IsraelPalestine

Christians in the UK are urging the Church of England General Synod to pass a motion to formally engage with Kairos Palestine II, a document by Palestinian Christian leaders that describes Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocidal war and which calls on churches to boycott Israel.

The incident is the latest in a pattern of Israeli measures in the occupied territory since the Gaza genocide began.

Israel has barred the grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for one week.

The Jerusalem Governorate said in a post on Facebook that Sheikh Muhammad Hussein was detained by Israeli forces after delivering his Friday sermon at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Later, the governorate confirmed that Hussein had been released, but was temporarily banned by Israeli authorities from entering Islam’s third-holiest site in occupied East Jerusalem for one week, with the possibility of the ban being renewed.

According to the Quds News Network, Hussein was arrested for the contents of his sermon, during which he prayed for mercy for Palestinians killed by Israel and relief for those held in Israeli prisons.

In a message to Al Jazeera, the Jerusalem Governorate said “the arrest was carried out in order to serve him [Hussein] with an order banning him from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque for one week, with the possibility of renewal. This is not the first time such a measure has been taken against him.”

Israel has not commented on Hussein’s brief arrest or banning.

The incident is the latest in a pattern of escalating Israeli measures in occupied Palestinian territory since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since then, including at least 243 children, amid what rights groups say is an intensifying campaign of military raids, settler violence and expanding Israeli control.

On Friday, six Palestinians, including children, were reportedly injured during an attack by settlers in Huwara, Nablus.

Local sources said settlers set upon a Palestinian family, including an elderly man, using pepper spray and physically beating them.

The attack took place on land belonging to the family. Israeli forces were reportedly present and protected the settlers during the attack.

Israeli forces then allegedly assaulted residents and arrested three members of the family, including 80-year-old Ibrahim Ismail al-Jabour.

The incident comes amid growing international concern over violence in the occupied West Bank. Last month, Amnesty International released a report accusing the Israeli government of carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the territory. The report concluded that the campaign was state-led and not the result of rogue settlers or far-right ministers.

Medics report 12 injuries alongside eight deaths in Gaza as Israeli air strikes target civilians and displaced families.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least eight people in Gaza, including two children, aged 10 and 6, Palestinian health officials have said.

Medics said on Wednesday that an Israeli air strike killed one person near a school in Gaza City. Twelve people were wounded in the two incidents. The Israeli military said it struck fighters in Gaza City, but was unaware of casualties.

Another ‌Israeli air strike hit a tent for displaced people in the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, killing at least four people, including a 10-year-old child.

Later on Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said a six-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. Another strike hit a ⁠vehicle westward of the city, killing one person, ⁠medics said, taking Wednesday’s death toll to at least seven. An eighth death was later recorded, but more details were not immediately available.

The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment on any of those incidents.

The latest killings come despite Israel and Hamas agreeing to a United States-brokered “ceasefire” in October last year. Although large-scale fighting has largely paused, Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the territory have continued.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israeli army violations of the “ceasefire” have killed at least 1,084 people and wounded 3,491 others since the truce took effect. The latest casualties bring the overall death toll in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 to at least 73,110, with 173,599 others injured, the ministry said.

Israel has also expanded its control of the enclave to about 11 percent beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” demarcating areas of the Gaza Strip agreed in the truce.

Last week, a group of United Nations agencies and NGO groups warned that the continued expansion of areas under Israeli control endangers civilians and relief efforts. Already dozens of Palestinian families have been forced to leave their homes near the line.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in the Strip remains dire. In its latest report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it recorded nearly 9,300 cases of chickenpox across more than 130 health facilities. “The rise in reported chickenpox cases is occurring in a displacement environment already marked by severe overcrowding, deteriorating hygiene conditions, and widespread environmental health hazards,” it said.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, held in Israeli prisons without charge since December 2024, is being tortured and on the verge of death, according to his lawyer who found him badly beaten on July 2nd.

A Palestinian technocratic committee will take its place to manage the enclave’s day-to-day governance.

The Palestinian group Hamas has announced the dissolution of the body that has governed Gaza for nearly two decades, paving the way for a technocratic committee to implement civilian rule in the war-ravaged, besieged territory.

The move on Monday marks a significant political shift by Hamas, which has governed Gaza since its fighters seized control from rival Palestinian movement Fatah in 2007 after Hamas won legislative elections the previous year.

