Masked Israeli settlers attack 2 Palestinian villages in the West Bank

JERUSALEM (AP) — Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked a pair of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, setting fire to vehicles and other property before clashing with Israeli soldiers sent to halt the rampage, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

It was the latest in a series of attacks by young settlers in the West Bank.

Israeli police said four Israelis were arrested in what it described as “extremist violence,” while the Israeli military said four Palestinians were wounded. Police and Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said they were investigating.

Videos on social media showed two charred trucks engulfed in flames, with a nearby building on fire. Settler violence has surged since the war in Gaza erupted two years ago. The attacks have intensified in recent weeks as Palestinians harvest their olive trees in an annual ritual.

Earlier on Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis attended the funeral of an Israeli soldier whose remains had been held in Gaza for 11 years, overflowing and blocking surrounding streets as somber crowds stood with Israeli flags.

The burial of Lt. Hadar Goldin was a moment of closure for his family, which had traveled the world in a public campaign seeking his return. The huge turnout also reflected the importance for the broader public in Israel, where Goldin became a household name.

Hamas returned his remains on Sunday as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that began last month. The bodies of four hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, are still in Gaza.

The U.N. humanitarian office last week reported more Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in October than in any other month since it began keeping track in 2006. There were over 260 attacks, the office said.

Palestinians and human rights workers accuse the Israeli army and police of failing to halt attacks by settlers. Israel’s government is dominated by West Bank settlers, and the police force is overseen by Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hardline settler leader.

In Tuesday’s incident, the army said soldiers initially responded to settler attacks in the villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf. It said the settlers fled to a nearby industrial zone and attacked soldiers sent to the scene and damaged a military vehicle.

Palestinian official Muayyad Shaaban, who heads the government’s Commission against the Wall and Settlements, said the settlers set fire to four dairy trucks, farmland, tin shacks and tents belonging to a Bedouin community.

He said the attacks were part of a campaign to drive Palestinians from their land and accused Israel of giving the settlers protection and immunity. He called for sanctions against groups that “sponsor and support the colonial settlement terrorism project.”

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the attacks during his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris on Tuesday, saying that “settler violence and the acceleration of settlement projects are reaching new heights, threatening the stability of the West Bank.”

Displaced Palestinians in central Gaza said they continue to rely heavily on charity kitchens for their only daily meal, as soaring market prices and the lack of income leave them struggling.

Scores of people, most of them children, lined up with empty pots at a charity kitchen in Nuseirat refugee camp on Tuesday waiting to be served rice — the only food available that day.

“The rockets and planes stopped but increasing living costs has been the hardest weapon used against us,” said Mohamed al-Naqlah, a displaced Palestinian.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has risen to 69,182. Its count, generally considered by independent experts as reliable, does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of those killed were women and children.

The latest war began with the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel when around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and 251 people were kidnapped.

Cabinet Minister Ron Dermer, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidants, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing family reasons.

In a letter, Dermer said he had promised his family to serve two years but extended his term by an additional year to deal with Iran’s nuclear program and “to end the war in Gaza on Israel’s terms and bring our hostages home.”

The U.S.-born Dermer is a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. As strategic affairs minister, he served as Netanyahu’s envoy throughout the war in dealing with the United States and ceasefire negotiations.

Goldin was 23 when he was killed two hours after a ceasefire took effect in the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas. For years before the 2023 attack, posters with the faces of Goldin and Oron Shaul, another soldier whose body was abducted in the 2014 war, stared down from intersections.

Israel’s military long ago determined that Goldin had been killed based on evidence found in the tunnel where his body was taken, including a blood-soaked shirt and prayer fringes. On Tuesday, it announced it had dismantled the tunnel shaft where his body was found. The military retrieved Shaul's body in January.

Eulogies from Goldin's siblings, parents, and former fiancee at his funeral never mentioned Netanyahu, who was prime minister when Goldin was kidnapped and for most of the period since. They thanked the Israeli military, including reserve soldiers, who tirelessly searched for Goldin’s body over the years.

Netanyahu did not attend the funeral, though Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, gave a eulogy on behalf of the military.

For years, Israel had four hostages in Gaza: Goldin, Shaul, and two Israelis with mental health issues who had crossed into Gaza on their own and were held since 2014 and 2015. All four were returned in the past year.

