Palestinian

The rapper also challenged Robert Kraft to match the donation as fallout from his removal from Ed Sheeran’s tour grows.

Rapper Macklemore says he will donate the entire $1m he earned from singer Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour to organisations supporting Palestinians, days after he was dropped from the tour over his support for Palestine.

Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, announced the donation on Instagram on Wednesday, saying the money would go to six groups working directly to support Palestinians. He also called on pro-Israel billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, to match it after Kraft confirmed on Tuesday that he had barred Macklemore from performing at Gillette Stadium in the US state of Massachusetts.

“Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting,” Macklemore wrote. “A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth.”

In a statement on Wednesday evening, Kraft said that before Macklemore issued the challenge, Sheeran had called and asked him to commit $2m in humanitarian aid to the region. Kraft said Sheeran now planned to approach other venue owners in an effort to raise more money.

“I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting,” Kraft said.

Macklemore’s announcement comes as the fallout over his removal from Sheeran’s tour continues to grow. Macklemore said on Monday that he was dropped from the remaining United States dates after using his performances at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to speak in support of Palestinians.

All of the supporting acts for Sheeran’s upcoming US Loop Tour have now pulled out in solidarity with the rapper. Some of the artists are Irish and pointed to their own country’s history of occupation in explaining their decision to withdraw.

Sheeran has said the decision to remove Macklemore was ultimately made not by him but by the tour promoter.

Kraft later said he had opposed allowing the rapper to perform, citing what he described as Macklemore’s history of “antisemitic rhetoric and imagery”.

Kraft, in a statement to Al Jazeera, said the decision to ban Macklemore from his venue wasn’t about “diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians” but argued that “advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community or obscure the responsibility of Hamas”.

In his latest statement on Wednesday, Macklemore said he wanted to pull the conversation away from himself and the controversy surrounding the tour.

“That is what this has always been about. Not me. Not a tour. Not the headlines or the controversy,” he wrote. “It is about Palestinians’ right to freedom, dignity and safety in their own homeland.”

He also acknowledged that donating money carried far less risk than the work being done by people in Gaza and those organising in support of Palestinians.

“Writing a check is one of the least costly forms of solidarity available to me,” he wrote. “I am doing it because I can, and because these organizations are doing the work while much of the world debates it.”

He ended with a call for people to keep paying attention.

“When the news cycle moves on, which it will, don’t move with it. Free Palestine.”

DUBAI: Britain will “no longer stand by” while Israel kills Palestinian children in Gaza, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh said on Tuesday, pledging to increase pressure on Tel Aviv over the war and illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Speaking at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton, Haigh said Prime Minister Andy Burnham was right to acknowledge that Britain had been “too slow” in its response to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

“At a time when it has never been more important to remind the world who we are, we hesitated,” Haigh said.

“We will no longer stand by while innocent Palestinian families are torn apart, while innocent children are killed in Gaza, and while the hope of a two-state solution evaporates before our eyes,” she added.

Haigh said sanctions announced last week by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband were intended to “change course,” adding that Britain was “purposefully targeting the illegal settlements” and increasing pressure on the Israeli government.

The measures include sanctions targeting individuals and companies linked to Israeli settlement expansion, as well as a ban on imports from settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli people are not responsible for the actions of their government,” Haigh said. “We will stand against injustice. We will stand up for peace.”

She added that Britain would work with international partners to “speak with one voice” and help preserve the prospect of a two-state solution.

WASHINGTON: Jason Eaton insisted he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad when he shot three Palestinian college students who were walking past his home a few days after Thanksgiving. He said the US and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted the messages to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.

Eaton’s claims were at the heart of his insanity defens e as he went on trial Monday on attempted murder charges in a case that shook Burlington, Vermont, and reverberated in the West Bank, where the three wounded men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the US for college.

The November 2023 shooting, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, spawned calls for a hate crime investigation. But no hate crime charges were filed as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or something else had compelled Eaton to open fire on Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, who were all 20 at the time.

The men testified one after another as Eaton, now 51, watched stoically from the defense table in a Burlington courtroom. He has pleaded not guilty but doesn’t dispute that he was the shooter. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could be ordered to undergo mental health treatment.

Defense lawyer Joshua O’Hara, previewing testimony from a defense psychiatrist, told jurors in an opening statement that Eaton was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder after losing his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.

While listening to a local NPR affiliate, Eaton believed he was hearing messages that he attributed to the CIA, O’Hara said. At first, the messages were encouraging and validating, the lawyer said, but subsequent messages turned dark, insisting that Eaton “has to go out and shoot somebody.”

