Israel-Palestine conflict

Farah, Mohammed and Jawad are getting ready for the new school year in Masafer Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank.

The children, aged 17, 8, and 7 respectively, attend Shaab al-Butum school in a village with the same name. But the building they’ll return to will be missing two administrative rooms and a storage room after Israeli forces demolished them on August 4.

According to the United Nations, Israel justified the demolitions by saying that the structures were constructed without Israeli-issued building permits. These are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain in the Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under Israeli administrative and military control.

The rest of the school isn’t safe either – it has also been threatened with demolition, with a court case scheduled for September 15.

The children’s return to education is now uncertain, as they worry about losing the village’s only school completely, and more confrontations with Israeli forces.

Constant fear

The start of the academic year at the beginning of September is supposed to mean a return to learning, but enthusiasm in Shaab al-Butum has now been mixed with anxiety.

Farah explained to Al Jazeera that the school was the only one she had ever attended, and was fearful about what would now happen.

Mohammed echoed that fear and said that he was worried Israeli forces would “return to demolish what remains” of the school. Jawad, meanwhile, spoke of his sadness at seeing the school damaged and said he hoped it could “return as it was”.

For Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta local council, those concerns reflect a much wider threat facing education across the area, which has repeatedly been targeted by the Israeli state and settlers over the years. Masafer Yatta was declared part of a closed Israeli military firing zone in the 1980s, which has been used as justification in repeated attempts to force local Palestinians out.

“It is a test renewed with every school year, amidst unprecedented escalation by the occupation authorities,” Younis told Al Jazeera.

“This year comes amid the tightening of the occupation’s policy of demolishing schools, and rampant settler violence that targets everything in these villages,” he added.

That violence, Younis said, follows children throughout their daily lives, targeting “students going to their schools, students while in class, and even inside the home”.

According to Younis, all seven schools in the wider Masafer Yatta area are now threatened with demolition.

“We do not know whether these schools will survive to the end of this academic year, let alone still be standing when the next one begins,” he said, stressing the determination of local Palestinians to stay “despite the pain and [Israeli] barbarism”.

Settler violence

Activist and teacher Tariq Hathaleen said the uncertainty surrounding demolitions, coupled with the continued expansion of settlement outposts, had deepened the sense of insecurity among residents.

“The occupation authorities do not usually tell the residents or the school administration in advance when the bulldozers will arrive,” Hathaleen told Al Jazeera.

Hathaleen added that settlers had stormed Ras Ein al-Auja school in the Jordan Valley the previous academic year, assaulting staff and students.

The attack and the demolition confirmed that schools are “no longer immune from attack”, Hathaleen said.

“[Israel’s actions] do not target merely one aspect, but affects education, housing, freedom of movement and livelihoods,” Hathaleen explained.

Hathaleen described the targeted schools – built by the Palestinian Ministry of Education to serve marginalised areas – as “more than just educational buildings”.

Systematic pattern

Figures from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission underscore the scale of the threat, with 84 Palestinian schools serving nearly 13,000 students currently facing Israeli demolition or stop-work orders.

Amir Dawoud, a senior official with the commission, said the schools facing the most immediate legal threats were concentrated in the southern Hebron area, particularly Masafer Yatta, as well as at al-Walaja school near Bethlehem, which Israel says lacks a building permit.

“These are not schools that can simply be closed and their students easily transferred elsewhere,” Dawoud told Al Jazeera.

The impact of demolition orders, he said, begins long before any building is actually destroyed, creating uncertainty and disruption for students, teachers, and their families.

“The psychological and educational impact begins before the bulldozer arrives,” he said.

“It is a systematic pattern that transcends individual cases,” Dawoud added, noting that it starts with planning restrictions, accompanied by road restrictions and settler attacks.

“It does not only threaten school buildings,” he said. “It targets the ability of Palestinian communities to survive.”

