The Guardian World · Aug 10, 2026

Monday briefing: How the new phase of confrontation at al-Aqsa signals a challenge to the status quo

In late July, Itamar Ben-Gvir, West Bank settler and far-right extremist minister of security in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, joined a group of more than 2,000 Jewish extremists to storm al-Aqsa mosque compound, Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. Russia-Ukraine | Up to 50,000 North Korean soldiers will be deployed in Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said .