Mor reported from Kfar Saba, Israel. Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press reporters Julia Frankel and Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem, and Fatma Khaled in Cairo, contributed to this report.

People mourn at the grave of Hadar Goldin an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in 2014 and whose body had been held there until it was released Sunday, during his funeral in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool via AP)

Israeli settlers take pictures of foreign activists and farmers while they attempt to disrupt the harvest of olive groves by Palestinian farmers, in the West Bank town of Silwad, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Palestinians walk through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians walk through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir, right, with Simha Goldin and Leah Goldin, the parents and siblings of Hadar Goldin an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in 2014 and whose body had been held there until it was released Sunday, attend his funeral in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool via AP)

People mourn at the grave of Hadar Goldin an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in 2014 and whose body had been held there until it was released Sunday, during his funeral in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool via AP)

People attend the funeral of Hadar Goldin, an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in 2014 whose body had been held there until it was released Sunday, in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israeli soldiers attend the funeral of late Israeli hostage soldier Hadar Goldin in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, who was killed in 2014 and his body returned as part of the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)

Israeli soldiers attend the funeral of late Israeli hostage soldier Hadar Goldin in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, who was killed in 2014 and his body returned as part of the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)

Leah and Simcha Goldin, the parents of late Israeli hostage soldier Hadar Goldin, attend his funeral, in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. Goldin was killed in 2014 and his body was returned as part of the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)

Israeli soldiers attend the funeral of Hadar Goldin, an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in 2014 and whose body had been held there until it was released Sunday, in Kfar Saba, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool via AP)

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — Kyle Busch died after severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis, resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complications, according to a statement released by his family.

Dakota Hunter, vice president of Kyle Busch Companies, said in a news release the family received the medical evaluation on Saturday.

Busch, a two-time NASCAR champion, died at 41 on Thursday, a day after passing out in a Chevrolet simulator.

Sepsis is considered a life-threatening medical emergency that occurs when the body has an extreme, overactive response to an infection, causing the immune system to damage its own tissues and organs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Typically the immune system releases chemicals to fight off pathogens like bacteria, viruses or fungi, but with sepsis the response goes into overdrive. The results can cause widespread inflammation, form microscopic blood clots and make blood vessels leak.

Busch was thought to have had a sinus cold while racing at Watkins Glen on May 10 and radioed in to his team saying that he needed a “shot” from a doctor after the race.

However, he bounced back to win the Trucks Series race at Dover last weekend, and then he finished 17th in the All-Star race on Sunday.

Busch, who was preparing to race Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, was testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord on Wednesday when he became unresponsive and was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, several people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.

During the emergency call placed late that afternoon, an unidentified caller calmly told the dispatch: “I’ve got an individual that’s (got) shortness of breath, very hot, thinks he’s going to pass out, and is producing a little bit of blood, coughing up some blood.”

The caller said Busch was lying on the bathroom floor inside the complex and told dispatch “he is awake,” according to audio provided by the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office. The man then gave directions on where emergency responders should go and asked that they turn off any sirens upon arrival.

NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski said he knew Busch wasn’t feeling well recently.

“Yes, but I won’t go into any specifics," Keselowski said. “But then when he ran the Truck race last week, those (thoughts) were honestly kind of erased in my mind.”

Keselowski said running multiple races on the same weekend can be difficult on a driver's health — but most don't want to miss a race for fear of being replaced.

“There’s no shortage of drivers that would love to take my seat or anybody else’s seat if we weren’t feeling well, and I think every driver feels that pressure,” Keselowski said. “All athletes do. It’s not unique to NASCAR in that sense. We’re all thinking to ourselves, ‘I don’t wanna be replaced.’ ... So you try to power through it the best you can."

Busch won 234 races across NASCAR’s top three series over his two-decade career, more than any driver in history.

All 39 drivers in the field for Sunday’s race will race with a black No. 8 decal on their car to honor Busch.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

An in memoriam photo of former driver Kyle Busch is displayed on the video board of the backstretch at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Friday, May 22, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

FILE - Kyle Busch waits for the start of a NASCAR Xfinity Series auto race Saturday, June 19, 2021, in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)