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has condemned an Israeli seizure of its East Jerusalem training centre, calling the raid part of a campaign designed to weaken the agency and, in turn, eliminate Palestinian rights.

In comments to Al Jazeera, acting Commissioner-General Christian Saunders on Wednesday accused Israel of violating UN premises, but insisted that “might doesn’t win out” in resolving the conflict and that the agency is “not going anywhere”.

Israeli forces raided and seized the Qalandiya Training Centre in the Kafr Aqab neighbourhood on Tuesday, expelling UNRWA employees and ordering them not to return.

Five Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire near the site, according to the Jerusalem governorate.

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took part in the raid and said there was “no place for the agency in Jerusalem and Israel”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the evacuation was lawful and carried out under legislation passed by Israel.

The takeover of the facility deprives hundreds of young Palestinians of education and violates the protections afforded to UN premises under international law, Saunders said.

“Three hundred and forty young people are not going to get the education, not going to get the training they need,” he remarked. He lamented that the students – mostly from disadvantaged families – will now miss out on learning the skills to give them the “opportunity to lead a full and dignified life”.

The Qalandiya centre is part of UNRWA’s wider network of services for Palestinian refugees. It serves about 16,000 refugees from Qalandiya refugee camp and other parts of the occupied West Bank.

The raid followed the closure of the nearby Qalandiya checkpoint and a heavy Israeli military deployment in the area.

Israeli authorities said the property was owned by the Jewish National Fund and has now been allocated to the Jerusalem Municipality for a planned educational and community complex. They also cited Israeli legislation, passed in October 2024, restricting UNRWA’s activities.

UNRWA rejected the claims and maintained that the centre is a United Nations facility protected under international law.

Wider campaign

UNRWA has come under severe pressure amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and abuse in the occupied West Bank, with several workers having been killed.

Saunders said the wider campaign against UNRWA is intended to weaken the agency and cut its funding, and links these efforts to the broader question of Palestinian refugee rights.

“If UNRWA is defunded and UNRWA is eliminated then they are hoping that the issue of the refugees, the Palestine refugees, will go away,” Saunders said. “Which means that the right of return, reparations, and compensation would go away, as well.”

The aid group chief pointed out that its mandate comes directly from the United Nations General Assembly and its role is to provide humanitarian and public services while the wider political dispute between Israel and Palestinians remains unresolved.

“We’re a humanitarian organisation; we’re a development organisation. We are given our mandate by the United Nations General Assembly to provide critical services,” Saunders said.

UNRWA will continue doing so “until the General Assembly decides otherwise, or there is a durable solution to the Palestine question,” he declared.

However, Saunders also acknowledged the limits of the UN’s ability to prevent further incursions without collective action from member states.

“I don’t think the United Nations has the power to say: ‘You know, this is not going to continue to happen,’” he said.

“The United Nations is the sum of its member states, and its member states need to have the collective determination to address this issue. And for over seven decades, this has not happened.”

Israeli forces have raided the Qalandiya Training Centre, operated by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem in what officials and analysts describe as a pivotal step towards dismantling international refugee protections and consolidating control over the occupied West Bank.

Tuesday’s storming of the UNRWA facility, led by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, was justified by Israeli authorities under October 2024 legislation banning the UN agency, prompting sharp condemnation from Qatar, which warned of systematic efforts to strip millions of Palestinians of essential services.

Strategic annexation

Israeli affairs expert Adel Shadid identified broader territorial ambitions behind the raid, carried out on the boundary line between East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He told Al Jazeera the assault serves a larger geopolitical scheme involving a historic airport close to the training centre.

“The institute is directly adjacent to the historic Qalandiya Airport, which was built more than 106 years ago,” Shadid said.

“The occupation aims to gain complete control over the airport adjacent to the institute to establish a massive settlement comprising over 9,000 settlement units in addition to a Jewish heritage centre and to erase the historical and geographical Jordanian landmarks of the airport,” he explained.

