International Glance
The Israeli government has forcibly taken large swathes of Palestinian land in the northwest of the occupied West Bank to pave the way for the establishment of a settlement, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
According to reports, the government seized around 700 dunams of land. Hebrew-language paper Yedioth Aharonoth confirmed the land grab, stating: "A few days ago, 695 dunams were taken to establish a new neighbourhood near the settlement of Karnei Shomron".
The report says that the area is located "in a highly strategic location and cuts off the geographical connection between the Palestinian town of Salfit and the city of Qalqilya".
"The main objective of this move, from the government’s point of view, is to cut off communication between Palestinian towns, turning them into isolated enclaves, and significantly undermining the chances of establishing a Palestinian state," the report continues.
Israel seizes swathes of Palestinian West Bank land, raids villages
‘Utensils for olive oil’: Inside the West Bank’s deepening economic collapse
"Utensils in exchange for a bottle of olive oil and a kilo of za’atar so my children can take some to school.”
The post, shared by a Palestinian woman in Bethlehem in a private Facebook group for mothers, is no longer unusual.
Since the war on Gaza began - and Israeli restrictions across the occupied West Bank intensified - women have increasingly offered furniture, toys, kitchenware and even their children’s clothes in return for basic food.
Long the barest staples of Palestinian life, olive oil and za’atar (a herb blend) have become shorthand for poverty itself, captured in the saying: “He lives on oil and za’atar.”
But with time, they have turned into urgent pleas for milk, cooking oil, medicine and other essentials.
Today, they map the depth of a cost-of-living crisis tightening its grip across the West Bank.
The territory is sliding into a hunger crisis, says economy researcher Dr Haitham Oweida.
Before the war, these Facebook groups dealt in surplus. They offered goodwill exchanges of outgrown clothes and spare toys.
How the U.S. and Israel Are Trying to Co-opt Iran's Protests
An extraordinarily violent crackdown by Iranian security forces appears to have succeeded for now in driving protesters from the streets, according to activists and analysts who mahttps://abcnews.go.com/International/bloody-crackdown-appears-quelled-iran-protests-now/story?id=129287014naged to speak with people inside the country despite the information blackout.
Demonstrations began in late December with protesters chanting in Tehran against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency before spreading across Iran and becoming more explicitly anti-government. Authorities have shut down the internet in Iran for more than a week as security forces moved to crush the protests.
The internet blackout in Iran continues to make it very difficult to get a clear picture from the ground, but accounts are emerging from people now able to use phone lines, those few with access to working Starlink satellite terminals and Iranians who have recently left the country.
These people describe an eerie calm over Iran's cities, where heavily armed security forces are deployed on the streets enforcing what many are describing as a de-facto curfew.
Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian activist based in Washington, D.C., says he has helped send in hundreds of Starlink terminals to citizen journalists and others in Iran to help get around the government blackout.
In Florida, Kyiv ‘s Envoys Prep for Trump-Zelensky Meeting in Davos
Preparing for meetings at the World Economic Forum, Ukrainian envoys in Florida made “substantive” progress on documents they hope to sign with US President Donald Trump in Davos, Switzerland this week.
“There have already been several rounds of negotiations,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. “They are working on the documents needed to end the war.”
Ukraine is looking for more precise language from its allies on security guarantees should Kyiv and Moscow come to terms on a ceasefire. Zelensky has noted on several occasions that the Kremlin is quite unserious about peace, given their relentless attacks on civilian targets in recent weeks, especially energy infrastructure, leaving much of Ukraine without heating during a stretch of sub-freezing temperatures.
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov and his team met with US envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll at Witkoff’s own golf course.
“We had substantive discussions on economic development and prosperity plan as well as security guarantees for Ukraine,” Umerov posted to social media.
How a billionaire with interests in Greenland encouraged Trump to acquire the territory
One day during his first term, Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. “Trump called me down to the Oval Office,” John Bolton, national security adviser in 2018, told the Guardian. “He said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland.”
It was an extraordinary proposal. And it originated from a longtime friend of the president who would go on to acquire business interests in the Danish territory.
The businessman, Bolton learned, was Ronald Lauder. Heir to a makeup fortune – the global cosmetics brand Estée Lauder – he had known Trump, a fellow wealthy New Yorker, for more than 60 years.
Bolton said he discussed the Greenland proposition with Lauder. After the billionaire’s intervention, a White House team began to explore ways to increase US sway in the vast Arctic territory controlled by Denmark.
Trump’s renewed pursuit of Lauder’s idea during his second term is typical of how the president operates, Bolton said. “Bits of information that he hears from friends, he takes them as truth and you can’t shake his opinion.”
US reportedly considers granting asylum to Jewish people from UK
Discussions are reportedly under way within Donald Trump’s administration about the US possibly granting asylum to Jewish people from the UK, according to the Telegraph, citing the US president’s personal lawyer.
Trump lawyer Robert Garson told the newspaper that he has held conversations with the US state department about offering refuge to British Jews who are leaving the UK citing rising antisemitism.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Garson, 49, said he felt the UK was “no longer a safe place for Jews”. He added that recent events – namely an Islamist attack on a synagogue in Manchester and what he described as widespread antisemitism following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 – had led him to believe that British Jews should be given the option of sanctuary in the US.
Wildfires Race Across Chile, Leaving 18 Dead And Forcing Thousands To Flee
Wildfires raging across central and southern Chile on Sunday left at least 15 people dead, scorched thousands of acres of forest and destroyed scores of homes, authorities said, as the South American country swelters under a heat wave.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe in the country’s central Biobio region and the neighboring Ñuble region, around 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Santiago, the capital.
The emergency designation allows greater coordination with the military to rein in two dozen wildfires that have so far blazed through 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) and prompted 50,000 people to evacuate, according to Chilean Security Minister Luis Cordero.
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