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Israeli settlers who have seized Palestinian land are carrying out attacks in the village of Teyasir, in the Tubas governorate in the northern West Bank, forcing Palestinian farmers to leave their lands in Ramallah, Palestine on April 07, 2026. [Hisham K. K. Abu Shaqra – Anadolu Agency]
Palestinian residents confronted Israeli occupiers Tuesday who attempted to seize a home in the town of Shuyukh in the southern occupied West Bank, according to sources, Anadolu reports.
A group of armed occupiers stormed the town in northeastern Hebron and raided a Palestinian home, trying to take it by force, but residents intervened and prevented the confiscation, sources told Anadolu.
Fadi al-Ayaydeh, executive director of Shuyukh municipality, said residents were surprised early Tuesday to find occupiers had set up a tent on land belonging to Palestinians.
“We went to the site and found a large number of residents there. During that time, armed settlers confronted us and fired shots in the air to intimidate people,” al-Ayaydeh told Anadolu.
Israeli forces later arrived and fired stun grenades and tear gas to disperse the crowd, he added.
Al-Ayaydeh said erecting the tent was “an attempt to impose a fait accompli,” explaining that occupiers often set up tents and informal outposts, then monitor reactions and expand if there is no resistance.
He noted that residents would remain at the site to ensure the tent is removed and that people can access their land.
The official Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said occupiers carried out 497 attacks against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in March, killing nine.
Violence by Israeli forces and occupiers in the West Bank has intensified since the genocide in the Gaza Strip began in October 2023, killing more than 1,148 Palestinians, wounding 11,750 and leading to 22,000 arrests.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
US Vice President JD Vance, exhausted after fruitless marathon negotiations with Iran, prepares to board Air Force Two on April 12, 2026 in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/Getty Images)
“Blocking the Strait of Hormuz to unblock the Strait of Hormuz is peak Trump foreign policy,” said one observer.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as Vice President JD Vance’s negotiating team failed to gain the trust of their Iranian counterparts, who have been burned by the United States before and are loath to surrender sovereignty over their nuclear program.
Trump announced in an early morning post on his Truth Social network that, “effective immediately,” the Strait of Hormuz—which was open before the president launched his illegal war of choice—would be closed to all shipping. Around 20% of the world’s oil passed through the waterway before the war.
“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”
Blocking the Strait of Hormuz to unblock the Strait of Hormuz is peak Trump foreign policy.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran,” the president continued, referring to one of the concessions reportedly in the cease-fire agreement with Iran that he approved last week. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
“Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION,” Trump added. “They want money and, more importantly, they want Nuclear. Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
Responding to Trump’s post, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said: “So get this. Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Blow up the world economy to punish Iran. Make sense?”
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, also took to social media, writing that “a blockade is an act of war, so Trump is announcing he will reenter the US into a war has been illegal under domestic and international law and has been disastrous for US interests, regional security, and the people of Iran.”
In a social media post, journalist Séamus Malekafzali said: “I have legitimately never heard of a more insane, designed-to-backfire policy under this administration; maybe ever. Not only attempting to blockade Iranian ships, but ANY ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the toll.”
While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubioattended a UFC match in Miami, Vance was left with the task of marathon negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan. It was the first direct high-level talks between the two countries since 1979.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance told reporters after the talks. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on February 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump’s—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran gave its assurance that it would not build nukes in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it signed in 2015 during the presidency of Barack Obama. Trump unilaterally scrapped the agreement, which was also called the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term despite—some say because of—Iran’s full compliance.
So the Trump administration’s two goals in peace talks with Iran are:1. A commitment by Iran not to develop a nuke (This was part of the Obama deal that Trump canceled)2. Opening the Strait of Hormuz. (Was open before war.)
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf blamed the US for the breakdown in talks.
“My colleagues on the Iranian delegation Minaab168 raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a social media post. The Iranian delegation was named after the town where 168 children and staff at an elementary school were massacred in a US cruise missile strike on the first day of the war.
“Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” Ghalibaf explained.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a “peace deal is within our reach,” prompting Iranian officials and others to accuse the Americans of acting in bad faith. Similar accusations were leveled when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing nuclear negotiations.
“America has understood our logic and principles,” said Ghalibaf, “and now it’s time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not?”
Want to know why negotiations did not succeed?
JD Vance: "they have chosen not to accept our terms."
Bingo.
No negotiations – at least with Iran – will succeed based on "our/your terms."
The US must learn: you can't dictate terms to Iran.
The US and Israel have been bombing Iran for 43 days. They have bombed more than 13,000 targets, assassinated senior political and military figures—including the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—and, according to Iranian medical officials, killed more than 3,000 people, including hundreds of women and children. Israel’s concurrent bombing of Lebanon has also killed hundreds of civilians.
Iran, while weakened militarily, appears to be in a position of strategic strength. But to hear Trump say it, Iran is “LOSING, and LOSING BIG!”
