Israel

The United Nations human rights agency and the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates have condemned a days-long Israeli settler siege of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra.

The two statements were issued on Thursday, as dozens of Israeli settlers continue to besiege three Palestinian families in the Ras al-Ain area in western Qusra for a fifth night.

“These criminal actions by the settlers, supported or acquiesced to by Israel, the Occupying Power, are making life unbearable for these Palestinian families and are clearly aimed at forcing them to leave their homes and their land,” the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

The three families – comprising 15 people, including two children – have been confined to their homes with their water and power cut off since Sunday, the agency said.

“Time is running out for these three families before they are forcibly displaced,” it warned.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the settlers for carrying out “systematic assaults that can only be described as terroristic”.

It also accused Israel of using the settlers as an “unchecked tool to implement its criminal policies” of forced displacement and annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Earlier on Thursday, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also referred to the settlers’ actions as acts of “terror”.

‘This is all a charade’

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from the scene of the siege on Thursday, said Israeli soldiers initially tried to move the trapped families out of their homes while settlers remained camped outside.

The families refused, not trusting that the Israeli soldiers would allow them back into their homes, and were eventually grouped together in one home. Residents have watched settlers push families out and then take over their properties in the past, she reported.

Qusra has faced settler attacks for decades, Ibrahim explained, and residents tie the rise in violence to the spread of illegal settlements and the lack of accountability for attackers.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said its troops dismantled “two illegal outposts” in Qusra and a nearby village, and detained one Israeli. It said more soldiers were sent to “carry out defensive missions and patrols”.

However, Ibrahim said most Palestinians believe the Israeli army is staging its response to the settler siege for the cameras, and they expect the settlers will eventually return.

Abdel Azim Wadi, the mayor of Qusra, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army has been protecting and helping the settlers. “We saw them praying together, barbecuing together and dancing together,” he said. “They are not very interested in helping the besieged families.”

Qusra resident Abdul Kareem Hassan told Al Jazeera that he had been sleeping in his car for seven months in order to protect his home.

“This is all a charade,” he said. “If they [the Israeli army] were serious, the whole operation would not take them one hour. We’re talking about 20 settlers. If they would treat them the same way they treat Palestinians, they could finish in less than an hour.”

Another day without respite

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israeli settlers and soldiers continued their elevated campaign of violence against Palestinians, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli forces issued demolition notices for homes in Kafr Sur, the Jalazone camp and farmers’ shelters in al-Jiftlik.

In Qalqilya, soldiers detained seven relatives of a Palestinian fighter killed in a 2024 strike. Soldiers also detained three Palestinians amid a settler incursion in Burqa, east of Ramallah.

Settler attacks took place across several towns and villages, including an incident in which three Palestinians, including a child, were pepper-sprayed in their car.

Settlers also re-established a settlement near Jenin and erected a new outpost on land belonging to a town near Tulkarem.

Ein el-Hilweh, occupied West Bank – Adel Daraghmeh lies on his side on a thin mattress laid straight onto the dusty ground, one arm flung out, a sandal hanging half off his foot. “We don’t sleep, we barely drink, we barely eat,” he says weakly.

Above him, a patchwork of dark tarpaulins and old blankets is tied together between a few bent wooden poles – the only thing standing between his family and a sun pushing past 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) in the early afternoon.

They are homeless again – their home destroyed days before by an Israeli bulldozer despite a court injunction they believed protected them. Beside him, his wife, Kheirieh, sits on a chair, a small plastic cup of water cradled in both hands.

About 30 metres up a slope, a settler-built fence now cuts across the hillside, cutting Adel and his brothers off from land their flocks grazed for generations. Past the fence, on the crest of the hill, an Israeli flag flies – visible from where Adel lies. “Isn’t this a disgrace, what we are living in?” he asks, more than once, over the course of an hour.

Adel manages diabetes with daily medication, but it’s been a struggle to obtain it in recent days. “They bulldozed the medication [in the house],” says Adel. “Our things, our household goods – all gone. They destroyed us. Our phones, the solar panels – no electricity, no water.”

As the family has learned in recent weeks, as Israel gears up for fiercely contested elections in October, even an Israeli Supreme Court injunction may not stop the bulldozers from coming now.

‘Five minutes to clear the whole area’

The wreckage of the Daraghmehs’ house is still scattered: clothes, a pulverised medicine cabinet, a hollowed-out mini-fridge with its door hanging open, and split cinderblocks.

Even after their son Hilal’s home was demolished shortly before without warning, the July 28 demolition of Adel and Kheirieh’s home came as a shock. With Adel a short drive away in Tubas collecting medication, Kheirieh was home with their daughter, Hanaa, when Israeli soldiers, settlers and Civil Administration officials arrived with a bulldozer and about 10 other vehicles. “They came while I was asleep,” she says.

Kheirieh walked out to meet them with the family’s legal papers – proof, she believed, that the home was protected by an earlier Israeli Supreme Court order barring demolition until the family’s case was resolved.

The court had suspended a 2022 demolition order while a case brought forward by the family progressed.

Soldiers took the documents, read them, conferred among themselves, and handed them back.

Then the bulldozer started anyway.

“Five minutes to clear the whole area,” one of them told her, she says.