“By controlling these two areas and annexing them to the occupation municipality, the pillars of the ‘Greater Jerusalem’ project are completed. This project alone will carve out between 12 to 13 percent of the total area of the West Bank,” he added.

Shadid noted that this expansion would allow the municipality to control an area exceeding 800sq km (310sq miles), essentially destroying Palestinian continuity.

“The ultimate goal of the occupation exceeds preventing the establishment of a future Palestinian state. Rather, it aims explicitly to prevent the establishment of any independent Palestinian entity or presence on this land,” he said.

Echoing this assessment, retired Lebanese Brigadier General and military analyst Elias Hanna pointed to Israel’s tactical encirclement of urban Palestinian hubs.

“The importance of Qalandiya is linked to the broader settlement project in the West Bank, which is based on creating settlement blocs aiming to control geographical continuity between Palestinian areas and isolate them from each other,” Hanna told Al Jazeera.

“The control over the area can affect the movement and connection between the two cities,” he added, referring to Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Targeting refugee rights

Detailing the immediate impact on UNRWA’s institutional mandate, the agency’s media adviser Adnan Abu Hasna outlined the unprecedented nature of the takeover.

“UNRWA was not informed [in advance] of any action by the Israeli government against the UNRWA institute and complex in Qalandiya,” Abu Hasna told Al Jazeera.

“This measure is unprecedented as the UN flag is lowered and this headquarters is taken over in this unusual manner, and it represents a dangerous escalation against international humanitarian law, against UN laws and against the mandate granted to UNRWA by the UN General Assembly,” he said.

Abu Hasna underscored how the raid violated historic bilateral frameworks that long governed UN operations.

“There is an agreement signed between UNRWA and Israel on June 14, 1967, providing for facilitating UNRWA’s operations and protecting its facilities and its employees and headquarters enjoying immunity and privileges, but unfortunately, all of this has ended now under the weight of escalating Israeli measures,” he said.

The agency operates schools and provides healthcare, social services and microfinancing for Palestinians. Compounding the Israeli raids, destructions of its compounds and offices, and restrictions on its operations, the agency is also facing a financial crisis. Abu Hasna cited major political defunding campaigns, particularly by the United States.

“We have a large deficit, especially after the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers cut $360m, which constitutes about 30 percent of UNRWA’s annual budget,” he noted.

Settler-military cooperation

Regarding the operational dynamics on the ground, Israeli affairs specialist Anas Abu Arqoub highlighted the deepening alignment between state forces and armed settlers.

“It is a division of roles accompanied by a state of complete integration,” Abu Arqoub told Al Jazeera.

“The settler phenomenon … [is] in fact armed organisations with a clear leadership hierarchy, a system of regular and reserve fighters called upon when needed, and they possess a military combat doctrine,” he explained.

“A large part of them are elements from within the Israeli army, armed with its weapons, and undergo joint military training,” he added.

Abu Arqoub said Israeli research institutions, such as the Institute for National Security Studies, have recognised the severe implications of this convergence.

“The Institute for National Security Studies recently pointed out that this military force of settlers has become capable, under the cover of ‘loss of control’, of executing complete ethnic cleansing in the West Bank,” he observed.

US green light

Examining the international impunity enabling these actions, Birzeit University political science Professor Ghassan Khatib emphasised Washington’s decisive role.

“The weakness of the United Nations position is one of the two main factors driving Israel to persist and increasingly rebel against international laws and violate the rights of the Palestinian people,” Khatib told Al Jazeera.

“The first and most important factor is the American position, the actual sponsor of this Israeli rebellion,” he stressed, pointing out a “direct correlation between the rising pace of Israeli violations and the reascent of [President Donald] Trump to the leadership of the United States about two years ago”.

“These settler militias have become an integral part of the occupation system, and the danger will inevitably escalate,” Khatib added.

Electoral basis

From the local community’s perspective, Mohammed Saeed – public relations director for the popular committee of the Qalandiya refugee camp, which Israeli forces also raided on Tuesday – framed the raid as both diplomatic defiance and domestic political posturing.