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” he wrote on Truth Social as Vance headed to Pakistan. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei advised patience, asserting that a diplomatic breakthrough was highly unlikely after just one round of talks.
“Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” Baghaei said. “No one had such an expectation.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli far-right groups supporting the expansion of control over Palestinian territories gather at a site housing an Israeli military monument about one kilometer from the Gaza Strip border, calling for an event in Gaza during the Jewish holiday of Passover and repeating demands for further land appropriation, in Israel on April 07, 2026. [Enes Canlı – Anadolu Agency]
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of a settlement in Benjamin, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Israel will expand in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, widening its non-existent borders. The comments are the latest in a series of threats made by Smotrich in which bombing on a scale similar to that in Gaza is being promoted as the step for land appropriation.
The international community cannot say it wasn’t warned after Smotrich’s detailed explanation of colonial expansion in the region. Expanding Israel’s borders is repeatedly asserted. Yet not one single leader has linked Israel’s military and political strategies to implementing the Zionist concept of Greater Israel.
One example of tacit silence was reported by Sydney Criminal Lawyers, who noted that Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s statement on 9 April 2026 spoke of humanitarian concerns and not of Israel’s colonial expansion.
From alleged safety from terror as in the case of Gaza, to buffer zones in Lebanon, Israel is repeating its security narrative in different scenarios to maintain a normalised perception of colonialism – a colonialism that is concealed by the international community’s silence.
Israel’s refusal to define its borders was never truly opposed by the international community. Since the 1948 Nakba, Israel colonial expansion was normalised. The only step the international community committed to was declaring settlements post-1967 illegal. The differentiation failed to stop Israel from expanding further into Palestinian territory and it had a precedent to fall on – the 1948 Nakba defying the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
In 1937, David Ben Gurion stated, “We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.” Even before Israel’s establishment, Zionism was declaring impunity for the future colonial enterprise. The UN, founded by former colonial powers, found no reason to oppose the Zionist ideology. In fact, the 1947 Partition Plan granted Jewish settlers 56 per cent of Palestinian land.
What Smotrich is declaring today reflects Ben Gurion’s vision of Greater Israel. The international community prefers to eliminate historical references to the earlier Zionist aspirations of annexing South Lebanon, for example, which is what Smotrich is partly inciting for.
The EU is back to considering sanctions – the key word being ‘considering’, not implementing. Spain, the most vocal in Europe in condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza, has called for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Yet, EU silence over colonialism and annexation remains the norm. Choosing parts of Israel’s security narrative is another EU tactic – disarming Hezbollah is amplified, as is urging Israel to restrain its bombing to Hezbollah targets. However, warning against annexation, which is the mildest the EU can do with regard to Israel’s colonial expansion in the region, is a perfunctory performance.
History provides a clear picture of what Israel seeks to achieve. A referenced plan from decades ago is being ignored in favour of fragmented rhetoric on security concerns and humanitarian aid. There is no real fall out between Israel and the international community, but a repetitive silence regarding colonialism and annexation.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks at an event on March 30, 2026 in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
“One of the biggest implications of this war is how badly Europe miscalculated,” said one analyst.
As President Donald Trump made his most explicitly genocidal threat yet against Iran on Tuesday, one historian based in Tehran suggested that countries which have aided and abetted the rapidly intensifying US-Israeli assault on the Middle Eastern country are coming face-to-face with the fact that appeasing Trump has been a grave error.
Trump’s threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”—referring to Iran’s population of 93 million people—was the “textbook definition of genocide,” said Narjes Rahmati. “Those who could have intervened but did not will come to regret it.”
Trump has lashed out at numerous European countries for being insufficiently supportive of the US-Israeli war, which has killed more than 2,000 people in Iran, nearly 1,500 in Lebanon, and hundreds across the Middle East, but countries including the United Kingdom have provided various support to the US and Israel since they abruptly cut off diplomatic talks and began bombing the country in February.
While UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has attempted to distance his government from the conflict, saying, “This is not our war,” the UK has allowed US bombers to use British military bases for “defensive” missions. Late last month the UK also authorized the US to use military bases for strikes against Iranian missile sites that were targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The country has ramped up its military resources in the region in recent weeks.
Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats Party in the UK, said Tuesday that Starmer and his Labour government face “a choice” about continuing to back the US and Israel in light of Trump’s latest threat on what the president previously referred to as “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day.”
After Trump's latest shocking threats, Keir Starmer faces a choice.
Withdraw US access now to UK air bases, or risk letting British soil be used to commit war crimes. pic.twitter.com/XK9b6rrgum
“The UK must immediately and unequivocally suspend support for the US military,” added Zack Polanski, the British Green Party leader. “The government have tried to appease him, then they tried to say they’re standing up to him. Words aren’t enough—it’s time for action.”
Philippe Dam, European Union director for Human Rights Watch, also condemned the European Commission for its tepid response to Trump’s threat against “a whole civilization.”
