Kiev, Ukraine – Ukraine is planning to impose martial law on Monday, a day after Russian servicemen opened fire on three Ukrainian ships near Crimea, wounding six servicemen and escalating a months-old naval confrontation that could reignite Europe’s hottest armed conflict.

President Petro Poroshenko has ordered an emergency session of Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, to approve the martial law for a period of 60 days.

He warned that the step does not mean a declaration of war against Russia.

“Ukraine is not planning a war against anyone,” he told the National Security and Defense Council, which convened early on Monday.

Poroshenko also said that Ukraine would stick to the Minsk Agreements, peace deals his government inked with Russia and pro-Russian separatists in southeastern Ukraine that were designed to stop a war that claimed more than 10,000 lives since 2014.

The war began after pro-Western protesters overthrew pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, after months of violent protests in the capital, Kiev.

The separatists claimed the new, fiercely anti-Russian government planned a “genocide” of ethnic Russians in eastern regions, Ukraine’s rust belt and Yanukovych’s support base.

The martial law will ban public gatherings, restrict media freedoms and the movement of Ukrainian nationals and foreigners and will suspend any elections.

Poroshenko, whose approval ratings are below 10 percent, is widely believed to be seeking re-election in the March 30 vote.

His cash-strapped and increasingly unpopular government relies on Western loans to keep the economy afloat.

“We need new sanctions against Russia,” Ukraine’s ambassador to the European Union Mikola Tochitsky said in a tweet on Monday.

“We must stop Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.”

Russian special forces fired on and seized two Ukrainian cutters and a tugboat on Sunday near the Kerch Strait that divides Crimea from mainland Russia.

The ships had left a military base in the Black Sea port of Odessa days earlier and circumnavigated Crimea to enter the Sea of Azov, a shallow body of water shared by Russia and Ukraine.

In May, Russia unveiled the multibillion-dollar Crimean Bridge across the Kerch Strait, and the Kremlin is concerned about the safety of its only link to the annexed peninsula.

Poroshenko called the attack “an act of aggression,” but Moscow claimed that Ukraine “provoked” the Russian ships by entering Crimea’s waters.

Hebron, occupied West Bank – The Ewaiwe family home in Hebron’s H2 district has been heavily fortified to protect them against the settlers living just next door in the illegal Avraham Avinu settlement.

Trash thrown by settlers hangs on the wire mesh that covers the top of their home, set up by the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (HRC) four years ago.

Prior to that, their settler neighbours would push large water tanks from the roof of their three-story building into the open stairwell of their home, which could have seriously injured or killed someone if they stood in the way.

Other times they would throw large rocks from the same spot above, which on one occasion hit their sink, splintering it into pieces.

“I wish I could remove this mesh wire. I’m sick of it. It blocks the air, the sun,” Basma Ewaiwe said, looking at her plants lined up inside the dark stairwell.

“But at least the big stones can’t go through.”

The garden that she used to have on her roof couldn’t survive the settler attacks.

Barbed wire stretches across their building in an attempt to deter settler intrusions.

They’ve lost count the number of times settlers broke into their home in an attempt to occupy it. Their son’s bedroom had been set on fire numerous times.

On another occasion, their neighbours threw a tear gas canister into the room where the family was sitting. The mother Basma Ewaiwe, pregnant at the time, suffered a miscarriage following the incident.

The Israeli army outpost stationed on top of their roof witnesses attacks, but does nothing, residents say.

“Anytime there’s any [political] problem happening in the country, they come,” Nidal Ewaiwe, 50, told Al Jazeera.

“They only bring us the most extreme settlers. For them Hebron is more important than Jerusalem.”

When former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman announced in October that another settlement had been approved to be built in Hebron for the first time in more than 20 years, the news wasn’t a surprise for the Ewaiwes.

Over the decades in Hebron, as illegal settlements were built in the heart of the city, the Ewaiwe family saw the city centre – once bustling with markets, shops and factories – disintegrate into a ghost town with increasing poverty among its residents.

Illegal settlements have been expanding across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for decades, but there has been no accountability.

