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Palestinian Mohammad Salameh was building a home for his family ‌in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where his recently engaged son was meant to start ​married life. Instead, before construction ‌was complete, a group of Israeli settlers seized the property.Video filmed earlier ‌in the week and ⁠verified by Reuters showed ‌at least six settlers moving around ‌on the roof of the two-storey house, which sits below a nearby hill.Salameh said appeals to ⁠the Israeli military and police brought no help. Now he fears his home, which like many others in the Palestinian territory is surrounded by Israeli settlements and smaller outposts, is lost forever. Other houses in the area could suffer the same fate, he said.**media[464344]**"Only God knows, if there is law and order then they will leave," Salameh said. "If they succeeded with taking one, then the rest will follow." Reuters was unable to reach the ​settlers for comment. One of them could be seen walking on the house's roof on Thursday.The Israeli military said it was checking Reuters' request for comment but had not responded by Friday. The ‌Israeli police did not immediately respond to ⁠a request for ​comment.The seizure of Palestinian land by ​settlers is a longstanding feature of life in the West Bank, where about 500,000 Israelis live among roughly 3 mn Palestinians. Palestinians have for years reported damage to farmland, vandalism and attacks linked to settlement expansion. A UN inquiry reported last month that Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages and agricultural land had surged since 2023, rising by 130%. Residents of Jalud, Salameh's village, say this week's incident marks another troubling escalation because the settlers seized a house that was still under construction. "They have now moved down to within no more than 100 meters from the last house in Jalud, which is also a ‌house under construction belonging to a ‌resident," said Raed al-Haj Mohammad, head of ⁠the village council.Jalud has faced five major settler attacks, he said, including the burning of ⁠homes, damage to vehicles and the uprooting ⁠of trees. Most countries and the UN regard Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention's prohibition on transferring a civilian population into occupied territory. Israel rejects that position, saying the West Bank is disputed territory where there has been a Jewish presence for thousands of years. Palestinians consider the West Bank, together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, ​as part of a Palestinian state. Settlement building and settler violence have long been among the biggest obstacles to peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. Even Israel's staunchest allies, including the US, have condemned settler actions. Nevertheless, settlement expansion has accelerated under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which relies on hardline pro-settlement parties to maintain its parliamentary majority. For Salameh, the dispute is painfully personal. Construction on the house stalled after the Gaza war erupted in 2023, when his son could not find work and the family's finances came under strain."The neighbour close by has ‌built a two-story house, ​which they will probably take too, if we lose this house (his) they will lose theirs," he said. 

The Israeli military destroyed a high-rise in Gaza City Friday, shortly after announcing it would target tall buildings identified as being used by Hamas ahead of its planned seizure of the urban hub.Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to halt its nearly two-year offensive in Gaza, Israel has been calling up reservists, intensifying its bombardments and closing in on Gaza City ever since announcing its intention to capture the Palestinian territory's largest city.AFP footage showed the Mushtaha Tower in the city's Al-Rimal neighbourhood collapsing after a massive explosion at its base, sending a thick cloud of smoke and dust billowing into the sky.AFP photographs of the aftermath showed Palestinians inspecting the rubble and debris of the collapsed building.Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal accused Israel of carrying out "a policy of forced displacement against civilians" in its targeting of high-rise buildings.The agency said Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City killed at least 19 people, among at least 32 Palestinians killed across the territory Friday.A member of Hamas's political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, said Israeli claims the group was operating in the high-rises were "nothing but flimsy pretexts and blatant lies."The UN estimates that nearly 1mn people live in Gaza City and its surroundings, an area where it last month declared a famine.

