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Daredevil Jaan Roose completes slackline walk high above central Seoul

Estonian aerial athlete Jaan Roose has completed his first crossing of a 160-metre long highline suspended 120 metres above central Seoul on Thursday. Roose, a three-time slackline world champion, will step out on to a narrow polyester ribbon between the Koreana hotel and the Dong-A Media Center, near the capital city’s famous Gyeongbokgung palace and Gwanghwamun square. The 34-year-old has made a name for himself slacklining dramatic urban environments, such as his 185-metre high feat between Qatar’s Katara towers. In 2024, he became the first person to slackline the strait of Messina between mainland Italy and Sicily, completing the 3.6km traverse despite a fall near the end, caught by his safety harness. Last month, he covered 14.7km over 12 hours on a line above the Danube in Bratislava, Slovakia. Large crowds in Seoul gathered to watch Roose walk the slackline – twice, at 1pm and 4pm local time. The second walk will be postponed if average wind speeds reach 10m/s or gusts hit 15m/s. Today’s forecast is sunny with light breezes. Roose said a visit in 2022 to South Korea inspired his Gwanghwamun walk. On that trip, Roose encountered jultagi, Korea’s traditional tightrope walking, which Unesco added to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2011. Unlike tightrope walking elsewhere, jultagi is as much comedy as acrobatics. The walker sings, jokes and dances on the rope, trading banter with a clown on the ground as musicians play.