Prosecutor Sally Adams told jurors that a state psychiatrist who is slated to testify concluded that Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect. Evidence will show he intended to kill the men, was not legally justified in shooting them, and does not meet the test of legal insanity, Adams said.

Authorities found three shotguns in Eaton’s apartment and a Ruger .380-caliber handgun that crime lab testing concluded was the gun used in the shooting, Adams said. Eaton had purchased the gun seven months earlier from a Vermont gun store.

“If the defense tries to focus on the story that Mr. Eaton tells about why he intended to kill these three young men, that story is only part of the whole picture,” said Adams, the chief administrative deputy at the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, all of whom are now 23, told jurors of their holiday weekend visit to Awartani’s grandmother’s house, a trip to a bowling alley to celebrate his twin cousins’ birthday, and the walk they took near the University of Vermont campus after dusk that ended in bloodshed.

Awartani, who was studying at Brown University in Rhode Island at the time, said they were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic. Two of them said they were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs. Awartani said he first noticed Eaton standing on a porch as they approached the apartment house where he lived.

Within seconds, Awartani said, Eaton was off the porch and walking toward them. His face was expressionless and he didn’t say anything. As Eaton got to about five to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 meters) away, “he pulled out a handgun and started shooting at us,” said Awartani, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting and now uses a wheelchair.

Jacob Pyne, who lived in a different apartment in the same house as Eaton, testified that he heard four to six gunshots, followed by footsteps going up the stairs of the apartment house. He said he ran outside and heard two men speaking, one of whom was more vocal and yelling, “I’ve been shot, help me.” He then brought the men blankets and called 911.

Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College near Philadelphia, said he fled and hid behind another home after seeing Aliahmad fall to the ground. He said he only realized later when he sat down that he had also been wounded. Awartani was shot in the chest and the bullet ricocheted off his scapula, causing paraplegia in his spinal cord. Aliahmad, who was a student at Trinity College in Connecticut, was struck in the collarbone, and Abdalhamid was shot in the right buttock.

O’Hara, the supervising attorney at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office, told jurors that Eaton was confused by the messages he said he was receiving, and became convinced that the CIA and Mossad were enlisting him into “overwatch duty” to protect a Jewish family living across the street.

“These were delusions,” O’Hara said. “He believed in the moment that he was doing something that was right. He had been commanded to do this. And that he did not have the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct in the moment because he believed he’d been instructed to do this by a government agency or God.”

Israeli troops opened fire Saturday at a group of Palestinians who did not appear to be posing a threat in the occupied West Bank, wounding one man, according to video obtained by The Associated Press.

The video, shot by an eyewitness, showed the man falling to the ground near the Palestinian village of Faqqua, north of the West Bank.

At least 14 shots in total were fired during the duration of the video. They continued as several men rushed to move the injured man to safety before setting him down and tying a tourniquet around his leg in an apparent attempt to stop the bleeding.

Mahmoud Shahin, a resident of the village, said the Palestinians had rushed to the area after receiving reports that Israeli settlers had arrived there with a flock of sheep. He said Israeli soldiers then came and began firing in the air and toward the Palestinians.

He added that the wounded man was undergoing surgery at a hospital in Jenin.

Israel’s military said the video was authentic and confirmed its forces had fired toward the Palestinians, wounding one man, and said commanders would review the incident.

Under the ultranationalist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, settler violence in the West Bank has surged. The international community largely considers Israeli settlements to be illegal and obstacles to peace.

Over 700,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as parts of a future state.

GAZA: An Israeli strike in Gaza on Thursday killed a family including two children, Palestinian hospital and security sources said.

“The bodies of four members of the Ahmad family were recovered in pieces after an Israeli strike hit a house in the Beit Lahia Project area in the northern Gaza Strip,” an official at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said, identifying the children as aged 12 and eight.

The Israeli military, contacted by AFP, said it was checking.

LONDON: Israeli forces demolished a home on Tuesday that belonged to a Palestinian family in the nomadic hamlet of Khirbet Khalla Al-Dabaa, located in Masafer Yatta, south of the occupied West Bank.

Fourteen members of the Mohammad Ali Dabbaba family lost their home when Israeli authorities demolished their 200-sq.-meter residence, constructed from tin and stone, according to the Palestine News Agency.

Forces also filled a crucial water well for the Bedouin community, destroyed electricity networks, damaged several water tanks, and uprooted 15 trees. Additionally, Israeli forces demolished a residential cave belonging to Abdullah Dabbaba, which housed six people.

