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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed he would deal with the violent “handful of extremists” among Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, following clashes and another attack on Monday.Homes and vehicles in a Palestinian village were torched on Monday evening, hours after members of the so-called Hilltop Youth movement clashed with security forces who were dismantling an illegal settler outpost.Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.In recent weeks, attacks attributed to Israeli settlers, notably those living in outposts, have multiplied, targeting Palestinians and sometimes Israeli soldiers.”I view with great severity the violent riots and the attempt by a handful of extremists to take the law into their own hands,” Netanyahu said, calling the perpetrators “a group that does not represent” settlers in the Palestinian territory.”I call on the law enforcement authorities to deal with the rioters to the fullest extent of the law,” he said in a statement.”I intend to deal with this personally, and convene the relevant ministers as soon as possible to address this serious phenomenon.”Israeli security forces were deployed in their hundreds on Monday morning to evacuate and demolish the illegal Israeli settler outpost of Tzur Misgavi in the Gush Etzion area, near the Palestinian town of Sair.They fired tear gas and stun grenades as they clashed with extremist settler activists, whose goal is to evict Palestinian residents and establish settlements in the West Bank without government approval.Demonstrators clambered onto a digger and stood on top of one of the structures as a bulldozer knocked into it.At least 10 prefabricated homes were demolished. Women carrying their young children were left sitting amid the rubble afterwards.- Village attacked -Hours later, the Israeli military said it had been dispatched alongside police to the nearby Palestinian village of Jab’a, around 30 kilometres southwest of Jerusalem, following reports of “dozens of Israeli civilians who set fire to and vandalised homes and vehicles”.”Israeli security forces at the scene are conducting searches to locate involved individuals. The incident is still ongoing,” it said in a statement.”These violent incidents divert the attention of commanders and soldiers from their primary mission of defence and counter-terrorism.”Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said: “The riot of the Hilltop Youth in the village of Jab’a is another stage in the escalating violence.”The United Nations said October had been the worst month for West Bank settler violence since it began recording incidents in 2006, with 264 attacks that caused casualties or property damage.Almost none of the perpetrators have been held to account by the Israeli authorities.- ‘Shaming Judaism’ -Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the “Jewish rioters” in the West Bank were harming Israel, “shaming Judaism and causing damage to the settlement enterprise”.Defence Minister Israel Katz said the government would “continue to develop and grow settlements” while upholding the law “and the stability of the region, as he condemned the “criminal anarchists”.Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir last week pledged to halt settler violence in the West Bank, following a wave of attacks targeting Palestinians.Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and more than 500,000 Israelis now live there in settlements, alongside some three million Palestinians.While all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are illegal under international law, outposts are also prohibited under Israeli law. However, many end up being legalised by the Israeli authorities.At least 1,006 Palestinians, including militants, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the Gaza war started, according to the Palestinian health ministry.During the same period, 43 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the West Bank, according to official Israeli figures.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed he would deal with the violent “handful of extremists” among Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, following clashes and another attack on Monday.Homes and vehicles in a Palestinian village were torched and vandalised on Monday evening, hours after members of the so-called Hilltop Youth movement clashed with security forces dismantling an illegal settler outpost.Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.In recent weeks, attacks attributed to Israeli settlers, notably those living in outposts, have multiplied in the West Bank, targeting Palestinians and sometimes Israeli soldiers.”I view with great severity the violent riots and the attempt by a handful of extremists to take the law into their own hands,” Netanyahu said, calling the perpetrators “a group that does not represent” Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territory.”I call on the law enforcement authorities to deal with the rioters to the fullest extent of the law,” he said in a statement.”I intend to deal with this personally, and convene the relevant ministers as soon as possible to address this serious phenomenon.”Netanyahu said the Israeli military and security forces would continue to act firmly to maintain order.Israeli security forces were deployed in their hundreds on Monday morning to evacuate and demolish the illegal Israeli settler outpost of Tzur Misgavi in the Gush Etzion area, near the Palestinian town of Sair.They fired tear gas and stun grenades as they clashed with extremist settler activists, whose goal is to evict Palestinian residents and establish settlements in the West Bank without government approval.Hours later, the Israeli military said it had been dispatched alongside police to the nearby Palestinian village of Jab’a following reports of “dozens of Israeli civilians who set fire to and vandalised homes and vehicles”.Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said: “The riot of the Hilltop Youth in the village of Jab’a is another stage in the escalating violence.”The United Nations said October had been the worst month for West Bank settler violence since it began recording incidents in 2006, with 264 attacks that caused casualties or property damage.Almost none of the perpetrators have been held to account by the Israeli authorities.

