Category World News

Israeli forces have stormed towns and begun demolishing homes of Palestinian suspects in the wake of a deadly attack in occupied East Jerusalem, raising fears of further military and settler violence and collective punishment in the occupied West Bank as Israel relentlessly pounds Gaza.

Israel said on Tuesday it had surveyed and ordered the demolition of the homes of two Palestinians suspected of the attack at Ramot Junction in occupied East Jerusalem, which left six dead and 12 injured. Both suspects were killed in the attack.

In a statement, Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had also ordered sanctions to be imposed on the men’s family members, as well as residents of their towns – Qatanna and Qubeiba, north of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

Those sanctions included the demolition of every structure that had been built without permits in the towns, and the revocation of 750 work permits and entry permits to Israel.

Israeli government ministers, including Katz and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, issued hardline statements in the wake of Monday’s attack, vowing to demolish homes and deport their family members.

While Israel claims such actions are intended as a deterrent to future attacks, Palestinians and human rights groups say they amount to a form of collective punishment, prohibited by international law.

Home demolished southwest of Hebron

Amid the crackdown in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli forces also destroyed the home of another Palestinian suspected of having carried out an earlier shooting attack in December.

Soldiers encircled the house of detainee Thabet Masalma in the town of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron, before blowing up the property with explosives.

The raid sparked clashes with locals, during which Israeli troops fired live ammunition, wounding two people.

Masalma is accused of being part of a shooting attack eight months ago that resulted in the death of an Israeli settler and wounded three others.

The demolition leaves the detainee’s wife, parents and three children homeless.

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented at least 26 homes demolished in the occupied West Bank as a punitive measure in 2025, displacing more than 70 Palestinians.

Tensions high

While raids and settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have ramped up since the war in Gaza began, Monday’s attack has heightened tensions and sparked fears of increased violence and repression.

On Tuesday morning, the Palestinian Wafa news agency, citing local sources, reported that Israeli forces stormed the town of Biddu and closed its main entrance that connects it to the town of al-Jib, which is the only main road for nearly “70,000 citizens in the area”.

During the raid, Israeli forces fired live bullets, sound bombs and, amid clashes with locals, fired toxic and tear gas.

Israeli forces also raided several towns northwest of Jerusalem and carried out arrests using heavy tear gas.

Following Monday’s attack, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir said in a statement that he had ordered a “full closure” of the area that the alleged gunmen had come from.

“We will continue with a determined and ongoing operational and intelligence effort, we will pursue terror cells everywhere, and we will thwart terrorist infrastructure and its organisers,” he said.

Local sources on the ground told Al Jazeera Arabic that a number of settlers had attacked homes belonging to Palestinians and spray-painted racist slogans in the village of Jurish, south of Nablus.

Wafa reported that Israeli settlers also vandalised vehicles belonging to Palestinians in Jurish, breaking their windows, while another group of settlers cut down olive trees grown by Palestinian families in Aqraba, a town southeast of Nablus.

Meanwhile, in Hebron governorate, Israeli forces arrested two people and set up several military checkpoints at the entrances to the towns, villages and camps. Soldiers also closed several primary and secondary roads, Wafa reported.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is visiting Vanuatu, has said he will not be signing a landmark security and climate resilience agreement with the Pacific island nation as was expected.

“I wouldn’t expect that it would be signed today, but what we will do is progress it,” Albanese said in a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday morning.

“Vanuatu politics can be very complex,” he said.

In a ceremony last month, Australia initialled a deal worth 500 million Australian dollars ($326.5m) to strengthen economic and security ties with Vanuatu.

The Vanuatu deal is one of two major security agreements Australia had expected to sign with Pacific island neighbours this month, as Canberra seeks to block China from expanding its security presence in the region.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat said at a news conference that the delay in signing the pact was due to his government’s coalition partner being concerned that the deal would limit Vanuatu’s access to infrastructure funding from other countries.

Beijing is Vanuatu’s largest external creditor, after Chinese banks extended loans to Vanuatu to pay Chinese companies to build infrastructure, including a presidential office complex, the nation’s parliament, and roads.

Albanese told reporters he was confident the deal would be signed soon.

“This is an agreement that will importantly respect the sovereignty of Vanuatu, but one as well that will respect the sovereignty of Australia,” he said.

A 2022 security deal signed by Australia and Vanuatu, months after China signed a pact with the Solomon Islands, was later blocked by Vanuatu after failing to win domestic political support.

The newly drafted Nakamal Agreement goes beyond the terms of other similar security pacts, to include climate resilience, economic development and “simpler access to Australia for Vanuatu citizens”.

Vanuatu, which has been battered by repeated cyclones, rising sea levels and other problems made worse by climate change, has taken a leading role in addressing the issue at the global level.

