Submit your Article

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said he will approve plans to build more than 3,000 homes in a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank - a move he said will prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, Associated Press reported.

The so-called E1 project between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim settlement has been frozen for decades amid fierce opposition internationally. Building there would effectively cut off the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem and significantly obstruct its territorial contiguity. 

"The plan will bury the idea of a Palestinian state," Smotrich said, according to Israeli media.

Settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this, according to Associated Press.

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has elected Edson Fachin as its next chief justice, succeeding Luis Roberto Barroso. Fachin won 10 of 11 votes in a symbolic ballot, while Alexandre de Moraes was chosen as his deputy with the same tally, in line with the tradition that justices do not vote for themselves, Xinhua reported.

Fachin, a court member since 2015, said he assumes the role with a “sense of mission” and a focus on dialogue. He will take office on Sept. 29 and also lead the National Council of Justice. Moraes, who has faced US sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, described his appointment as “an honor and a joy.”

A series of attacks against Pakistani police by militants left five officers dead and eight wounded in the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said, Associated Press reported.

There were four attacks with three resulting in officer casualties Thursday, police said.

Most died or were injured in a single attack in the Upper Dir district when armed men ambushed a police van early Thursday. Three officers died and seven were injured during the routine patrol, police official Ismail Khan said.

In the Peshawar suburb of Hassan Khel, armed men opened fire on a police station with automatic weapons. One officer died and another was wounded in an exchange of fire, Peshawar Capital City Police Officer Qasim Ali Khan said, according to Associated Press.

Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people seeking aid in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials and witnesses said, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again called for what he refers to as the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the war-ravaged territory, Associated Press reported.

Netanyahu wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people through what he refers to as “voluntary migration” — and what critics have warned could be ethnic cleansing, according to Associated Press.

“Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the strip if they want,” Netanyahu said in an interview aired Tuesday with Israeli TV station i24 to discuss the planned offensive in areas that include Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people shelter. “We are not pushing them out but allowing them to leave.”