South Africa said Monday the surprise arrival of 153 Palestinians on a plane last week indicated “a clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians” out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.The group landed in Johannesburg on a chartered flight on Thursday without departure stamps from Israel in their passports. Reports said a shadowy organisation named Al-Majd was involved in their travel from Gaza.”We are suspicious, as the South African government, about the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the plane,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters.South African border police kept the group on the plane for 12 hours before President Cyril Ramaphosa allowed them entry on a standard 90-day visa exemption.It emerged later that a first plane carrying 176 Palestinians had arrived on October 28, according to the local Gift of the Givers charity that is assisting the arrivals.”We do not want any further flights to come our way because this is a clear agenda to cleanse out Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and those areas, which South Africa is against,” Lamola said.”It does look like it represents a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world, and is a clearly orchestrated operation,” he said, without providing further details.- Palestinians ‘misled’ -South Africa, which is set to host world leaders at the G20 summit this weekend, is seen as one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause.Pretoria filed a case against Israel with the International Court of Justice in 2023, accusing it of genocide in Gaza.The Gift of the Givers NGO told AFP the Palestinians it is assisting said they had paid around $2,000 per person to Al-Majd for the trip.”What we’ve been told is that they were promised some type of travel out of Gaza to some form of safety in a country that would welcome them,” representative Sarah Oosthuizen told AFP.Some of the passengers appeared to have been misled about their final destination, with a few believing they were headed to Indonesia, Malaysia or India, she said.Travellers in the first group — which included men, women and children — “definitely did not know that they were coming to South Africa”, Oosthuizen said.They flew from Israel’s Ramon airport to Nairobi before boarding the chartered plane to Johannesburg, she said.The accommodation promised on arrival turned out to have been booked for only up to a week and, “when they were settled in these accommodations, their contact with Al-Majd went silent,” Oosthuizen said.Some of the group had told the NGO that they wished to apply for asylum, she said.- ‘Investigating’ -The Palestinian embassy in South Africa said Thursday the travel of both groups “was arranged by an unregistered and misleading organisation that exploited the tragic humanitarian conditions of our people in Gaza”.The group had “deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner”, it said.According to an activist from the pro-Palestinian Social Intifada civil society group in Johannesburg, the Palestinians said Al-Majd had advertised “evacuation and relocation” to people in Gaza on social media.They were told to pay money into an account and to expect a day’s notice before departure,” Khalid Vawda told AFP.”Once they met at the departure point, they were taken through the Kerem Shalom crossing, where whatever belongings they had, they had to leave behind. They were only allowed to take their mobile phones, the clothing they were wearing, and whatever cash they had on them,” he said.When AFP in Jerusalem tried to contact Al-Majd, none of the numbers listed on their website were in service. Their linked address only led to the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.Israeli authorities told AFP at the weekend that the 153 Palestinians had been allowed to leave Gaza after receiving “approval from a third country to receive them”, without naming the country in question.Lamola on Monday said Pretoria was investigating.

Emirates, the Middle East’s biggest airline, topped up its order of Boeing 777X planes on Monday despite years of delays, delivering a vote of confidence to the US manufacturer at the Dubai Airshow.The order of 65 777-9s, valued at $38 billion including engines, came despite last month’s announcement that delivery was now due in 2027 — seven years behind the original schedule.Emirates, already the biggest customer for the Boeing 777, now has 270 777X, 10 777 freighters and 35 Boeing 787s on order.The 777X deliveries will start in the second quarter of 2027, Emirates Group chairman and chief executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said.”Some people may have doubts about Emirates’ huge backlog of aircraft orders,” he told a press conference. “But I assure that each and every aircraft on order has been carefully factored into Emirates’ growth plans.”The announcement on day one at the biennial airshow, the biggest in the Middle East, came as China showcased its COMAC C919 for the first time in the region.China’s first domestically produced passenger jet is a stab at challenging the decades-long dominance of Boeing and its European rival Airbus.Brazil’s Embraer unveiled orders from Air Cote d’Ivoire for four passenger planes and another three for Switzerland’s Helvetic Airways.Boeing also announced smaller deals with Ethiopian Airlines, which ordered 11 737 MAX jets, and nine 737-8s for Air Senegal on Monday.The US plane-maker is trying to turn the page on a torrid period including deadly crashes, court cases and a strike in its defence arm, as well as the delivery delays.- ‘Do more business’ -“I don’t think there was any convincing that needed to be done, frankly,” Brad McMullen, Boeing’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing, said of the negotiations with Emirates.”I think they’ve committed to the 777-9, their future depends on it. Our future depends on Emirates. “So, when two parties depend on each other, you can normally find a way to do more business.”Boeing’s delays have forced Emirates to refurbish much of its existing fleet, including its Airbus A380s which are now out of production.As it searches for ways to replace the giant A380s, the latest order includes the option to upgrade to a bigger version of the 777X, if Boeing chooses to build it.Boeing will take a “hard look” at building a bigger plane, but has not made any commitments, McMullen said.”We have committed that we’re gonna study it. And that’s what we’re gonna do,” he said.”It’s probably no secret that Emirates has wanted a bigger aircraft to replace the A380s, and we’re gonna see if that’s our airplane.”Emirates also said it would start rolling out free in-flight wifi via Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite-powered network, from Sunday.