Since a United States-brokered “ceasefire” with Israel took effect in Gaza last October, the group has repeatedly said it is prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance, but the question of its disarmament remains unresolved.

Mohammed al-Farra, head of the government’s emergency committee, “has decided to submit his official resignation from his position and to announce the dissolution of the Government Emergency Committee, as a demonstration of the seriousness of these measures, in implementation of the agreed arrangements, and to facilitate the administrative transition process”, read a statement released by Gaza’s Government Media Office on Monday.

A Hamas official said the group wished for the swift entry of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a body which is tasked with overseeing the future administration of Gaza under a US-backed plan to end Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

“Hamas has taken a new step in that it will no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, in order to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told the AFP news agency.

“We hope for the swift entry of the [NCAG], and Hamas affirms its readiness to hand over governmental responsibilities to the committee to ensure its success.”

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said Hamas’s announcement appears to be “politically significant”.

“It has been viewed as part of the concession from the Hamas side in order to move the negotiations forward, to pave the road for the technocratic committee to arrive to the Gaza Strip and take responsibility after months of an increasing power vacuum there.”

Mahmoud stressed that the move doesn’t mean that Hamas is relinquishing its political or military role in Gaza, but rather “stepping back from the direct civilian government in Gaza”.

The head of the NCAG welcomed Hamas’s announcement.

“We affirm that the [NCAG] is fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available,” Ali Shaath, head of the committee, wrote on social media.

Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative overseeing the US-founded Board of Peace for Gaza, which would supervise the NCAG’s work, said the decision “underscores the importance of bringing the roadmap discussions to a successful conclusion”.

“It is the bridge between declarations and implementation,” he added.

Mladenov noted that once an agreement is reached on the remaining implementation provisions, the NCAG will be able to assume its responsibilities.

The NCAG has remained based outside Gaza for months, reportedly due to Israeli objections to its entry into the besieged enclave.

Israel has ruled out allowing Hamas to rule the enclave but has also rejected a direct takeover by the Palestinian Authority, which controls the occupied West Bank, at this stage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have offered the clearest signal yet that they are considering the establishment of new Jewish settlements on what remains of the Gaza Strip after almost three years of their country’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the enclave.

Last Monday, Smotrich, who made his continued participation in the ruling coalition conditional on being granted increased control over Israel’s settlement enterprise, told reporters that his ministry had prepared plans for three settlements in northern Gaza, and that all that was needed to move forward was the green light from Netanyahu.

The following day, Netanyahu came close to providing it. Speaking on Israel’s staunchly right-wing Channel 14, he refused to rule out the prospect of settlements in Gaza.

“The question is whether you prefer to do or to talk,” the prime minister replied cryptically when asked whether the establishment of settlements was a possibility. “And yes, I prefer not to address it.”

Israel’s current settlements – in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem – are illegal under international law.

In clearing the way for any future settlements in Gaza – and for what Netanyahu euphemistically told Channel 14 viewers was the “voluntary migration” of its remaining population, a process widely characterised by international jurists as ethnic cleansing – Israel has killed more than 73,000 of its occupants.

At the same time, Israel has been accused by United Nations-backed experts of deliberately imposing a famine on survivors in Gaza and, most recently, of furthering its genocide in Gaza through the deliberate targeting of children.

The degree to which preparations are under way for the physical establishment of any settlements in Gaza – which previously had 21 illegal settlements before the Israeli government decided to dismantle them in 2005 – is difficult to ascertain. The area north of Gaza City has been largely razed by Israel, with its deliberate campaign to demolish Palestinian homes and institutions, destroying almost everything not hit with bombs from the air.

Supporters of settlements in Gaza see that now empty land as a perfect opportunity to cement a buffer between Israel and Gaza.

With elections due in Israel, it is beneficial for politicians such as Smotrich and Netanyahu to insinuate that this is now the plan.

“The Israeli public has been subjected to almost endless incitements to genocide since October 7,” said Neve Gordon, an Israeli professor at Queen Mary University of London. “People who watch legacy media in Israel have no understanding of the level of destruction in Gaza, or the kind of suffering that has gone on there.

“There are even spots, tourist spots, where some people in Israel go to watch the bombing. This is the constituency that statements like Smotrich’s are designed to appeal to. These are the people who would like to see more settlements in Gaza, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously ” he said. “[But] this isn’t just rhetoric. There is a definite and consistent push from across much of Israel’s politics to resettle the Gaza Strip.”