“I told him: I can’t. I can’t clear the area. I’m on my own, and I’m ill,” she says. Already sick, and now seeing the bulldozers bearing down on her home with nearly everything she owned inside, she blacked out, waking up three hours later in an ambulance.

“And before I knew it, the bulldozer had started,” she says. “The whole house – all of it. All our belongings. Gone.”

“No order, no law,” added Adel weakly from the ground. “No humanity.”

‘Discriminatory’ system

“The army and the settlers demolished … despite the existence of a court order prohibiting it,” says Tawfiq Jabareen, the lawyer representing the Daraghmeh family, referring to the initial July 2 demolition of Hilal’s home. “The prosecution claimed it was a mistake by the army, and that it would not happen again – but the demolition was repeated.”

“The law and court rulings mean nothing to the settlers,” adds Jabareen, “who try to circumvent them by every means, believing that imposing facts on the ground is stronger than any law or court ruling.”

The Daraghmehs are herders of livestock who have lived along the Ein el-Hilweh spring, in the northern Jordan Valley, for generations. Four brothers and their families live in the area. “I was born here,” Adel says. “My father was born here.”

Nearby are the illegal Israeli settlement of Maskiyot and several settler outposts established in recent years, subjecting the extended family to numerous attacks, thefts and raids.

Like herding communities across Area C of the West Bank – under complete Israeli military and administrative control – the family has spent years navigating demolition orders under a planning system that leaves Palestinians almost no legal path to build.

Adel has had his home demolished before and spent significant money to rebuild it, he explains. What’s different now, they say, is that even that limited process – a warning, a demolition order, followed by a chance to appeal – has stopped applying to them at all. No demolition order was presented for either Hilal’s home or Adel’s when they came to bulldoze them despite the court injunctions.

Soldiers, settlers and Civil Administration officials arrived together during the demolitions, according to the family and activists present.

Allegra Pacheco, chief of party of the West Bank Protection Consortium and a lawyer who has represented Palestinians before Israeli courts for decades, says the irregularity of such demolitions is no aberration in an otherwise functioning system.

“This is a continuation of the deterioration of any pretence of legal protection for Palestinians,” she says. Even the ordinary planning process was built to fail Palestinians, she argues. Under a zoning system inherited from Jordanian and British Mandate-era law, Israel changed some of the laws to the detriment of Palestinians, leaving most Palestinian areas in Area C without approved building plans, while Israeli settlements – illegal under international law – are zoned and built freely.

“The Israelis set up the system to be discriminatory and to fail Palestinians,” says Pacheco. “So people build anyway, get the stop-work order, then demolition [order] – which you can appeal. But you’re appealing to the one who made the rule to discriminate against Palestinian construction.

“There’s no way for Palestinians in general to win under the current Israeli legal framework.”

As lines blur between authorities and settlers, who exactly spearheaded the demolition – soldiers, settlers, the Civil Administration – was unclear even to the family. “They’re all the same when they come,” says Hilal. “They’re all together.”

According to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since January 2023, more than 6,200 Palestinians, including more than 3,000 children, have been forcibly displaced, including more than 2,300 people since the beginning of 2026 alone. More than 907 Palestinian structures in the occupied West Bank have already been demolished this year.

Al Jazeera reached out to Israeli authorities and the military for comment on the events described in this article, but no response has yet been received.

‘Nothing is holding them back’

A short walk from the rubble of his parents’ home – and his own – Hilal sits under the shade of a tree beside the spring that sustained his family for generations, one that he and his flocks can no longer use.

Minutes earlier, he’d watched two settlers cool off at the spring, dousing themselves with water as one of them changed into a military uniform on the bank.

Hilal’s own remaining cattle – most of the herd already stolen, confiscated or sold – scrounge instead for whatever run-off is left once the settlers are gone. “We used to drink from this spring, and carry water on the donkey,” he says. “But they stopped us. The settlers fenced it off.”

Later, he rides his donkey across the road to what remains of his home. What had been walls and a roof is now a field of scorched rubble and gnarled metal piping, bent and knotted where the bulldozer dragged it. On his donkey, Hilal points to where each room had stood. He estimates the losses at 170,000 shekels ($57,000).

“Not a single thing I got to take – all of it is gone,” he says.

Next door, at the home of Adel’s brother, Qadri – which was previously demolished in August last year – several relatives, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, describe an extended family bracing for its turn.

“Nothing is holding them back now,” one son says. “They don’t even need an order any more. Of course we are scared they will come for us next.”

Prevented from rebuilding by nearby settlers and soldiers, Adel and Kheirieh now rely on relatives for help getting basic supplies. “All of our family helps each other,” says one relative, “but it is so hard when we don’t have enough, and we might be next.”

Following earlier thefts by settlers and confiscations from authorities a year and a half ago, the family had another 50 head of cattle stolen by settlers, they say.

Amid deteriorating health, an exhausted, heat-stricken Adel sits up from lying on the ground only when the topic of past weddings comes up. His hoarse voice strengthens, and he breaks into a wide smile. Softly, he begins clapping out the rhythm of a dahiyyeh – the sung, chanted line-dance of Bedouin celebrations – his wavering voice rising over the sound of his own hands.

“What beautiful times together,” he says. “Beautiful.”