Israelis divided as vote that could oust Netanyahu only weeks away

On the streets of Jerusalem, crowded with secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews, religious nationalists, settlers, Palestinians, and soldiers returning from deployments, uncertainty hangs over an election less than a month away that could mark a turning point for a country profoundly changed after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and nearly three years of war in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. The political battle remains on a knife-edge. For over two years most polls have predicted that the coalition of parties led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will collectively slip below the 61-seat threshold needed to form a government. But there is no clear path to power for his main opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, even if he maintains current levels of support, because he has ruled out going into coalition with any of the parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are projected to claim a critical 12 seats. For Netanyahu to stay in power, he would have to either put together a different coalition or pull off an unprecedented election night surprise. Another deeply fragmented Knesset seems likely, in which neither side is close to securing a majority. The latest Channel 13 poll, published last week, captured that deadlock: Jewish Israeli parties opposed to Netanyahu were projected to win 52 seats, against 51 for the prime minister’s bloc, with both falling short of the 61 required for a majority. Eisenkot’s Yashar party topped the poll with 22 seats, while Netanyahu’s Likud was projected to take 18. The lack of clarity over the next government – with both main blocs on the right – is fuelling unease among Israelis, some of whom believe little will change whoever becomes prime minister. “I’m not going to vote because I don’t trust anyone,” said Rachel, 42, an Israeli citizen living in West Jerusalem. “I used to vote for Yair Lapid,” she added, referring to the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party. “The party’s name means ‘there is a future’. But today, I don’t see any future for this country.” Average public trust across the eight Israeli institutions measured consistently by the Israel Democracy Institute, a statistics body, stood at 34% in 2025, compared with 61% in 2012. An atmosphere of pessimism and indecision is palpable in Jerusalem, where tensions between Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem – the majority of whom cannot vote in Israeli national elections – and rightwing Jewish Israelis have deepened since 7 October. The Hamas attack is likely to weigh heavily on the ballot: a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 68% of Jewish respondents said 7 October would be a central factor in deciding how they voted. “After 7 October, everyone in this government has to take the blame,” said Ilda, who owns a clothing shop on Jaffa Street, one of Jerusalem’s oldest and busiest thoroughfares. Referring to a Haaretz investigation claiming Netanyahu had been warned about the possibility of a major Hamas attack, which he denies, she said: “After journalists exposed what happened, look what they did: they attacked the journalists instead of taking responsibility.” West Jerusalem has long been considered fertile ground for Netanyahu and the Israeli right. Yet Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation and the prospect of seemingly endless conflict on multiple fronts are beginning to worry voters even here, a few steps from the bustling Mahane Yehuda market, where giant election posters for Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister known for his anti-Palestinian rhetoric and championing a racist death penalty law that in practice applies only to Palestinians, loom over the streets. “This country needs radical change. I think I’ll vote for Naftali Bennett,” said Yosef, 26, a religious Israeli, referring to the rightwing former prime minister who now leads the B’Yachad alliance and is one of Netanyahu’s main political rivals. On one side are tens of thousands of Netanyahu supporters – called “Bibi-ists” in reference to the prime minister’s nickname – as well as backers of the far-right ministers Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who want to return the current coalition to power to “finish the job” in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and the West Bank. On the other are tens of thousands of voters who believe Israel is losing its standing in the world and needs a change of direction – something many see as embodied by the centre-right Eisenkot. His supporters argue that he would place greater emphasis on education, social policy and the economy, areas they say have been neglected by the current government. “I’ll vote for anyone but the prime minister of 7 October,” said Turgeman as he enjoyed a coffee with his wife at a cafe in Jaffa during the Jewish high holiday season. “I’ve never voted Likud in my life, and I’m certainly not going to start now. I’ll vote for Eisenkot. We need a normal prime minister – someone who also cares about the economy and about prices, which have soared because of the war.” Food prices in Israel have reached record highs amid the regional conflict and supply chain disruption, with food inflation outpacing the broader consumer price index. The cost of food, including fresh fruit and vegetables, has risen by 9.5% over the past two years. “They think about wars, while nobody is dealing with the economic crisis,” Turgeman said. “And what has Netanyahu done? He has continued to provide financial support that benefits the Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] community.” Since 7 October, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community has been at the centre of a bitter dispute over military conscription. While most Jewish Israelis serve, Haredi men studying in religious seminaries have long been largely exempt. In 2024, amid war and growing pressure on reservists, the supreme court ruled there was no legal basis to continue the exemption, fuelling anti-draft protests, roadblocks and clashes with police. Haredi parties have blamed Netanyahu for failing to pass legislation to protect the exemption. