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Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank overnight, torching cars and spray-painting threatening graffiti, a witness and the Palestinian Authority said Monday.Jeries Azar, a Taybeh resident and journalist for Palestine TV, told AFP his house and car were targeted in the pre-dawn assault.”I looked outside and saw my car on fire, and they were throwing something at the vehicle and in the direction of the house,” Azar said.The Palestinian Authority issued a statement blaming “Israeli colonial settlers” for the attack on Taybeh. Azar said he was terrified and put himself in the shoes of the Dawabsheh family, a couple who burned to death with their baby after settlers attacked their West Bank village of Duma in 2015.”My greatest fear was for my two-year-old son. After we escaped, he cried nonstop for an hour”, Azar said, adding that the Israeli army had surveyed the area after the attack.Israeli police and the military said in a joint statement that a unit was dispatched to Taybeh and reported “two burned Palestinian vehicles and graffiti”.The statement said that no suspects were apprehended but that Israeli police have launched an investigation.A photo shared by a Palestinian government agency on social media showed graffiti on a Taybeh wall that read: “Al-Mughayyir, you will regret”, referring to a nearby village that was also attacked by settlers earlier this year.The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry condemned the attack, calling it “settler terrorism”.Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, also condemned the action, writing on X: “These extremist settlers may claim that God gave them the land. But they are nothing but criminals abhorrent to any faith”.Taybeh and its surroundings have experienced several bouts of settler violence in recent months, including an arson attack at an ancient Byzantine church.The village — home to about 1,300 mostly Christian Palestinians, many holding US dual citizenship — is known for its brewery, the oldest in the Palestinian territories.Settlers have attacked neighbouring communities in recent months, resulting in three deaths, damage to Palestinian water wells and the displacement of at least one rural herding community.Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. The territory is home to about three million Palestinians and around 700,000 Israeli settlers, including about 200,000 in east Jerusalem.Last week, 71 members of Israel’s 120-seat parliament, or Knesset, passed a motion calling on the government to annex the West Bank.