Then, as if that singing expended the last of his dwindling energy, he sinks back onto the sweat-stained mattress and exhales. “Inshallah those times will return,” he says. “Inshallah.”

Israeli settlers have besieged three Palestinian families inside their homes in the occupied West Bank, cutting off water and electricity in a campaign residents described as an attempt to steal their land.

Security camera footage from the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, on Wednesday shows Israeli settlers surrounding one of the houses.

Trapped residents said Israeli soldiers had failed to disperse the settlers despite intervening earlier in the day.

Aisha Abu Rida, one of the residents under siege, told Al Jazeera that the siege began on Sunday, with settlers blocking all entrances to her home.

“We are surrounded by settlers, but we are steadfast, God willing. We will not leave our home, no matter what happens. Despite the water and electricity being cut off, we will remain steadfast,” she said.

“Despite their repeated attacks, which are aimed at displacing us, God willing, we will remain steadfast and stay in our homes, even if we are martyred,” she added.

‘Living in fear’

Loai Ridi, an American-Palestinian who owns a house in the village, said his brother Qusai Abu Rida and 18-year-old nephew, Ahmed, were among those trapped.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Toledo, in the United States, he said the family was relying on a temporary solar power system and leftover well water from the winter after supply lines were cut.

“He [Qusai Abu Rida] does not want to leave the home. Because if he leaves the home, the settlers will take over immediately,” Ridi said. “It’s really very, very difficult. He just told me, ‘I only have supplies for two to three days left. And if no one is able to provide us with food, I am not sure what else I can do’.”

Ridi said Israeli forces had done little to intervene when his brother had called for help on Sunday, and alleged the soldiers had knelt to pray alongside the settlers at the scene, in footage that has since circulated on social media.

“They basically did nothing,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, more Israeli forces arrived on the scene, dismantled the settlers’ tent and clashed with about 50 to 60 of the group before withdrawing. “They were unable to evacuate the settlers because they were not firm with them,” Ridi said. “They should have picked them up in vans and taken them away.”

The Israeli military said later on Wednesday that it would deploy an additional infantry battalion to the area, with its chief of general staff ordering continued efforts “to strengthen order and operational control” and prevent further incidents.

A day earlier, the Israeli military had said it received reports of settlers entering and seizing Palestinian homes and land in the area, describing the activity as “illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable” and disruptive to residents’ daily lives. It added that disciplinary action would be taken against security personnel filmed at the site in preceding days.

Ridi said his family was “living in fear”.

“They are being harassed and attacked by the settlers,” he said. “I cannot do anything about it.”

‘Ethnic cleansing’

Qusra sits in Area B of the occupied West Bank, nominally under Palestinian civil administration. The village has faced a string of recent attacks, including the burning of a newly built mosque last month.

In the neighbouring village of Jalud, a similar two-week siege in July forced two Palestinian families off their land before settlers took over the property.

Violence and land seizures in the occupied West Bank have intensified over the past months, with Jewish settlers emboldened by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has overseen a rapid expansion of settlement construction in the territory.

More than 500,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank in settlements that are considered illegal under international law, alongside roughly three million Palestinians. Israel has occupied the territory since 1967.

According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, there are 146 illegal settlements in the West Bank and a further 390 smaller outposts.

Breaking the Silence, an Israeli rights group, said on X that while settlers commit “daily terror against Palestinian men, women, and children … neither this terror nor ethnic cleansing would be possible without the [Israeli] army’s support”.

The United Nations has also warned that the situation in the occupied West Bank has reached a “breaking point”.

According to UN figures, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 76 Palestinians, including 18 children, in the occupied territory so far this year. About 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have also been displaced by settler violence, demolitions and evictions.

UN’s Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov said on Tuesday that the UN has documented more than 1,430 settler attacks resulting in casualties or property damage across roughly 260 Palestinian communities in 2026, with many carried out in the presence of Israeli forces.

He also noted that Israeli authorities have also advanced or approved roughly 12,360 settlement housing units across the West Bank this year, including 5,160 in occupied East Jerusalem.

“These are interconnected steps, not isolated developments,” Alakbarov said, warning that they were reshaping the occupied West Bank, weakening Palestinian governance and advancing “de facto annexation”.

President Trump again insists the US has ‘total control’ of the strait, while Tehran is resolute that Washington must meet its demands.

“Cursed be you, State of Israel. Cursed be you,” Hugo Chávez said memorably on state television in 2010. Over his years in power, he floated the ancient antisemitic trope of the Christ-killing people, likened Israeli leaders to Hitler, called for them to be tried at The Hague, and in 2009 broke off relations entirely in response to the Gaza attacks, calling his own diplomats’ expulsion an “honor.” He had already withdrawn Venezuela’s envoy once before in 2006 over the IDF offensive in Lebanon, and three months after the 2009 break he recognized the Palestinian Authority. 

Although Venezuela never stopped trading with Israel, Chávez’s firm anti-Israel rhetoric was central to how the Bolivarian Revolution defined itself abroad, even after his death. Now his heirs are thawing one of the coldest relationships in chavista foreign policy. 

On Tuesday, the foreign ministries of Venezuela and Israel announced they would establish a “coordination mechanism” to provide consular services to their citizens, continuing the ongoing technical cooperation born out of Israel’s response to the June 24 earthquakes. Although the agreement falls short of full diplomatic restoration, with no mention yet of exchanging ambassadors or reopening embassies, it is the first formal coordination channel between the two countries since Chávez severed relations.