The Israeli incursion, he said, was a clear message of defiance stating: ‘We are the owners of the land, and we decide its fate,’” Saeed told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

Dutch group Christians for Israel is taking the government to court in the Netherlands over its plans to introduce a ban on importing goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.

The ban, which was announced in July, is due to take effect on September 22 and will run for three years. It bars importing, buying and selling goods produced in Israeli settlements, as well as intermediary services and any attempt to circumvent the rules.

But the Israel Product Centre (IPC), part of Christians for Israel (CvI), a Dutch evangelical organisation which a recent study found has donated about $300,000 to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, has responded by filing summary proceedings against the state, with the hearing due today.

Here’s what we know about this case.

What is the case about?

The IPC has issued summary proceedings against the Dutch state, seeking to block the July decree.

The IPC argues the measure is “one-sided” and that the window it now has to clear its existing stock – some 20,000 bottles of wine – is too short.

It is also arguing that a national ban conflicts with the European Union’s principle of free movement of goods.

A verdict is not expected for about two weeks.

How has this case come about?

EU rules have long required goods from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank to be labelled by their origin – Palestine – rather than as “product of Israel”, but the bloc has not placed an outright ban on trading with Israeli settlements. That remains up to individual countries.

In February 2020, the Dutch advocacy group DocP urged consumers to file complaints with the Dutch food safety authority, NVWA, if they found wine and Dead Sea cosmetics had been mislabelled.

Following complaints, the IPC changed its labelling to “product uit een Israelisch dorp in Judea & Samaria [product from an Israeli village in Judea and Samaria],” which it argued accurately reflected the exact geographical and administrative reality of the origins of the products without deceiving the buyer. Judea and Samaria is the biblical name used by the Israeli government to refer to the West Bank. DocP argued this fell short of the requirement to label products correctly, and continued its campaign.

In 2021, the NVWA agreed and fined the IPC 2,100 euros (about $2,500) for mislabelling goods.

Then, in July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.

This shifted the legal argument beyond mere consumer labelling, with the court saying countries should take steps to prevent trade or investment relations which help to maintain the unlawful presence of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories.

The lower house of the Dutch parliament acted on that in September 2025, proposing an import ban.

The national decree against importing goods from Israeli settlements was made in July this year.

Does Christians for Israel describe the West Bank as ‘Israel’?

CvI describes the West Bank as a “disputed territory” rather than accepting the international legal description of it as “occupied Palestinian territory”.

It says it believes that Israel has strong claims to sovereignty there and that Jews have a right to live there.

The vocabulary matters in a legal sense, as “disputed territory” is not the same as “annexed territory”, therefore, the legal apparatus which would make settlement trade unlawful doesn’t straightforwardly apply.

The group’s stated reasons for funding projects there, it says on its website, are rooted in the Bible; it cites Ezekiel 47:21-23: “Peace for the Jewish people and resident foreigners inheriting alongside the tribes of Israel.”

However, the ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion is clear that the Fourth Geneva Convention’s Article 49(6) and successive Security Council resolutions treat the territories as occupied and the settlements as unlawful.

How have other Christian organisations in the West responded to trade with settlements?

Western churches are split on the issue, with CvI sitting at one end of the spectrum.

Mainline Protestants, including the Presbyterian Church in the United States, have divested shareholdings in Caterpillar, HP and Motorola Solutions as early as 2014, and from Israeli bonds in 2024. The United Methodist Church has opposed Israeli settlements since 1996 and sold its Israeli bond holdings last August.

The World Council of Churches called for sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in 2025, divestment and an arms embargo.

The Vatican calls settlements an obstacle to peace but has avoided divestment so far.

Christian Zionist bodies, however, including Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, send funding for settlements and fight against boycotts.

How significant is this ban?

It is significant considering that the Netherlands is one of only four EU countries currently imposing a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

Trade from illegal settlements to the EU is estimated to be worth up to $400m per year.