Truckloads of food reached hungry Gazans on Monday after Israel promised to open secure aid routes, but humanitarian agencies warned vast amounts more were needed to stave off starvation.With Gaza’s population of more than two million facing famine and malnutrition, Israel bowed to international pressure at the weekend and announced a daily “tactical pause” in fighting in some areas.”For the first time, I received about five kilos of flour, which I shared with my neighbour,” said 37-year-old Jamil Safadi, who shelters with his wife, six children and a sick father in a tent near the Al-Quds hospital in Tel al-Hawa.Safadi, who has been up before dawn for two weeks searching for food, said Monday was his first success. Other Gazans were less fortunate; some complained aid trucks had been stolen or that guards had fired at them near US-backed aid centres.”I saw injured and dead people. People have no choice but to try daily to get flour. What entered from Egypt was very limited,” said 33-year-old Amir al-Rash, still without food and living in a tent.Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza on March 2 after talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down. Nothing was allowed into the territory until late May, when a trickle of aid resumed.Now, the Israeli defence ministry’s civil affairs agency says the UN and aid agencies had been able to pick up 120 truckloads of aid on Sunday and distribute it inside Gaza, with more on the way Monday.- Basic supplies -Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have begun air-dropping aid packages by parachute over Gaza, while Egypt has sent trucks through its Rafah border crossing to an Israeli post just inside Gaza. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, cautiously welcomed Israel’s “humanitarian pauses” but warned Gaza needed at least 500 to 600 trucks of basic food, medicine and hygiene supplies daily.”We hope that UNRWA will finally be allowed to bring in thousands of trucks loaded with food, medicine and hygiene supplies. They are currently in Jordan and Egypt waiting for the green light,” the agency said. “Opening all the crossings and flooding Gaza with assistance is the only way to avert further deepening of starvation among the people of Gaza.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strongly denied Israel was deliberately starving civilians as part of its intense 21-month-old war to crush the Palestinian group Hamas.Military spokesmen say the UN and aid agencies should quickly make use of the lull in fighting and secure aid routes, urging them to pick up and distribute aid delivered to Gaza border crossings.”An additional 180 trucks entered Gaza and are now awaiting collection and distribution, along with hundreds of others still queued for UN pickup,” said COGAT, a defence ministry body that oversees Palestinian affairs.”More consistent collection and distribution by UN agencies and international organisations equals more aid reaching those who need it most in Gaza.”UNRWA insisted it was ready to step up distribution, with 10,000 staff inside Gaza, waiting for deliveries.”According to our latest data one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City. More children have reportedly died of hunger; bringing the death toll of starving people to over 100,” the statement said.Over the weekend aid trucks began arriving from Egypt and Jordan and dropping their loads at distribution platforms just inside Gaza, ready to be picked up by agencies working inside the war-shattered territory.But their number still falls far short of what is needed, aid agencies warn, calling for a permanent ceasefire, the reopening of more border crossings and a long-term large-scale humanitarian operation.- Field hospital C-section -Truce talks between Israel and Hamas — mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States — have stumbled, and Netanyahu remains determined to push on with the campaign to destroy Hamas and recover Israeli hostages held in Gaza.Gaza’s civil defence agency said 16 people were killed by Israeli fire Monday.Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said they included five people killed in an overnight strike on a residential building in the southern Gaza district of Al-Mawasi.A pregnant woman was among the dead, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which said its teams saved the woman’s foetus by performing a Caesarean section in a field hospital.The violence in Gaza came against the backdrop of a UN conference in New York where France and Saudi Arabia will lead a diplomatic effort to revive the moribund push for a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will press Donald Trump on ending “the unspeakable suffering” in Gaza, and also talk trade, when they meet Monday at the US president’s golf resort in Scotland, Downing Street said.The talks will come a day after the US and the European Union reached a landmark deal to end a transatlantic standoff over tariffs and avert a full-blown trade war.Starmer is expected to push Trump on urging a revival of stalled ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas as a hunger crisis deepens in the besieged Palestinian territory.The meeting at Turnberry, southwestern Scotland, comes as European countries express growing alarm at the situation in Gaza, and as Starmer faces domestic pressure to follow France’s lead and recognise a Palestinian state.The leaders will also discuss implementing a recent UK-US trade deal, as well as efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to a British government statement issued late Sunday.But it is the growing threat of starvation faced by Palestinians in Gaza that is set to dominate the talks, on the third full day of Trump’s trip to the land where his mother was born.Starmer is expected to “welcome the president’s administration working with partners in Qatar and Egypt to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.- ‘Reject hunger’ -Trump told reporters Sunday that the United States would give more aid to Gaza but he wanted other countries to step up as well.”It’s not a US problem. It’s an international problem,” he said, before embarking on crunch trade talks with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen at the resort south of Glasgow.He also accused Hamas of intercepting aid, saying “they’re stealing the food, they’re stealing a lot of things. You ship it in and they steal it, then they sell it.”Starmer and Trump’s meeting comes after the UK PM backed efforts by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to air drop aid to Gaza. Humanitarian chiefs remain sceptical those aid drops can deliver enough food safely for the area’s more than two million inhabitants.On Sunday, Israel declared a “tactical pause” in fighting in parts of Gaza and said it would allow the UN and aid agencies to open secure land routes to tackle the hunger crisis.United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged the international community on Monday to fight against hunger around the world. “Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war,” he told a UN conference.- Tariffs -Last week, the United States and Israel withdrew from Gaza truce talks, with US envoy Steve Witkoff accusing Hamas of blocking a deal — a claim rejected by the Palestinian militant group.Starmer held talks with French and German counterparts on Saturday, after which the UK government said they agreed “it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently-needed ceasefire into lasting peace”.But the Downing Street statement made no mention of Palestinian statehood, which French President Emmanuel Macron has announced his country will recognise in September.More than 220 MPs in Britain’s 650-seat parliament, including dozens from Starmer’s own ruling Labour party, have demanded that he too recognise Palestinian statehood.Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told ITV on Monday that “every Labour MP, was elected on a manifesto of recognition of a Palestinian state” and that it was “a case of when, not if.”Number 10 said Starmer and Trump would also discuss “progress on implementing the UK-US trade deal”, which was signed on May 8 and lowered tariffs for certain UK exports but has yet to come into force.Trump said Sunday the agreement was “great” for both sides but Reynolds told BBC Breakfast on Monday that “it wasn’t job done” and cautioned not to expect any announcement of a resolution on issues such as steel and aluminium tariffs.After their meeting the two leaders will travel together to Aberdeen in Scotland’s northeast, where the US president is expected to formally open a new golf course at his resort on Tuesday.Trump played golf at Turnberry on Saturday and Sunday on his five-day visit that has mixed leisure with diplomacy, and also further blurred the lines between the presidency and his business interests.

Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison said Monday it was considering inviting a Chinese “major strategic investor” to join a US-led consortium negotiating the sale of its global ports business outside China, including operations at the Panama Canal.The firm said in March it was offloading the ports — including operations in the vital Central American waterway …

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