Israeli authorities have issued demolition notices for 14 inhabited caves and several homes in Khirbet Khalla Al-Dabaa, the report added.

Masafer Yatta consists of nearly 15 Palestinian hamlets located in the southern West Bank; Khirbet Khalla Al-Dabaa is one of them. Israeli forces and settlers regularly invade the area in an effort to evict its total population of 1,150 residents, half of whom are children. Since the 1980s, the area has been designated a military zone by Israel.

In late August, armed Israeli settlers detained a 22-year-old British activist in the village of Umm Al-Kheir in Masafer Yatta, who was part of a “protective presence” initiative intended to support Palestinian residents. He was deported from Israel last week.

Amid the grapevines that once provided a steady income for her family, 56-year-old Palestinian farmer Theeba al-Sabaa spends much of her day guarding her home and farmland in the occupied West Bank from settlers.

From dusk till dawn, she works on her land in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, known by locals as “Jabal Sabaa”.

Theeba is engaged in a daily battle against the encroaching settler outposts that have emerged among the rolling hills that surround her, and which block access to sections of her land.

“By God, the land has taught me patience, and to cling to my right, for as long as I have a right, I must take it and never let it go,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I will never leave it because I worked hard on it, I toil and sweat on it, so I will not leave my toil and sweat, or the toil of my children and my husband, to go to someone else.”

Weaponising livestock

Since mid-2024, when settlers established new outposts on the nearby hills, every one of Theeba’s moves has been monitored.

Settlers frequently approach the perimeter of her home and deliberately release livestock into the cultivated fields.

“They enter with their sheep into our land after we plow and fix it, grazing in it, trampling the crops, and stomping on them with their sheep, leaving nothing,” Theeba said.

“As soon as they feel any movement or anyone entering the land, you find them attacking us immediately.”

This intimidation extends to the adjacent fields, where 59-year-old Anwar Sabarneh lives with his extended family of seven brothers.

Due to the repeated settler violations, two of his brothers have been forced to abandon their land.

Sabarneh, who supports a family of 14, owns several dunams of vineyards located just 300 metres (980 feet) from his home. With aggressive settlers around, reaching them has become a dangerous ordeal.

Military complicity

Sabarneh said that the Israeli army even demands permits from Palestinians to work on their own land.

“The army came with the settlers to ask me for a permit so I can work in my home, in front of my house’s door, and on my land where I am the rightful owner,” Sabarneh said.

Farmers are also barred from building anything on their land. Sabarneh’s sheep have also been locked in a barn for over eight months due to the dangers posed by settlers.

“If they see me taking the sheep out, the settlers chase me, kidnap them, and steal them,” he said.

When Sabarneh’s children have tried to retrieve their stolen sheep, Israeli soldiers have arrested and beaten them.

A forced exodus

Repeated pogroms by settlers against Palestinian farmers reflect a broader strategy targeting agriculture across the southern West Bank.

Settlers and the Israeli troops carried out 11,074 attacks in the West Bank during the first half of 2026, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission. This includes 3,488 carried out by settlers.

Hasan Breijieh, a settlement affairs expert and director at the commission, told Al Jazeera that continuous settlement expansionism, alongside restrictions on Palestinian movement, are the primary reasons that so many Palestinians have been forced to flee their farms.

“Military gates erected at the entrances of Palestinian communities have tightened control over…  access to their orchards and vineyards,” he said.

Bypass roads, built by Israel, have also hindered “connectivity between Palestinian communities”, Breijieh said.

Under such restrictions, Palestinian farmers have faced a fourth consecutive season without being able to harvest olives, grapes, or guava. Their lands have been “neither plowed nor pruned”, and have been forcibly abandoned.

In the face of such oppression, Palestinian women like Theeba al-Sabaa have continued to play a pivotal role in protecting their land, particularly when men have been killed or detained by Israeli forces.

“They continue to maintain their leadership role in preserving the family’s agricultural legacy today,” Breijieh said. “This land was historically the primary source of livelihood for families, and a Palestinian cannot leave it voluntarily, no matter the sacrifices.”

He recalled his own grandfather, who went to his fields to bid farewell before dying. “Goodbye, vineyard,” he said to his land.

Israeli forces bar Israeli and Palestinian activists from delivering food and medicine to homes besieged by settlers.

Israeli police have killed a Palestinian man in Jerusalem and the Israeli army has blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching an occupied West Bank village besieged by settlers for weeks.