The Netherlands is also a big market for the illegal settlements; a recent investigation by legal advocacy group Global Echo, which analysed thousands of shipments from Israeli settlements between 2017 and 2026, shows that within the EU, the Dutch market is the largest importer of goods from illegal settlements, with about 30 percent destined for or passing through the country.

Which European countries have banned products from West Bank settlements?

Spain has banned all imports of products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, since September 2025. The decree also enforces an embargo on defence exports and dual-use technology to Israel, bans ships carrying military fuel for Israel from Spanish ports, and restricts advertising for services or goods linked to Israeli settlements.

Ireland’s parliament approved the text of its Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill in May and the bill was signed into law in July. It covers all goods produced in Israeli settlements, but excludes services.

Belgium’s federal government approved a draft royal decree in July introducing a specific regime for goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The precise details of the new law will be determined by the government in due course.

Slovenia imposed restrictions on imports from Israeli settlements under its previous government, but the new conservative government reversed them in June 2026.

The EU as a bloc remains deadlocked over whether a ban counts as foreign policy requiring unanimity or trade policy needing only a qualified majority, with ministers not meeting again in a decision-making format until October.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar last year described the push by some European governments to implement the ICJ advisory opinion as “shameful”.

Which European countries still allow trade with West Bank settlements?

Nearly all of them.

Outside the three European Union states which still have bans in place, settlement goods can be sold legally everywhere, including in most of the EU.

At a July 2026 meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, which addressed trade from Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, Germany, Austria, Czechia and Hungary were opposed to an EU-wide ban.

Beyond the EU, the United Kingdom does not forbid trade with illegal Israeli settlements, although new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reportedly considering a ban. In a recent parliamentary briefing, Amnesty International called on the UK government to implement a ban.

It said: “The argument for a UK ban on trade with settlements is clear. The UK government itself accepts it should take stronger action in response to settlement expansion and annexation. The International Court of Justice has directed states not to trade with Israel in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and there is precedent in UK law and policy to not trade with illegally occupied lands, ie Crimea and other illegally occupied parts of Ukraine.”

Trump says all mines have been cleared from Strait of Hormuz’s international waters and that Tehran received warnings that ships laying new mines will be ‘destroyed’.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces new sanctions on Tehran to sever financial support for the regime, urging US allies to support the measures.

Attacks on Palestinian communities by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, which are often supported by Israeli forces, have gathered pace over the past month since settlers from the Havat Gilad settlement attacked Palestinian homes on the eastern edge of Tal, southwest of Nablus.

On Sunday and Monday, the Israeli military raided multiple towns, villages and refugee camps across the occupied territory, and reports of arrests, home searches and settler attacks have continued to mount.

A 15-day siege on three families comprising 15 people, including two children, in the village of Qusra, which is ongoing, drew a rare public condemnation this month from the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israel and its West Bank settlements.

Israel is also pushing ahead with plans for the so-called E1 settlement expansion close to Jerusalem, which human rights organisations warn would essentially sever the West Bank in two, further hampering the freedom of movement of Palestinians on either side of it and endangering the possibility of a Palestinian state.

The West Bank attacks increasingly fit the definition of a pogrom, experts said. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese described these Israeli attacks against Palestinians as “pogroms against defenceless civilians”.

So why are experts calling settler attacks pogroms, and do they fit the formal definition of one?

What’s happening in the West Bank?

Settlers, frequently supported by the Israeli military, have been attacking Palestinian homes, businesses, and agricultural fields across the occupied West Bank. Such attacks have been commonplace for decades as settlements have expanded across the territory, but they gathered pace after October 7, 2023 when Israel launched it genocidal war on Gaza, and have become particularly violent and frequent over the past month.

Israeli settlements across the West Bank are illegal under international law.

According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, however, Israeli settlers now number roughly 780,000 across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, living among 192 settlements and 400 outposts, rising to 71 percent of Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and military control, and 91 percent of the Jordan Valley.