Chavista groups took to the streets in Caracas on July 25 to denounce the US-sponsored talks that began on August 1, burning Israeli and US flags.

In 2017, then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez said Venezuela wanted to restore ties, and the following year Maduro welcomed then-chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Moshe Amara, to Miraflores, awarding him the Libertadoras y Libertadores order—the same honor given to the Palestinian Authority’s Abu Mazen by Chávez in 2009. 

Although the government was quick to frame the collaboration as a humanitarian matter, it was also military from the jump. Six days after the quakes, a diplomatic and military mission departed to Venezuela from Israel, comprising more than 50 personnel from the Foreign Ministry, the IDF’s Home Front Command, and the National Emergency Management Authority, joined by ZAKA search-and-rescue volunteers. It was led by Brigadier General Elad Edri, chief of staff of the IDF Home Front Command, who in a July meeting presented a “Project for the Reconstruction of the Future” to Rodríguez. Delcy was then photographed alongside uniformed IDF officers, thanked the delegation on camera, and praised its members as “highly trained and professional,” ultimately asking Sa’ar to extend the mission. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally approved the extension.

Newly-appointed canciller Félix Plasencia sealed the agreement with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar after weeks of talks, and a day after holding a meeting with Isaac Cohen, chief rabbi of Venezuela’s Israelite Association. He delivered a letter addressed to Delcy Rodríguez, asking her to consider restoring diplomatic ties between the countries given “the needs of the Jewish community in our country.” 

Plasencia thanked Israel for its earthquake assistance and praised the community’s historic contributions to Venezuela, warm words for a community that chavismo long conflated with the State it was cursing. In 2009, Chávez called on Venezuela’s Jews to answer for a foreign government’s war and linked Jews to the hoarding of the world’s wealth in his 2005 Christmas address. During the 2012 campaign, chavista media hammered Henrique Capriles over his Jewish ancestry, and state security raided the Hebraica Jewish school twice, in 2004 and 2007, as denounced by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Signaling a willingness to rebuild relations with Israel is one more entry on a long list of things that Washington wants and that Rodríguez is willing to concede.

The government has reversed course, but some of its base has not. Chavista groups took to the streets in Caracas on July 25 to denounce the US-sponsored talks that began on August 1, burning Israeli and US flags. As the news of renewed consular relations broke, the Venezuelan Movement in Solidarity with Palestine, Al Awda, rejected “normalization with the genocidal state of Israel,” warning that “diplomacy cannot serve to whitewash crimes against humanity.” 

But the base’s anger misreads the nature of the turn. After a quarter-century defining itself against empire, chavismo is not softening but practicing what former diplomat Imdat Oner calls authoritarian pragmatism: trading diplomatic goodwill for room to consolidate power at home and attract economic opportunities. Since taking the interim presidency, Delcy Rodríguez has reversed much of the confrontational diplomacy of the Chávez and Maduro years, moving closer to Washington, restoring ties with Chile, Perú, and the Dominican Republic, withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, and distancing Caracas from Iran.

Signaling a willingness to rebuild relations with Israel is one more entry on a long list of things that Washington wants and that Rodríguez is willing to concede. Chávez cursed the State of Israel “from the depths of his soul and his viscera”, but his successors have decided that the soul of their revolution is worth sacrificing for their own survival.

The deaths on board the Egyptian-owned Tihamah mark first shipping deaths linked to Houthis since the US-Israel war on Iran began.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government has accused the Houthi rebel group of killing at least six people and wounding 10 others in a double-tap strike on a cargo vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

The attack on the Egyptian-owned Tihamah on Tuesday marks the first shipping deaths linked to the Iran-aligned Houthis since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28.

Yemen’s Transport Ministry said three Pakistani nationals and one Indonesian national were killed after the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles at the commercial ship, sparking a fire and causing “significant damage” to the vessel.

Yemen’s coastguard said in a separate statement that the Houthis fired another missile at the ship as rescue personnel were evacuating the dead and wounded.

“The attack struck the site of the rescue operation and resulted in deaths and injuries among the forces participating in the response operation,” the coastguard said.

At least two troops were killed in the second strike.

Ten people were wounded in total, including seven crew members, it added.

Houthi-Saudi truce unravels

Yemen’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and called on the international community “to move from condemnation to effective and decisive action” against the Houthis.

There was no official comment from the Houthis.

But the Houthi-run news agency Saba reported that the ‌group had attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in Bab al-Mandeb. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, the US military said it fired on a ship attempting to break its blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman. The US Central Command said a Navy helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles at the Panama-flagged Vela Nova cargo vessel, but did not say if any crew members were wounded.

The escalation in Yemen follows the collapse of a years-long truce in the country’s civil war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government.

The breakdown of the United Nations-backed 2022 truce followed a Saudi air strike on the runway of Sanaa airport on July 13, preventing the landing of an Iranian flight carrying a high-ranking Houthi delegation.

The Houthis then attacked the Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia and announced a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. They have also attacked Saudi vessels as well as oil facilities in the kingdom, adding further disruption to the global economy.