A history of ethnic cleansing

A growing number of hardline religious Israelis have been seeking to resettle the Gaza Strip since the 2005 disengagement. Since then, analysts and historians have described concerted efforts by those supporting settlements to capture the institutions of Israeli public life, gaining dominant voices in the education system, the media and other areas of government.

Organisations such as the far-right settler group Nachala have openly championed the resettlement of the enclave. Months into Israel’s genocidal war, Nachala held a conference explicitly promoting Israel’s return to Gaza, entitled ”Settlement Brings Security and Victory”. It was attended by numerous government ministers, including Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Despite what critics describe as his success in establishing settlements on a scale unparalleled since the 1990s, Smotrich continues to struggle in the polls. His Religious Zionist party may not secure enough votes in the next election – which must be before the end of October – to meet the minimum threshold to get into parliament. That perhaps explains why Smotrich is eager to inflate the prospects of settlements in Gaza and attract more support from the Israeli right-wing.

Political advantage

The irony is curious for observers such as Orly Noy, the editor of the Hebrew-language Local Call magazine.

Smotrich “has been the most effective member of the cabinet in promoting the interests of the settlers in the West Bank”, she said. “He has really made a revolution in that sense,” referring to the judicial, economic, and infrastructure overhauls initiated under Smotrich’s watch, that he appears to be receiving little credit for among his base.

The stakes for Netanyahu are potentially more dramatic, analysts pointed out. Currently on trial on multiple corruption charges, the PM faces a jail sentence if found guilty.

Similarly, anger over his apparent determination not to hold an independent inquiry into his own government’s failings in the October 7 attack runs high, perhaps giving him a reason to suggest that he will move forward with building settlements and expelling Palestinians from Gaza.

“Look, if you want to distinguish yourself from the rest of the field ahead of the election, your time is now,” political analyst Ori Goldberg said. “This is your moment, and, if you want to propose imposing further hardship onto Palestinians, there is absolutely no Jewish member of [parliament] – apart from the [left-wing member of parliament] Ofer Cassif – who is going to oppose you.

“People don’t care anymore,” he said of the chances of the settlement of Gaza receiving any resistance from Israelis. “There’s just nothing [on the suffering in Gaza]. People have grown indifferent. There’s just a big black hole.”

Complicity

While the Israeli government may have no domestic qualms when it comes to building settlements in Gaza, it does have to contend with the international backlash – and that may be why the project does not move beyond the planning stage.

But would Israel face any real lasting consequences from building settlements in Gaza?

In the eyes of many, the Israeli government’s freedom to act comes from the unwavering diplomatic and military support of the US, as well as the financial support of Europe which, despite its occasional criticism, remains Israel’s foremost trading partner.

“In terms of international reaction,” author and fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Hugh Lovatt said of the prospect of settlement in Gaza, “from 2023 onwards we’ve seen the greatest expansion of settlements since the [1990s] Oslo Accords, as well as plans to render the two-state solution obsolete”.

“And, while there’s been some criticism, there’s been very little action,” Lovatt said. “I don’t know if that would be any different were it to happen in Gaza. It’s true that Gaza has been the focus of a great deal of international – and specifically US – attention since the ceasefire that the West Bank has not.”

However, whether that attention would act as a check on Israel’s attempts to expand its settlements is unclear.

“Would Israel risk such a blatant move to block Trump’s Gaza plan? I’m not sure,” he said of the US president’s plan for Gaza, which while heavily criticised for allowing Israel to continue its presence in the Palestinian territory, makes no mention of Israeli settlements.

“And while Europe has a very poor track record so far, an expansion of Israeli settlements to Gaza could push European states to act,” he said.

Israel bombed a car near the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. As one of the men escapes, Israeli forces strike again. Double tap attacks are widely considered to be war crimes.

An Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi camp in Khan Younis has killed several people, including a mother and her child. More than one hundred tents belonging to displaced Palestinians were also destroyed.

An Israeli attack on a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip has killed three Palestinians and injured several more.

Palestine’s Ministry of the Interior and National Security condemned the attack, which took place in Maghazi refugee camp in Deir el-Balah on Friday, saying that the victims were all police officers.

