Hundreds of Israeli settlers stormed into a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday (Jun. 21), setting fire to dozens of cars and homes to avenge the deaths of four Israelis killed by Palestinian gunmen the previous day, residents said. Palestinians said one man was killed in the violence. After nightfall, Israel carried out a rare airstrike on a car carrying suspected Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank. The drone strike, believed to be the first in the area in nearly 20 years, marked a major escalation by Israel in a more than year-long campaign against militants in the area.

Palestinian media reported three were killed in the strike. The fighting further raised tensions heightened this week by a daylong Israeli military raid that killed seven people, including a 15-year-old girl, in a militant stronghold, followed by a mass shooting whose victims included a 17-year-old Israeli boy. Israel announced plans to build 1,000 new settler homes in response to the deadly shooting.

A scorching heat wave in two of India's most populous states has overwhelmed hospitals, filled a morgue to capacity and disrupted power, forcing staff to use books to cool patients, as officials investigate a death toll that has reached nearly 170. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, 119 people have died from heat-related illnesses over the last several days while neighbouring Bihar state reported 47 fatalities, according to local news reports and health officials.

While northern regions of India are known for sweltering heat during the summer months, temperatures have been consistently above normal, according to the Indian Meteorological Department, with highs reaching 43.5 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit). Adding to the heat stress are consistent power outages across the region, leaving people with no running water, fans or air conditioners. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the government was taking measures to ensure an uninterrupted power supply. He urged citizens to cooperate and use electricity judiciously.

Turkey is poised to reverse some of the unorthodox economic policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as his new economic team tries to bring down rampant inflation. Less than a month after Erdogan won re-election, interest rates are expected to rise dramatically from the current level of 8.5%. Inflation is almost 40% and Turks are in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis. But Turkey's leader has so far insisted on keeping interest rates down.

Economists are divided on how sharp the hike will be, with US-based investment bank Morgan Stanley suggesting an 11.5-point increase to 20%, while Goldman Sachs expects the rate could hit 40%. Other economists believe the rise will be steep, but possibly more gradual. President Erdogan's problem is that Turkey's inflation rate remains stubbornly high and its central bank's reserves have fallen to critically low levels, after it spent billions of dollars trying to prop up the lira.

Amid allegations that Saudi Arabia has bought out the sport of golf, the powerful governor of the country's state-backed investment fund has been invited to testify before a Senate committee in the wake of a proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the US PGA. Some have raised the possibility the executive could be questioned under oath about issues ranging from the future of golf to the execution of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, was invited to testify on 11 July by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, whose chairman, the Democratic senator Dick Blumenthal, is one of the toughest critics of Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill. Political opposition to the merger is growing in the United States amid signs that powerful congressional interests in Washington are preparing to go into battle with the kingdom over the deal. The proposed merger, which also involves the European DP World Tour, is facing two separate Senate investigations.