Israeli police have accidentally killed a young Palestinian girl after opening fire on a car suspected of a ramming attack, emergency services in Israel have said.
The border police said they fatally shot the girl, reported to be three or four years old, after firing at a couple in a car who, they said, rammed into two Israeli officers at a West Bank checkpoint.
The unidentified girl was in a van in front of the car which ploughed into the crossing near the Palestinian village of Biddu, just northwest of Jerusalem on Sunday evening.
Video footage from a security camera appeared to show a white car being driven into a pair of Israeli police officers at the checkpoint.
Police then chased after the vehicle, opening fire.
They hit a man and a woman inside the car, along with the girl in the vehicle in front, police said.
Israeli paramedics gave her age as three but Palestinian sources told the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, that she was four.
She was treated at the scene but pronounced dead by Israeli doctors, the Israeli ambulance services said, without giving the cause of death.
A female officer in the paramilitary border police was also lightly wounded, paramedics said.
The Israeli police said in a statement a car with a man and a woman stopped at a crossing near Jerusalem and committed a ramming attack against border police, who responded with live fire.
The suspected attackers were “neutralised”, the police said, without providing details.
Palestinian sources told WAFA that the couple were also killed in the shooting.
‘Dire situation’ elsewhere in West Bank after clash
Earlier, the Israeli army said one of its helicopters attacked Palestinians who were throwing explosives at Israeli vehicles in Jenin, also in the West Bank.
Seven Palestinians were killed in the airstrike, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Mujahhid Nazal, a doctor at a nearby clinic who rushed to the scene, said: “It was a really dire situation, seven young men were lying on the ground.”
Violence erupted after a policeman was killed and three others were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near an Israeli security vehicle.
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Funeral for Palestinians killed in West Bank
Tensions have increased in the West Bank since Israel invaded Gaza.
The war there is nearing the three-month mark and has killed more than 22,800 people, more than two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. Its count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Some 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and squeezed into small slivers of the territory. Israel’s siege has caused a humanitarian crisis, with a quarter of the population starving because not enough supplies are entering the area, according to the UN.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its 7 October attack, in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted approximately 240 others.
Netanyahu aide hopes war has reached ‘beginning of the end’
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Sky News on Sunday that Israeli forces had finished dismantling Hamas in northern Gaza.
Mr Regev suggested this “success” could mean the “beginning of the end” for the war.
He said any rebuilding and return of Palestinians to the area would “have to wait for the end of combat operations”.
However, he said there was hope that Palestinians could go back to their homes “in the not too distant future”.
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Mark Regev hopes the war is getting closer to ending
The adviser also said he agreed with Antony Blinken – the US secretary of state – who said earlier that there have been too many civilian deaths in Gaza.
“We didn’t want to see a single civilian death, and we’ve tried to make a maximum effort to avoid civilian deaths,” Mr Regev told Sky News.
He claimed the number of civilians getting caught in the crossfire “has been going down”.
Questioned on whether there was any disagreement between Israel and the US on post-conflict security, after Mr Blinken said Washington “had a vision” for Gaza’s future, Mr Regev said the two countries agreed on the “overall strategy” to ensure Hamas is “destroyed”.
“There can be no answers on what comes afterwards,” he said.
“We would like to see a government by Palestinians, for Palestinians… that insists on the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip and de-radicalisation.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a Southwest Airlines flight came within 400ft of the ocean following an aborted landing attempt.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plunged at a maximum descent rate of about 4,400ft per minute off the coast of Hawaii before climbing back up to safety on 11 April.
The plane had been flying between cities from Honolulu to Lihue airport in Kauai, but bad weather conditions prompted pilots to bypass a landing attempt.
During the go-around – when a plane flies back up in the air after deciding not to land – the first officer “inadvertently pushed forward on the control column while following thrust lever movement commanded by the autothrottle”, according to a memo sent to pilots and seen by the Reuters news agency.
The action sent the aircraft dangerously close to hitting the Pacific Ocean.
