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      Israeli Minister Ben-Gvir Draws Anger for Comments on Disputed Holy Site

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      Israel’s far-right national security minister has drawn outrage for agreeing that he would like to build a synagogue at a disputed holy site in Jerusalem that has long been a flashpoint between Jews and Muslims.In an interview on Monday on Israeli Army Radio, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, was asked if he would build a temple at one of the holiest sites for both Jews and Muslims, known as the Aqsa Mosque complex by Muslims and the Temple Mount by Jews. “Yes, yes, yes!” Mr. Ben-Gvir replied.The affirmation by Mr. Ben-Gvir, who has a long history of incendiary comments and actions, came amid heightened tensions in the region, with the war between Israel and Hamas expected to grind on with no end in sight. Four days of cease-fire talks in Cairo between senior Israeli and Hamas officials concluded on Sunday with no breakthrough.Almost immediately after the interview, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that there was no change to the status quo at the site, where two ancient Jewish temples once stood. Some religious Jews want to build a third Jewish temple, a move seen as offensive to Muslims.Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar quickly denounced the comments. In a joint statement, Jordan and Egypt added that a cease-fire was the only way to lessen the “grave escalation” in the region.The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it viewed Mr. Ben-Gvir’s statements as “an explicit and blatant call to demolish the mosque and construct the so-called Temple in its place.”Moderate Israeli officials distanced themselves from Mr. Ben-Gvir’s comments. Several Israeli leaders called on Mr. Netanyahu to discipline or control Mr. Ben-Gvir.“Challenging the status quo on the Temple Mount is a dangerous, unnecessary and irresponsible act,” Yoav Gallant, the defense secretary, wrote on X. “Ben Gvir’s actions endanger the national security of the State of Israel and its international status.”A complex agreement governs the site. Officially, Jews may visit the site, but not pray there, though Israel has quietly allowed them to do so. Jewish worshipers are supposed to pray at the nearby Western Wall.In one of a series of provocations, Mr. Ben-Gvir recently violated the agreement with a public demonstration, leading a group of about 2,000 supporters in prayers at the site. He claimed in the Monday interview that not allowing Jews to pray there was discrimination.In June Mr. Ben-Gvir joined a procession of tens of thousands of Jews through the heart of Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s capture of the eastern half of the city in 1967.In the interview, Mr. Ben-Gvir was open about his goals — and his current limitations.“It’s not as if I do whatever I like in the Temple Mount,” he said. “If this were the case, the Israeli flag would have hung over the Temple Mount a long time ago.’’ More

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      As Polio Vaccines Arrive in Gaza, Distributing Them Is the Next Challenge

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      Polio vaccines arrived in Gaza on Monday, kicking off an expansive effort to vaccinate more than 640,000 Palestinian children and curb a potential outbreak, the United Nations, Israel and health authorities in Gaza said, after the first confirmed case of the disease in the territory in 25 years.The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, said it was bringing in 1.2 million doses of polio vaccine for children in Gaza in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA, and other groups.The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed on Monday that the vaccines had reached Gaza and that preparations to launch the vaccination campaign for children under 10 were underway. It was not immediately clear how quickly the vaccines could be distributed to vaccination centers in Gaza, where continued hostilities and bombardment have hindered humanitarian efforts during 10 months of war.The ministry warned that inoculations alone could not be effective, amid a lack of clean water and personal hygiene supplies, and issues with sewage and waste collection in overcrowded areas where displaced families were sheltering. It said medical teams would need to spread out across the territory, “which requires an urgent cease-fire.”Children walking near garbage and raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al Balah in central Gaza this month.Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe W.H.O. chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement on Thursday that a 10-month-old child in Gaza had contracted polio and become paralyzed in one leg. The virus had been found last month in wastewater samples, but this was the first confirmed case in Gaza in a quarter-century.COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry’s agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement on Monday that the vaccines had been delivered to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel. The agency added that the campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses” that it observes, which it said would allow Palestinians to reach vaccination centers.In June, Israel announced that it would observe partial daily suspensions of its military activity in areas of Gaza, calling them humanitarian pauses, saying they were aimed at making it safer for humanitarian groups to deliver aid in the territory. According to UNICEF, at least 95 percent of children will need to receive both doses of the vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease and reduce the risk of its re-emergence, “given the severely disrupted health, water and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip.”UNICEF and the W.H.O. in a statement called on “all parties to the conflict” to implement a weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow “children and families to safely reach health facilities” for the doses. The statement added that “without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”Philippe Lazzarini, the director of UNRWA, said on Friday that the agency’s medical teams would distribute the vaccines at its clinics and through its mobile health teams. He added that “delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children.”Rawan Sheikh Ahmad More

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      In a Region on Edge, Israel and Hezbollah Launch Major Attacks on Each Other