The Saudi-led coalition, in turn, has struck Houthi-controlled Hodeidah and Kamaran, Yemen’s largest island in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have also launched attacks on government-held areas in Yemen, including the port city of al-Makha (Mocha) on the Red Sea and the central city of Marib, killing dozens of troops and civilians.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government on Tuesday said the Houthis launched 10 missiles and four drones during a series of further attacks on sites on the country’s western coast.

The Houthis said they had launched ballistic missile and drone attacks “targeting Saudi military buildups, weapons depots and command posts” in al-Makha and the central Marib province.

The UN has called for restraint, saying the renewed hostilities risk “drawing the country into a broader regional confrontation, with devastating consequences for its people”.

Iran has held firm on its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, visited Tehran, and the United States and Yemen’s Houthis launched attacks on shipping in the Gulf and the Red Sea.

The developments on Tuesday came as the US-Israel war on Iran showed no sign of ending, despite repeated claims from US President Donald Trump that a deal was close.

Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told China’s ambassador to Tehran that Washington must end its military campaign and release Iranian funds held abroad for a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

“As long as the US does not change its behaviour and accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened,” Rezaei said, according to Iranian media.

Writing on X, he insisted on an end to the US’s naval blockade on Iranian ports as well as a region-wide ceasefire, including in Gaza and Lebanon.

“IRAN’s message is clear,” he wrote. “The Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the U.S. ends the war and blockade, releases Iran’s frozen assets, and agrees to a region-wide ceasefire, including in Lebanon and Gaza.

“Until all conditions are met, the Strait will remain closed.”

There was no immediate comment from Washington.

Trump has swung between threats of escalation and assurances of an imminent peace deal throughout the conflict.

In an interview broadcast late on Monday, he suggested that the uncertainty could last ⁠for a while, saying he might just “bop along” and let Tehran fail economically, or “hit” them “really, really hard”.

“I’m sort of negotiating,” Trump told Real America’s Voice. “They’re very devious negotiators.”

In Tehran, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Pakistan’s interior minister, with the two sides discussing closer political, economic, trade, cultural and security ties, according to the Iranian presidency.

Naqvi’s visit comes as Islamabad mediates efforts to end the ongoing conflict.

Earlier, Qatar – another mediator in the conflict – said talks between Iran and Oman on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz had reached an advanced stage.

“We have heard positive statements from both capitals in the recent couple of days,” said Majed al-Ansari, spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry. “Our main priority here is the reopening of the strait, maintaining the ceasefire and making sure that we are able to push forward towards the negotiation.”

Iran, meanwhile, said any agreement between it and Oman on routes in the Strait of Hormuz will have no impact on the reopening of the waterway.

US, Houthi attacks

Separately on Tuesday, US Central Command said a US Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles to disable the steering gear of a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

It said the ship had ignored repeated warnings to stop violating the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

At the southern end of the Red Sea, four crew members were killed in a suspected Houthi attack on a small cargo vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, according to Yemen’s Transport Ministry. Two Yemeni rescuers from an anti-Houthi military group were also killed, Yemen’s coastguard said.

The killings on board the Egyptian-owned Tihamah would be the first by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi strikes on shipping since the war on Iran began in late February.

The Houthi-run Saba news agency reported that the ‌group had attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in Bab al-Mandeb. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.

Thousands of people have been killed since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. Iran has also struck US assets and infrastructure in Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In Iran, at least 3,527 people have been killed, while more than 27,00 have been wounded. At least 18 Americans have also died.

The conflict has also widened to Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has launched attacks on Israel, and Israeli forces have carried out near-daily strikes.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israel’s latest military escalation there, which began on March 2, has killed more than 4,300 people and injured more than 12,000. In Israel, at least 60 people have been killed in Iranian and Hezbollah attacks.

Caracas, August 11, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez is advancing diplomatic normalization with Israel after 17 years of severed relations.

In statements published on Tuesday, the Venezuelan and Israeli foreign ministries announced that, following “high-level talks,” the two countries would continue “bilateral technical cooperation” amid “recovery efforts” related to the June 24 double earthquake in the Caribbean nation.

“The two countries have also agreed to establish a coordination mechanism to provide consular services to their citizens residing in the other country,” the communiqués read.

Caracas additionally underlined that the ties between Israel and the Venezuelan Jewish community “constitute an important and historic friendship bridge between both countries.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar hailed the renewal of consular relations as “good news.” He added that the decision was agreed to in “conversations” with Venezuelan counterpart Félix Plasencia, creating “an official coordination channel” for the first time since 2009.

The announcement also followed a meeting Sunday between Plasencia and Orthodox Rabbi Isaac Cohen in which the latter formally requested that Venezuela reestablish diplomatic ties with Israel.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Cohen delivered a letter addressed to Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, arguing that normalizing relations with Tel Aviv is necessary to “tend to the needs of the Jewish community” in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s top diplomat thanked Cohen, on behalf of the Rodríguez administration and the Venezuelan people, for Israeli “assistance” following the June 24 double earthquake.

Cohen, a rabbi from the Venezuelan Jewish Association (AIV), was reportedly one of the intermediaries for the arrival of an Israeli diplomatic and military mission one week after the earthquake. The delegation included IDF officers and weapons contractors, while several Tel Aviv-aligned organizations likewise deployed on-the-ground teams.

