OCCUPIED WEST BANK: Israeli forces today targeted at least two United Nations facilities tasked with delivering humanitarian services to millions of people across the region.

Crews began bulldozing the UN Relief and Works Agency’s (Unrwa) offices in Sheikh Jarrah and fired tear gas at a vocational school in Qalandia.

Roland Friedrich, the agency’s West Bank director, said: “What we saw today is the culmination of two years of incitement and measures against Unrwa in east Jerusalem,” calling it a violation of international law.

NETHERLANDS: Seven lawmakers quit Geert Wilders’s far-right political party today in a stunning setback for the Dutch anti-Islam politician.

Mr Wilders, the longest serving lawmaker in the lower house of the Dutch parliament, called the defections a “black day for the PVV,” the acronym for his Party for Freedom.

TRAIN CRASH: Spain woke to flags at half-mast today as the nation began three days of mourning for the victims of the deadly train accident in the country’s south, while emergency crews continued to pull bodies from the wreckage.

The official death toll of Sunday’s crash rose to 41 by this morning.

GUN RESTRICTIONS: Australia’s Parliament today passed new gun restrictions and began debating draft anti-hate speech laws proposed after two shooters killed 15 people at a Jewish festival in Sydney last month in an attack that authorities say was inspired by the Islamic State group.

The gun laws create new restrictions on gun ownership and create a government-funded buyback programme to compensate people forced to hand in their firearms.