Officers opened fire on a 33-year-old Palestinian near Damascus gate in Jerusalem on Friday. Israeli police said its border guard “neutralised” the man, claiming he was attempting to stab one of them.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency identified the man as Ibrahim al-Hendi from East Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighbourhood. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Following the incident, Israeli forces deployed around Damascus Gate and the surrounding area of Jerusalem’s Old City, Palestinian sources told Al Jazeera.

Separately, the Israeli army said that it arrested Palestinians in the town of Qabatiya in the West Bank, alleging they were “planning to carry out an attack” against Israelis and security forces.

Ten other Palestinians were arrested during a 48-hour Israeli army operation in Nablus in the West Bank. The Israeli army said it seized more than “30 weapon production machines used to manufacture weapons” during the operation.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers and soldiers carried out attacks across the occupied West Bank on Friday, Wafa reported. Settlers stormed the Khirbet al-Hamra community in the northern Jordan Valley and assaulted one resident.

Israeli settlers, accompanied by soldiers, also attacked Khalet a-Nahlah in southern Bethlehem. Israeli forces also fired tear gas and concussion grenades at a crowd of Palestinians who gathered to resist the attacks.

Blocking access to Qusra

As violence and harassment of Palestinians continues across the occupied territory, the Israeli army on Friday also prevented around 100 peace activists from delivering food and medicine to Palestinians who have been under siege in the town of Qusra for 28 days.

Since August 9, Israeli settlers have besieged three Palestinian homes in the northern occupied West Bank village, while the Israeli army has also prevented the families from entering or leaving them, claiming the area is a “closed military zone”.

“Day 28 of the blockade on Qusra. About 100 activists arrived to deliver supplies to the besieged families,” the Israeli Peace Now movement said in a post on X.

“The army blocked us at first, claiming Qusra was a ‘closed military zone.’ Then let us in but on the way back detained us for ‘violating a closed military zone’,” it added.

Qusra Mayor Abdel Azim Wadi also told the state-run Turkish Anadolu news agency that the Israeli army has been “preventing the delivery of basic necessities to three families trapped on Mount Ras al-Ain”.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Israeli public broadcaster Kan on Friday that settler violence against Palestinians is “damaging the image of Israel as a nation and a people, warning that Israel “needs all the friends it can get” and “doesn’t need more enemies”.

Around 750,000 Israeli settlers live in 156 illegal settlements and 360 settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and carry out attacks aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians, according to Palestinian figures.

At least 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the year, according to the UN’s figures. At least 23 of those deaths have occurred in the context of settler attacks.

Three Israelis, both security forces and civilians, have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank over the same period, the UN says.

The Israeli military has faced mounting criticism for actively participating in settler attacks on Palestinians, standing by, or failing to prosecute those responsible.

On Thursday, Israel’s police force said a 19-year-old settler had been arrested on suspicion of participating in an attack on the Palestinian village of Qusra on Saturday. It marks the first such arrest in weeks of attacks on Qusra.

Dozens of masked settlers descended on the village, surrounding a house while Palestinians were trapped inside, and throwing stones.

Israeli soldiers who were deployed to the scene reportedly detained the trapped Palestinians but not the settlers, allowing them to leave. The Israeli military said troops removed “rioters” and protected residents.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a future state – during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

The settlements are illegal under international law.

In a separate development on Wednesday, Israeli forces demolished the Palestinian village of Khirbet al-Tabban, in the Masafer Yatta area.

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the village’s 70 residents, including 28 children, were given no warning prior to the demolition and were not allowed to remove their property.

It described the demolition as the most significant in Masafer Yatta since May 2025.

In the 1980s, the Israeli military declared about 3,000 hectares in the South Hebron Hills, which includes Masafer Yatta, as a restricted firing zone for training purposes.

The military says the Palestinian homes there have been built illegally.

In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled to allow the demolition of homes in the firing zone and the expulsion of their residents, who had argued that such a move violated international law and that their families had been living there since before the State of Israel was established.

B’Tselem says Khirbet al-Tabban is the 66th Palestinian community to be expelled by Israeli authorities since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, which it alleges is part of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” being carried out in the West Bank.

At least four Palestinians are trapped inside the home, while settlers have set fire to nearby Palestinian land.

Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli forces, have surrounded a Palestinian home in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

At least four Palestinians are trapped inside the home while settlers have set fire to nearby land, according to Al Jazeera journalists.

Coordination is under way to allow ambulances to reach the area and evacuate one injured person.

