Category World News

As the United States focuses efforts on protracting Israel’s aggression on Gaza through the theatrics of a ceasefire, another war is also taking place in the West Bank.

In the last two years, Israel has upped its “counterinsurgency operations” in the West Bank to “thwart Palestinian terrorism”. Using terms like “counterinsurgency operations” is not coincidental. Israel instrumentalises military terms to conceal intention and fabricate reality. From Operation Iron Wall, to Operation Summer Camps and Operation Five Stones, to, most recently, the “counterterrorism” operation in al-Khalil (Hebron), these are presented and reported as temporary, targeted, and reactive.

But they are not. The intensified military aggression – along with settler militia violence, infrastructure destruction, home demolitions and ever multiplying roadblocks and checkpoints – are meant to create facts on the ground that make life for Palestinians impossible – similar to Gaza.

The West Bank’s war zones

In 2025, Israel’s military onslaught in the West Bank resulted in the largest mass displacement campaign Palestinians have faced since 1967, with nearly 50,000 Palestinians violently kicked out of their homes.

The Israeli army destroyed the refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem and denied their residents the right to return. It has now effectively transformed the two camps into its military headquarters in the north.

Israeli troops also undertook the near-total destruction of infrastructure, including roads, sanitation systems and the electric grid. At least 70 percent of Jenin city’s roads were bulldozed, and the majority of water pipelines and sewage networks were destroyed in Jenin and Tulkarem within weeks, incurring millions of dollars in economic loss.

Thousands of households were disconnected from both water and electricity across the district. And still today, displaced families live in hard-to-access areas with hardly any civilian infrastructure.

In parallel, the Israeli army expanded the geography of its violence. Israeli troops now carry out regular raids in cities in the centre of the West Bank, including Ramallah and Ariha (Jericho), and in the south like al-Khalil (Hebron) and Bethlehem. In these attacks, Palestinians are besieged, terrorised and at times executed by Israeli soldiers who are operating with impunity.

This week, the Israeli army launched a large-scale operation in al-Khalil (Hebron) under the guise of bringing law and order. The whole city has been placed under lockdown with Israeli tanks patrolling the streets, while men and boys are being detained, subject to field interrogation and held under brutal conditions.

But Israeli violence is not limited to army raids and operations only. Where the army goes, settlers follow. In true settler-colonial spirit, the army acts as the trailblazer to usher attacks by Israeli settler militias on Palestinian people and property and shepherd land annexation. In the last two years, Israelis living illegally in the West Bank have been armed with military-grade weapons ranging from US-made M16s to pistols and drones, and they are using them at will.

It is by now clear that Israel’s “counterinsurgency” operations are not about achieving victory “on the battlefield”. They are a coordinated effort with settlers to re-engineer the spatial and social environment in the West Bank so there can be no dissent or resistance.

When a counterinsurgency logic is applied to an occupied civilian population, it transforms homes, streets, and daily routines into instruments of control.

The infrastructure of fear

Last January, Israeli settlers put up billboards on main roads in the West Bank. In big bold letters, they wrote: “there is no future in Palestine”. Palestinians understood this for what it was: a declaration of war. We are now in the middle of it.

Every week, there is an average of nine Palestinians killed, 88 more injured, 180 arrested, a dozen more tortured in field interrogations, coupled with an average of 100 Israeli settler attacks, 300 military raids and assaults and 10 demolitions of Palestinian homes and property. This is all just a week’s work.

These figures do not just reflect the heightened level of violence, but also its frequency. The aim of this intensification is to erode any sense of normalcy for Palestinians.

Thousands of raids over the course of a year, coupled with settlement expansion, new bypass roads, hundreds of new military checkpoints, and systemic surveillance, are not episodic; they have transformed violence from exception to routine, normalising disruption as a condition of governance.

Settler-colonial violence dictates Palestinian lives; it shapes when people sleep, where children play, when they can go to school, whether businesses open, and how futures are imagined. It imposes the need for constant recalibration. It drains and exhausts.