The latest settlement project – the sixth in Hebron’s H2 district under Israeli military control – will be built at the former base of the Israeli army, comprising 31 settler homes at a cost of $6.1m in government funding.

Surging settlements

It has been 50 years since Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following the 1967 war, making it the longest lasting military occupation in the world and with no end in sight.

Occupation and colonialism are legally justified only as a “short-term and abnormal condition that is leading unhesitatingly towards self-determination and sovereignty”, Michael Lynk, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote in his 2017 report to the General Assembly.

Yet, there has been a surge of tenders for settlement construction in the past two years since US President Donald Trump took office, according to Israeli organisation Peace Now.

In 2017 and 2018 there were tenders for 3,154 and 3,167 settlement housing units, respectively, compared to just 42 in 2016.

In March 2017, after two decades, the Israeli security cabinet announced plans to build a new settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Currently, there are some 600,000-750,000 illegal settlers living in about 150 settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, built on land the Palestinians had envisioned for a future state.

It’s a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention according to the UN, which forbids states from transferring their citizens to occupied land as well as a presumptive war crime under the 1998 Statute of Rome that set up the International Criminal Court.

According to Lynk, the two state solution is on “life support with a fading pulse” and Israel’s occupation has crossed the red line into illegality.

Last month in a report to the General Assembly, he urged the international community to take action to stop Israel’s annexation of the West Bank with its settlement expansion and annexation laws adopted since the beginning of 2017.

Failing to do so will likely prompt Israel to formalise annexation into domestic law, Lynk warned, adding most Israeli cabinet ministers have advocated for some form of annexation of the West Bank.

Marking the 50^th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to never remove the illegal settlements.

“We are here to stay, forever,” Netanyahu told settlers at the event. “We will deepen our roots, build, strengthen and settle.”

‘Annexation is in the air’

With its legislative measures that sought to apply Israeli law to the West Bank and the 2017 settlement regularisation law, which retroactively legalises settlements, Lynk told Al Jazeera that Israel is moving rapidly towards the stage where it may state that it will annex parts of the West Bank.

“I think annexation is in the air… Israel is being particularly bold over the last 20 months in accelerating the patterns of annexation. Indeed, I think we’re at a stage where occupation is becoming indistinguishable from annexation” Lynk said.

Israel hasn’t complied with more than 40 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and about 100 resolutions of the General Assembly.

The Security Council needs to make sure that Israel complies with its obligations as a UN member under international law, Lynk said.

“Israel doesn’t need to declare formal annexation for its annexation steps to be unlawful under international law, as long as it is taking steps to ensure the permanency of its settlements and trying to establish sovereign facts on the ground. That is sufficient for it to be illegal under international law,” Lynk said.

The newest settlement to be built in Hebron is yet another reaffirmation of Israel’s intention to remain permanently in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, Lynk said.

For Zleikha Muhtaseb, director of a women’s cooperative in Hebron’s H2, she worries the new settlement will bring more restrictions for Palestinians living and working nearby.

“We’re worried because they keep expanding… With the new settlement it will cause more violence. We already have very extreme settlers, but you never know how extreme the newcomers will be.

“The women’s centre will be very close to the settlement; I think we will be in danger.”

Like the Ewaiwe family, the balcony in her house has also been fortified with a metal grid to prevent settlers from breaking in.

For the Ewaiwes, when settlers aren’t paying them visits, then it’s the Israeli forces. Last month they had been renovating rooms on the ground floor to provide a home for their engaged son as he cannot afford to pay rent elsewhere.

But Israeli forces soon arrived and banned any renovation under a military order. They stacked up sandbags blocking access to the upper floor and set up barbed wire for extra measure.

Their son’s wedding was planned for December but it has been delayed until they can find a solution.

For the Ewaiwes, the only way to deal with their difficult situation is to be patient. There is little else they can do.

“Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah [all thanks are to God],” Nidal said, regarding their situation. “What can we say about our life? We’re alive.

“Despite the bad situation we’re still living in our home… God helps us.”

Beijing, China – Hopes this week’s meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 in Argentina will achieve a trade breakthrough are fading with analysts and business leaders expressing disappointment over intensifying tensions in the lead up to the summit.