Qusra has faced an escalating campaign of settler violence over the past month.

Settlers set fire to a mosque in the village in July, and since August 9 have besieged three Palestinian homes in the Ras al-Ain area, cutting access to water, electricity and other essential supplies.

“We’re not allowed to live freely in and out of our houses; no one is allowed to bring us any food or visit us from family members or friends,” Loui Abu Raideh, a resident trapped in his home, told Al Jazeera.

He said residents have to coordinate with the mayor of Qusra to get food and supplies, and it can take three to four days to get approval.

Israeli forces have declared the area a closed military zone and restricted Palestinians from entering and leaving, placing a gate at the main entrance of Qusra itself. Palestinians travelling into the village are forced to take alternative routes which are often blocked by Israeli forces.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military erected three new roadblocks at locations that encircled the top of the Ras al-Ain hill, disconnecting homes from the area below it.

Raideh said the feeling of being trapped is “a nightmare … 21 days, we can’t even sleep, we have to stay up at night [and] keep watching the security cameras, because those settlers can attack any time”.

Settler attacks – supported by the Israeli military – on Palestinian homes, businesses and farmland across the West Bank have been common for decades as illegal settlements have expanded across the territory.

The attacks have increased in intensity and frequency since Israel launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

Farah, Mohammed and Jawad are getting ready for the new school year in Masafer Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank.

The children, aged 17, 8, and 7 respectively, attend Shaab al-Butum school in a village with the same name. But the building they’ll return to will be missing two administrative rooms and a storage room after Israeli forces demolished them on August 4.

According to the United Nations, Israel justified the demolitions by saying that the structures were constructed without Israeli-issued building permits. These are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain in the Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under Israeli administrative and military control.

The rest of the school isn’t safe either – it has also been threatened with demolition, with a court case scheduled for September 15.

The children’s return to education is now uncertain, as they worry about losing the village’s only school completely, and more confrontations with Israeli forces.

Constant fear

The start of the academic year at the beginning of September is supposed to mean a return to learning, but enthusiasm in Shaab al-Butum has now been mixed with anxiety.

Farah explained to Al Jazeera that the school was the only one she had ever attended, and was fearful about what would now happen.

Mohammed echoed that fear and said that he was worried Israeli forces would “return to demolish what remains” of the school. Jawad, meanwhile, spoke of his sadness at seeing the school damaged and said he hoped it could “return as it was”.

For Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta local council, those concerns reflect a much wider threat facing education across the area, which has repeatedly been targeted by the Israeli state and settlers over the years. Masafer Yatta was declared part of a closed Israeli military firing zone in the 1980s, which has been used as justification in repeated attempts to force local Palestinians out.

“It is a test renewed with every school year, amidst unprecedented escalation by the occupation authorities,” Younis told Al Jazeera.

“This year comes amid the tightening of the occupation’s policy of demolishing schools, and rampant settler violence that targets everything in these villages,” he added.

That violence, Younis said, follows children throughout their daily lives, targeting “students going to their schools, students while in class, and even inside the home”.

According to Younis, all seven schools in the wider Masafer Yatta area are now threatened with demolition.

“We do not know whether these schools will survive to the end of this academic year, let alone still be standing when the next one begins,” he said, stressing the determination of local Palestinians to stay “despite the pain and [Israeli] barbarism”.

Settler violence

Activist and teacher Tariq Hathaleen said the uncertainty surrounding demolitions, coupled with the continued expansion of settlement outposts, had deepened the sense of insecurity among residents.

“The occupation authorities do not usually tell the residents or the school administration in advance when the bulldozers will arrive,” Hathaleen told Al Jazeera.

Hathaleen added that settlers had stormed Ras Ein al-Auja school in the Jordan Valley the previous academic year, assaulting staff and students.

The attack and the demolition confirmed that schools are “no longer immune from attack”, Hathaleen said.

“[Israel’s actions] do not target merely one aspect, but affects education, housing, freedom of movement and livelihoods,” Hathaleen explained.

Hathaleen described the targeted schools – built by the Palestinian Ministry of Education to serve marginalised areas – as “more than just educational buildings”.

Systematic pattern

Figures from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission underscore the scale of the threat, with 84 Palestinian schools serving nearly 13,000 students currently facing Israeli demolition or stop-work orders.

Amir Dawoud, a senior official with the commission, said the schools facing the most immediate legal threats were concentrated in the southern Hebron area, particularly Masafer Yatta, as well as at al-Walaja school near Bethlehem, which Israel says lacks a building permit.