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      The escalating strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border fueled fears of a bigger conflagration, but both sides signaled that they were de-escalating, for now.Amid fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, the two sides on Sunday mounted the biggest round of cross-border strikes since the war in Gaza began, with Israel bombing dozens of sites in a pre-emptive attack, and Hezbollah launching hundreds of rockets and drones.Within hours, both sides appeared to de-escalate, at least temporarily, but signaled that the violence and dangerous tensions could continue. Hezbollah said its operation, vengeance for the Israeli assassination of a senior commander, had “finished for the day,” but left open the possibility of further action. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that “what happened today is not the final word.”For weeks, Israelis have waited in trepidation for a major attack promised by Hezbollah in retaliation for the airstrike last month in a suburb of Beirut that killed one of its leaders, Fuad Shukr. Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, has also vowed retribution for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader, on a visit to Tehran, hours after Mr. Shukr was killed, though it appears to have put that plan on hold.After the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah began firing frequently on Israel, prompting widespread Israeli bombardment. Repeated strikes, counter-strikes and threats have forced more than 160,000 people to evacuate on both sides of the border, stoking fears that the conflict would ignite full-scale regional war pitting Israel not only against Hezbollah — a more potent force than Hamas — but also its patron Iran.Before dawn on Sunday, Israel’s military said it used about 100 warplanes to strike more than 40 Hezbollah launch sites in Lebanon, saying it had acted to prevent a major attack. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least three people had been killed and two others hurt, and Israel said a soldier was killed and two others wounded during the Hezbollah barrage.The Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a televised address in Beirut, on Sunday.Bilal Hussein/Associated PressWe 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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      Democrats’ Unity Convention Has One Giant Exception: The Gaza War

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      Harris campaign officials and Democratic leaders have stepped up outreach to Arab and Jewish voters before the event, but large protests are still expected.Even as feel-good displays of joy and confidence are set to dominate the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago, one painful issue is bitterly dividing the Democratic establishment from its left flank: Israel’s war in Gaza.The specter of convention-upending protests that hovered over a gathering hosted for President Biden has receded somewhat with the rise of a new candidate in Kamala Harris, who is seen as more sympathetic to Palestinian rights activists. But tens of thousands of protesters are still expected to convene just outside the event’s security perimeter, and the potential for high-profile disruptions remains real.Emphasizing the unity theme, convention planners have tried to mollify both Muslim and Jewish Americans.Speaking slots have been allotted to the families of American hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. One of the most prominent Muslims in national politics, Keith Ellison, the progressive attorney general of Minnesota, will be given time onstage. Doug Emhoff, the husband of Ms. Harris, is expected to speak proudly of his Judaism. And the Democratic platform highlights America’s commitment to Israeli security.At the same time, Ms. Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, held a series of meetings last week to hear the concerns of Arab Americans and some delegates representing Democratic primary voters who cast “uncommitted” ballots in the Democratic primary to protest Mr. Biden’s Israel policy.Despite such efforts, the convention will be shadowed by large protests against the Biden-Harris administration’s approach to a war that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that left 1,200 people dead in Israel.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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      U.S., Egypt and Qatar Say Gaza Cease-Fire Talks Will Resume Next Week

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      Top officials from the U.S., Israel, Egypt and Qatar ended two days of talks in Doha aimed at trying to resolve remaining disagreements between Israel and Hamas.High-level talks to halt the war in Gaza ended without an immediate breakthrough on Friday, but the United States, Egypt and Qatar said the negotiations would continue next week as mediators raced to secure a truce that they hope will avert a wider regional conflagration.The announcement came after top American, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials ended two days of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, aimed at trying to resolve remaining disagreements between Israel and Hamas. U.S. and regional officials hope that movement in the negotiations will blunt or stop a widely anticipated Iranian-led retaliation for the killing of senior leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, militant groups backed by Iran.U.S., Iranian and Israeli officials said on Friday said that Iran had decided to delay its reprisal against Israel to allow the mediators to continue working toward a cease-fire in Gaza.After the first day of talks ended on Thursday night, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, called the acting Iranian foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, to encourage Iran to refrain from any escalation given the cease-fire talks in Doha, according to two Iranian officials and three other officials familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Mr. Al Thani spoke with Mr. Bagheri Kani again on Friday, and both officials “stressed the need for calm and de-escalation in the region,” according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry. Mr. Bagheri Kani said in a statement that the Qatari prime minister had described the cease-fire negotiations on Thursday as being at a “sensitive” phase.On Friday, Egypt, Qatar and the United States said in a joint statement that the mediators had presented Israel and Hamas with “a bridging proposal” consistent with the terms laid out by President Biden on May 31 and later endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.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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      Israeli Settlers Storm West Bank Village, Drawing Rare Rebukes From Israeli Officials

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      Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have surged in the West Bank, but a riot on Thursday in the village of Jit stood out for drawing rapid and unusual rebukes from Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government includes West Bank settlers in top positions. “Dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked, entered the town of Jit and set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails,” the Israeli military said in a statement. The military said that its forces, along with Israeli Border Police, were dispatched to the scene and dispersed the riot by firing shots into the air and “removing the Israeli civilians from the town.” The Palestinian Authority said that one Palestinian was shot dead during the attack on the village and that another was critically injured. The Israeli military said it was “looking into” reports of a fatality and that it had opened an investigation with other security agencies into what it called “this serious incident,” adding that one rioter was arrested and transferred to the police for questioning. The prime minister’s office issued a statement saying that Mr. Netanyahu “takes seriously the riots that took place this evening in the village of Jit, which included injury to life and property by Israelis who entered the village.” The statement vowed to find and prosecute those responsible for “any criminal act.” The Israeli military condemned “incidents of this type and the rioters, who harm security, law, and order,” and accused those involved in the violence of diverting troops and security forces “from their main mission of thwarting terrorism and protecting the security of civilians.” The riot came as the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has stretched into its 11th month, a period that has also seen increased Israeli military activity against what it terms suspected terrorism in the occupied West Bank, as well as a surge in violent settler attacks there against Palestinians. 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