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      3 Israelis Killed at West Bank-Jordan Border Crossing

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      The Allenby crossing, near the West Bank city of Jericho, has been the scene of violence in the past.A gunman killed three Israelis at a sensitive border crossing between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to the Israeli military.The attack comes amid a surge of violence in the occupied territory since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel prompted the war in Gaza, and at a delicate moment for the relationship between Israel and neighboring Jordan.The gunman arrived at the Israeli-controlled part of the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan in a truck on Sunday and opened fire on Israeli security forces, the military said in a statement. The military did not identify the gunman, who was killed at the scene. The three victims were forklift operators who worked at the crossing, according to the Israel Airports Authority.The crossing, near the West Bank city of Jericho, is the main pathway for most Palestinians in the occupied territory to travel abroad, and it has served as an entry point for some aid being delivered to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel described the gunman as “an abhorrent terrorist” and extended his condolences to the families of the victims.It was not immediately clear how the gunman managed to take a weapon into the Israeli-controlled part of the crossing. The Israel Airports Authority said in a statement that the Allenby Bridge was closed, as were two land crossings between Israel and Jordan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      West Bank residents tell of teargas then shots before US woman’s death

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      US officials have insisted that a ceasefire in Gaza is close even as fighting rages unabated in the blockaded Palestinian territory and violence spirals in the occupied West Bank, where witnesses told the Observer an American-Turkish dual national was killed by Israeli forces on Friday.William Burns, who is also the US’s chief negotiator in the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, echoed secretary of state Antony Blinken during a speech in London on Saturday in which he said that “90% of the text had been agreed but the last 10% is always the hardest”.But pressure from the US, Israel’s most important ally, and the two mediators speaking to Hamas, Qatar and Egypt, has done little to assuage the fighting in Gaza or rising tensions in the West Bank.The US has also said it is urgently seeking more information about the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who witnesses said was shot in the head by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops during an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank on Friday. Several of Israel’s western allies, including the US, have recently imposed sanctions on individuals and organisations associated with Israel’s settler movement, despite blowback from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ­government, which includes far-right supporters of Israeli extremism in the West Bank.Eygi’s family have called for an independent investigation into her killing, adding to the pressure on the Biden administration to end what critics say is US complicity in the Israeli occupation.On Saturday, IDF troops, some of whom appeared to be forensic investigators, visited the town of Beita, near Nablus, to examine the scene where Eygi was killed. For the residents, it was yet another case of the IDF investigating itself: about 1% of army inquiries result in prosecutions, according to rights groups.All of the Beita residents the Observer spoke to gave very similar accounts of the shooting. A group of demonstrators had gathered on the hillside, as they have every Friday for midday prayers in recent years, to protest against Eyvatar, an Israeli settlement on the next hill built on land belonging to Palestinian farmers.On this occasion, there were some 20 Palestinians from Beita, 10 foreign volunteers from the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement, including Eygi, and about a dozen children from the district.“The kids were throwing stones here at the junction, and the soldiers fired tear gas at them,” Mahmud Abdullah, a 43-year-old resident said. “Everyone scattered and ran into the olive grove and then there were two shots.” One of the bullets hit something along the way and a fragment hit a protester in the stomach, wounding him slightly, the witnesses said. The other bullet hit Eygi in the head, passing through her skull. Neighbours pointed out both the spot where Eygi was shot and where the bullet came from: a house on a ridge.The owner, Ali Mohali, said a group of soldiers, perhaps half a dozen, had gone on to his roof, 200m from where Eygi was shot. He said he heard one shot, but was not sure if there had been a second from that position.The IDF statement on the incident said it was looking into the report that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them”.View image in fullscreenMoneer Khdeir, Mohali’s 65-year-old neighbour, was derisive of the IDF account. “They said that the stones posed a threat to the soldiers. They were stones thrown by kids from all the way down there, yet they talk about it like it was a Yassin [rocket propelled grenade],” Khdeir scoffed.Across the West Bank, army units on the ground are increasingly seen by Palestinians as a protective military wing of the settlers, taking their cues from the far right elements of Netanyahu’s government. Palestinian officials and rights groups have long accused the IDF of standing by during or even joining in settler attacks.Hisham Dweikat, 57, a science professor from Beita, said Eygi was the 15th person to be killed protesting against Eyvatar over the three years since the settlement was reoccupied, but hers was the first killing the IDF has investigated. He did not put much faith in the result. “It is clear that the army is with the settlers,” he said.Fifteen kilometres south of Beita in the village of Qaryut, Amjad Bakr and his family buried his 12 year-old daughter Bana on Saturday afternoon. She was shot dead while opening the window in her bedroom at about the same time on Friday that Eygi was killed in Beita.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“As usual on Friday, settlers came to raid the town and the people of the town went to defend themselves. There was a confrontation and the army came,” said Bakr, 47.“We went back home, because we thought that if the army was here, maybe they could stop the settlers. But unfortunately the army did not stop the settlers. They stand with the settlers,” he said.“The bullet that hit my daughter came through the window and hit her in the heart,” he said. “She was innocent, and shy, and clever. She had memorised three sections of the Holy Quran.”As to what Bana had planned to do with her life, Bakr shrugged: “An Israeli bullet doesn’t care about the future of any Palestinian.”In a statement, the IDF said that soldiers were dispatched to disperse violent confrontation between dozens of Palestinians and Israelis, and had fired shots in the air. “A report was received regarding a Palestinian girl who was killed by shots in the area. The incident is under review,” it said.Since Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 662 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between militant and civilian deaths. The toll is almost five times higher than the 146 killed in 2022, which was already an almost 20-year record high.At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, another 61 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the territory in the past 48 hours, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, putting the death toll at 40,939 people. Around 1,200 Israelis and other nationals were killed in Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war, according to Israeli tallies.The latest round of ceasefire talks have stalled over Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli troops will not withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border – a dealbreaker for Hamas – despite agreeing to the measure in talks held in July.Tensions between Israel and its regional foes – Iran and the powerful Lebanese militia Hezbollah – have brought the Middle East to the brink of regional war on several occasions in the past 11 months. More