Across the West Bank, Palestinian daily life is structured around violent interruptions. Israel is not only redrawing the map through de facto annexation, but it is using fear as infrastructure to redraw the boundaries of where it is safe for Palestinians to exist.

This affects every aspect of life. As a Palestinian journalist, every time I hit the road, I am met with a familiar, crippling anxiety about what could happen. I rarely take the same route twice. One day, it’s a village closed off; the next, an entire city. An hour-long drive turns into a three-hour, sometimes four-hour one. I reroute through the mountains, again and again, as Israeli gates and checkpoints appear at every entry and exit of every Palestinian village and town.

Our life in the West Bank is measured in detours. They don’t just highlight Israel’s systemic and expedited theft of territory and life-sustaining resources, but they serve to rob time and deplete socioeconomic capacity. Israel has not only ruptured territorial continuity in the West Bank, but destroyed social life, psychological grounding, and political possibilities.

And so while some Palestinians are pushed out at gunpoint, the rest are being pushed out through the infrastructure of fear.

Israel has successfully created a hostile environment where even homes can become battlefields in a matter of minutes. At the same time, violence from armed Israeli militias and the proliferation of outposts suffocate urban areas like Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and al-Khalil (Hebron).

The Israeli army has even taken to carrying out systemic lootings of currency exchange shops and stealing valuables, like gold and silver, from households. This is as important as the daily terror because Israel is not only destroying physical infrastructure, but simultaneously making recovery and rebuilding impossible.

Fragmenting a people

A disconnected land is a disconnected people. Palestinian cities in the West Bank are shrinking and are being swallowed into an ever-expanding Israeli colonial state.

Last year, Israel formalised plans to develop the illegal E1 settlement project, and this year, it is expected to push forward the plan to expand settlements near Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and across Ramallah. These developments would effectively cut off occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank and the north from the south. Israeli settlers are now erecting Israeli flags on Palestinian roads and homes as a symbol of conquest.

The West Bank is pivotal for understanding that war does not only arrive with bombs; sometimes it comes with checkpoints, permits, zoning restrictions, state-sponsored violence, and the rerouting of life-sustaining resources away from the Palestinians and towards settlements. It is not merely the fragmentation of land in preparation for colonisation, but the slow degradation of the native population’s capacity to exist collectively.

The West Bank is where war takes hold beneath the threshold of headlines, without any front lines.

At least 20 people have died as a result of wildfires in Chile. Taus of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes. Lucia Newman from Al Jazeera has been witnessing the destruction in one of the worst-hit regions.

At least 23 people have died as a result of a fire that tore through a shopping center in Karachi over the weekend, including a firefighter, as rescuers search for the remaining missing.

The Gul Plaza commercial building, which houses more than 1,200 stores and houses the largest fire in more than a decade, was destroyed late on Saturday at midnight at the start of the city’s biggest fire in more than a decade. More than 24 hours were needed to completely extinguish the flames.

According to city officials, debris and poor ventilation are severely preventing rescue efforts because some of the building’s components have collapsed and deteriorated.

Under the supervision of the city’s commissioner, a formal investigation into the fire was announced by Mayor Murtaza Wahab.

Wahab confirmed to a private news channel on Monday night that more than 60 people are still missing and that the search operation is being carried out once the firefighting operation is over. He said one of the difficulties that emergency personnel face is that “fire flares up once more during the cooling process.”

Wahab added that each family that lost a loved one in the tragedy will receive 10 million rupees ($35, 000) from the government of Sindh, the province where Karachi is located.

The Gul Plaza fire, which is the latest in a line of major incidents in Karachi, the country’s center for business and has a population of nearly 25 million, is the most recent.

We examine what is known about the Gul Plaza incident, why the rescue efforts have been so difficult, and what has led to Karachi’s persistent fire safety issues.

At Gul Plaza, what transpired?

Gul Plaza, a well-known business center, is situated along one of Karachi’s most famous thoroughfares, MA Jinnah Road, in the city’s historic Saddar neighborhood. The stores sell jewelry, household goods, carpets, bags, crockery, and other items.

The building was packed on Saturday night during the wedding season, according to Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, adding that this was a contributing factor to the high death toll.