Settlers often set up outposts without formal approval around Palestinian villages from which they launch a campaign of harassment, including killing livestock, cutting supply lines and damaging property, in order to drive local residents out. Once they establish a more formal settlement, they often receive retrospective approval from the Israeli government for the settlement.

In some places more recently, illegal settlers have laid siege to individual family homes – such as in the Ras al-Ein area of Qusra – cutting off water and other supplies and damaging orchards or harming livestock.

This has set a new pattern: settlers establish a tent adjacent to individual homes; Palestinians’ homes are besieged, with essentials cut off; and Israeli soldiers arrive not to remove the settlers, but rather to remove the family – through arrest or ostensibly for their “protection”.

In Qusra, the three besieged families were forced together into one of the family houses. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have occupied one of the other homes for use as a military post and thrown furniture and belongings from its windows, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The UN humanitarian affairs office recorded more than 1,330 settler-related attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank between January and late July this year, averaging six a day and marking the fastest pace since the agency began systematic tracking two decades ago.

Separately, a UN-appointed commission of inquiry has found that the Israeli authorities have repeatedly failed to prevent foreseeable settler attacks and, in some cases, have directly enabled them through army protection and the provision of weapons and funding.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has found that settler attacks, demolitions and evictions forcibly displaced more Palestinians in the first four months of this year than in the whole of 2025.

OCHA reported that 107 communities, comprising 5,900 Palestinians, had been completely or partially displaced as a result of settler violence since January 2023. It also found that the Israeli military have expelled another 32,000 Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank since January 2025, essentially emptying the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps.

What is the definition of a pogrom?

Major US and UK dictionaries vary to some degree on the definition of a “pogrom”.

The British Collins Dictionary identifies a pogrom as “organised, official violence against a group of people for racial or religious reasons”, with a notable inclusion of official, or state-backed violence.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary calls it “the organised killing of large numbers of people, because of their race or religion”, without mention of state-sanctioned violence.

Merriam-Webster says it is “an organised massacre of helpless people” – “specifically: such as a massacre of Jews”.

Cambridge Dictionary says it is “an act of organised cruel behaviour or killing that is done to a large group of people because of their race or religion”.

The word is understood to have been introduced via Yiddish and was at first used to describe the wave of violent, organised mob attacks on Jewish communities in the Russian Empire following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.

It is important to note that unlike legal terms including “crimes against humanity” or “genocide,” “pogrom” has no established legal definition under international law.

Can attacks in the West Bank be referred to as pogroms?

Besides Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, who has described Israeli attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as “pogroms against defenceless civilians”, Israeli officials themselves have described such attacks as “pogroms”.

On February 26, 2023, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked Huwara and surrounding Palestinian communities after two Israeli settlers were killed. A Palestinian was killed, hundreds were injured, and homes, businesses and cars were burned.

The Israeli military’s then-commander in the occupied West Bank, Yehuda Fuchs, called the settlers’ attack a “pogrom”, and it was also recorded as such by the US State Department.

Israeli-Palestinian human rights group B’Tselem has also previously described Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank as “pogroms”, especially after the February 2023 attacks. Later, it followed up with a report titled, “The pogroms are working – the transfer is already happening”, which argued that settler attacks were contributing to the displacement of Palestinian communities.

“Settler violence is not a new phenomenon. But over the past three years, it has become more violent, more systematic and, most importantly, part of a state mechanism intended to ethnically cleanse large parts of the West Bank,” said Yair Dvir, the spokesperson for B’Tselem.

“The government funds and arms the settlers, while the Israeli military stands by and, in many cases, actively participates in the attacks,” he told Al Jazeera. “So far, these militias have expelled 64 Palestinian communities and taken control of around one million dunams of land.”

Dvir also told Al Jazeera that the Israeli settlers are “now carrying out organised attacks on established Palestinian villages and towns in order to drive out their residents”.

