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Israel announced on Thursday the creation of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, putting further strain on relations with the international community already taxed by the war in Gaza.Both Britain and neighbouring Jordan slammed the move, with London calling it a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood.Israeli settlements in the West Bank are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law, and are seen as one of the main obstacles to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.The decision to establish more, taken by the country’s security cabinet, was announced by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, and Defence Minister Israel Katz, who is in charge of managing the communities.”We have made a historic decision for the development of settlements: 22 new communities in Judea and Samaria, renewing settlement in the north of Samaria, and reinforcing the eastern axis of the State of Israel,” Smotrich said on X, using the Israeli terms for the southern and northern West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.”Next step: sovereignty!” he added.Katz said the initiative “changes the face of the region and shapes the future of settlement for years to come”.Not all the 22 settlements are new, however. Some are existing outposts, while others are neighbourhoods of settlements that will become independent communities, according to the left-wing Israeli NGO Peace Now.In a statement, Hamas accused Israel of “accelerating steps to Judaize Palestinian land within a clear annexation project”.”This is a blatant defiance of the international will and a grave violation of international law and United Nations resolutions,” said the Palestinian militant group, which rules Gaza.Western ally Jordan also condemned the move as illegal, and said it “undermines prospects for peace by entrenching the occupation”. The Jordanian foreign ministry warned that “such unilateral actions further erode the viability of a two-state solution by impeding the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state”.On Telegram, the right-wing Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move a “once-in-a-generation decision”, and said it “includes the establishment of four communities along the eastern border with Jordan, as part of strengthening Israel’s eastern backbone”. The party also published a map showing the 22 sites spread across the territory.- ‘Heritage of our ancestors’ -Two of the settlements, Homesh and Sa-Nur, are particularly symbolic.Located in the north of the West Bank, they are actually resettlements, having been evacuated in 2005 as part of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, promoted by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.Netanyahu’s government, formed in December 2022 with the support of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, is the most right-wing in Israel’s history.Human rights groups and anti-settlement NGOs say a slide towards at least de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank has gathered pace, particularly since the start of the Gaza war triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.”The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal,” Peace Now said in a statement.In his announcement, Smotrich offered a preemptive defence of the move, saying: “We have not taken a foreign land, but the heritage of our ancestors.”Some European governments have moved to sanction individual settlers, as did the United States under former president Joe Biden, though those measures were lifted by Donald Trump.Britain’s minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, slammed the decision as a “deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood”, saying settlements “imperil the two state solution, and do not protect Israel”.Thursday’s announcement comes ahead of an international conference to be led by France and Saudi Arabia at UN headquarters in New York next month that is meant to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The United States’ new envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, called for a non-aggression agreement between Syria and Israel in remarks to Saudi channel Al Arabiya on Thursday.Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948, with Israel taking the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.Since the ouster in December of former president Bashar al-Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes and multiple incursions into Syria.Barrack, who inaugurated the US ambassador’s residence in Damascus on Thursday, said the conflict between the two countries was a “solvable problem”.To him, Syria and Israel could “start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders” to build a new relationship with its neighbour.Israel has said its strikes on Syria were aimed at preventing advanced weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.It has also threatened further intervention should the new authorities fail to protect the Druze religious minority.Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said earlier this month that his administration was holding “indirect talks” with Israel to calm tensions between the two countries.- Restoring US ties -Sharaa, who led the rebel offensive that toppled Assad in December, was once a jihadist leader wanted in the United States.Since coming to power, he has repeatedly pledged inclusive governance that is open to the world, and restored Syria’s ties with global powers, ending decades of isolation under Assad.While on tour in the Gulf earlier this month, US President Donald Trump announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria, and said he hoped the country would normalise relations with Israel.”I told him, I hope you’re going to join once you’re straightened out and he said yes. But they have a lot of work to do,” he said of Sharaa. He also called Sharaa a “young, attractive guy” with a “very strong past. Fighter”.On May 8, Sharaa said in France that Syria was holding “indirect talks through mediators” with Israel to “try to contain the situation so it does not reach the point where it escapes the control of both sides.”The United States has in recent months started rebuilding ties with Syria, ending more than a decade of diplomatic freeze.Syria signed a $7 billion energy deal on Thursday with a consortium of Qatari, US and Turkish companies as it seeks to rehabilitate its war-ravaged electricity sector.- US flag raised -The agreement, signed in the presence of interim Sharaa and Barrack, is expected to generate 5,000 megawatts of electricity and cover half of the country’s needs.Barrack, who is also ambassador to Turkey, inaugurated the US ambassador’s residence in the Syrian capital with Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad al-Shaibani, state media outlet SANA reported.AFP photographers saw the US flag raised at the ambassador’s residence, just a few hundred metres (yards) from the US embassy in the Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood, under tight security.”Tom understands there is great potential in working with Syria to stop Radicalism, improve Relations, and secure Peace in the Middle East,” Trump said, according to a post on the State Department’s X.The US embassy in Syria was closed after Assad’s repression of a peaceful uprising that began in 2011, which degenerated into civil war.Barrack met with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Istanbul on 24 May, after the United States lifted sanctions on Syria.The meeting followed a meeting in Riyadh between Trump and Sharaa, who led the Islamist coalition that toppled Assad in December.The last US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, was declared persona non grata in 2011 after defying the Syrian government by visiting a city that was under army siege and the site of a major anti-regime protests.In late December, a US delegation led by Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s Middle East representative, held an initial meeting with the new leadership in Damascus.

