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TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards denied earlier reports on Tuesday that there was a drone attack in the northwestern city of Tabriz, three Iranian news sites reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian media said air defenses were activated in the area amid a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
JERUSALEM: Israeli police said border officers shot dead a Palestinian man on Monday as he tried to enter Jerusalem by climbing over the barrier separating the city from the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah identified the man as Sanad Najeh Mohammed Hantouli, 25, saying he was killed by Israeli gunfire near the West Bank town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem.
An Israeli police spokesperson reported that border police officers “foiled an infiltration attempt through the security barrier in Jerusalem.”
“The suspect was shot and neutralized,” the spokesperson said in a statement, adding he was later pronounced dead by medical teams.
Hantouli’s body was transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah before being taken to his hometown, Silat Al-Dhahr.
Many Palestinians have attempted to cross the separation barrier illegally in recent months, seeking work inside Israel after authorities there revoked thousands of work permits following the outbreak of the Gaza war.
Many have died fleeing from Israeli forces, Palestinian officials say.
Israel began building the barrier at the height of the second Palestinian intifada, which began in 2002, saying it was needed to maintain security amid Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Israeli cities.
The barrier cuts into many parts of the West Bank, and Palestinians see it as a land grab and a de facto border, illegal under international law.
Palestinians say the barrier has further deepened the economic crisis in the West Bank.
Israel maintains tight restrictions on the movement of the West Bank’s roughly three million residents, who require special permits to cross checkpoints into East Jerusalem or Israel.
Al-Ram, located near the Qalandiya checkpoint, is separated from Jerusalem by a section of the barrier reinforced with barbed wire.
A joint World Bank, EU and UN report released in February 2025 said just 27,000 Palestinians were working in Israel and West Bank settlements, down from 177,000 before the Gaza war broke out in October 2023.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.
Violence has sharply escalated in the Palestinian territory since the Gaza war began.
At least 977 Palestinians — both militants and civilians — have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since October 2023, according to AFP figures based on Palestinian Authority data.
In the same period, at least 42 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in attacks or military operations in the West Bank, Israeli official figures show.
LONDON: Israeli authorities have issued an order to seize the roof of the inner courtyard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, in the south of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian settlements watchdog revealed.
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported that an Israeli expropriation order, issued on Monday, mandates the seizure of 288 sq. meters of the designated roof area.
Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the commission, said that the order follows a decision made last February to transfer authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque from the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments to the Israeli Civil Planning Authority.
In July, the supervisory authority over parts of the Ibrahimi Mosque was officially transferred from the Hebron Municipality to the Religious Council in Kiryat Arba for management and structural changes.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has said that Israel’s decision to transfer the management of the mosque, known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, to a settlement council is “an unprecedented move to impose control over it, Judaize it, alter its identity, and a blatant violation of international law and UN resolutions.”
Shaaban said that the latest Israeli measures “isolate the Mosque from its Palestinian surroundings and link it administratively and security-wise to colonial councils,” according to the Wafa news agency.
He called on UNESCO, which had designated the Ibrahimi Mosque as a World Heritage site in 2017, to urgently intervene and protect the site.
“Defending the Ibrahimi Mosque is a defense of Hebron’s identity and heritage, and of the Palestinian people’s right to administer their holy sites and protect their religious and cultural sovereignty,” he said.
The Ibrahimi Mosque is in Hebron’s Old City, where about 400 settlers are protected by about 1,500 Israeli soldiers and surrounded by numerous military checkpoints.
Since 1994, Israel has spatially divided the Ibrahimi Mosque into 63 percent for Jews and 37 percent for Muslims, after an extremist settler massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at the site.
GENEVA: Israel is trying to make Gaza City unliveable in its assault on the enclave’s largest urban area and is endangering the lives of Israeli hostages, the top UN expert on Palestinian rights Francesca Albanese said on Monday.
“Israel is bombing using unconventional weapons ... it is trying to forcibly evacuate Palestinians. Why? This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unlivable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land,” Albanese told reporters in Geneva.
The Israeli mission in Geneva was not immediately available for comment.
Israel says the offensive to take control of Gaza City is part of a plan to defeat Palestinian militant group Hamas for good and that it has warned civilians to head south to a designated humanitarian zone.
However, the UN and numerous countries say its tactics amount to forced mass displacement and that conditions in the humanitarian zone are dire, with food in short supply.
Italian lawyer Albanese serves as a special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of dozens of experts appointed by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council to report on specific global issues.
“The ongoing assault to take the last remnant of Gaza will not only devastate the Palestinians but endanger also the remaining Israeli hostages,” Albanese said.
She accused Israel of genocide and said the international community was complicit.
The nearly two-year campaign in the Palestinian enclave has killed more than 64,000 people, according to local authorities. Some rights groups like Amnesty International have also accused Israel of committing genocide, but not the United Nations itself. UN officials have in the past said it is up to international courts to determine genocide.
Israel rejects the accusation, citing its right to self-defense following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
In July, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Albanese would be added to the US sanctions list for her actions, which he described as prompting illegitimate prosecutions of Israelis at the International Criminal Court.