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up about 14% of Israel’s population, have traditionally voted for parties backed by their rabbis, including the two main Haredi parties in Netanyahu’s coalition. But anger among younger Haredim over conscription and the policing of protests could lead some to defy their religious leaders this time. “All the options in this election are junk, but I think I will vote for Eisenkot,” said Pinchas, 24, an ultra-Orthodox student who recently completed his military service. “I have the impression that this time people my age won’t vote according to what the rabbis tell them. Many are angry about the way Netanyahu handled the conscription law, and especially about the crackdown on those who protested against it.” As the Guardian conducted interviews near Jerusalem’s central bus station, an elderly passerby called out: “There is only one prime minister – Bibi!” It was a reminder that, despite the uncertainty and the opposition’s narrow lead in the polls, the Israeli leader retains a loyal base. “I’m sure Netanyahu will win,” said Avraham Levy, 76, a Likud supporter and fruit seller at Mahane Yehuda market. “We’ll have the majority. We need to support Netanyahu because he has to finish the job. If he doesn’t, who will?” he said, referring to Israel’s wars on several fronts. Among those still backing Netanyahu’s coalition partners are supporters of the far right, including Jakub, 23, who was due to begin his military service soon. “I’ll vote for Moshe Feiglin,” he said, referring to an extreme far-right former Israeli Knesset member who declared in 2025 that the conflict in Gaza was not against Hamas but against every child and baby in the territory, and is now running jointly with the far-right Religious Zionist party. “Because he represents my values, and he has never changed his principles,” Jakub said. The field is wide open and the divide is also generational: by 2019, support for a Palestinian state stood at about 20%-30% among the youngest Jewish Israeli cohorts, compared with roughly 40%-55% among older generations, reflecting a longer-term shift towards more hawkish attitudes. No more recent comparable data was available. The difficulty for the anti-Netanyahu camp is that it remains fragmented and has struggled to agree on a coherent political platform or a common strategy capable of uniting its different factions. Parties representing Palestinian citizens, known as Arab parties inside Israel, could push Eisenkot’s coalition over the 61-seat threshold, but amid a campaign of racism and Islamophobia, he has ruled out going into government with them. They could potentially support a minority government. But last week, the Central Elections Committee voted to bar Ra’am and the Joint List, the country’s two main Palestinian parties, from the election, after the far-right Otzma Yehudit party filed a petition arguing that they support terrorism and deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The opposition Democrats party filed a similar petition arguing for Otzma Yehudit to be banned for incitement to racism and negating the existence of Israel as a democratic state, because of racist policies pursued in power under its leader Itamar Ben Gvir. That was not upheld. The decision is being challenged in the supreme court, which has overturned similar bans in past elections. If allowed to run in the elections, the Arab parties will be crucial to the opposition’s prospects of forming a government and to Eisenkot’s chances of replacing Netanyahu. Tensions between Palestinian citizens of Israel and the state have deepened since 7 October amid arrests, interrogations and other legal action against Arab citizens, often over protests or social media posts. For these reasons, Palestinian citizens of Israel are often reluctant to express their voting preferences. In the 2025 Israeli Democracy Index survey, 70% said they preferred to remain silent about their political views in the presence of strangers, up from 45% in 2016 and compared with 53% of Jewish respondents. But Palestinian citizens of Israel remain divided over how best to respond, with many pessimistic that any future government will defend rights they say have too often been denied. The Joint List has maintained a more oppositional stance, signalling it could support an anti-Netanyahu minority government from outside while stopping short of joining a coalition, although it has done so in the past. “These elections are about our strength as an Arab community and our ability to have an influential political voice,” said Amir, 34, from Mashhad in northern Israel, who plans to vote for the Joint List. “We need strong, united Arab representation on equality, discrimination and the Palestinian cause, while cooperating when it benefits our community.” Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, has instead made political pragmatism its defining strategy. In 2021 it became the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, seeking budgets, services and greater influence for Palestinian citizens of Israel. “Arab society is being torn apart by crime and violence, while relations with Jewish Israelis are becoming more hostile,” said Abu Mahmoud, 33, from Kafr Kanna, also in the north of the country. “That’s why I’ll vote for Ra’am: negotiate, secure budgets and work with Jewish Israelis where possible.” He added: “I want politics that can actually improve people’s lives.” Jamal Risheq contributed to this report

