GENEVA: The UN warned on Tuesday that mass displacement in the West Bank had hit levels not seen since the start of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory nearly 60 years ago.
The United Nations said an Israeli military operation launched in the north of the occupied territory in January had displaced tens of thousands of people, raising concerns about possible “ethnic cleansing”.
The military operation “has been the longest since … the second Intifada”, in the early 2000s, said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“It is impacting several refugee camps in the area, and it is causing the largest population displacement of the Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967,” she told reporters in Geneva via video from Jordan, referring to the six-day Arab-Israeli war that led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
The UN rights office meanwhile warned that mass forced displacement by an occupation force could amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
Since Israel’s military launched its operation “Iron Wall” in the north of the West Bank in January, rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said that “about 30,000 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced”.
Israeli security forces had during the same period issued demolition orders for about 1,400 homes in the northern West Bank, he said, describing the figures as “alarming”.
He pointed out that Israeli demolitions had displaced 2,907 Palestinians across the West Bank since October 2023.
Another 2,400 Palestinians — nearly half of them children — had been displaced as a result of Israeli settler actions, he added, lamenting that the combined result was the “emptying large parts of the West Bank of Palestinians”.
“Permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer,” Kheetan said, stressing that depending on the circumstances this could be “tantamount to ethnic cleansing” and could “amount to a crime against humanity”. Kheetan said 757 attacks by Israeli settlers had been recorded in the West Bank during the first half of the year, a 13 percent increase on the same period in 2024.
The attacks injured 96 Palestinians in the occupied territory in June alone, he told reporters, stressing that this was the highest monthly injury toll of Palestinians from settler attacks, “in over two decades”. Violence in the West Bank has surged since the October 2023.
Since then, at least 964 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the UN. During that same period, 53 Israelis have been killed in reported attacks by Palestinians or in armed clashes — 35 of them in the West Bank and 18 in Israel.
• Meets Xi, Russian, Iranian, Uzbek and Belarusian counterparts • Wang asks Jaishankar to work towards ‘win-win’ cooperation
ISLAMABAD: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Ishaq Dar on Tuesday slammed last month’s attacks by Israel and the United States on Iran as “unacceptable” as he attended a ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in China’s Tianjin, Dawn.com reports.
The SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, Pakistan, India, and Iran. The group’s foreign ministers meet as a precursor to the annual summit of its leaders, which will be hosted by China this autumn in Tianjin.
Addressing the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers, Dar said: “We have strongly condemned the unjustified and illegitimate aggression by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the US strikes on its nuclear facilities.
“Such illegal actions directed against SCO member states are unacceptable. We are increasingly concerned at the trends of using aggression as a tool of policy,” he said.
“We emphasise the resolution of long-standing disputes through peaceful means, dialogue, diplomacy and according to the principles of international law, justice and fairness,” he added.
In a post on X after the meeting, Dar said: “At the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting today, we reaffirmed our shared commitment to multilateralism, mutual respect and regional stability. The Shanghai Spirit continues to guide us towards dialogue, mutual trust and the pursuit of a more just and inclusive international order.”
He also held a bilateral meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the session.
During the meeting, the two leaders reviewed the state of bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Iran across various sectors and exchanged views on the evolving regional situation in the wake of recent Israeli aggression against Iran, a DPM’s Office news release said.
Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s unwavering solidarity with the people and government of Iran and underscored the country’s principled commitment to regional peace and stability. He emphasised that dialogue and diplomacy must remain the only viable path toward de-escalation and achieving lasting peace in the region.
Meeting with Xi
Earlier on Tuesday, Deputy PM Dar met President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing as he represented Pakistan in a joint call of the SCO foreign ministers.
In a post on X, the deputy PM said he was “delighted” to meet with Xi and conveyed the “warm greetings of the leadership, government and people of Pakistan”.
“As iron-clad brothers and all-weather strategic cooperative partners, we remain committed to deepening Pak-China enduring friendship and advancing shared regional goals,” he posted on X.
The Chinese president, welcoming the heads of delegations, underlined the “salience of regional cooperation” under the ambit of the SCO, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mofa).
Shortly later, Dar arrived in Tianjin along with other foreign ministers to lead Pakistan’s delegation to the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting, according to Mofa.
Meetings with SCO members’ ministers
Dar also met the foreign ministers of various other SCO member states on the sidelines of the joint call on Xi.
“Always good to exchange views for strengthening regional understanding and cooperation in such a challenging time,” he said on X about his meeting with his Iran, Uzbekistan and Belarus counterparts.
“Both leaders reviewed bilateral cooperation across diverse areas and discussed the evolving regional situation following the recent Israeli aggression against Iran,” the Foreign Office said of FM Dar’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart.
