'De-facto annexation': Israel approves West Bank land registration

Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved further measures to tighten Israel's control over the occupied West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, a move Palestinians called a "de-facto annexation".

The West Bank is among the territories that Palestinians seek for a future independent state. Much of it is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing an election later this year, deems the establishment of any Palestinian state a security threat.

His ruling coalition, which has a large voter base in the settlements, includes many members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land captured in the 1967 Middle East war to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.

Ministers voted in favour of beginning a process of land registration for the first time since 1967, a week after approving another series of measures in the West Bank that drew international condemnation.

"We are continuing the revolution of settlement and strengthening our hold across all parts of our land," said far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said land registration was a vital security measure while the cabinet said in a statement it was an "appropriate response to illegal land registration processes promoted by the Palestinian Authority."

The foreign ministry said the measure would promote transparency and help resolve land disputes.

The Palestinian presidency condemned the step, saying it constitutes "a de-facto annexation of occupied Palestinian territory and a declaration of the commencement of annexation plans aimed at entrenching the occupation through illegal settlement activity."

Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said the measure could lead to dispossession of Palestinians from up to half of the West Bank.

US President Donald Trump has ruled out Israeli annexation of the West Bank but his administration has not sought to curb Israel's accelerated settlement building.

The United Nations' highest court said in a non-binding advisory opinion in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there are illegal and should be ended as soon as possible. Israel disputes this view.

Israeli airstrikes kill another 11 in Gaza

Israel fired airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 11 Palestinians, Palestinian officials said, in what the military called a response to ceasefire violations by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Gaza medics said an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment housing displaced families killed at least four people, while health officials said another strike killed five in Khan Younis in the south and another person was shot dead in the north.

Airstrikes also targeted what was thought to be a commander of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, in the Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Hazem Qassem, Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, accused Israel of committing a new "massacre" against displaced Palestinians, calling it a serious breach of the ceasefire days before the first meeting of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace.

An Israeli military official called Sunday's strikes "precise" and in line with international law, and said the Palestinian militant group had repeatedly violated an October ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas have repeatedly traded blame for violations of the ceasefire deal, a key element of Trump's plan to end the Gaza war, the deadliest and most destructive in the generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The war started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's air and ground war in Gaza has killed more than 72,000 people since then, according to Palestinian health ministry data.

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"In recent hours, the IDF (Israeli military) has begun striking in response to Hamas's blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement yesterday in the Beit Hanoun area," an Israeli military official said.

The official said militants had emerged from a tunnel on the Israeli side of the "Yellow Line" agreed under the ceasefire to demarcate Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas.

"Crossing the Yellow Line in the vicinity of IDF troops, while armed, is an explicit ceasefire violation - and demonstrates how Hamas systematically violates the ceasefire agreement with intent to harm IDF troops," the official said.

Israel has unilaterally moved the yellow line deeper into Gaza even though Israeli withdrawals are part of the ceasefire deal, and Hamas has so far rejected demands to lay down its weapons, also envisaged in the plan. Israel has said it will have to force Hamas to disarm if it does not do so.

Qassem urged those attending the first meeting of Trump's new international Board of Peace for Gaza on Thursday to pressure Israel to stop violating the truce and implement the agreement without delay.

US officials told Reuters last week that Trump will announce a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and detail plans for a U.N.-authorized stabilization force for the Palestinian enclave at the meeting in Washington.

The Israeli military said it continued to destroy underground tunnels in the northern Gaza Strip in accordance with the agreement and that its aircraft had attacked a building east of the Yellow line after seeing militants emerging from a tunnel and killed at least two of them. Gaza officials had no information on those reported casualties.

The Gaza health ministry says that at least 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the Gaza deal began. Israel says four soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period.