‘They raped our country’: documentary follows Kenyans’ fight for restitution over stolen land

For British colonialists, the fertile and cool uplands of central Kenya were the “White Highlands”, to be reserved exclusively for European settlers. Local communities were forced from the land, which was turned into plantations for tea and other crops. In recent decades, descendants of the displaced have fought to reclaim their ancestral land, some of which is now occupied by multinational tea companies and other large corporations. The fight for restitution is the subject of Kikuyu Land, a documentary film directed by the Kenyan film-maker Bea Wangondu and her American counterpart Andrew H Brown that is being released in the UK on Friday. “Colonial structures didn’t just shape land and labour in Kenya. They created patterns of power that thrive today globally,” said Brown. “This isn’t just a Kenyan story. This could be told sadly in almost every part of the world.” In 1902, under Sir Charles Eliot, then commissioner of the East Africa Protectorate (present-day Kenya), a law was passed making vast tracts of fertile ancestral land “Crown land”, allowing the government to sell and lease land to white settlers to encourage their settlement and farming, ignoring African communal land ownership systems. The policy attracted settlers and led to the violent displacement of local communities to marginalised, crowded and less-productive “native reserves”. In 1962, a year before independence, the colonial administration initiated a redistribution programme to transfer farms in the highlands from departing white settlers to landless Kenyans. The programme was aimed at purchasing land in the highlands from willing white settlers and reselling it to Kenyans on credit. By the time it ended in 1971, about 1.15m acres of land had been bought from 780 white farmers and sold to approximately 35,000 Kenyan families. But much of the land remained with the political elite and foreign corporate interests, including companies that held huge plantations. The idea of the film was inspired by Wangondu’s curiosity since childhood about why her grandfather had disproportionately vast land, compared with his neighbours. With answers unforthcoming from her family, she decided to dig deep into colonial history. Having worked for international film companies and news organisations for years, Wangondu wanted to tell her own story, asking questions that have shaped her perception of herself and her family. “It’s time for us to tell our stories in our own voices and in our own understanding,” she said. She discussed the idea with Brown in 2021 after they met while working on a National Geographic production, and they pursued it. Kikuyu Land follows Wangondu’s search for answers about her family’s land, interspersed with a wider investigation into tea plantations and the story of the pursuit by one man, Mungai, to reclaim his family’s ancestral land. “They raped our country, they displaced us, they took our land and they did the unfairness they did to us,” Mungai tells Wangondu in the film. Wangondu and Mungai’s journeys in the documentary expose colonial legacies, buried histories and family pains that the two struggle to face up to. In one scene, Mungai crouches under a tree and grieves after his aunt shows him a spot, now inside the fence of the tea farm whose land his family is claiming, where their patriarch was buried. Kenya was under British rule from 1895 to 1963, first as a protectorate then as a colony. The period was characterised by racial discrimination, forced displacement and labour, and brutal suppression of resistance. Members of the Kipsigis and Talai communities have made calls for redress in recent years over the violent eviction of their ancestors from their lands in the Rift Valley to make way for tea plantations owned by white settlers. In 2021, UN special rapporteurs expressed concern about the British government’s failure to provide “effective remedies and reparations” to the two communities. Kikuyu Land premiered at the Sundance film festival in the US in January and had its UK festival premiere in June at the Sheffield DocFest. It will screen at the NBO film festival in Nairobi in October. Joseph Njenga, one of its producers, said hearing stories while making the film of people who suffered pain and atrocities caused by the colonial administration had left an emotional imprint. “My head could not contextualise and process the pain that was brought upon us – and for no reason,” he said. • Kikuyu Land is in UK cinemas from 2 October

New Google Maps images reveal massive scale of devastation in Gaza

An update to Google Maps has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants. The images were taken in June this year and show further destruction of homes, businesses, places of worship and infrastructure since a fragile ceasefire came into effect almost 12 months ago. They show huge tented camps lining much of the shoreline, often within a few metres of the sea. Gaza’s once busy main port, now badly damaged and empty of fishing boats, is surrounded by makeshift accommodation. Any available open space in Gaza City is packed with shacks, tents and huts. The images also show massive damage to northern towns such as Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, as well as the destruction of places of worship such as the Istiqlal mosque in Khan Younis. Major neighbourhoods in Gaza City such as Jabaliya and Shuja’iya, which were targeted in repeated Israeli offensives, are clearly now uninhabitable. Swaths of rubble are visible in the south of Gaza, where a wide strip appears to have been cleared by Israeli forces along the border with Egypt. The town of Rafah appears to have been almost entirely reduced to rubble and Tel al-Sultan razed to the ground. More than 2.1 million displaced people are living in tents and temporary shelters in Gaza, where about 82% of structures – roughly 200,000 buildings – have been damaged, with about two-thirds of those destroyed, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa. A recent UN assessment estimated that the number of destroyed structures across Gaza had increased by 9% since the declaration of a ceasefire in October 2025. “The estimate of the total amount of rubble in Gaza is 61m tonnes. It is approximately 20 times the amount of rubble generated in all wars across the world over the last 18 years,” Jaco Cilliers, the UN Development Programme’s special representative in Palestine told the Guardian last month. The presence of human remains still buried under the rubble remains one of the most urgent humanitarian problems. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, mostly civilians. The conflict was triggered by a surprise attack by Hamas into Israel in October 2023, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage.