Dar also met Russian FM Sergei Lavrov. “Both sides expressed satisfaction over the positive trajectory of bilateral ties and agreed to further enhance cooperation in trade, energy, agriculture and defence,” the FO said, with Dar reiterated the invitation for FM Lavrov to visit Pakistan.
In separate meetings with Kazakhistan FM Murat Nurtleu and Kyrgyzstan’s Zheenbek Moldokanovic, Dar and the ministers reaffirmed a commitment to the enhancement of positive bilateral ties and expanding collaboration across areas of interest.
According to an earlier statement from the Mofa, Dar is set to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the SCO member states during his visit to China.
The deputy premier arrived in Beijing last night, where he was received at the airport by Ambassador Yu Hong and other senior officials of the Asian Affairs department of China’s Mofa, as well as Pakistan’s ambassador to China, Khalil ur Rehman Hashmi.
India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Iran’s Abbas Araghchi are among the top diplomats arriving in Beijing for the SCO moot.
Win-win cooperation
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Beijing and New Delhi should work towards mutual trust and “win-win” cooperation, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, state news agency Xinhua reported.
China and India should “adhere to the direction of good-neighborliness and friendship” and “find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation”, Wang said, according to Xinhua.
The two foreign ministers met in Beijing as the two rivals seek to repair ties following a 2020 clash on their border.
Xi vows greater support for Russia
As foreign ministers gathered in Beijing for SCO talks, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russia’s top diplomat that their countries should “strengthen mutual support”, state media said.
Meeting Lavrov in the Chinese capital, Xi said the two countries should “strengthen mutual support on multilateral forums”, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Beijing and Moscow should work to “unite countries of the global South and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction”, Xi said, according to Xinhua.
Russia’s foreign ministry in an earlier statement said, “A number of issues of bilateral political contacts at the highest and high levels were discussed.” They included preparations for President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China to join a SCO summit and World War II anniversary celebrations.
Live Updates: Netanyahu offers to fire Edelstein on haredi draft crisis | The Jerusalem Post
US asks Israel to stop strikes on Syrian military forces in south Syria • Shas could resign from gov’t as soon as Thursday following UTJ’s exit
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks with the media after attending the FIFA Club World Cup final upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S, July 13, 2025. (photo credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE)
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Chikli denounces Syria’s Sharaa as ‘barbaric terrorist murder who should be eliminated’
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Smoke rises while Syrian security forces sit in the back of a truck, as Syrian troops enter the predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Tuesday following two days of clashes, in Sweida, Syria July 15, 2025. (photo credit: REUTERS/KARAM AL-MASRI)
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IDF seeks to stop dozens of Israeli civilians infiltrating Syria
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IDF soldiers operating in southern Syria, where they arrested members of a terror cell operated by Iran’s Quds Force, July 7, 2025.(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
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Hamas launched a massive attack on October 7, with thousands of terrorists infiltrating from the Gaza border and taking some 240 hostages into Gaza.
Over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered, including over 350 at the Supernova music festival and hundreds of Israeli civilians across the Gaza border communities.
50 hostages remain in Gaza, while 49 hostages in total have been killed in captivity.
The IDF launched large-scale attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 13, 2025.
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28 Israelis killed, over 1,300 wounded, including several IDF soldiers, in Iranian attacks.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has called on Israel to probe the killing of 20-year-old American citizen Sayfollah Musallet, who was beaten to death by settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling the incident a “terrorist act”.
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, said on Tuesday that he asked Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing of the Florida-born Musallet, who was visiting family when he was attacked in the Palestinian town of Sinjil.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Huckabee wrote in a social media post. “Saif was just 20 yrs old.”
Huckabee’s strongly worded post marks a rare critical stance towards Israel by the US envoy, a staunch Israel supporter, who has previously said, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”
But the US ambassador’s statement stops short of backing the Musallet family’s demand for Washington to launch its own probe into the killing.
Critics say Israel rarely holds its settlers or soldiers accountable for abuses against Palestinians. Musallet was the ninth US citizen to be killed by Israel since 2022. None of the previous cases has led to criminal charges.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project said Israel should not be trusted to “investigate the extremist settlers it enables at every turn”, renewing calls for an independent US probe.
Another Palestinian, identified by health officials as Mohammed Shalabi, was shot dead by settlers during the same attack that killed Musallet on Friday.
Israel’s government cannot be trusted to investigate the extremist settlers it enables at every turn.
Saif was a US citizen. Our government must conduct its own independent, thorough, and transparent investigation as it would if an American were killed in any other country. https://t.co/oGnLSl5ic6
Israeli settlers have been intensifying their assaults on Palestinian communities in the West Bank since the outbreak of the war on Gaza in 2023.
