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Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said plans to build more than 3,000 homes in a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank will "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

The so-called E1 project between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement has been frozen for decades amid fierce opposition internationally. Building there would effectively cut off the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem and significantly obstruct its territorial contiguity.

Smotrich said it would thwart the idea of a Palestinian state "because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise".

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"This is Zionism at its best - building, settling and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel."

Five Al Jazeera journalists were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Sunday - among them 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had reported prominently on the war since its outset.

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The targeted attack on a tent used by journalists has drawn strong international condemnation including from the UN, Qatar where Al Jazeera is based, and media freedom groups.

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Israel had previously accused Sharif of being a member of Hamas's military wing - something he and his employer strongly denied. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom group, said the allegations against him were "baseless" and called on the international community to intervene. "Without strong action from the international community to stop the Israeli army... we're likely to witness more such extrajudicial mur

A retired US special forces officer has revealed to the BBC why he resigned from his work with US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution centres. "I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians," Anthony Aguilar told the BBC. He added that in his entire career he has never witnessed such a level of "brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population".

"We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza. It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there." In a separate joint statement, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, said their colleagues and the people they serve were "wasting away". But Israel, which controls the entry of supplies into Gaza, has accused the charities of "serving the propaganda of Hamas".

Haaretz report says Israel plans to fly 16 social media influencers who support Trump’s MAGA and America First campaigns.

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The influencers each have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. They will be flown in to counter what the Israeli government sees as declining support for Israel among young Americans, the report said, without citing any date.

“With the rise of the America First movement and MAGA in American politics, it’s essential for Israel that the movement adopt a pro-Israel position,” Yacov Livne, senior deputy director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Department of Public Diplomacy, was quoted as saying in the report.

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“[While] older Republicans and American conservatives still hold pro-Israel views, positive perspectives towards Israel are falling across all younger age groups,” it said, according to the report.

The influencers will be pushed to share messaging that aligns with Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians. “We are working with influencers, sometimes with delegations of influencers,” an unnamed source from the ministry told Haaretz.

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Israel365 promotes support for Israel, specifically among Christians, based on biblical principles. Its website says the group “stands unapologetically for the Jewish people’s God-given right to the entire Land of Israel”.

The organisation also rejects a two‑state solution as a “delusion” and describes its mission as defending “Western civilization against threats from both Progressive Left extremism and global jihad”.

Multiple legal experts told BBC Verify that Israel may have committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention, which largely prohibits the destruction of infrastructure by an occupying power.

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In July, Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz outlined plans to establish what he called a "humanitarian city" over the ruins of Rafah, with an initial 600,000 Palestinians being confined there.

The plan has been widely condemned. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the BBC that the proposal would be "interpreted as being akin to a concentration camp".

I’m not 100% sure this meets the “news” requirement as opposed to being investigative journalism. Is there a community that fits better?

Two Palestinians, one a dual US citizen, have been killed in an attack by Israeli settlers on a town in the north of the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Separately, the US embassy in Jerusalem has said it condemns recent violence by Israeli settlers against the Christian town of Taybeh in the West Bank.

Most of the land there is owned by Palestinian-Americans and, according to locals, some 300 residents are US passport holders. Attacks, including by masked men torching cars and attacking homes, have ramped up. On Monday, settlers set fields ablaze close to a fifth-Century church, leading to a call for international action from the town's priests.

The State Department said in response it had no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas and that protecting Christians was a priority for President Donald Trump.