Rodríguez held multiple meetings with the Israeli team, praising its members as “highly trained and professional” and thanking them for their work. IDF spokesman Roni Kaplan stated that the Israeli team had created a “dashboard” for Venezuelan authorities to evaluate damaged buildings, while Brigadier General Elad Edri was pictured presenting a “Project for Future Reconstruction” slideshow.

The Israeli mission has sparked growing protests, with Venezuelan popular movements reaffirming support for Palestine, condemning the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and burning Israeli flags.

Following the latest decision to deepen the engagement with Tel Aviv, the Venezuelan Movement in Solidarity with Palestine Al Awda issued a statement rejecting “normalization with the genocidal state of Israel.”

“We reject the use of ‘cooperation’ rhetoric to cover for barbarism and apartheid. Diplomacy cannot be used to whitewash crimes against humanity,” the text read.

Similarly, the International Platform in Solidarity with the Palestinian Cause argued that it was “unacceptable and unjustifiable” to strengthen relations “with a government formally accused of genocide.”

“We warn that reestablishing ties with [Israel] amounts to validating its crimes, in Palestine and all over the world, and becoming complicit before history,” its communiqué stated.

Former President Hugo Chávez severed ties with Israel in 2009, fiercely denouncing the US ally for genocide and demonstrating unwavering support for the Palestinian cause. His stance was maintained by Maduro, who endorsed South Africa’s activation of the Genocide Convention against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2024.

Following the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of Maduro, Rodríguez fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement with Washington alongside a broader radical shift in Caracas’ geopolitical alignment. 

Apart from re-engagement with Israel, the Venezuelan government is also reestablishing ties with far-right US allies in Latin America, including Chile, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, while distancing itself from historic partners in Havana and Tehran. During the recent US-Israel war against Iran, Caracas offered no backing for Tehran, instead voicing “solidarity” with US Gulf allies such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

[Updated on August 11]

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

Aug. 11 (UPI) — Israel recorded two diplomatic advances in Latin America, as Colombia became the second country in the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and Venezuela agreed to restore consular services with Israel for the first time since diplomatic relations were severed in 2009.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry announced Monday its recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau along the border between Israel and Syria, saying the decision was in response to “persistent regional instability in the Middle East” and the territory’s strategic importance to Israel’s security.

“Colombia recognizes that Israel’s continued control and sovereignty over the Golan Heights constitutes an essential component of its national defense,” the Colombian Foreign Ministry said.

The decision makes Colombia the second country in the world, after the United States, to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory. The United States did so in 2019 during President Donald Trump‘s first term.

Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and extended its laws, jurisdiction and administration over the territory in 1981. The United Nations does not recognize that move and considers the Golan occupied Syrian territory.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 497 declared Israel’s decision “null and void and without international legal effect.”

Syria condemned Colombia’s recognition, saying it violates Syrian sovereignty and international resolutions concerning the territory. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the Golan is an “integral and indivisible part” of Syria and called on Colombia to reconsider its decision.

The Arab League, Saudi Arabia and Egypt also rejected the move and reaffirmed Syria’s sovereignty over the territory.

Colombia’s decision comes amid a broader shift in relations with Israel under President Abelardo de la Espriella. His government also announced plans to relocate the Colombian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reversing policies adopted under Gustavo Petro, who severed diplomatic relations with Israel in May 2024 in response to the war in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described Colombia’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights as a “historic” decision, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Separately, Israel and Venezuela announced Tuesday that they had agreed to establish a coordination mechanism to provide consular services to their citizens, creating the first official link between the two countries since Caracas severed diplomatic relations with Israel 17 years ago.

The agreement, announced in a joint statement released by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, does not amount to the full restoration of diplomatic relations or include the reopening of embassies.

The two countries also agreed to continue bilateral technical cooperation that began after Israel sent humanitarian assistance to Venezuela following the magnitude-7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes that struck the country June 24.

An Israeli delegation composed of Foreign Ministry and Israel Defense Forces personnel traveled to Venezuela after the earthquakes and worked with Venezuelan authorities and emergency teams on disaster response, recovery and humanitarian assistance.

The rapprochement also comes amid efforts by Venezuela’s Jewish community to promote the normalization of relations.

Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry said Isaac Cohen, chief rabbi of the Venezuelan Israelite Association, delivered a letter to President Delcy Rodríguez asking her to consider restoring diplomatic relations with Israel.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia said the request was intended to “address the needs of the Jewish community in our country.”

In their joint statement, Israel and Venezuela highlighted the relationship between Israel and Venezuela’s Jewish community, describing it as an “important bridge of historic friendship” between the two countries.

Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Israel in January 2009 under then-President Hugo Chávez amid the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

Caracas, August 10, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia held a meeting with Orthodox Rabbi Isaac Cohen on Sunday in which the latter formally requested that Caracas reestablish diplomatic ties with Israel.

According to a Foreign Ministry statement, Cohen delivered a letter addressed to Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, arguing that normalizing relations with Tel Aviv is necessary to “tend to the needs of the Jewish community” in Venezuela.

“Venezuela has historically welcomed with open arms an important Jewish community, which has contributed to the development and well-being of our nation,” Plasencia wrote on social media.