Albanese said her attempts to travel to New York for the UN General Assembly in September to deliver a report do not look promising.
LONDON: Kuwait dispatched its ninth relief aircraft on Monday to assist Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as part of the country’s humanitarian Kuwait is by Your Side campaign.
The Kuwait Red Crescent Society, in collaboration with charities and relevant ministries, loaded 40 tonnes of food and aid relief onto an aircraft which took off from Abdullah Al-Mubarak Air Base heading to Al-Arish Airport in Egypt.
Latifa Al-Meer, a board member of the KRCS, told the Kuwait News Agency that the charity was continuing to send humanitarian convoys to Gaza following directives from the leadership to address urgent needs in the Palestinian coastal enclave.
She stressed the need for an immediate response and increased efforts from humanitarian organizations to address the critical needs in Gaza. Al-Meer added that the KRCS prepared the shipment of essential food aid for families in Gaza, aided by the Al-Salam Humanitarian Society.
She acknowledged the efforts of Kuwait’s Embassy in Egypt and the Egyptian Red Crescent in facilitating the delivery of aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
The second phase of Kuwaiti air support has transported about 150 tonnes of essential humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, demonstrating Kuwait’s commitment to international relief and solidarity, KUNA added.
NEW YORK: Israel’s attacks on Gaza and its broader financial control across the Occupied Territories have triggered a severe economic emergency, UN independent experts warned on Monday, calling for an immediate end to measures that are causing “catastrophic harm” to human rights.
“Economic life in Gaza has been decimated by sheer physical destruction, blockade and siege, and repeated forced displacement,” they said in a statement, citing widespread damage to commercial, agricultural and industrial infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave, with unemployment surging above 80 percent, a sharp contraction in gross domestic product, halted trade and endemic poverty. Famine has already been declared.
They said a liquidity crisis across Gaza has been exacerbated by the destruction of banks and ATMs, and Israel’s blocking of new currency inflows.
The scarcity of cash has triggered hyperinflation, with the price of cooking oil increasing by 1,200 percent and flour by 5,000 percent by mid-2025.
Humanitarian workers are losing nearly 40 percent of their salaries just to access cash, while digital payments are frequently disrupted by electricity and telecommunications outages.
“The disproportionate civilian harm caused by Israel’s blockade and siege violates international humanitarian law and the economic and social rights of Palestinians,” the experts said.
They also highlighted how Israeli legislation restricting the UN Relief and Works Agency, and the US suspension of its funding, have jeopardized thousands of jobs and undermined humanitarian efforts amid Gaza’s economic collapse.
The financial pressure, they said, extends beyond Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, Israel has allegedly withheld and diverted tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority in violation of the Oslo Accords, disrupting salary payments and weakening liquidity.
“Israel has threatened not to renew the annual waiver of terrorist financing laws that allows Israeli banks to process transactions with Palestinian banks in November 2025,” the experts warned. “This would cut Palestinians off from the global financial system.”
They also noted the suspension of work permits for 100,000 Palestinian workers, eliminating a vital source of cash inflow that had accounted for nearly a quarter of gross national income.
“These measures exacerbate heavy economic losses from the illegal taking of land and the illegal exploitation of natural resources by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank,” the experts said.
They added that since 2023, purported counterterrorism measures have led to “unjustified de-risking” by international banks, resulting in account closures and blocked humanitarian transfers.
“Cumulatively, these measures seriously violate Israel’s obligations to guarantee the human rights to an adequate standard of living, work, food, water, sanitation, health, life, and freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” the experts said.
They added that Israel, as an occupying power, is obligated under international law to sustain Palestinian economic life, not expropriate property or exploit natural resources.
The experts further emphasized that Israel’s economic restrictions impede the Palestinian people’s collective rights to economic self-determination, sovereignty over natural resources, and development.
The economic rights of Palestinians have been affirmed by multiple international bodies, including the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly, most recently at the High-Level International Conference on Palestine in July, which was co-chaired by and France.
The experts called on Israel to immediately lift the blockade and siege of civilians in Gaza, end violations of international humanitarian law, remove currency restrictions, restore cash flows, establish secure cash distribution systems and facilitate digital payments.
They added that Israel must also commit to the permanent renewal of the banking waiver in the West Bank and stop holding Palestinian tax revenues to ransom.
They also referred to the ICJ’s 2024 advisory opinion demanding an end to Israel’s “illegal occupation,” and noted that the UNGA has set a deadline of September, 17, 2025, for Israel to comply.
“The international community must act urgently to compel Israel to stop violating fundamental rules of international law, respect the economic rights of the Palestinian people, alleviate the humanitarian crisis and prevent financial collapse,” the experts said.
They include Ben Saul, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; Attiya Waris, independent expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of states on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights; George Katrougalos, independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; and Carlos Arturo Duarte Torres of the working group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas.
They are part of the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the organization’s human rights system. They work on a voluntary basis and are not paid for their work.
