
US says attack on West Bank Palestinian church was 'act of terror'
Huckabee said he had visited the Christian town of Taybeh, where clerics said Israeli settlers had started a fire near a cemetery and a 5th-century church on July 8.
"It is an act of terror, and it is a crime," Huckabee said in a statement, "Those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh – or anywhere – should be found and be prosecuted. Not just reprimanded, that's not enough."
Israel's government has not commented on the incident, but has previously denounced such acts.
On Tuesday, Huckabee said he had asked Israel to "aggressively investigate" the killing of a Palestinian American beaten by settlers in the West Bank, similarly describing it as a "criminal and terrorist act".
Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements, and his comments are a rare and pointed public intervention by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
In January, President Trump rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Settler attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank have risen since the start of Israel's war on the Hamas militant group in Gaza in October 2023, though violence has long simmered there.
The United Nations' highest court said last year that Israel's settlements in territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, including the West Bank, were illegal.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNA
3 hours ago
- CNA
UN to use Israel's pause to try to reach Gaza's starving
GENEVA: The United Nations said it would try to reach as many starving people as possible in Gaza after Israel announced it would establish secure land routes for humanitarian convoys. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said it had enough food in, or on its way to, the region to feed the 2.1 million people in the Gaza Strip for almost three months. UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said the United Nations would try to reach "as many starving people as we can" in the time window. Israel on Sunday (Jul 27) began a limited "tactical pause" in military operations to allow the UN and aid agencies to tackle the deepening hunger crisis. "We welcome Israel's decision to support a one-week scale-up of aid, including lifting customs barriers on food, medicine and fuel from Egypt and the reported designation of secure routes for UN humanitarian convoys," Fletcher said in a statement. Fletcher said some movement restrictions appeared to have been eased on Sunday, citing initial reports indicating that over 100 truckloads of aid were collected. "But we need sustained action, and fast, including quicker clearances for convoys going to the crossing and dispatching into Gaza; multiple trips per day to the crossings so we and our partners can pick up the cargo; safe routes that avoid crowded areas; and no more attacks on people gathering for food." The UN aid chief said the world was calling out for life-saving humanitarian assistance to get through - but stressed that "vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis". "Ultimately of course we don't just need a pause - we need a permanent ceasefire," he added. NO SHOOTINGS NEAR CONVOYS PLEDGE WFP said the pauses and corridors should allow emergency food to be safely delivered. "Food aid is the only real way for most people inside Gaza to eat," it said in a statement. It said a third of the population had not been eating for days, and 470,000 people in Gaza "are enduring famine-like conditions" that were leading to deaths. WFP said more than 62,000 tonnes of food assistance was needed monthly to cover the entire Gaza population of two million. The agency noted that, on top of Sunday's "pause" announcement, Israel had pledged to allow more trucks to enter Gaza with quicker clearances along with "assurances of no armed forces or shootings near convoys". "Together, we hope these measures will allow for a surge in urgently needed food assistance to reach hungry people without further delays," it said. "DYSTOPIAN LANDSCAPE" UN rights chief Volker Turk said Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, was obliged to ensure sufficient food was provided to the population. "Children are starving and dying in front of our eyes. Gaza is a dystopian landscape of deadly attacks and total destruction," he said in a statement. He criticised a US- and Israel-backed outfit, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), that in late May began distributing foodstuffs when UN-organised efforts were blocked. Turk said the GHF's "chaotic, militarised distribution sites were "failing utterly to deliver humanitarian aid at the scope and scale needed".

Straits Times
21 hours ago
- Straits Times
Iran executes two members of banned group for targeting infrastructure
DUBAI - Iran executed two members of the outlawed Mujahideen-e-Khalq opposition group for targeting civilian infrastructure with homemade projectiles, the judiciary news outlet Mizan reported on Sunday. Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamloo, "operational elements" of the MEK, were sentenced to death in a verdict upheld by the Supreme Court, Mizan said. "The terrorists, in coordination with MEK leaders, had set up a team house in Tehran, where they built launchers and hand-held mortars in line with the group's goals, fired projectiles heedlessly at citizens, homes, service and administrative facilities, educational and charity centres, and also carried out propaganda and information-gathering activities in support of the MEK," the report said. The defendants were indicted with "moharebeh", an Islamic term meaning waging war against God, destroying public property and "membership in a terrorist organisation with the aim of disrupting national security." The report did not say whether the defendants' actions took place during last month's Israel-Iran war, during which Tehran accused opposition groups like MEK of providing support to Israel from within Iran. The MEK, known in English as People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, were a powerful leftist-Islamist group that staged bombing campaigns against the shah's government and U.S. targets in the 1970s but ultimately fell out with the other factions of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since then, the MEK has opposed the Islamic Republic and its leadership in exile has been Paris-based. The group was listed as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and the European Union until 2012. REUTERS


CNA
a day ago
- CNA
UNRWA chief says Gaza aid airdrops will not stop 'starvation'
JERUSALEM: The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Saturday (Jul 26) that planned airdrops of aid into the Gaza Strip would not solve severe food shortages caused by months of restrictions on the entry of supplies. "Airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation. They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, calling the wave of hunger affecting Gaza "manmade". An Israeli official told AFP on Friday that aid drops in Gaza would resume soon, adding they would be conducted by the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. The humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory has gravely deteriorated in recent days, with international NGOs warning of soaring malnutrition among children. "Lift the siege, open the gates & guarantee safe movements + dignified access to people in need," Lazzarini said, referring to the various entry points under Israeli control that regulate access into Gaza. Israel imposed a total blockade on the entry of aid into Gaza on Mar 2 after talks to extend a ceasefire broke down. It began to allow a trickle of aid to enter again in late May. The UN and NGOs on the ground have decried the severe scarcity facing Gaza's 2.4 million people, with shortages of food, clean water, medicine and fuel. Israel's military said Friday that the country did "not limit the number of trucks going into the Gaza Strip", and that humanitarian organisations and the UN were not collecting the aid once it was inside the territory. Humanitarian organisations accuse the Israeli army of imposing excessive restrictions on the goods allowed into Gaza and on the routes made available to transport the aid to distribution points. The United Arab Emirates, Jordan, France and other countries carried out airdrops in Gaza in 2024, at a time when the transport of aid on land routes also faced restrictions.