Venezuela’s top diplomat thanked Cohen, on behalf of the Rodríguez administration and the Venezuelan people, for Israeli “assistance” following the June 24 double earthquake.

Cohen, a rabbi from the Venezuelan Jewish Association (AIV), was reportedly one of the intermediaries for the arrival of an Israeli diplomatic and military mission one week after the earthquake. The delegation included IDF officers and weapons contractors, while several Tel Aviv-aligned organizations likewise deployed on-the-ground teams.

Rodríguez held multiple meetings with the Israeli team, praising its members as “highly trained and professional” and thanking them for their work. IDF spokesman Roni Kaplan stated that the Israeli team had created a “dashboard” for Venezuelan authorities to evaluate damaged buildings, while Brigadier General Elad Edri was pictured presenting a “Project for Future Reconstruction” slideshow.

The Israeli mission has sparked growing protests, with Venezuelan popular movements reaffirming support for Palestine, condemning the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and burning Israeli flags.

Former President Hugo Chávez severed ties with Israel in 2009, fiercely denouncing the US ally for genocide and demonstrating unwavering support for the Palestinian cause. His stance was maintained by Maduro, who endorsed South Africa’s activation of the Genocide Convention against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2024.

Following the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of Maduro, Rodríguez fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement with Washington alongside a broader radical shift in Caracas’ geopolitical alignment. 

Apart from re-engagement with Israel, the Venezuelan government is also reestablishing ties with far-right US allies in Latin America, including Chile, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, while distancing itself from historic partners in Havana and Tehran. During the recent US-Israel war against Iran, Caracas offered no backing for Tehran, instead voicing “solidarity” with US Gulf allies such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

The South American nation is only the second country to recognise Israel’s claims over the illegally annexed Syrian territory.

Colombia has become only the second country to recognise Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, just days after far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella took power.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry made the announcement on Monday, joining the United States as the only other country to recognise Israel’s annexation of the territory in 1981.

“The Government of Colombia recognises Israeli sovereignty over this territory, as well as that State’s right to protect itself against external threats,” read a statement published on X.

“Colombia recognises that maintaining Israel’s control and sovereignty over the Golan Heights is an essential component of its national defence,” it added.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked his “good friend” de la Espriella for the “historic” recognition.

He said the pair had agreed on the move in the Colombian city of Barranquilla a day before de la Espriella’s inauguration.

Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, before illegally annexing the territory in 1981. The move was rejected by most of the international community, although the US formally recognised Israel’s claim in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

The United Nations recognises the region as a part of Syria, and last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated that stance, describing Israeli occupation as “totally unacceptable”.

Syria tried to regain the Golan in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, but was thwarted. Israel and Syria signed an armistice in 1974, and the Golan has been relatively quiet since.

Colombia’s recognition of the Israeli claim comes as Israel expands its military footprint in Syria following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024. Israel has moved troops into a UN-monitored buffer zone and seized strategic territories, including the Syrian side of Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon), which overlooks the capital, Damascus.

De La Espriella, the new Colombian president, ran a bombastic campaign during which he promised close relations with the US and Israel as a way to combat armed groups in his country.

The US-backed millionaire has promised to restore Bogota’s ties with Israel after his predecessor, Gustavo Petro, criticised Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, severed diplomatic relations and halted Israeli arms imports.

De La Espriella has also cancelled Petro’s plans to open an embassy in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Gaza City, the Gaza Strip – Palestinians in Gaza have reacted with a mix of scepticism and frustration to Israel’s rejection of a proposed 15-point plan aimed at ending the war and setting out a framework for the future.

The United States-backed initiative includes provisions for a phased Israeli withdrawal, the gradual disarmament of Hamas, a Palestinian-led civilian administration and steps towards humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

But on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “rejected” the plan, saying its forces will not withdraw until Hamas is “genuinely disarmed”.

For Nesma Harazin, a displaced writer from Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood, Netanyahu’s statement came as little surprise, as Israel continued ⁠⁠to carry out near-daily attacks regardless of a so-called “ceasefire” agreed with Hamas last ⁠⁠October.

“We are dealing with an Israeli occupation army that is capable of stopping these operations, but does not accept stopping them and continues to kill the Palestinian people,” said the 27-year-old.

Rather than a “real opportunity” to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians, Harazin said the proposal has been US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu’s plan “from a long time ago”.

Harazin’s scepticism was shared by Mehdi Ahmed, a Gaza City resident whose family home was among the few in his area to remain standing.

“We are under occupation,” said the 53-year-old. “As far as we are concerned, any ceasefire is temporary.”

Since the October “ceasefire”, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,258 people, bringing the overall number since the start of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023 to at least 73,386.

Ahmed warned that even if an agreement produced a period of calm, it might not last.

“Maybe we could sit here for a year without war, but I don’t think it will continue like that,” he said, arguing that the killings and the destruction in Gaza would shape future generations.

“The generations that are coming will not accept these kinds of solutions,” he said. “People who have lost their children, their parents and their families … you cannot expect them to simply forget.”

In a statement late on Sunday, Hamas said it remained committed to fully implementing the plan. It also urged mediating and guarantor countries to “assume their responsibilities” and prevent any “violations or breaches” that could obstruct the process.