Officials have not yet determined the cause of the fire’s eruption after more than 72 hours. According to police, the fire may have been caused by a short circuit the night of the incident.

No definitive can be said about this at this time, according to Sindh Police Inspector General Javed Alam Odho, who claimed the fire was brought on by a circuit breaker.

A thorough investigation is required, according to Namra Khalid, an urban researcher based in Karachi.

“I believe the main issue should be about what caused the fire to grow at such a rapid rate,” Khalid told Al Jazeera. What structural, systemic failures allowed it to spread to such a large scale, and why do these failures allow for repeat fires in the city on an unfathomable scale?

Why did the rescue efforts take so long?

Due to the size of the building and the extent of the damage, according to rescue officials, who are still conducting the operation to find those who are still missing.

According to local media, a significant portion of the structure has collapsed, and what remains may need to be destroyed as a result of severe structural damage.

Access to the site was a significant challenge on the night of the fire, according to Hassan ul-Haseeb, a spokesperson for the provincial rescue organization Rescue 1122.

The road was narrow, he said, and there were many people there just to watch the spectacle, which caused the entire road to be blocked and difficult for water tankers to get there, he claimed.

Despite constant efforts by firefighters, Ul-Haseeb added that the materials contained in the plaza, including large amounts of plastic, continued to spread the fire, which continued to spread throughout the facility.

He claimed that using the building’s 13 entry and exit points, people on the ground floor, were able to leave. However, many of those who were confined to the upper floors couldn’t escape, leading to numerous fatalities.

A well-known tragedy

Since the 2012 Baldia factory fire, which claimed more than 250 lives, the Gul Plaza fire has been dubbed Karachi’s largest fire.

The Ali Enterprises factory, a garment manufacturing facility, in Karachi’s Baldia town area, started in the afternoon of September 11, 2012, and raged for more than a day. The factory was filled with combustible materials, including piles of clothes and chemicals, according to the factory’s owners at the time.

A Pakistani court determined that the Baldia Inferno was an accident not an arson eight years later. Two men who were members of the political party’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which was at the time in power in the city, were sentenced to death by the court.

Fires have raged throughout Karachi in recent years.

According to city planners and engineers, about 70% of the city’s residential, commercial, and industrial buildings lack adequate fire safety systems.

In both 2023 and 2024, Karachi recorded more than 2, 500 fires.

Eight people died in a warehouse’s fire that resulted in its grounding in August. No injuries were reported in June, but a new shopping mall was destroyed and hundreds of stores wererazed.

The repeated incidents, according to Muhammad Toheed, a director of the research organization Karachi Urban Lab and an urban planner, are an indication of long-standing shortcomings in governance.

The government has no justifications, he told Al Jazeera, and it is a clear and straightforward failure of governance because the fire brigade and other related rescue work fall under its purview.

Practically none of these are present, he continued, adding that building codes, safety measures, routine inspections, the presence of fire extinguishers, and necessary training drills.

Chronic failures

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, which regulates the fire brigade, claims that the city’s population, which is more than 20 million, has just 35 fire stations. Only 57 fire trucks and six ladder trucks are present in Karachi, according to Rescue 1122’s ul-Haseeb.

The urban researcher Toheed claimed to have frequently visited Gul Plaza and that it had been compared to many other city structures with multiple entry and exit points.

“We have had so many casualties in this building, despite having fire extinguishers, reasonably sized stairs where people can move, and plenty of exit points.” The rest of Karachi is a ticking time bomb, he warned, if we use Gul Plaza as a benchmark.

Khalid agreed, claiming that informal fixes and ongoing failures are a burden on the city.

She said, “We don’t have the emergency response mechanism, and the lack of regulation, inspection, and enforcement has created an environment where safety is optional and accountability is absent.”

Toheed added that city authorities must address the lack of training and capacity among rescue personnel urgently.

“We have to start from scratch. According to him, it is crucial to learn what training our rescue personnel have because this is a very special skill, he said, referring to some ground reports from the Gul Plaza rescue efforts that suggested there were shortcomings.

