14/08/2026

FRIDAY | AUG 14, 2026

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Israeli troops fail to prevent blockade by settlers o Additional battalion of soldiers to be sent to resolve situation: Military

his right-wing base on Gaza ahead of tight elections in October, Israel had been seen as largely complying with the Trump plan by avoiding major strikes. The two sides agreed to a ceasefire pushed by Trump in October, after which Israel reduced but did not end military operations. Israeli operations in Gaza have killed 1,259 Palestinians since the ceasefire, according to the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations. The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks during the same period. – AFP KYIV: Ukraine’s air force on Wednesday said it would stop publishing detailed figures on Russian ballistic missile strikes as Ukrainian forces struggle to intercept heightened attacks. The military leadership had decided to introduce “certain changes (restrictions)” in its morning reports on Russian mass attacks, air force communications chief Yuriy Ignat said on Facebook. He added that the restrictions concern “the number of targets launched, shot down, suppressed or those that failed to reach their targets”. He also said real-time warnings would continue unchanged and the air force would keep providing generalised figures on Russian missile launches. Ignat said in July, Russia fired more than 450 missiles of various types at Ukraine, nearly 200 of them on ballistic trajectories. He added that because of their speed and steep trajectory, ballistic missiles are far harder to intercept than cruise missiles or drones. – AFP US official denounces siege TEL AVIV: US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of West Bank settlements, yesterday denounced as “terror” a siege by settlers against Palestinians that drew an unsuccessful intervention by the army. Settlers near Nablus since Sunday have blockaded Palestinian homes, including one owned by a US citizen, with residents saying they have been cut off from food and other supplies. “Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” Huckabee wrote on X in response to criticism of the US response. “No excuse for such thuggish behaviour.” He added that Israel had intervened at the request of the United States, its crucial ally. The remarks are especially striking from Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor who in the past has embraced Jewish settlement in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, and rejected the idea of a Palestinian state. The Israeli military on Wednesday sent in forces who took away a tent, but witnesses said settlers defiantly remained at the site with blankets. The army announced later on Wednesday that it would send a new battalion to try to impose order. – AFP Ukraine restricts data on strikes

additional infantry battalion and more soldiers would be on standby. The chief of the general staff “directed that efforts to strengthen order and operational control in the area continue, as well as efforts to prevent further serious incidents”, a military statement said. The Israeli military a day earlier said it had received reports of settlers entering and taking control of Palestinian homes and land in the area. “This is illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable activity that harms the residents of the areas and disrupts their daily lives.” It also said disciplinary action would be taken against security personnel who had been filmed at the site days earlier. Violence by Israeli settlers towards Palestinians in the West

Bank has persisted for years, often with little or no legal consequence, but recent months have seen a surge in attacks. More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the Palestinian territory, which are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,097 Palestinians in the West Bank, including both militants and civilians, since the start of the Gaza conflict in October 2023. Israeli figures show at least 48 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period. – AFP

QUSRA: The Israeli military on Wednesday said it would send more troops to try to impose order on defiant settlers after failing to end their blockade of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank. The siege began on Sunday, when a group of settlers set up a makeshift tent near houses in the Palestinian village of Qusra, just south of Nablus, blocking essential supplies from entering. “We have received no food and no medicine,” Qusai Abu Rida, a Palestinian trapped inside one of the houses, told AFP by telephone, adding that he had only managed Ex-ambassador slams West Bank policy BERLIN: Germany’s former envoy to Israel Steffen Seibert levelled unusually sharp criticism at the Israeli government and what he labelled its “disastrous” settlement policy in the occupied West Bank in a media interview released on Wednesday. Israel’s policy in the Palestinian territory amounts to “displacement through psychological and physical violence”, he was quoted as saying by news weekly Die Zeit . Modern Germany, at pains to atone for the horrors of the Nazi era and the Holocaust, has long been a steadfast supporter of Israel. Seibert, the former spokesman of then chancellor Angela Merkel, qualified her stance that “Israel’s security is part of Germany’s reason of state”, adding that the commitment applied to Israel within its internationally recognised borders. He emphasised that “if the very existence of Israel is threatened by a murderous attack by Hamas, by the no less murderous plans of Hezbollah, or by Iran, then we must stand by this state”. “But that does not apply to the settlers in the Jordan Valley. “Under international law, these are illegal settlements driven by the ideology that this land belongs solely to us – that God gave it to us. “The concept of ‘reason of state’ does not extend to that. It does not support a sense of superiority over another population.” He added that it was equally necessary to tell the Palestinians that the right of the Israeli people to live in their own state must be respected. “We need to make it clear what we mean when we say that we stand by Israel,“ said Seibert. “That does not mean our support extends to every action taken by the Israeli state, for instance, the occupation.”– AFP

to secure electricity thanks to solar panels. The Israeli military condemned the actions of the settlers and declared the area a “closed military zone”, removing their tent on Wednesday morning. However, by mid-afternoon, an AFP photographer at the scene said the military had left and the tent had been removed, but the settlers were still there. “The army has withdrawn, and so far we are still besieged, with the settlers at our doorstep,” Qusai said. The military announced later on Wednesday that it would send an

SOLEMN STAND ... Family members of detainees in Israeli prisons carry pictures of their relatives during a protest outside the International Red Cross headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. – AFPPIC Latest strike on Gaza kills one, wounds five

GAZA CITY : Israel on Wednesday carried out its first air strike in more than a week in Gaza, both sides said, breaking a relative lull as the United States pressed a peace plan. The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas commander, charging that he had been planning attacks against Israeli forces operating in the war-battered territory. “The terrorist was struck in an aerial strike in order to remove the threat to IDF troops,“ a military statement said, adding that it tried to mitigate civilian harm. Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service under Hamas, said the strike in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip targeted civilians

milestone” in his plan to end the war. Hamas had announced that it would disarm by giving its weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing committee. Trump’s “Board of Peace”, in charge of implementing the ceasefire deal, had initially announced that Israel in turn would start a phased withdrawal from much of the Gaza Strip. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday publicly rejected the deal and vowed no Israeli pullout, even after the Board of Peace reassured him that Israel would not have to withdraw until complete Hamas disarmament. Despite the statements by Netanyahu, who faces pushback from

riding in a tuk-tuk . The strike killed Mohanad Saada, whose body was “torn to pieces”, and wounded five other individuals, according to the civil defence agency and the Al-Shifa Hospital. A witness said Saada was among a group of workers who were repairing a wall damaged by Israeli shelling. “It is true that Israeli airstrikes and assassinations had almost completely ceased for over a week, but today the occupation resumed its aerial bombardment,“ civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP. Israel had not carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip since Aug 3, following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a “major