At least 44 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, rescuers said, a day after a World Food Programme warehouse in the centre of the territory was looted by desperate Palestinians.After a more than two-month blockade, aid has finally begun to trickle back into Gaza, but the humanitarian situation remains dire after 18 months of devastating war. Food security experts say starvation is looming for one in five people.The Israeli military has also recently stepped up its offensive in the territory in what it says is a renewed push to destroy Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.Gaza civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP “44 people have been killed in Israeli raids”, including 23 in a strike on home in Al-Bureij. “Two people were killed and several injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire this morning near the American aid centre in the Morag axis, southern Gaza Strip,” he added.The centre, run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), is part of a new system for distributing aid that Israel says is meant to keep supplies out of the hands of Hamas, but which has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the European Union.”What is happening to us is degrading. The crowding is humiliating us,” said Gazan Sobhi Areef, who visited a GHF centre on Thursday. “We go there and risk our lives just to get a bag of flour to feed our children.”The Israeli military said it was looking into the reported deaths in Al-Bureij and near the aid centre.Separately, it said in a statement that its forces had struck “dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” over the past day.In a telephone call Thursday with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Israel’s “systematic starvation tactics have crossed all moral and legal boundaries”.- ‘Hordes of hungry people’ -On Wednesday, thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in central Gaza, with Israel and the UN trading blame over the deepening hunger crisis. AFP footage showed crowds of Palestinians breaking into the WFP facility in Deir al-Balah and taking bags of emergency food supplies as gunshots rang out.”Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the UN agency said in a statement.The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid starvation fears and intense criticism of the GHF, which has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told the Security Council that aid was entering Gaza by truck — under limited authorisation by Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing — and accused the UN of “trying to block” GHF’s work through “threats, intimidation and retaliation against NGOs that choose to participate”.The UN has said it is doing its utmost to facilitate distribution of the limited assistance allowed by Israel’s authoritiesThe world body said 47 people were wounded Tuesday when crowds of Palestinians rushed a GHF site. A Palestinian medical source reported at least one death.GHF, however, alleged in a statement that there had been “several inaccuracies” circulating about its operations, adding “there are many parties who wish to see GHF fail”.But 60-year-old Abu Fawzi Faroukh, who visited a GHF centre Thursday, said the situation there was “so chaotic”. “The young men are the ones who have received aid first, yesterday and today, because they are young and can carry loads, but the old people and women cannot enter due to the crowding,” he told AFP.- ‘Nothing has changed’ -Negotiations on a ceasefire, meanwhile, have continued, with US envoy Steve Witkoff expressing optimism and saying he expected to propose a plan soon.But Gazans remained pessimistic.”Six hundred days have passed and nothing has changed. Death continues, and Israeli bombing does not stop,” said Bassam Daloul, 40.The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 57 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 3,986 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,249, mostly civilians.