Anitta Hipper, foreign affairs spokesperson for the commission, said it rejects threats to attack critical civilian infrastructure, warning that “such attacks risk impacting millions of people across the Middle East and beyond, and also may lead to further dangerous escalation.”
Dam warned that “international law is eroded by those who flout it as much as by those who fail to speak up.”
“Despite renewed threats of attacks on civilian infrastructures in Iran—would be war crimes and possible crimes against humanity—EU leaders still fail to name USA and Israel in their statements,” said Dam.
The US has also received varying degrees of military support from Portugal, Italy, Germany, and France, though the French and Italian governments have angered Trump in recent weeks by blocking the US from using certain military bases and barring military flights from French airspace. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez has stood out among North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders, leading the way in refusing to allow the US to use its bases for Iran attacks.
Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, said European leaders over the last several weeks “had [a] real chance to help make diplomacy succeed. Instead, they aligned with and enabled Trump’s worst instincts.”
One of the biggest implications of this war is how badly Europe miscalculated.
On Iran, they had real chance to help make diplomacy succeed. Instead, they aligned with and enabled Trump’s worst instincts.
Now they face a cascading crisis: severe economic shock, a fraying NATO,… https://t.co/hng7RI7n8v
Adil Haque, a Rutgers University law professor and executive editor of Just Security, called on “all states” to “immediately condemn Trump’s threat; deny the use of their territory and airspace by US forces to attack Iran; demand an immediate, unconditional, and permanent end to the war.”
“Hormuz can be dealt with separately,” he said, referring to Iran’s closure of the strait, a key trade waterway. “Enough is enough.”
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog, says that it’s easy atm, she only needs to report war crimes supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
A man takes pictures of Shahid Beheshti University following a US-Israeli strike in Tehran on April 4, 2026. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
“This is an express public incitement for war crimes and crimes against humanity—and, I would say, for genocide,” said a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
Iranian officials on Monday warned US President Donald Trump that his name will be “etched in history as a supreme war criminal” if he follows through with his threat to wage total war on Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, wrote on social media following Trump’s Easter-morning outburst that “threats to attack power plants and bridges (civilian infrastructure) constitute war crimes under Article 8(2)(b) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977 (Article 52).”
“The president of the United States, in his capacity as the highest-ranking official of his country, has openly threatened to commit war crimes—an act that entails his individual criminal responsibility before the International Criminal Court and any competent national court,” Gharibabadi added, vowing that Iran “will deliver a decisive, immediate, and regret-inducing response” to any attack.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said Trump’s threats are “an indication of a criminal mindset.”
“This is an express public incitement for war crimes and crimes against humanity—and, I would say, for genocide,” Baghaei said in an interview on Sunday. “Threatening to attack a country’s critical infrastructure, energy sector, it would mean that you want to put at risk the whole population.”
Absolute bombshell. Iran's Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei accuses the Trump administration of a criminal mindset and public incitement for genocide. Threatening a nation's critical infrastructure puts the entire population at risk. The White House has completely abandoned morality. pic.twitter.com/HcBZGZho5p
The US and Israel have already done significant damage to Iran’s civilian infrastructure. The country’s deputy health minister said Monday that more than 360 healthcare, education, and research centers have been hit by US-Israeli strikes, and dozens of medics have been killed since the bombing began on February 28.
But Trump on Sunday threatened an indiscriminate assault, telling Fox News that if the Iranians “don’t make a deal and fast,” he is “considering blowing everything up and taking the oil.”
“You’re going to see bridges and power plants dropping all over their country,” the president said, setting a new deadline of 8 pm ET for the complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s remarks came after he published a deranged post on his Truth Social platform demanding that Iran “open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
Analysts and lawmakers in the US echoed Iranian officials’ warnings that Trump’s threatened attacks would constitute war crimes.
“Trump’s advisers are telling him to hit civilian sites because it will cause unrest and potentially topple the regime. But just think about the insanity of this plan: kill tens of thousands of civilians in order to cause a national panic,” US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote. “Bombing to induce political panic IS A WAR CRIME.”
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said that “any lawmaker who votes for supplemental funding for the war on Iran or against war powers resolutions to end it will be fully complicit in the war crimes threatened here, as well as those already committed by this unhinged and unfit Commander in Chief.”
The US president’s renewed threats came amid reports of a diplomatic effort, mediated in part by Pakistan, to enact a 45-day ceasefire to provide space for a lasting resolution to the war.
Axios reported that the talks are seen as “the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation in the war that will include massive strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and a retaliation against energy and water facilities in the Gulf states.”
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog, says that it’s easy atm, she only needs to report war crimes supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
dizzy: There are more signs, appearance and demeanour even. There is no shame to it, often just comes with advanced age. The issue is about competency to perform a certain role (and having the codes).
Other parties e.g. the UK Labour government under Keir Starmer and – separately – the UK military should decide whether they are going to be further supportive and complicit in war crimes i.e. faced with this current situation of Trump threatening and it being explicitly recognised and recorded.