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      Man Plotted to Kill Jews in New York on Oct. 7 Anniversary, U.S. Says

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      A 20-year-old Pakistani citizen was arrested in Canada after plotting to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish center in New York, according to the Justice Department.A Pakistani citizen was arrested in Quebec this week and accused of plotting to kill “as many Jewish civilians as possible” in New York City on or near the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israelis, according to a Justice Department complaint unsealed Friday.Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, who lived in Canada, tried to cross the border with the intention of traveling to New York, where he planned to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, in support of the Islamic State, prosecutors said.“New york is perfect to target jews,” he wrote to an associate, according to the filing, adding, “We could rack up easily a lot of jews.”He also boasted that his plan would be “the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11,” the filing said.Mr. Khan was taken into custody by Canadian authorities on Wednesday after trying to enter the United States from Ormstown about 12 miles north of the New York State border. He changed vehicles three times en route to the border, perhaps to evade detection, prosecutors said.The complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, also mentions an unnamed associate, but it was unclear whether that person was in custody, at large or an informant.Mr. Khan is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, ISIS, and faces up to 20 years in prison.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Deeply disturbed’: White House calls for inquiry in to killing of Ayşenur Eygi by Israeli troops

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      The White House said it is “deeply disturbed” by the death of an American woman who was shot in the head by Israeli troops during a protest against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and called for Israel to investigate her killing, which has caused strong reactions across the international community.The US state department confirmed the death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a volunteer peace activist with the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement (ISM).Eygi – a US-Turkey dual national – died on Friday after being fatally shot during a regular protest against settlement expansion in Beita near Nablus, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.The ISM, which organises foreign volunteers in the Palestinian territories, said Israeli forces “intentionally shot and killed” an international human rights activist during the weekly protest on Friday morning. It did not name the volunteer.“The demonstration, which primarily involved men and children praying, was met with violence from the Israeli army stationed on a hill. The volunteer died shortly after being transported to a local hospital in Nablus,” the ISM said in a statement.The individual’s family had requested privacy as they mourn their loss, it said. “Their wish to grieve in peace should be respected by all, as they navigate this tragic and difficult situation.”The US has not said whether Eygi had been shot by Israeli troops. “We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death, and will have more to say as we learn more,” Matthew Miller, a state department spokesperson, said.The US ambassador to Israel, Jacob Lew, echoed those comments, posting to X his “deepest condolences” to Eygi’s family and loved ones. “We have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens,” he added.The White House said it had contacted the Israeli government and requested an investigation into Eygi’s killing. “We are deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, today in the West Bank and our hearts go out to her family and loved ones,” said Sean Savett, the White House’s national security council spokesperson.Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, the country’s top diplomat, deplored the “tragic loss”. “When we have more info, we will share it, make it available and, as necessary, we’ll act on it,” Blinken told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).Turkey’s foreign ministry said it had learned “with great sorrow” that a Turkish national had been killed. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, condemned Israel’s “barbaric intervention against a civilian protest” that he said led to Eygi’s killing.The Israeli military admitted to firing at the demonstrators and said it was looking into reports that a foreign national was killed. The Israel Defense Forces said it “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them”.Eygi graduated from the University of Washington earlier this year, according to Aria Fani, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures. Fani said Eygi was an exceptional student and person.He said he had seen Eygi about two months earlier and urged her not to go to the West Bank because he was worried for her safety there.The University of Washington said she had been a peer mentor there, having helped “welcome new students to the department and provided a positive influence in their lives”.In a statement, the university’s president, Ana Mari Cauce, described Eygi’s killing as “awful” and said she called for “a ceasefire and resolution to the crisis” on the West Bank.