Mike Huckabee calls for arrest and prosecution of those responsible as Heidi Levine, 63, recovers in hospital in Israel

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has denounced the settler attack that left the Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine badly beaten and needing surgery as a “despicable act of terror” and called for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

Levine, 63, an award-winning journalist who lives in Israel, was set upon last Friday by masked Israeli settlers who used clubs and other weapons to attack Palestinian people attempting to harvest their olives in occupied West Bank towns.

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, earlier claimed that the UK was ‘systemically working against the state of Israel’

• UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing

The Liberal Democrats say they have been granted a Commons urgent question today about the latest Argentinian threats to the Falkland Islands. A Foreign Office minister will be responding at about 12.30pm.

Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, has said that Britain will be “on the wrong side of history” if it goes ahead with plans to ban trade with the illegal settlements on the West Bank.

Later today, we expect to see headlines announcing certain British trade sanctions on Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.

If this happens – and other nations may join – I believe it will prove to be a grave miscalculation, a decision that will fall on the wrong side of history.

A British activist who was forcibly abducted by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank has been deported to the UK. The treatment of 22-year-old Finn Joughin comes after a surge of settler violence against Palestinian people in the West Bank that has been widely condemned internationally and also by many prominent figures within Israel. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison – watch on YouTube

Former PM of Israel calls events ‘concerted and meticulous attempt at ethnic cleansing’ against Palestinians

Israeli troops have forced two Palestinian families to leave their besieged West Bank homes, the day after a top Israeli commander personally promised he would end a violent settler campaign to drive them out.

Israeli soldiers also took over eight other homes in Qusra early on Thursday, telling the village’s mayor, Abdul Azim Wadi, that the buildings were needed for a days-long operation to remove the settlers. They later relinquished six. Settlers still roam the village.

After visits by US ambassador Mike Huckabee to the nearby Israeli settlement of Shilo, Palestinian Americans in Turmus Ayya have witnessed a terrifying rise in attacks

No man’s land in Turmus Ayya lies where the US flags end and the Israeli flags begin. It is a few hundred metres of soil scorched by molotov cocktails where Israeli settlers have placed a boulder to tell the Palestinian villagers: this is our land now.

On one side of that boulder are the white-stoned mansions where the Palestinian residents of Turmus Ayya live. About 80% of them are US citizens, members of the diaspora in New York, Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey, who return for the summers and bring their children here to experience Palestinian culture and learn Arabic. Many call themselves proud American patriots and fly the stars and stripes from their balconies.

Exclusive: memo came after Mike Huckabee’s remarks about Israel sparked alarm inside White House

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The US secretary of state Marco Rubio told ambassadors in the Middle East to stop making public comments that could inflame tensions and undermine Donald Trump’s pressure on Iran to relinquish its capacity to produce a nuclear weapon, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.

“Given rising tensions in the region, Chiefs of Mission and embassies at addressee posts must refrain from public statements, interviews, or social media activity that could in any way inflame regional audiences, prejudice sensitive political issues, or complicate US relationships,” the cable said.

Arab and Islamic governments issue statement denouncing comments made on Tucker Carlson podcast

Governments from across the Islamic world have condemned remarks by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, suggesting it would “be fine” for Israel to claim a broad swath of the Middle East.

Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor and former Arkansas governor, has long been an outspoken supporter of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

Rightwing Trump ally tells Tucker Carlson Israel has biblical right to land from ‘wadi of Egypt to the great river’

The US’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has contended to the podcaster Tucker Carlson that Israel has a biblical right to take over the entire Middle East – or at least the lion’s share of it.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said to Carlson during an interview posted on Friday. The Trump administration appointee and former Arkansas governor discussed with Carlson interpretations of Old Testament scripture within the US Christian nationalist movement.