Khalid expressed hope that something would change as a result of the Gul Plaza fire.

During his first year in office, US President Donald Trump frequently swayed national opinion and received severe criticism from foreigners for his decisions. Here are some important moments to be remembered.

Kampala, Uganda – After millions of voters contested results in tense presidential and legislative elections in some regions of the nation.

President Yoweri Museveni, 81, was declared the winner on Saturday with 72 percent of total votes cast. Robert Kyagulanyi, a former musician known as Bobi Wine, received 25% of the vote.

The results were rejected by Bobi Wine’s National Unity Platform (NUP) party and two other presidential candidates, alleging irregularities that included ballot stuffing, intimidation, and blocking party employees’ offices. The United Nations also says Thursday’s vote was marred by “widespread repression and intimidation”.

Bobi Wine made an appearance on social media the day Museveni’s victory was announced by the country’s Electoral Commission, telling supporters that he had been forced into hiding after his home was searched by police and other unknown people.

“We reject whatever is being declared by Mr. Simon Byabakama [the chair of the Electoral Commission] because those so-called results that they are declaring are fake and don’t in any way reflect what happened at the polling stations,” he said on video. “I know they are looking for me, but even if they succeed and get me, and do whatever,” he said.

The opposition and its supporters say the government has violently cracked down on dissent, shutting down the internet&nbsp, and arresting protesters.

Museveni has accused Bobi Wine’s party of trying to destabilize the nation.

Authorities in Uganda claimed the four-day internet shutdown was a security precaution and that it would stop misinformation from spreading to create fear and chaos.

The government also said seven people were killed in Butambala, with police stating that protesters attempted to attack a polling station and a police post. The NUP disputes this allegation, saying that at least 10 people were killed when police opened fire on a party official’s home, which Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify.

Bobi Wine criticized the government’s “crackdown to intimidate, silence, and subdue the forces of change” in an exclusive interview with Catherine Soi of Al Jazeera while she was a prisoner of war.

He also alleged he had “evidence” of fraud, videos showing “not the police, not the military, but electoral commission officials” ticking ballot papers in favour of Museveni.

Al Jazeera: How are you? How are you all doing?

Bobi Wine: I’m alive. I try to stay in touch with my wife despite not knowing how my family is. She is strong, and she is okay. ]The security forces are] still at my home. No one is permitted to enter the home.

Al Jazeera: The police spokesman informed us that you are not being detained, that you are reportedly at home. What do you say to them?

Bobi Wine: I noticed the police spokesperson confirming my residence. According to the same police officer, the people who were shot and killed in my deputy president’s residence were actually attacking the police station. And yet they were inside the house. You’re aware that so much is going on and that the Ugandan government’s impunity is now inruins. You’re aware that they will act obscenely and that they will lie.

Al Jazeera: You’re talking about the incident in Butambala? Tell us what transpired.

Bobi Wine: At my deputy president’s house in Butambala, ten people were killed. They were shot dead. Ten people were killed when the police opened fire on a garage and car storage space. However, Iganga also resulted in scores of fatalities. Many people were killed in Kawempe and many other places.

One of the reasons I was unable to stay at home was that I had to stay in touch with and provide guidance as a leader. I needed to be in touch with them to find out what’s going on. It was extremely dangerous for me. You’ve heard Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the military leader, promising to cut off my head, and we’ve been informed that they were going to harm me. I used a few of my old skills to escape during that conflict when they raided my home.

Al Jazeera: The president has referred to you as a “terrorist” and a traitor, along with other party officials. What do you have to say to that?

Bobi Wine: It is important to be aware that fighting a dictatorship means being a terrorist, a traitor, and everything else in every dictatorship, especially in this one in Africa. I mean, General Museveni was talking about a priest who had been detained and held incommunicado for more than two weeks after being questioned by a Catholic priest, Father [Deusdedit] Ssekabira, who had been detained. But I was not arrested. Young people are serving prison sentences for my and the party I lead. However, I’m not in custody along with the secretary-general and many others. This is a crackdown to intimidate, to silence and to completely subdue the forces of change, everybody that yearns for change and everybody that does not support General Museveni.