Israeli reservists began responding to call-up orders Tuesday, swelling the military's ranks ahead of a planned offensive to capture Gaza City after nearly two years of devastating war. Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to end its campaign, Israel has recently been stepping up operations as it lays the groundwork for seizing the Palestinian territory's largest urban centre.Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 82 people Tuesday across the Strip, which has been in the grips of a major humanitarian crisis for months. Gaza's civil defence agency said 10 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential building in the southwest of Gaza City.AFP footage from the aftermath of the strike in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood showed Palestinians carrying a dead girl from the rubble of the top floor. "We were sleeping safely in our homes and suddenly we woke up to the sound of bombing and destruction and found most of our neighbours murdered and injured," said Sanaa al-Dreimli. In Tel Aviv Tuesday, a group of reservists refusing to serve in the war who called themselves "Soldiers for the Hostages" held a public event urging their fellow reservists and active-duty soldiers not to report for service.Israeli media has reported that around 40,000 reservists were being mobilised in the first wave. The UN estimates that nearly a million people live in and around Gaza City, where a famine has been declared. Army chief Eyal Zamir told reservists reporting for duty Tuesday they were being deployed to "enhance the strikes of our operation".The military has intensified its bombardment of Gaza City, and has been operating on its outskirts in recent days. "We are already entering places we have never entered before," Zamir said. Weary Palestinians in Gaza City told AFP they felt helpless and desperate ahead of the looming offensive. "There is no place for us to go, and no means to get there.We are exhausted physically and mentally from displacement and from the war," 60-year-old Amal Abdel-Aal, who lives in a tent in the city's west, told AFP by telephone. In a post on X Tuesday, a military spokesman warned Gazans of the upcoming "expansion of combat operations towards Gaza City". "We wish to remind you that in Al-Mawasi enhanced services will be provided, with an emphasis on access to medical care, water and food," Avichay Adraee said, referring to an area in the south that Israel has designated a humanitarian zone but which has been hit by repeated strikes.In mid-August, the UN human rights office said Palestinians in Al-Mawasi had "little or no access to essential services and supplies". Khalil al-Madhoun, 37, who lives in a partially destroyed apartment in western Gaza City said he had travelled twice to the south looking for somewhere to pitch a tent but found no space. "The centre and the south are completely overcrowded," he told AFP by telephone. Most of Gaza's population of more than two million people has been displaced at least once during the war.

The Israeli military pressed operations around Gaza City Wednesday, as President Donald Trump prepared to host a White House meeting on post-war plans for the shattered Palestinian territory.Israel is under mounting pressure both at home and abroad to end its almost two-year campaign in Gaza, where the United Nations has declared a famine.Mediators have circulated a truce proposal which has been accepted by Palestinian group Hamas, but Israel has yet to give an official response.On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 24 people Wednesday.The Israeli military, which is preparing to conquer Gaza City, said troops were operating on the outskirts of the territory's largest city "to locate and dismantle terror infrastructure sites".As aid groups have warned against expanding the Israeli offensive, the army's Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said on X that Gaza City's evacuation was "inevitable".The vast majority of the Gaza Strip's population of more than 2mn people have been displaced at least once during the war.In Jabalia, just north of Gaza City, resident Hamad al-Karawi said he had left his home after a message broadcast from a drone ordered people to evacuate immediately."We scattered out onto the streets with no place or home to take refuge in," he told AFP.The UN estimates that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City and its surroundings in the north of the territory.Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said the US president was to host top officials at the White House later Wednesday to thrash out a detailed plan for post-war Gaza."It's a very comprehensive plan we're putting together," Witkoff told Fox News, without offering more details.Trump stunned the world earlier this year when he suggested the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip, clear out its inhabitants and redevelop it as seaside real estate.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the proposal which sparked a global outcry.In Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood Wednesday, residents reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight."Warplanes struck several times, and drones fired throughout the night," said Tala al-Khatib, 29."Some neighbours have fled... But wherever you flee, death follows you," she said.AFP footage showed thick smoke rising into the sky following air strikes on parts of Gaza City.Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday to destroy the city if Hamas does not agree to end the war on Israel's terms.Zeitoun resident Abdel Hamid al-Sayfi, 62, said he had avoided going outside for more than 24 hours."Whoever steps outside is fired upon by the drones," he told AFP by telephone.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.Speaking after a security cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Netanyahu declined to share what had been decided.The Israeli leader last week said he ordered immediate negotiations aimed at securing the release of all remaining captives, while also doubling down on the plan to seize Gaza City.Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas's 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Key mediator Qatar said on Tuesday it was still "waiting for an answer" from Israel on the latest ceasefire proposal, which would see the staggered release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody over an initial 60-day truce.