“My heart goes out to Ayşenur’s family, friends and loved ones,” she added.Pramila Jayapal, the US representative for the area, said in a statement that Eygi’s death was a “terrible tragedy”.“My office is actively working to gather more information on the events that led to her death,” Jayapal said. “I am very troubled by the reports that she was killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. The Netanyahu government has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, often encouraged by rightwing ministers of the Netanyahu government. The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region.”Eygi is the third ISM activist to have been killed since 2000, according to the Associated Press. She was the 18th demonstrator to be killed in Beita since 2020, the ISM said.In 2003, while protesting against the Israeli military’s destruction of houses in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Rachel Corrie – a 23-year-old US citizen from Olympia in Washington state – was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer.A month later, Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old Briton, was shot in the head while he was helping Palestinian children cross a street in Rafah. He died the following year. An Israeli soldier was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison.In August, an American activist said he was shot in the leg by Israeli forces during a protest in Beita. The man, who spoke to the AFP using a pseudonym, said Israeli troops were “firing teargas at us, live rounds” and that he was shot while he was running away. More

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      Trump tells Jewish donors they would be ‘abandoned’ if Harris is elected

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      Donald Trump told Jewish donors on Thursday that they would be “abandoned” if Kamala Harris becomes president.In his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, the Republican presidential candidate also said he would ban refugee resettlement from “terror-infested” areas such as Gaza and arrest “pro-Hamas thugs” who engage in vandalism, an apparent reference to the college student protesters.While Trump sketched out few concrete Middle Eastern policy proposals for a second term, he painted a potential Harris presidency in cataclysmic terms for Israel.“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president. And I think you need to explain that to your people … You’re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing evidence for such a claim.Under both Trump and Joe Biden, similar numbers of Palestinians were admitted to the US as refugees. From fiscal year 2017 to 2020, the US accepted 114 Palestinian refugees, according to US state department data, compared with 124 Palestinian refugees from fiscal year 2021 to 31 July of this year.Trump also said US universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as “antisemitic propaganda” if he is elected to the White House.“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said, speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1,000 donors.Protests roiled college campuses in spring, with students opposing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and demanding institutions stop doing business with companies backing Israel.Republicans have said the protests show some Democrats are antisemites who support chaos. Protest groups say authorities have unfairly labeled their criticism of Israel’s policies as antisemitic.The Association of American Universities, which says it represents about 70 leading US universities, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In the United States, the federal government does not directly accredit universities but has a role in overseeing the mostly private organizations that give colleges accreditation.The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s speech.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Democratic presidential candidate has hewed closely to the president’s strong support of Israel and rejected calls from some in the Democratic party that Washington should rethink sending weapons to Israel because of the heavy Palestinian death toll in Gaza.She has, however, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling the situation there “devastating”.Health authorities in Gaza say more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on the enclave since the 7 October 2023 attacks led by Hamas.Approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed in the surprise attack and about 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.The subsequent assault on Gaza has displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the world court that Israel denies. More