Pop star Dua Lipa joined some 300 UK celebrities in signing an open letter Thursday urging Britain to halt arms sales to Israel, after similar pleas from lawyers and writers.Actors, musicians, activists and other public figures wrote the letter calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to “end the UK’s complicity in the horrors in Gaza”.British-Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa has been vocal about the war in Gaza and last year criticised Israel’s offensive as a “genocide”.Israel has repeatedly denied allegations of genocide and says its campaign intends to crush Hamas following the deadly October 2023 attack by the Palestinian militants.Other signatories include actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton and Riz Ahmed, and musicians Paloma Faith, Annie Lennox and Massive Attack.”You can’t call it ‘intolerable’ and keep sending arms,” read the letter to Labour leader Starmer organised by Choose Love, a UK-based humanitarian aid and refugee advocacy charity.Sports broadcaster Gary Lineker, who stepped down from his role at the BBC after a social media post that contained anti-Semitic imagery, also signed the letter.Signatories urged the UK to ensure “full humanitarian access across Gaza”, broker an “immediate and permanent ceasefire”, and “immediately suspend” all arms sales to Israel.”The children of Gaza cannot wait another minute. Prime Minister, what will you choose? Complicity in war crimes, or the courage to act?”, the letter continued.Earlier this month, Starmer slammed Israel’s “egregious” renewed military offensive in Gaza and promised to take “further concrete actions” if it did not stop — without detailing what the actions could be.Last September the UK government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel, saying there was a “clear risk” they could be used to breach humanitarian law.Global outrage has grown after Israel ended a ceasefire in March and stepped up military operations this month, killing thousands of people in a span of two months according to figures by the Hamas-run health ministry.The humanitarian situation has also sparked alarm and fears of starvation after a two-month blockade on aid entering the devastated territory.Over 800 UK lawyers including Supreme Court justices, and some 380 British and Irish writers warned of Israel committing a “genocide” in Gaza in open letters this week.Hamas killed 1,218 people, mostly civilians, in their October 2023 attack on Israel, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s military offensive launched in response has killed 54,084, mostly civilians, in Gaza according to its health ministry, displaced nearly the entire population and ravaged swathes of the besieged strip.

Saudi officials are in “difficult” talks to keep Cristiano Ronaldo in the country, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told AFP on Thursday, after the star footballer suggested he was leaving Al Nassr.The Portuguese superstar, whose arrival in 2023 heralded a rush of late-career players to the oil-rich country, could transfer to Al Hilal and feature at the upcoming Club World Club, the source said.”There is an ongoing difficult negotiation to convince Ronaldo to stay and play” in the Saudi Pro League next season, said the source from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a major investor in Saudi football.”First option is a transfer to Al Hilal with an opportunity to feature in the FIFA Club World Cup or to Asia champion Al Ahli,” the source added.The oil-funded PIF, the sovereign wealth fund behind a number of big-ticket Saudi investments, controls a group of Pro League clubs including Al Nassr, Al Hilal and Al Ahli.Ronaldo posted “This chapter is over” hours after the Saudi Pro League wrapped up this week with Al Nassr finishing third and trophyless once again. A special transfer window opens from June 1-10 to allow the 32 teams involved in the newly expanded Club World Cup to sign players.Last week, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said “there are discussions” over the former United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Sporting Lisbon star playing at the tournament in the United States from June 14.Portuguese forward Ronaldo, 40, joined Al Nassr in early 2023 from Manchester United and his contract expires at the end of next month.”Ronaldo’s presence is a key factor in developing the Saudi league in the last two years and a half. He opens the door for elite and young players to come to Saudi Arabia,” the PIF source said. – ‘Ronaldo might play’ -Ronaldo’s announcement comes just months after Brazilian star Neymar ended his injury-plagued 18-month stay in January, after playing just seven times for Al Hilal — on a reported salary of around $104 million a year.Although Ronaldo was the Pro League’s top scorer with 25 goals, he has been unable to win a Saudi or continental trophy with Al Nassr, who lost in the Asian Champions League semi-finals last month.Last year, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner said he could end his career with Al Nassr, the Riyadh team favoured by a number of Saudi royals.Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s great rival Lionel Messi will play at the Club World Cup with Inter Miami.During a recent interview with YouTuber and streamer IShowSpeed, Infantino said: “And Ronaldo might play for one of the teams as well at the Club World Cup.”There are discussions with some clubs, so if any club is watching and is interested in hiring Ronaldo for the Club World Cup… who knows, who knows.”Saudi Arabia has shaken up football by spending heavily on stars from Europe, starting with Ronaldo’s move, and the desert nation will host the World Cup in 2034.