“These are armed militias operating as an unofficial arm of the state, with a shared goal: to ethnically cleanse as much of the West Bank as possible,” he added.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, which is named after Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who is credited with coining the term genocide after the Holocaust, referred to settler attacks on Al-Mughayyir, a Palestinian village in Ramallah, as “pogroms”, reporting that hundreds of armed settlers attacked residents and burned buildings and cars while soldiers stood by earlier this year. In 2025, the Israeli military uprooted thousands of Palestinian olive trees at Al-Mughayyir.

Raheel Dhattiwala, an Indian scholar who focuses on collective violence, told Al Jazeera: “West Bank attacks fit the characteristics of a pogrom – systematic targeting of one civilian group by another with state approval. A few senior Israeli army officers have called it ‘pogroms’ in the past too, for example after attacks in Huwara.

“One might want to debate the use of the term, ‘pogrom’, but it is accurate to call settler violence systematic attacks of occupiers, with government approval, on groups of occupied people.”

AVROTROS says escalating international conflicts are undermining the event’s neutrality and fuelling divisions.

The public broadcaster in the Netherlands has announced it will not participate in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest because the event can “no longer be considered neutral” due to ongoing divisions over the war in Gaza.

“It is undeniable that international conflicts are increasingly affecting the Contest, undermining its neutral character. The Eurovision Song Contest has therefore become a platform for division,” said Taco Zimmerman, Director-General of AVROTROS, in a statement on Monday.

The widely-watched show has recently faced a series of boycotts over Israel’s participation. Organisers announced earlier this month that they would exclude any country involved in an armed conflict from hosting the competition.

“However, the recently announced changes… do not provide sufficient confidence that the independent and neutral character of the Eurovision Song Contest has been restored,” the AVROTROS statement added.

Israel finished second in the competition – the world’s largest live televised music event – in both 2025 and 2026.

Next year’s Eurovision is due to be held in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Burgas, after Bulgarian singer Darina Yotova, known as Dara, won this year’s contest in Vienna, Austria, with her catchy floor-filler ‘Bangaranga’. The contest on May 15 will be the first time the Balkan nation has hosted.

Since its launch in 1955, Eurovision has become the ultimate pop platform, catapulting Swedish icons ABBA to worldwide fame, while also boosting the careers of artists such as Celine Dion, Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John.

However, this year’s competition pulled in 131 million viewers, 35 million fewer than last year, after five countries boycotted over Israel’s participation. The Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia all pulled out, with the latter three refusing to broadcast the show at all.

Israeli forces launch wide search in Jordan Valley after stabbing incident in the occupied West Bank village of al-Auja.

Israeli forces have launched search operations in the Jordan Valley after an Israeli man was wounded in a stabbing attack in a village in the eastern occupied West Bank.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday, citing a security source, that the man was stabbed at a commercial complex on the main road near the village of al-Auja.

The victim, a man aged in his 20s, was moderately wounded, Israeli police said.

The suspect escaped from the scene after carrying out the attack, according to the Israeli army, which launched a large-scale search operation in the area, supported by a substantial police presence.

The army said it had set up roadblocks in the village and the surrounding areas. The military is “in constant contact with the residents and security forces in the area”, it said in a post on Telegram.

The incident comes amid a rise in state-backed Israeli settler violence against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows that between January 1, 2025, and June 31, 2026, there were 3,033 Israeli settler attacks.

Some 1,291 settler attacks were recorded in 2023, rising to 1,449 in 2024, 1,835 in 2025, and 761 in the first four months of 2026. That equates to an average of 190 attacks per month in 2026, up from 153 per month in 2025 – a 24 percent increase in the monthly rate.

Gas bombs fired, entrance closed at al-Mughayyir

In a separate incident on Sunday, Israeli forces used gas bombs and closed the western entrance of al-Mughayyir village, north of Ramallah, according to video footage and Palestinian officials.