Kyiv Independent editor: ‘Our readers want Russia to suffer but we can’t be propagandists’

Readers of Ukraine’s leading English news site “really want Russia to suffer” but that should not lead the title to downplay the military and political problems facing Kyiv, its editor has said. Speaking to the Guardian before an event to London, Olga Rudenko said many of the Kyiv Independent’s most-read stories described Ukrainian deep strike attacks into Russia, potentially distorting its coverage. The Kyiv Independent, however, cannot afford to become propagandistic, she argued, and marginalise Russian military successes or reduce reporting on Ukrainian corruption because the subjects are not so well read. “We had a conversation in the newsroom when somebody raised that our website, in the mornings, is all about Ukrainian attacks on Russian Wildberries warehouses and so on,” Rudenko said. “But it’s misrepresenting the full picture when you don’t balance it out with enough stories about attacks on Ukraine, which are, by the way, far less popular with our readers.” The challenge is that “people really want Russia to suffer”, and read about “something going boom” but it was the Kyiv Independent’s duty to “not just to feed them more of what they like”. The “core idea of the Kyiv Independent is that we’re not Ukrainian propaganda, we’re not affiliated with the government, we’re not doing we’re not Ukraine’s PR service,” the editor said. Rudenko said she had “no expectation” that the war would end any time soon, with Russia stepping up its bombing of Kyiv before winter and Ukrainian strikes denting its neighbour’s economy while diplomacy is stalled. It is a feeling that has hung over journalists at the site for some time. This year employees did not bother planning for a peacetime scenario in their annual strategy session. “It was the first time when this question wasn’t really arising,” Rudenko said. On Friday, Rudenko will host a “live story-telling event” in London where reporters, including the frontline correspondent Francis Farrell, will give their personal experience of Ukraine in the midst of the biggest war in Europe since 1945. The title relies on readers to make monthly contributions for its revenue, an idea also used by the Guardian, and London was chosen as a venue because it “is probably the biggest city in terms of membership”, the editor said. Media freedom in Ukraine has not worsened under Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Rudenko said, but added: “I would struggle to say it has gotten better.” Reporters can write freely without “fearing some immediate consequences” but the editor said that a concentration of power around the president remains. Zelenskyy has not held a press conference for independent Ukrainian media since February 2025, and there is still a bitter legacy from the president’s attempt a few months later to neutralise Ukraine’s two anti-corruption agencies, which had to be reversed in the light of public protests. “We’ve been casting a critical look at Zelenskyy and his government for a while now, she said, highlighting an editorial written last July at the height of crisis, headlined “Zelenskyy just betrayed Ukraine’s democracy”. The president and his allies, Rudenko said, had “brazenly and stupidly” sought to take away a central achievement of the Ukrainian revolution of 2014, after which the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies was introduced. Despite this, she said, “a critical mass of Ukrainians” do not think it is time to hold a presidential election, as called for by the former defence minister Mykhalio Fedorov in August. Elections have been suspended under martial law, though Zelenskyy’s term expired more than two years ago. The Kyiv Independent has not come out in support of elections, Rudenko said, partly because support for holding them is running at about 15%. Protests this summer against Fedorov’s firing by Zelenskyy were “of the size that the president can still afford to ignore”, she added. The Kyiv Independent was founded three months before the full-scale Russian invasion by journalists who had lost their jobs when the rival Kyiv Post was temporarily closed by its owner. Launched with a $100,000 grant, it rapidly became an essential English language news sources for Ukraine as the country was attacked and the war with Russia became global news. The number of contributing readers, or members, most of whom pay $5 a month, has risen from 14,000 at the beginning of 2025 to 25,500 a year later and to 36,000 now, allowing staff numbers to grow to 99 and the title to move to bigger offices.

A ‘hero’ pilot, plumber and dentist among those who saved flydubai flight to Israel

