was “very” attached to.

Israeli forces continue raids across occupied West Bank as Gaza reels from Israeli attacks and aftermath of a storm.

Rights groups say the demolition order, which will affect 100 Palestinian homes, is an attempt to ‘cage in’ Palestinians.

The Israeli military will demolish 25 residential buildings in the occupied West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp this week, according to local authorities.

Abdallah Kamil, the governor of the Tulkarem governorate where Nur Shams is located, told the AFP news agency on Monday that he was informed of the planned demolition by the Israeli Defence Ministry body COGAT.

Faisal Salama, the head of the popular committee for the Tulkarem camp, which is near Nur Shams, said the demolition order would affect 100 family homes.

Israel launched Operation Iron Wall in the occupied West Bank in January. It says the campaign is aimed at combating armed groups in refugee camps in the northern West Bank.

Human rights organisations have warned that Israel is using many similar tactics it used in its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza to seize and control territory across the occupied West Bank.

“This is part of a wider campaign that has persisted for about a year, targeting three refugee camps and demolishing or damaging a total of about 1,500 homes in the past year, and forcibly displacing 32,000 Palestinians,” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from the West Bank’s Ramallah.

Palestinians and human rights organisations say such demolitions are an attempt to “cage in” Palestinians and alter the geography in the West Bank, she added.

On Monday, a dozen displaced Nur Shams residents held a demonstration in front of armoured Israeli military vehicles blocking their way back to the camp. They protested against the demolition orders and demanded the right to return to their homes.

The head of the Palestinian National Council, Rouhi Fattouh, said that the Israeli decision is part of “ethnic cleansing and continuous forced displacement”, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

‘Social death’

Omer Bartov, a professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, told Al Jazeera that Israel was “dehumanising” the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank.

“[It is creating] a growing situation of social death, which is a term that was used to describe what happened to Jewish populations in Germany in the 1930s. That is, that your population, the Jewish population of Israel, increasingly has no contact with the people on the other side, and it exists as if they don’t exist,” he said.

“It dehumanises the population because you treat it as a population that has to be controlled, and it dehumanises the people doing it because they have to think of that population as being lesser than human.”

Aisha Dama, a camp resident whose four-floor family home, housing about 30 people, is among those to be demolished, told the AFP she felt alone against the military.

“On the day it happened, no one checked on us or asked about us,” she said.

“All my brothers’ houses are to be destroyed, all of them, and my brothers are already on the streets,” said Siham Hamayed, another camp resident.

Nur Shams, along with other refugee camps in the West Bank, was established after the 1948 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes in what is now Israel.

With time, the camps they established inside the West Bank became dense neighbourhoods. Residents pass on their refugee status from one generation to the next.