Safety data confirmed the crew received a “DON’T SINK oral warning” followed by a “PULL UP oral warning”, the memo said, but the first officer later said the crew did not hear the warnings.
There were no reports of injuries.
It comes as a separate Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 suffered damage to its infrastructure after it experienced what is known as a “Dutch roll” during a flight from Phoenix to Oakland in California on 25 May.
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A “Dutch roll” refers to a combination of the aircraft tail swaying from side to side (yawing) and the plane rocking in a way that causes the wings to go up and down.
Pilots regained control and landed safety, but damage to the unit that controls backup power to the rudder was described as “substantial”. The incident is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
‘Emotional event’
In a post-incident debrief concerning the Hawaii flight, the pilots reportedly said seeing the severity of the flight’s movements through an animated recreation “was a significant, emotional event,” the Southwest memo said.
The memo added that the crew participated in comprehensive corrective actions and the airline is reviewing data and trends related to its procedures, training, standards, and performance.
Southwest said in a statement on 14 June that “the event was addressed appropriately as we always strive for continuous improvement”.
Elsewhere, a plane bound for Melbourne, Australia, landed in the New Zealand city of Invercargill after a fire shut down one of its engines.
The Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 jet was met with fire engines when it landed, about 50 minutes after it took off. The airline said in an emailed statement that the incident may have involved “a possible bird strike”.
Dozens of Palestinians have gathered near the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes to perform Eid al Adha prayers.
They were surrounded by the debris and rubble of collapsed houses at the former site of the al Rahma mosque in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to mark the start of the major holiday.
Commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al Adha is the second of the two main Islamic holidays – alongside Eid al Fitr – when better-off Muslims commemorate Ibrahim’s test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing some of the meat to the poor.
“Today, after the ninth month, more than 37,000 martyrs, more than 87,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed,” said Abdulhalim Abu Samra, a displaced Palestinian, after prayers in Khan Younis. “Our people live in difficult circumstances.”
In the nearby town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Muslims held their prayers in a school-turned-shelter, while some, including women and children, went to cemeteries to visit the graves of loved ones.
Palestinians also gathered at the al Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, the site of the Dome of the Rock shrine.
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It comes against a the backdrop of the devastating Israel-Hamas war which has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional conflict.
The Israeli military has announced a “tactical pause” in its offensive in southern Gaza to allow the deliveries of more humanitarian aid.
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The suspension, which begins as Muslims started marking the major holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies, the military said.
Most countries marked Eid al Adha on Sunday, while others, like Indonesia, will celebrate it on Monday.
Cities including Beirut, in Lebanon, Mosul in Iraq and Istanbul, in Turkey crowded with worshippers.
In Egypt, balloons were released after prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo.
Muslims in Russia offered prayers at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque and gathered in Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg.
The summit was aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow was not invited, and its main ally China declined to attend.
Vladimir Putin is not ruling out talks with Ukraine, according to his spokesperson, who said guarantees would be needed to ensure the credibility of any negotiations.
It comes as Kremlin forces in Ukraine claim to have taken control of a village in Zaporizhzhia.
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‘We must bring each and every one of them home’
A joint communique from 80 countries said the UN Charter and “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty… can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
“The ongoing war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine continues to cause large-scale human suffering and destruction, and to create risks and crises with global repercussions,” the declaration said.
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Participants India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates were among those that did not sign up to the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners.
Brazil, which has “observer” status, also did not sign. With China, Brazil has jointly sought to plot alternative routes toward peace.
Ursula von der Leyen, chief of the European Commission, said this weekend has brought peace closer to Ukraine, but that peace will not be achieved in one step.
“It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war, he’s insisting on capitulation, he’s insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory – even territory that today is not occupied,” she said.
Analysts say the two-day conference is likely to have little concrete impact towards ending the war because the country leading and continuing it, Russia, was not invited.
Montenegro Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told the gathering on Sunday: “As a father of three, I’m deeply concerned by thousands of Ukrainian kids forcibly transferred to Russia or Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.”
“We all at this table need to do more so that children of Ukraine are back in Ukraine,” he added.