“These are not schools that can simply be closed and their students easily transferred elsewhere,” Dawoud told Al Jazeera.

The impact of demolition orders, he said, begins long before any building is actually destroyed, creating uncertainty and disruption for students, teachers, and their families.

“The psychological and educational impact begins before the bulldozer arrives,” he said.

“It is a systematic pattern that transcends individual cases,” Dawoud added, noting that it starts with planning restrictions, accompanied by road restrictions and settler attacks.

“It does not only threaten school buildings,” he said. “It targets the ability of Palestinian communities to survive.”

Celebrated artist Sliman Mansour, one of the founding figures of contemporary Palestinian art, has died at the age of 79 after a long illness, his family announced on Monday.

Born in Birzeit, near Ramallah, in 1947, Mansour rose to prominence in the 1970s as part of a generation of Palestinian artists, writers and poets seeking to rebuild a threatened identity through symbols rooted in land and memory. Over more than five decades, his paintings came to embody the story of Palestine: the farmer clinging to his soil, the stone house on a hill, the embroidered thobe and the smile of a young girl carrying the hope of return.

Mansour studied art in Beirut and Washington and went on to exhibit extensively, both in solo shows and group exhibitions across the Arab world and internationally. His works are held in museums and private collections worldwide, and he received numerous awards in recognition of his contribution to Arab and Palestinian culture.

His visual language drew deeply from the region’s ancient civilisations – Canaanite, Pharaonic and Assyrian – as well as Islamic and Arab art, particularly calligraphy and geometric motifs. At the same time, his upbringing in Birzeit anchored his work in the everyday life of Palestinian villages: the landscape, peasants, traditional homes and clothing. Mansour also absorbed influences from global art that carried messages of freedom and resistance, blending local forms with a universal appeal.

During the first Intifada, he helped found the New Vision group with fellow artists, turning to mud, straw, wood, leather, henna and natural dyes after Palestinian artists boycotted Israeli-made supplies. This shift, he later said, forged a vital link between post-Nakba art and the work of younger generations.

For many Palestinians, Mansour’s canvases were more than images; they were a visual archive of the cause itself. His brush, critics and admirers agree, carried the homeland.

Al Jazeera looks at some of his famous paintings.

Tom Rutland, East Worthing and Shoreham MP, said: “The whole community here is heartbroken by the death of Saja.

“We had been hoping and praying for her recovery after she was taken to hospital on Tuesday.

“My thoughts are with her family and friends at this incredibly sad time.”

A community vigil is taking place on Saturday morning at Kingston Beach as well as a one-minute silence in Shoreham town centre.

The family lived in London and were British citizens of Palestinian origin, with roots in the Rashidieh refugee camp in Lebanon. Their extended family had lived in the UK for many years, the Palestinian Forum says.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham called the incident a “terrible family tragedy”.

People in Shoreham left floral tributes at the scene and said the community was devastated.

The Beach Residents’ Association said the incident had “sent shockwaves across the local community”.

Local councillor Joss Loader, who represents the Shoreham Beach Residents’ Association and has lived in the area most of her life, described the deaths as a “shocking, heart-rending tragedy”.

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A girl is taken to hospital in critical condition in what PM Burnham calls a ‘terrible family tragedy’.

Three members of a Palestinian British family have drowned after entering the sea off England’s Sussex coast, the Palestinian embassy in London says.

The embassy announced their deaths on Wednesday, a day after the family went for a swim near Shoreham Fort in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.

The father, Hossam al-Khawas, was a Palestinian refugee from the Rashidieh Camp in southern Lebanon near Tyre, the Press Association news agency reported.

Police, paramedics, coastguard crews and a lifeboat were deployed at the scene where four people were pulled from the water.

Al-Khawas, a woman and a teenage girl were pronounced dead. A younger girl was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

“The Embassy is closely monitoring the incident and is making the necessary contacts with the relevant British authorities to ascertain its circumstances and to check on the condition of the injured girl,” the Palestinian mission in the United Kingdom said in a statement.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Wednesday warned of the dangers of open water swimming after the incident, which he described as “a terrible family tragedy”, the BBC reported.

He said he sends his “best wishes and love” to the family and friends of those who died as well as the girl who remains in critical condition.

Drownings have surged across Europe as people seek relief from the heatwave on the continent with incidents reported in France, Germany and the UK. Experts warned that open-water swimming can carry hidden risks, including cold water shock, strong currents and sudden changes in depth.