Israel’s cabinet has secretly approved a record number of new settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli news channel i24NEWS.
Amid the war on Iran, the government ratified 34 new settlements in a single decision – more than half the total approved during the previous record-setting year of 2025.
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are widely regarded as illegal under international law.
Sources told i24NEWS that the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, who attended the meeting, did not explicitly oppose the plan but expressed concerns over limited personnel and suggested phasing the rollout to a smaller number of sites at a time.



Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a ceasefire with Ukraine for the duration of the Orthodox Easter holidays, the Kremlin said Thursday, after Kyiv also proposed a pause in hostilities.
A California philosophy lecturer accused of assaulting federal agents after removing a tear gas canister from a crowd — the same canister that a U.S. Border Patrol agent had thrown at protesters during an immigration raid — was found not guilty by a jury on Thursday.
The Pentagon has denied threatening the Vatican during a late January meeting with the Holy See’s then-envoy to the U.S., as Pope Leo XIV has warned against the growing use of military action in recent months.
The Pentagon is obstructing reporters and defying an earlier court order that required it to restore access to credentialed journalists covering the Department of Defense (DOD), a U.S. judge in Washington ruled Thursday — a blow to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempts to limit media access.
First lady Melania Trump made a statement at the White House on Thursday to slam reports about any connections she may have had with Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.





