Smit Machchhar was lying on the floor of the flydubai flight deck, covered with blood, when he managed to click the release to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to gain entry, overpower his attacker and save 174 passengers on board. Moments earlier, Machchhar’s fellow pilot had stabbed him, in an apparent effort to crash the plane which was travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv. Machchhar, an Indian citizen from Mumbai, is being treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia’s north-western city of Tabuk, where the plane landed safely. Machchhar is just one of several people hailed as heroes, for managing to wrest control of the plane from the attacker who apparently attempted to crash the flight, according to Israeli officials, who also provided much of the detail on how events played out inside the plane. In a post on X early on Thursday, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi lauded Machchhar a “hero”. “In the face of the gravest danger and despite being seriously ‌injured, he showed immense courage and an unwavering resolve to protect the lives of others. His valour helped save hundreds of lives and avert a great tragedy,” Modi said. Earlier, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been equally impressed by Machchhar’s actions. “Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker.” The incident began with a struggle, when Machchhar’s fellow pilot – reportedly an Omani national – stabbed him and ⁠sent the jet plunging nearly 14,000ft (4,267 metres) in less than 30 seconds. Soon after several passengers were able to enter the cockpit to help subdue the attacker. “What made it difficult for us was [Machchhar] himself,” said Yaniv Hayoun, who was among those in the cockpit and whom Netanyahu described as a plumber. “He had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door.” Hayoun later told Netanyahu that as people wrestled with the attacker, “I jumped back, grabbed the controls, and started pulling back the handles”, the way he had seen on television shows. Then other crew members took over. Dr Shota Musaev, a dentist on board, was also among those who ran to the cockpit. He told CNN they found the attacker on the floor on top of the pilot, stabbing him. He then rushed to help Machchhar, “terrified” he was going to die. “He was covered in cuts – his head, his hands – they were practically sliced open, almost severed in two … he had lost a lot of blood and was in bad shape. “I think that if we had waited even a few more moments, we would have lost him; his blood pressure had plummeted, he suddenly lost consciousness, and there was blood everywhere,” he said. Musaev told CNN he also helped subdue the attacker, recalling that he tied him up using headphone cords and plastic zipties. Other crew members then stabilised the descent of the plane and began to land it safely in north-western Saudi Arabia. Among those who intervened was an off-duty British pilot, according to a passenger, Almog Itali, who said the plane was carrying a pair of relief pilots who were meant to fly the next flight. “The relief pilots are European, one of them British, who entered [the cockpit] and pulled the aircraft up, pulled the yoke, stabilised the plane and landed us in Saudi Arabia,” Itali said in a clip posted by the BBC. Other reports suggested the off-duty pilots were from South Africa or New Zealand. Indian media reported that Machchhar underwent surgery in Saudi Arabia, while Indian officials say he is in a stable condition. They say they have been in touch with his family – reportedly a wife and two children – who live in Dubai. Aviation experts have expressed surprise the plane did not crash after a descent so extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail. One passenger described the moment of the nosedive as like “massive turbulence … for 20 or 30 seconds.” “That was a serious descent and strong aerodynamic forces on that rudder for that to happen. I’m just amazed the aircraft didn’t come apart,” said former United Airlines pilot and aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo. “What saved them is there was enough altitude left for them to recover,” said Guzzetti, another aviation expert, who said it may not have been possible for the plane to level out if it had fallen below 10,000 feet. The fact Machchhar was able to unlock the cockpit door, allowing other passengers to enter and take control of the aircraft, no doubt saved all the passengers on board. Philip Kean the chief executive of Mainland Air in New Zealand – where Machchhar trained for 18 months in 2008 and 2009 – said the pilot had shown leadership after being attacked in mid-air. Calling Machchhar an above average pilot, Kean told New Zealand publication Stuff that pilots trained for all eventualities, but that managing it successfully when it happens in reality was a “whole different story”.

Israeli forces overwhelmed by violent settlers in ‘terrorist attack’ on Palestinian family