The Gaza Government Media Office also blamed Netanyahu for what it described as a reversal of the negotiations and called for international pressure to prevent further escalation.

In a statement issued on Monday, the office said Netanyahu’s rejection of the 15-point document, along with demands including opposition to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, represented “a clear and unequivocal reversal of the negotiation track”.

‘We have no one’

But Ahmed said his experience of living his “whole life under occupation” and “in hardship” had left him unconvinced that years of negotiations could produce a lasting solution.

“They have been talking about these points for three years … are we going to spend another seven years talking about the points?” he asked, saying that Palestinians had been left without sufficient regional and international support.

“We have no one standing behind us to protect us. Why?”

For Harazin, a meaningful ceasefire would have to include the withdrawal of the Israeli army and an end to attacks, as well as a clear path towards reconstruction and the return of displaced Palestinians.

But following Netanyahu’s declaration, she said she feared further displacement and greater Israeli control over Gaza.

“If the ceasefire plan is rejected, the Israeli occupation army will carry out harsher operations than what we have heard about before in Gaza,” she said.

“Perhaps they will ask us to displace again to the southern areas. There are no buildings left standing in Gaza City.”

For Ahmed, the possibility of lasting peace is closely tied to the balance of power.

“When you are weak, there are no opportunities, and there is no hope,” he said. “Hope comes when you are strong.”

‘Hope in God’

Unlike Harazin and Ahmed, Ramez Haniyeh sees the proposed plan as a genuine missed opportunity to “end the war and the genocide”.

Haniyeh, who was displaced to Nuseirat in central Gaza after his home was destroyed, said he believed the proposal could have helped end the fighting and “stop the suffering” of Palestinians in the territory.

For Haniyeh, that would mean more than simply an end to Israeli attacks.

“Withdrawal, then reconstruction, and living with dignity,” he said when asked what he expected from a ceasefire.

But he fears the rejection could instead bring another escalation.

“I expect them to create a new target bank, so that things will escalate and there will be more bloodshed in the coming period,” he said.

Haniyeh described the humanitarian and economic conditions in Gaza as deteriorating, with widespread unemployment and many people unable to afford basic necessities.

“The situation is very bad, and it is getting worse every day,” he said. “There are some food and drink items available now, but there is no one who can afford to buy them.”

Despite his pessimism, Haniyeh said his hope rests on faith.

“I have hope in God, but there is no hope that this war will end,” he said. “It will continue until God relieves us.”

Despite her doubts about the proposal, Harazin said she also had “hope in God”.

“As long as we are Muslims, World War I ended and World War II ended too, so we have hope that the war in Gaza will end.”

Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has posted an AI-generated video depicting a starving Palestinian prisoner as well as real videos mocking detainees who describe poor jail conditions. It’s part of a campaign to promote his harsh treatment of Palestinians ahead of October’s elections.

Gaza Health Ministry says hospitals receive bodies of two Palestinians as Netanyahu rejects Trump plan to end war.

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least one person as Palestinian health authorities have confirmed another death after a body was recovered from beneath the rubble in the war-shattered enclave.

Israeli forces shot and killed one Palestinian east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, the Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported, quoting medical sources.

The Gaza Ministry of Health confirmed on Sunday that hospitals had received the bodies of two Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks, including one recovered from the rubble.

At least five people, including children, were wounded in Israeli attacks in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah on Saturday, QNA reported.

Local sources said several people were wounded when an Israeli tank opened fire on tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis. Among them was a woman who was critically wounded. A girl was seriously wounded by Israeli army fire in the al-Mawasi coastal area of Rafah.

Israeli artillery also shelled areas east of Khan Younis, and Israeli fire wounded several more people in the al-Mahatta area of Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the overall death toll since Israel launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023 was 73,386 with 174,250 wounded.

The remains of many people killed in Israeli attacks are still buried under rubble, and those deaths are uncounted, the ministry added. Ambulance and Palestinian Civil Defence crews remain unable to reach them.

Since a “ceasefire” took effect in October, the Health Ministry has recorded 1,258 people killed by Israel, 4,139 wounded and 807 bodies recovered from the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel has rejected United States President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, telling a cabinet meeting that Israeli forces “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed”.

The rejection follows a similar position taken last week by the US-led Board of Peace, which said an Israeli withdrawal would only proceed once Hamas’s disarmament is complete, leaving both the ceasefire’s terms and any timeline for Israel’s exit from Gaza unresolved even as casualties continue to mount.

Trump says US will wait for economic pressure to mount on Iran, as Israel formally rejects 15-point Gaza peace plan.

After visiting the West Bank, the group of public figures known as “The Elders” has concluded that Israel “aims to make Palestine disappear physically, economically, culturally and politically”.

Mary Robinson, former president of the Republic of Ireland and one of the leading members of The Elders, tells host Steve Clemons that the delegation was “shocked” at how the situation has deteriorated since 2023.

“It starts with hate speech, clear talk about Jewish supremacy and annexation of the West Bank,” says Robinson, adding that the Israeli government affords “complete impunity” for settlers and soldiers grabbing land and disrupting the lives of Palestinians across the territory.

‘We’re going backwards.’ Palestinians in Gaza say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of the US-backed 15-point plan has deepened uncertainty over an end to the war. Hamas says it remains committed to the agreement.