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      Israeli Raids Become a Near-Daily Reality for Many Palestinians

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      Five Palestinians were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their vehicles early Thursday, Palestinian news media said, as one of the longest and most destructive recent Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank stretched into a ninth day across several cities.Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, reported the deaths, in the town of Far’a. They added to the toll of an already devastating military offensive, with at least 39 people killed in the raids and 145 others injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.The Israeli military said the strike in Far’a targeted armed fighters who hurled explosives and shot at security forces. It has described the raids as an effort to crack down on Palestinian armed groups and combat rising attacks against Israelis.Such raids have become a near-daily reality for the nearly three million Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. More than 600 Palestinians have been killed there since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October, both in military strikes and at the hands of extremist Jewish settlers, according to the United Nations.Palestinian armed groups have claimed some of those killed in the ongoing Israeli raids as members. None claimed those killed in Far’a as members, and in a statement Hamas referred to them as “residents.”The nine days of military raids have taken an exceptional toll on Palestinians in several towns and cities, especially Jenin and Tulkarm, where many residents have trapped in their homes for days, saying that Israeli forces are operating outside their doors with armored vehicles. Bulldozers have ripped up entire streets — in what the Israeli military calls an effort to unearth improvised explosives planted by armed groups — and snipers have taken up positions on rooftops and inside homes, residents have said. More

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      Families of American Hostages Say a Deal ‘Has to Happen Right Now’

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      The families of several American hostages criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday as not moving urgently enough to secure a hostage release deal, after six hostages were found dead in southern Gaza over the weekend.“It has to happen right now,” said Adi Alexander, whose 20-year-old son Edan has been held captive for nearly 11 months. “Full stop. Period. Cease-fire and execution of the deal. More military pressure brings more dead hostages.”Seven Americans, including Edan Alexander, remain held in Gaza by Hamas. Among them, the Israeli military believes, three were slain on Oct. 7, but their bodies have not been returned. One dual Israeli-American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was among the hostages whose bodies were recovered on Saturday.The Israeli health ministry said on Sunday that the six slain hostages had been recently shot at close range, according to a forensic examination. The Israeli military blamed Hamas for the killings. Hamas denied responsibility, without providing evidence.Adi Alexander and his wife, Yael, of Tenafly, N.J., said in a phone interview that the killings of Mr. Goldberg-Polin and the other five hostages were “unnecessary deaths” and could have been prevented. The two commended the White House for being “very dedicated and very focused from the get-go” in the efforts to reach a truce.But, Mr. Alexander added, “I wish I could see the same dedication from the Israeli government.” He said that he wanted “to call on President Biden to tell Benjamin Netanyahu: Just stop the B.S. Don’t delay the deal.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netanyahu Stands Firm on Cease-Fire Terms Amid Growing Outrage in Israel

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      In his first news conference since the bodies of six killed hostages were recovered, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to budge on his conditions for any truce in Gaza.Brushing aside pleas from allies and the demands of Israeli protesters for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday vowed to maintain Israeli control along the border between Egypt and Gaza, a contentious plan that appeared to dim, if not dash, prospects for a truce.In his first news conference since the bodies of six slain hostages were recovered over the weekend, Mr. Netanyahu told reporters on Monday night that, to ensure its security, Israel needed to assert control over the Gazan side of the border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it the lifeline of Hamas.Hamas has said Israeli control of the corridor is a nonstarter in negotiations for a truce, demanding instead a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.“If we leave, there will be enormous diplomatic pressure upon us from the whole world not to return,” Mr. Netanyahu said of the corridor, as a large crowd protested near his private residence in Jerusalem on Monday night.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Monday that to ensure its security, Israel needed to assert control over the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it the lifeline of Hamas. Ohad Zwigenberg/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Netanyahu made the comments a day after the Israeli military announced that the six hostages had been found dead in a tunnel underneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The discovery devastated Israelis and spurred both the mass protests on Sunday and a widespread work stoppage by the country’s largest labor union.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More