Video clips documented Israeli forces firing gas canisters while blocking the western entrance to the village. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli troops prevented residents from entering or leaving al-Mughayyir, subjected a number of them to field interrogations, mistreated young men, and fired gas bombs towards vehicles.

The agency added that the western entrance is currently the only outlet for the village after Israeli forces closed its eastern entrance in October 2023.

Illegal under international law, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank have been expanding for decades.

The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fast-tracked the establishment of new ones.

The policy aims to tighten Israel’s hold on the occupied West Bank and block the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

With just months to go until the elections, the government has opened bids for the construction of 1,200 illegal housing units. It has also ignored international criticism of the planned illegal settlement, known as E1.

Some Western countries are threatening sanctions if Israel goes ahead. But would that make a difference?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Ammar Hijazi – Ambassador and head of the Palestinian Mission to the Netherlands

Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York

Israeli settlers fatally shot 17-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh in Hebron, while Israeli forces killed 58-year-old Fathi Khazem in Jenin.

A Palestinian teenager in Hebron and a former colonel in Jenin have been shot and killed in separate incidents involving Israeli settlers and soldiers, as escalating attacks and the rapid expansion of illegal settlements drive a wave of forced displacement in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Friday that 17-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh was fatally shot in an Israeli settler attack in Khirbet Hamroush.

Shalaldeh sustained a gunshot wound to the chest and was reported to be in critical condition before he was announced dead. A 70-year-old man was also shot and injured during the attack.

Local sources told the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, that large groups of armed Israeli settlers raided the Khirbet Hamroush area, opening fire at residents and setting Palestinian homes on fire.

In a separate incident on Friday morning, the Palestinian General Authority for Civil Affairs informed the Health Ministry that 58-year-old Fathi Khazem was fatally shot by Israeli forces in Jenin. The Israeli military was raiding the home of retired colonel in the Palestinian National Security Forces when the shooting occurred.

The Israeli army claimed Khazem attempted to stab Israeli troops during a military operation before the soldiers opened fire and killed him.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the Israeli army did not release the body to the victim’s family for burial, and Wafa reported that Israeli forces prevented emergency services from reaching the house after the shooting.

Earlier, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its crews treated a 14-year-old boy who was shot with live ammunition in the chest and back during an Israeli raid near Jenin. The boy was transferred to a hospital, it added.

The Israeli military also arrested six people during a separate raid on the city on Friday.

The ‘most immoral’ army

Amid new attacks and Israeli army raids across the occupied West Bank, in Qusra, south of Nablus, Israeli settlers continue to besiege three Palestinian homes for a 13th consecutive day under the protection of Israeli forces.

Qusra Mayor Abdel Azim Wadi said Israeli forces and settlers were preventing families in the Ras al-Ain area from entering or leaving their homes, while one of the houses had been seized and turned into a military post. The area has also been declared a closed military zone.

Wadi said the families were running short of food and medicine because Israeli forces were preventing supplies from reaching them, Wafa reported.

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, called the Israeli military “the MOST IMMORAL ARMY” in a post on X.

“In the West Bank, soldiers and settlers cut water pipes, while Qusra’s siege continues,” she wrote. “In Gaza the pulverization continues and so the massacres. Since the ceasefire Israel has killed 1,200+ people, including 300 children.”

A report by Human Rights Watch on Thursday found state-backed Israeli settler violence fully or partially displaced 107 Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank since January 2023.

The US-based rights group said increased settler attacks, along with the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law, are driving a wave of forced displacement of Palestinians.

Israeli plans to build a major new illegal settlement under the E1 settlement project, which would cleave the occupied West Bank in two, have provoked widespread condemnation from around the world.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway on Thursday called Israel’s opening of construction tenders for more than 1,200 housing units under the project “unacceptable” and in violation of “the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories”.

“Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel’s international standing,” the statement said.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Washington will impose its ‘toughest sanctions in history’ to ‘collapse’ Iran’s government, warning of consequences for countries that maintain economic ties with Tehran.