You have voted against the elections, Al Jazeera. You claimed that the election was rigged. What evidence do you have?

Bobi Wine: Before, during, and after the election, there is evidence.

The military picked up a number of our polling agents a day or two before the election. Some of them are still missing.

You’ve then watched videos. The internet was turned off by them. And this time, not the police, not the military, but electoral commission officials took part in ticking ballot papers in favour of General Museveni. We have an example of them. They are doing that in videos that we have started posting on social media. (Al Jazeera was unable to verify videos on social media purporting to show officials filling in ballot papers. This claim was made by an Electoral Commission spokesman, who declined to contact Al Jazeera.

Nobody knows where the results came from, according to the Electoral Commission chairperson. They were supposed to pick them from the declaration of results forms and the district tally sheets. Our agents were present, and the forms had various outcomes. However, the chair of the Electoral Commission was making a completely different declaration. So, we rejected.

This was going to be a protest vote, as we previously stated to the electorate. We have urged people to rise up in accordance with Article 29 of our constitution and reclaim their voice in the event that the dictatorship attempts to subvert the voice of the people. That is what we encourage them to do.

What does Al Jazeera mean, exactly? protests ?

Bobi Wine: That means nonviolent, legally accepted protests. It entails protesting, rejecting democratic abuse, and battling any forms of subversion within our democracy. According to Article 29 of our constitution, Ugandan citizens are free to protest and demonstrate peacefully. And that is exactly what we’ve encouraged them and continue to encourage them to do.

It might be taking to the streets to protest. By raising the national flag, some of us began to protest. Others can protest by staying at home. We refunded it so that Ugandan citizens could find a variety of creative ways to protest and to fight back as best as they could in terms of morality, constitution, and law.

Al Jazeera: Do you not want to go to the Supreme Court?

Bobi Wine: The judicial system in Uganda is not independent at all. The Supreme Court has mandated that specific reforms be implemented in the prior presidential election petitions, but they have been completely ignored. So, the Ugandan court system is not in our best interests. That’s why we’ve always encouraged the people of Uganda to be the ones to take back their voice.

Al Jazeera: You and your supporters were repeatedly accused of breaking electoral laws and of engaging in campaigning that was against the law, and this is why you have been targeted with such violence as tear gas and protests. What do you say in response?

Bobi Wine: That’s what they are saying. However, Uganda’s current law allows candidates to run for president wherever they are, and most importantly, it allows them. The Electoral Commission of Uganda endorsed and confirmed that campaign plan. However, I was not allowed to even drive on the main roads. Campaigning in densely populated cities or areas was prohibited for me. People always took me to the bushes, but they also came.

But also, the Electoral Commission was never in charge of this election, the military took charge of this election. I mean, I would have been apprehended a long time ago if there had been anything wrong with me or anything that went against the law.

Al Jazeera: There are some Ugandans who agree with what you’re saying, but there is a lot of resentment there. And they’re saying, OK, the election is now done, so let’s just move on.

Moving on, Bobi Wine, signifies abandoning slavery. We’ve said it before and often that 40 years of living in a military dictatorship is slavery. Ugandans don’t have a right, they don’t have a voice. By age, Uganda is the second-youngest nation in the world [by age], and its ruler is more than 80 years old.

Corruption is prevalent today. The country is in a mess. And as the parents of today and the nation to come after us, it is our responsibility and right to ensure that we control our own destiny.

Al Jazeera: Finally, are you unable to return home?

Bobi Wine: My reason for not being home is to be able to speak to the world. You wouldn’t be able to access me if I was inside my house.

I’d like to have a room in my home. I’ve not changed my clothes in days. I’d like to return home. I want to be at liberty. I want to take care of my people.

However, my home has been taken over by the police and the military. My gate has been vandalized by them. They’ve cut the padlocks. My home’s power has been cut. They have thus essentially colonized my home.

Unfortunately, there’s no rule of law in Uganda. I can’t contact the courts for redress. I can’t contact any state institution for help. I just have to fight back in my own crude, non-violent way.