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The Israeli army and police said Thursday they were investigating the circumstances in which two Palestinians were shot dead in the occupied West Bank while seemingly surrendering to Israeli forces.The incident in Jenin in the northern West Bank, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, was filmed from several angles, including by AFP.The Palestinian Authority named the two men killed as 37-year-old Yussef Ali Asa’sa and 26-year-old Al-Muntasir Billah Mahmud Abdullah.It said they were killed in a “brutal” summary execution and condemned the incident as a “war crime”.Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir swiftly backed the forces who opened fire, saying: “Terrorists must die!”- Blood-soaked floor -Videos circulating on social media and on television channels showed two men emerging from a building with their arms raised, surrounded by Israeli forces.They were then seen lying on the ground before being directed back inside the building. Gunshots rang out and the two men were seen lying on the ground.AFP footage showed the two men exiting the building then entering it again before the shorts were fired. A building between the camera and the scene partially obscured the image.Troops were later seen removing a body.AFP pictures from the scene showed the blood-soaked floor of a building. People helped to clear up the damaged site afterwards, moving sheets of corrugated metal.In a joint statement, the Israeli military and the police — which oversees the border guard unit — said they attempted to apprehend “wanted individuals who had carried out terror activities, including hurling explosives and firing at security forces”.They said they “enclosed the structure in which the suspects were located, and initiated a surrender procedure that lasted several hours. Following the use of engineering tools on the structure, the two suspects exited.”Following their exit, fire was directed toward the suspects.”The incident is under review by the commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”- ‘Brutal field execution’ -Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry said the two men were “shot dead by Israeli forces in the Jabal Abu Dhahir area in the city of Jenin”, adding that their bodies were being held by Israeli forces.The foreign ministry in Ramallah said it “strongly condemns the brutal field execution carried out by the Israeli occupation army against two Palestinian youths”, calling it a “deliberate Israeli war crime”.It urged the international community to take “immediate action to stop the Israeli killing machine, deter these crimes, and impose urgent international protection mechanisms for the Palestinian people”.The Palestinian militant group Hamas called it a “cold-blooded execution of two unarmed Palestinian youths”.Meanwhile, Ben Gvir offered his total backing to the Israeli forces involved.”I fully support the border guard members and Israeli army soldiers who shot at wanted terrorists who emerged from a building in Jenin,” he said on X.”The forces acted exactly as expected of them — terrorists must die!”- ‘Dehumanisation’ -Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the two men were killed “while posing no threat”.”The execution documented today is the result of an accelerated process of dehumanisation of Palestinians and the complete abandonment of their lives by the Israeli regime,” said B’Tselem’s executive director Yuli Novak.Violence in the West Bank has soared since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas coming into effect last month.Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them militants, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.At least 44 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.

The Israeli military carried out a fresh series of strikes against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Thursday, exactly a year into a ceasefire with the militant group.Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israeli aircraft launched “a series of raids on Al-Mahmoudiya and Al-Jarmak”, just north of the Litani River.The November 27, 2024 ceasefire sought to end over a year of hostilities between the two sides.But Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to stop the group from rearming.Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said his country was “in a one-sided war of attrition that is escalating”.The Israeli military said it “struck and dismantled Hezbollah terror infrastructure in several areas in southern Lebanon”, in a statement after Thursday’s strikes.It also said it had hit “several launch sites where Hezbollah weapons were stored”, “military posts” used by the Iran-backed group, and a storage facility containing weapons.Israel’s military “will continue to operate to remove any threat to the State of Israel”, it said.Israel said that ever since the ceasefire, it has been trying to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding by dismantling infrastructure, thwarting its intelligence operations and diminishing its military capabilities.It said it had carried out around 1,200 “targeted activities” and “eliminated more than 370 terrorists” from Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian groups during the ceasefire.- US pressure -According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah was required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with Israel, and have its military infrastructure there dismantled.Under a government-approved plan, the Lebanese army is set to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure south of the river by the end of the year, before tackling the rest of the country.The US has been piling pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.The Lebanese military has said it is carrying out its plan to disarm the group, but Washington and Israel have accused Lebanese authorities of stalling the process.Lebanese President Joseph Aoun “rejected the Israeli claims”, his office said Thursday, adding that the Lebanese army was “preventing armed displays, confiscating ammunition, inspecting tunnels, among other things”.On Thursday, Aoun met Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations’ special coordinator for Lebanon, who said that a year on from the ceasefire, “uncertainty remains”.”For too many Lebanese, the conflict is ongoing — albeit at a lower intensity. And one does not need a crystal ball to understand that as long as the current status quo continues, the spectre of future hostilities will continue to loom large,” she said.- Weapons found -In a statement posted by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Thursday evening, the peacekeeping force said it continued to find “illegal weapons” in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL said it also recorded over 10,000 air and ground violations of the truce in the past year.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier this week warned there would be “no calm” in Lebanon if Israel’s security was not guaranteed.An Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday killed Haitham Ali Tabatabai — the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since the ceasefire entered into force.The Lebanese premier slammed Hezbollah’s claims that its weapons deter Israeli aggression.”These weapons did not protect either Hezbollah’s leaders or the Lebanese people and their property,” Salam said.”Are Hezbollah’s weapons currently capable of repelling the ongoing Israeli attacks? These weapons have provided neither deterrence nor protection, nor have they brought victory to Gaza.”