Often protected by the Israeli military, settlers regularly descend from their illegal settlements onto Palestinian towns, where they ransack homes, cars and farms and attack anyone who may stand in their way.
Several Western countries, including top allies of Israel, have imposed sanctions on far-right Israeli officials and groups over settler violence.
Trump lifted sanctions related to settler attacks, put in place by his predecessor, Joe Biden, after returning to the White House earlier this year.
The US provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually.
Over the past few days, several Congress members have called for accountability for Musallet.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, called the killing of Musallet “shocking and appalling”.
“The Israeli government must thoroughly investigate this killing and hold any and all settlers responsible for the brutal death of Mr Musallet accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he said in a statement.
Congressman Maxwell Frost, who represents a district in Florida, also decried the “cold-blooded murder”.
“As our country’s self-proclaimed peacemaker, Donald Trump has a moral and constitutional obligation to direct the State Department to conduct a thorough investigation and, more importantly, to demand full justice and accountability for those responsible for this heinous act,” Frost said in a statement.
“Our country must ensure the protection and safety of Americans abroad.”
‘We demand better’
On Friday, Israel said it was “investigating” what happened in Sinjil, claiming that the violence started when Palestinians threw rocks at an Israeli vehicle.
“Shortly thereafter, violent clashes developed in the area between Palestinians and Israeli civilians, which included the destruction of Palestinian property, arson, physical confrontations, and stone-throwing,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
But Musallet’s family has disputed any account of “clashes”, saying that a “mob” of settlers surrounded the young Palestinian American for three hours during the attack and prevented medics from reaching him.
Florida’s Republican politicians have been largely silent about the killing of Musallet. The offices of the state’s two senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Since Musallet was killed on Friday, Scott has shared several social media posts in support of Israel.
On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), called on Moody, Scott, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Congresswoman Laurel Lee, who represented Musallet, to condemn the killing of the US citizen.
The advocacy group said the officials’ silence is “complicity”, not neutrality.
“When American citizens like Saif are killed overseas, especially by Israeli settlers backed by the Israeli government, looking the other way sends a dangerous message: that some American lives simply don’t matter,” CAIR said in a social media post. “We demand better.”
Ukraine is waiting for further details of the “billions of dollars” worth of US military equipment promised by Donald Trump on Monday, amid confusion as to how many Patriot air defence systems will be sent to Kyiv.
At a meeting at the White House with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Monday, Trump said an unnamed country was ready to immediately provide “17 Patriots” as he said a “very big deal” had been agreed for European allies to buy weapons from the United States and then ship them to Ukraine.
Ukraine is currently believed to have only six functioning Patriot air defence batteries, which can intercept fast-moving Russian cruise and ballistic missiles.
How the Patriot missile defence system works
Maj Gen Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, said it was unclear what the US president meant. “We don’t know exactly,” he said, adding that Ukraine was grateful for the assistance and had reacted “positively” to the White House’s announcement.
The general also confirmed that Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskyy, had discussed the possibility of the US providing long-range Tomahawk missiles in a call earlier in July but no agreement had been reached.
Skibitskyi said Trump in his comments on Patriots could have been referring to interceptor missiles, launching stations or entire batteries comprising multiple launchers and radar and control systems, which cost more than a billion dollars each. “Seventeen is a huge number if we are talking about batteries. If it’s launchers, that’s possible,” he added.
Each Patriot system comes with six launchers. Germany has agreed to provide two Patriot systems, with the Netherlands donating a third, Skibitskyi said. “That would be 18 launchers for three batteries, which is close to 17. The US administration and the Pentagon will give us further details,” he added.
The possibility of the US providing long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, as discussed by Trump and Zelenskyy this month, is likely to enrage Vladimir Putin. The precision cruise missiles are capable of striking Moscow and have a range of 1,600km. Previous Ukrainian requests were rejected by the Biden administration.
During a call on 4 July, Trump asked Zelenskyy if he could hit the Russian capital and St Petersburg. According to Skibitskyi, Zelenskyy replied: “Yes, absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons”. Trump on Tuesday said Ukraine should not target Moscow.
Aid donations to Ukraine
The Trump administration has so far not agreed to send Tomahawks. If it did provide the weapons, Ukraine would struggle to deploy them, Skibitskyi said. “They are not easy to use. The main launchers are combat ships or strategic bombers. We don’t have any strategic bomber aircraft,” he recognised.
But he said it was crucial Ukraine had the ability to conduct “kinetic” strikes deep inside Russia against high-value military targets. Discussions were ongoing with Washington over lifting restrictions imposed by the last administration on the use of Atacams, US provided missiles with a 300km range – about 190 miles.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration was likely to allow Atacams to be used inside Russia at their full range, and was considering sending additional missiles. Currently, they can only be fired into Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, and not used on Russian territory.