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has made everyday life for Palestinians “untenable”, as a mob attack on Palestinians trying to return home prompted one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rivals to warn of a campaign of settler terror. More than 100 militant settlers overwhelmed Israeli security forces early on Tuesday to attack a Palestinian family as they attempted to reclaim their homes which had been seized by settlers in the West Bank village of Jalud. Three Israeli security officials were injured and houses were set on fire. The impotence of the Israeli military, the scale of the assault and the injuries inflicted on Israeli security officers by settlers prompted unusually harsh condemnation from Israeli politicians and commenters. Israel is facing unprecedented international pressure over surging violence in the occupied West Bank, where settler militants backed by cabinet ministers have accelerated a campaign of ethnic cleansing ahead of Israel’s elections next month. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the attacks in Jalud as a “moral stain”. Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief and Netanyahu’s leading challenger in the upcoming elections, called for action to halt a “campaign of terror and violence”. Deadlier attacks by Israeli settlers, including ones targeting Palestinian children, have drawn less attention inside Israel. “Palestinian rights or safety are not the concern, even for people who are in the opposition,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel-Palestine with International Crisis Group. “The settler violence is an issue [for them] because it’s making Israel look bad, and also the idea that the military is losing control.” The ICRC said attacks, settlement expansion and severe restrictions on movement were making everyday life untenable for Palestinian civilians, who Israel has a responsibility to protect under international law. . “The frequent and severe violence must be brought to an end,” said Julien Lerisson, the head of the ICRC’s delegation for Israel and Palestine. “What international humanitarian law says on the protection of private and public property, and on the population’s access to essential services, must be respected.” A bar on imports of settlement goods came into force in the Netherlands last week, the UK has announced plans for even broader controls on trade and financing of settlements, and a similar bill will be introduced in the US legislature on Thursday. On Tuesday, a Senate bill demanding a human rights report on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was narrowly defeated after winning backing from all but one Democrat. “Tonight a disaster was averted, but the barrier has been broken,” the Israeli analyst Roy Sharon wrote on social media after the vote, warning that “anarchy in the West Bank” may cost Israel military aid from the US and its international legitimacy. A cartoon in Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, on Wednesday showed two soldiers watching an arson attack on a Palestinian home. “They’re going to ruin my trip to Amsterdam,” one says to the other. More than 60 Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank have been wiped off the map since October 2023 and 18 others have been partly displaced, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Nearly 5,000 people have been forced from their homes, almost half of them children. The Tubasi family, whose homes were burned in Jalud, had been forced out this summer after a weeks-long siege by settler militants. Last week they secured a high court ruling ordering the Israeli state to evict settlers and secure their return. Late on Monday the Israeli military told the family that about 15 military police officers would escort them home immediately, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported. That was a small number given that Israel is celebrating the Sukkot holiday. The number of violent extremists in illegal settlements usually rises during festivals, and the force was outnumbered by a violent crowd within minutes of arriving. “To carry out an operation such as this, and during the holiday of Sukkot when the [settler] outposts are packed, is madness,” a security source said. The military had not informed national police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service of their plans, so they had no security backup. Settlers attacked a house when the Tubasi family arrived, forcing them to the roof, before the military decided to evacuate them in armoured military vehicles. The crowd then set the homes on fire, blocked roads and threw stones at Israeli security forces, injuring three personnel. The two houses “were damaged beyond description”, said Wael Tubasi. “They damaged everything – the doors, the tiles were removed, the stairs were removed. They smashed the bathrooms, doors and windows. They left nothing, everything was broken,” he told Reuters. Earlier this year the former prime minister Ehud Olmert called for the international criminal court to intervene to stop settler violence because the state had failed. Netanyahu condemned the “violent riots” and called for prosecution of the attackers, but defended the illegal settler movement. “The handful of rioters are not representative of the law-abiding settler public in Judea and Samaria,” the prime minister said, using an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank. A landmark 2024 ruling from the UN’s international court of justice found that the occupation violated international law, a position the British government has endorsed. An Israeli military spokesperson said two suspects had been detained, and called for action to tackle settler militants who targeted Israeli security forces. “The violence directed at soldiers while they were carrying out their duties crosses a clear red line and is unacceptable,” the spokesperson said. “There is no place for such incidents in the state of Israel, and they must not be allowed to become the norm. Such phenomena must be addressed at their root.” On Wednesday, some in Israel questioned whether the army and the state had the capacity to do that. “We have to look reality squarely in the eye: this was a terrorist attack and a failure by the Israeli defence establishment in its entirety,” Avi Ashkenazi wrote in the Maariv newspaper. “It is clear at this point that the real sovereign in Judea and Samaria are the extreme rightwing terrorist activists.”