Sebastien Ogier bounced back from a mediocre first full day at the season-closing Rally Saudi Arabia to share the honours in Thursday’s final stage and boost his hopes of landing a ninth World Rally Championship. The Frenchman, who described the conditions as “terrible”, hit the same time as M-Sport Ford driver Martins Sesks in the final stage to close the day in seventh place overall, 44.2 seconds behind leader Adrien Fourmaux.That in turn left him two places and 41.1sec ahead of the other leading title contender Elfyn Evans who began the rally just three points ahead of his Toyota teammate.Ogier’s strong finish gave him the lead in the provisional championship standings by a single point, a remarkable performance given that he has missed three of the 14 rounds of the championship in his capacity as a ‘part-time’ driver.Evans, who had to open the road with little grip on the loose surface, struggled all day and was further compromised by a minor overshoot in the morning.”We paid for opening and I couldn’t really do any better, it’s tough,” said Welshman Evans. “We’ll keep fighting tomorrow (Friday).”- ‘Settling accounts’ -Kalle Rovanpera’s outside hopes of a third world title diminished as two punctures left him in eighth.”You can’t see it on the classification, but we’ve been doing a pretty good job today,” said Ogier. “My main target anyway is Elfyn and Kalle, and on that side we have done what we had to do. We are in front of them.”Tomorrow should be the most difficult day, the hardest. It’s the last day we’ll be settling accounts.”Fourmaux, meanwhile, moved to the top of the leader board after a difficult afternoon on the second pass of Khulays. The Frenchman avoided any major problems across all seven stages to end the day 6.0sec ahead of Toyota’s Sami Pajari, with early pacesetter Sesks just 0.9sec further back in third.”I’m really pleased with the day,” said Fourmaux.  “The gaps are small, so nothing is done for sure, but it’s positive to finish the day like that. The road position is important here and I’m pleased to have a good road position for tomorrow.”This inaugural visit to Saudi Arabia continues on Friday with the longest leg of the rally which features more than 130km against the clock across six demanding desert stages. 

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on Thursday said she was permanently barred from leaving Iran, in a birthday message to her teenage twins who she has not seen for over a decade.Mohammadi, 53, had been in prison for over three years until her release in December last year for a limited period on medical leave.Her legal team has warned she could be re-arrested and sent back to jail at any time, and she is not able to leave the country.”I applied for a passport so I could come to you,” she said in a message to her twin children, Kiana and Ali Rahmani, marking their 19th birthday.But “the Islamic republic has issued and enforced two types of travel bans, including a ‘permanent travel ban’,” she said.Kiana and Ali live in Paris with their father and her husband Taghi Rahmani, also a prominent Iranian activist who endured long spells in jail.Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her two-decade fight for human rights in the Islamic republic and strongly backed the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.The Iranian authorities “stamp the word ‘permanent’ on our documents, while they themselves live each day in fear of the fall that will inevitably come at the hands of the people of Iran”, she said in the message.It was not immediately clear when and under what circumstances the bans were issued.Her two children received the Nobel prize in Oslo on her behalf in 2023, and she has now not seen for them 11 years.Mohammadi, who was last arrested in November 2021, has spent much of the past decade behind bars.She has remained defiant outside jail, refusing, in video conference appearances at international events, to wear the headscarf that is obligatory for all women in the Islamic republic.Mohammadi has also regularly predicted the downfall of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Lando Norris insisted Thursday he was feeling calm and composed ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix where he could win his first drivers’ world championship title.Unperturbed by the double disqualification of himself and McLaren team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri in Las Vegas last weekend, the 26-year-old Briton told reporters he was completely at ease ahead of this weekend’s showdown. “I feel as relaxed now as I was before when I was 35 points behind and I feel the same when I’m 24 points ahead,” Norris said. “For now, that’s my strength. It feels the same to me now as before Mexico when I wasn’t leading and in Austin.”Norris, who needs only to out-score Piastri and defending four-time champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull by two points to win the title this weekend, made light of the pressures of expectation and the Dutchman’s fightback. “We’ve treated him as a threat the whole year even when he was a few more points behind,” he said of Verstappen, who was 104 points behind in the title race at the end of August, but is now level with Piastri — 24 behind Norris.”We treat him as a threat because we know what he’s capable of, we know what Red Bull is capable of — so therefore nothing changes now because he’s still the threat he’s always been through the whole year.”Norris conceded that his disqualification in Las Vegas had hurt, but said he and the team had dealt with it and moved on.”We all felt let down by the result and we were all disappointed, but actually I found it was quite easy to move on and have a few days off -– and then come into this weekend,” he explained.Piastri appeared to be equally calm, but made it very clear that as things stood he had no intention of abandoning his own bid for glory in favour of helping his McLaren team-mate. “We’ve had a very brief discussion on it and the answer is no,” the Australian said. “I’m still equal on points with Max and I’ve got a decent shot of still winning it if things go my way. So, yeah, that’s how we’ll play it.”McLaren team chief Andrea Stella explained that the disqualification of both cars, for excessive wear of the skid blocks, was a result of an unexpected level of “porpoising… exacerbated by the conditions” in Nevada. “We knew we were having a lot more issues than we ever expected during the race,” Norris said. “Maybe it would have hurt more if we won the race, but we didn’t so it doesn’t change anything… There’s no point being too sad about it.”I’m excited to go again this weekend. It doesn’t change anything. I want to try and win here in Qatar and to win in Abu Dhabi. It sucks, but that’s life sometimes.”