After Vanuatu, Albanese will head to Solomon Islands, where Australia will participate in the Pacific Islands Forum as one of 18 member countries.

Notably, the Solomon Islands chose not to invite observers to participate this year, meaning China and the United States will not be attending.

Asked about the decision to bar non-members, Albanese said, “We think that the presence of partners to observe events, whether that be the United States or Taiwan or other countries, is something that adds to the forum.”

“But that is a decision that’s being made by the Solomons,” which he emphasises is a “sovereign nation”.

After the Solomon Islands, Albanese is expected to travel to Papua New Guinea (PNG) next week for the 50th anniversary of independence celebrations, where a new defence treaty between Australia and PNG is due to be signed.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is slated to hear evidence against fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony two decades after his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) gained international infamy for atrocities in northern Uganda.

The Tuesday hearing, known as a “confirmation of charges”, is the Hague-based court’s first-ever held in absentia.

Kony faces 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection to the LRA’s campaign against the Ugandan government between 2002 and 2005, which prosecutors allege was rife with rape, torture, and abductions of children.

Kony has eluded law enforcement since the ICC first issued an indictment in 2005, making the hearing a litmus test for others in which arresting the suspect is considered a far-off prospect, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The hearing is expected to last three days and will allow prosecutors to outline their case in court, after which judges will decide whether to confirm the charges. Kony cannot be tried unless he is in ICC custody, however.

“Everything that happens at the ICC is precedent for the next case,” Michael Scharf, an international law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told The Associated Press news agency.

Kony was born in 1961 in northern Uganda’s village of Odek, where he was a Catholic altar boy and took up an interest in spirituality. He later claimed to be a spirit medium and used religious rituals – alongside violence and torture – to maintain control of followers.

The LRA’s attacks against the Ugandan government date back to the 1980s, but the group was not thrust into the international spotlight until 2012, when a #Kony2012 campaign went viral on social media.

By then, the LRA had been forced out of Uganda and was operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, where it continued its violent crusade. The LRA’s activities killed at least 100,000 people and displaced about 2.5 million in Africa, according to the United Nations, along with the kidnapping of children.

Survivors in Uganda plan to follow the ICC proceedings, including Everlyn Ayo, a 39-year-old whose school was first attacked by LRA fighters when she was five years old.

“The rebels raided the school, killed and cooked our teachers in big drums and we were forced to eat their remains,” Ayo told the AFP news agency. “Many times, on our return to the village, we would find blood-soaked bodies. Seeing all that blood as a child traumatised my eyes.”

The ICC has been under heavy pressure from Washington for its pursuit of cases surrounding Israel’s war on Gaza.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration had previously sanctioned the ICC in response to its investigation and subsequent arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

The United Nations has said it has been unable to reach 362 villages in Afghanistan in the wake of a deadly earthquake in its eastern Kunar province, which killed at least 2,200 people and flattened entire communities and their homes.

In a news briefing on Monday from Jalalabad, near the epicentre, Shannon O’Hara, who oversees the coordination of the UN’s humanitarian office in Afghanistan, said the earthquake had struck “some of the most remote, rural areas in the country”, making the delivery of humanitarian aid difficult.

O’Hara said an initial assessment only took account of 49 out of 411 affected villages in Afghanistan’s eastern regions, and found 5,230 homes destroyed and 672 damaged.

“Even before the earthquake, these villages were difficult to reach. Now, with the earthquake, it takes extraordinary effort to get there,” O’Hara added.

The magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Afghanistan at the end of August, killing at least 2,200 people, Taliban authorities said, with rescue operations ongoing to reach more affected villages.

The UN believes half a million people may have been affected by the earthquake, including 250,000 children.

Entire villages have been destroyed, and road conditions were made even more difficult due to aftershocks, O’Hara added. She said it took her team more than 6 hours to reach Jalalabad, the largest city near the area most affected by the earthquake.

Humanitarian teams often had to drive long distances to reach villages, including hours spent on foot, highlighting the logistical barriers to aid delivery.

In the mountains of southeast Afghanistan, whole villages have been reduced to piles of stone and mud.

More than a week after a devastating earthquake struck, residents are mourning their families and figuring out how they can survive, having lost everything.

“As we drove towards the epicentre, we saw families walking in the opposite direction – displaced, carrying what little they could. Many were still wearing the same clothes from the night of the earthquake,” O’Hara said. “Mothers and fathers were carrying their children, some with fresh bandages covering their injuries.”

The UN representative also warned that seasonal weather changes, including the possibility of heavy rain and snow in the coming months, could further complicate aid efforts. “Time is running out,” she said. “At the end of October, the winter season will begin, and snow will cut off access to these mountain valleys.