The high-stakes encounter between the two leaders in Buenos Aires was hailed as a last-ditch opportunity for Beijing and Washington to resolve trade differences and avert additional US tariffs on Chinese exports in the new year.

So Henry Wang, president of the Beijing-based think-tank Center for China and Globalization, was surprised when last week US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer released a statement saying China had failed to alter “unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices”.

“It’s not appropriate to publish this negative report prior to the summit. It’s not conducive to constructive dialogue, and it just doesn’t look good,” said Wang.

The findings are part of an update of the US Trade Representative’s “Section 301” investigation into China’s intellectual property and technology transfer policies.

“They give the impression that things aren’t well coordinated,” said Wang.

“President Trump says something, Lighthizer says something different, and so does [economic adviser Larry] Kudlow etc. China has maintained a message of wanting to seek dialogue and resolve the issue. That should be the attitude on both sides.”

Mutual mistrust

Officials in Beijing have gone on the offensive with China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng telling reporters on Friday the Trump administration had made “totally unacceptable” and “groundless” new accusations against the Chinese side.

The ministry is also assessing the potential impact from a separate US proposal to tighten control over technology exports, saying it would take necessary steps to protect the interests of Chinese firms.

“These moves by the US are only diminishing trust,” said Liu Zhiqin, a senior fellow at Renmin University’s Global Governance Research Center.

“Right now the US has no trust in China and unfortunately many in China now are doubting the sincerity of the Trump administration in wanting to reach a real solution. Does Trump really want to improve our trade relationship, or is China just part of his political sideshow?”

This mutual mistrust was on show on Wednesday at a World Trade Organisation meeting in Geneva, where envoys from China and United accused the other of hypocrisy and flouting WTO rules.

Deputy US Trade Representative and WTO Ambassador Dennis Shea said China was using the WTO to promote “nonmarket policies,” while a Chinese representative said the US was only blaming China to disguise its own violations of WTO rules.

‘Fairness and clarity’

President of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, William Zarit, said Washington has simply lost patience with Beijing.

“Many years of discussions with the Chinese government” has “yielded only marginal progress”, he told Al Jazeera by email.

“Regulations are still proceeding in a direction that appears contrary to the values of fairness and clarity. We would like to see the Chinese government offer reciprocal treatment to US companies so they feel welcomed in China in the same way that Chinese companies have been welcomed in the US,” said Zarit.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on $250bn of Chinese imports to try force concessions from Beijing. The tariff rate on $200bn worth of Chinese exports to the US is set to increase to 25 percent from 10 percent on January 1.

Despite recent bitter exchanges, Trump expressed confidence in Washington’s punitive approach. On Thursday he spoke to reporters in Florida saying “China wants to make a deal very badly – because of the tariffs.”

That confidence, however, is not shared by Zarit who said tariffs alone are not the best way to address trade concerns. “Applying pressure without also engaging in negotiations is unlikely to yield the optimal outcome,” he said.

Souring relations between China and the United States have not been confined to trade. At the 2018 APEC conference in Papua New Guinea earlier this month President Xi and US Vice President Mike Pence exchanged thinly veiled attacks. Xi criticised the US’ unilateral “winner takes all mentality”, while Pence doubled down on China’s militarisation of the South China Sea and Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

The open hostility has led to speculation that the upcoming G20 meeting would result only in confrontation, and not collaboration.

“It will come to a head at the G20,” top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters last week.

Worrying uncertainty

Global markets have slumped with Hong Kong and Shanghai stocks the hardest hit as investors brace for a trade war blow-out.

Wang and Liu both dismissed the idea that the Xi-Trump meeting would resemble a dramatic showdown, saying hope for a solution in China hasn’t been extinguished entirely.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the gesture of having this important high-level meeting. Both sides have shown strong support for it and it has been planned for a long time,” said Wang.

“It shows both leaders have willingness and determination to resolve these issues.”

Liu, however, took a slightly less optimistic tone.

“Of course we always hope for a positive result,” he said, “but we have to acknowledge that there are so many difficulties and uncertainties here. And we won’t be able to solve them in just one week.”