Skibitskyi said the Kremlin had already moved its strategic military bases more than 500km from its border with Ukraine. Kyiv was only able to hit them using unmanned kamikaze drones which can carry 5okg of explosives. Atacams, by contrast, have a 500kg payload and can cause greater destruction.
“It’s very important for us to get approval from the US to use long-range missiles,” he said. “We want to destroy and to disrupt, in accordance with Nato procedure.”
Zelenskyy said he had a “really good conversation” with Trump following Monday’s announcement of a big weapons package. He said he discussed with the US president how to achieve “a lasting and just peace” and to stop Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, which have been hit in recent weeks by hundreds of drones and missiles.
Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands on Tuesday said they wanted to participate in Trump’s plan for Europe to buy US weapons for Ukraine.
Pledged European aid
Politicians in Kyiv have broadly welcomed the improvement in relations with the US, following Zelenskyy’s disastrous White House meeting with Trump in February. But there was also frustration that US tariffs and secondary sanctions on Russia have been postponed again, with Trump setting a deadline of 50 days.
In an interview with the BBC, Trump said he was “disappointed, but not done” with Putin.
Russian officials have dismissed Trump’s threat as “hot air”, pointing out he has changed his mind several times on sanctions and other issues. “Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin. The world shuddered, expecting the consequences … Russia didn’t care,” the former president Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X.
Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Gen Keith Kellogg, is in Kyiv on a week-long visit. On Monday he met Zelenskyy and commander in chief Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, as well as Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief and Skibitskyi. Kellogg was briefed on Russian plans for a summer offensive and on the latest from the frontline in the east, where Russian troops are advancing.
Skibitskyi said the US president had “more experienced” people around him than in his first presidential term and did not behave like a “classical” politician. “He’s more of a businessman. It isn’t easy to understand Mr Trump,” Skibitskyi added.
It has been more than three years since a British official inadvertently leaked a dataset containing the names and contact details of thousands of people who were attempting to flee possible Taliban revenge attacks.
In April 2024, the government began relocating some of them to the UK – but we are only learning this now because extraordinary lengths were gone to in order to prevent the breach and subsequent response coming to light.
As the full picture is finally disclosed to the public, these are the questions still facing Britain’s security establishment.
What can be done about the danger of leaks?
It has happened before and it will doubtless happen again.
Think Wikileaks, Snowden and all the countless cyber-hacks and ransomware suffered by companies on an almost daily basis.
Data leaks are not new but sometimes – and it is quite possible that this is one of those times – they can be life-threatening.
The revelations that have come to light will have sent a chill down the spine of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Afghans who fear retribution by the Taliban.
For those already spirited out to Britain, it means they can probably never go back home as long as the Taliban are in power.
For the 600 former Afghan government soldiers and their estimated 1,800 dependants still in Afghanistan, the news will mean they are unlikely to breathe easily until the UK delivers on its promise to get them safely out.
It’s important to bear in mind that all this was not the result of some deliberate, sophisticated cyber attack by a state-backed hacking group.
It evolved from an unintentional mistake made by just one individual working for the Ministry of Defence.
What does this say about Britain’s moral responsibility?
UK forces were deployed to Afghanistan, alongside US and Nato allies, over a period of almost 20 years, from October 2001 to August 2021.
During this time they worked closely with their Afghan government allies, relying heavily on their local knowledge and expertise.
The most sensitive area was in Special Forces (SF), for whom the Taliban reserved a particular hatred.
When Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in the summer of 2021, there was a realisation that those now-former Afghan SF soldiers and their families were a priority for relocation to safety.
But thousands more Afghans also risked their lives to work with the British over those two decades.
Many did it out of patriotism, believing they were working to secure a better Afghanistan.
Some did it for the money, some did it because they trusted Britain to safeguard their lives and their personal details.
A data breach like this now threatens to undermine any future promises by a British official who says: “Trust us, your data is safe with us.”
Was there a cover-up?
When this “unauthorised data breach” was finally discovered, a full 18 months after it occurred, the UK government obtained what is known as a super-injunction, preventing its publication by the media.
A super-injunction is so draconian that it means you cannot even report the fact that you cannot report it.
That measure has only just been lifted now, following an independent review.
There is a logical case to be made that this measure was necessary to protect the lives of those affected by the data breach.
However, questions are now being raised about whether the injunction – applied for by the previous, Conservative government – might also have been for political purposes.
The High Court judge who lifted the super-injunction, Mr Justice Chamberlain, said that it had “had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy”.
EPA