“Their vehicle was treacherously bombed by the Israeli occupation forces,” said a ministry statement published on Telegram.

It named the three deceased as Captain Mansour Sami Shahtout, Captain Mohammed Khaled Nofal, and First Sergeant Mahdi Nader Jabr.

Palestine’s Wafa news agency said an Israeli combat drone targeted a vehicle near the entrance of the Maghazi refugee camp, while Anadolu news agency reported that the Israeli drone fired at least two missiles at the vehicle, causing it to catch fire, which resulted in the deaths and injuries.

Witness video accounts showed a civilian vehicle burning after it was struck on Salah al-Din Street at the entrance of Maghazi camp.

The bodies were reportedly taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

“The Ministry of Interior condemns the heinous crime committed by the occupation in targeting civil police personnel, an act that demonstrates a persistent intent to spread chaos across the Gaza Strip,” the ministry added in its statement.

It reiterated its “call on the international community and the guarantor states of the ceasefire agreement to exert pressure on the occupying forces to cease their repeated targeting of the police force, its personnel and its resources.”

The US-brokered “ceasefire” agreement has been in effect in Gaza since October 10, 2025, though violations have continued to be reported across the enclave, with Israel continuing its attacks.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Israeli violations of the “ceasefire” agreement have killed 1,031 Palestinians and injured 3,309 others as of Thursday. In total, since Israel’s genocidal war began in October 2023, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

Gaza ‘ceasefire’ developments

As attacks on the ground continue, Hamas said that consultations are ongoing with other Palestinian factions and regional mediators to reach understandings that would ensure the full implementation of the Gaza “ceasefire” agreement.

“These discussions concern the full implementation of the ceasefire agreement, including what remains of the first phase and mechanisms for implementing the second phase,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told Anadolu on Friday.

He added that a delegation from Hamas and other Palestinian factions is expected to visit Cairo in the coming days to deliver its response to newly proposed approaches.

Qassem said Palestinian factions had previously reached understandings that were welcomed by mediators, before Board of Peace envoy Nikolay Mladenov presented what he described as “different approaches” that are currently under final review by Hamas and the factions.

“We hope the efforts of the mediators and Mr. Mladenov will lead to compelling the occupation to implement what was agreed upon, particularly the humanitarian provisions of the first phase, and then move to the second phase with all its complexities,” Qassem said.

Regarding the situation on the ground, Qassem accused Israel of committing major and continuous violations of the ceasefire agreement, including restrictions on humanitarian aid and continued killings.

He told Anadolu more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire entered into force, adding that Israel had expanded the “yellow line” into new areas of Gaza, accompanied by displacement and home demolitions.

“These violations require, first, a clear stance from the mediators to pressure the occupation, and second, serious work to bring the national committee into Gaza so a genuine relief and reconstruction process can begin,” he said.

“We do not want the starvation policy imposed on our people to be repeated while the world remains a spectator. Nor should the killing and destruction continue while the world watches,” he added.

Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – In the narrow alleyways of the Dheisheh refugee camp, three children debate which of their encounters with the Israeli military is worth telling, and who gets to tell it.

Yanal, 14, wins the opening round on language skills alone. He speaks three languages: Arabic, English and Spanish, and insists on telling his story in English.

“Life in the camp is complex,” he says, because, as he explains, there is nowhere to run away to when the army comes.

Yanal keeps returning to one memory: a football match, soldiers entering the field, and there being no way out.

Mustafa Abu Aliyah, 13, counters with a raid that he ran into as he was on his way to his grandfather’s house. The Israeli army fired live rounds and tear gas, he says. “We were in the middle of the fire.”

He can’t remember his first encounter with soldiers, “but I definitely saw them when I was little, because they are always coming here”.

His sister Diyar, 12, was mid-piano lesson the last time the army came through.

“Whenever the army comes, there will be tear gas,” she says. “People will be beaten. There’s usually someone injured or killed.”

She compares it to life elsewhere. “I see children in other countries, in other worlds, living in safety, but we can’t even leave our front door without suffering.”

The raids happen so often that the children often can’t remember the dates of specific incidents. But what they do remember is the fear they experienced and the aggression displayed by the Israeli soldiers.

In the first nine months of 2025 alone, Israeli forces carried out nearly 7,500 raids across the occupied West Bank, or about 27 a day, and a 37 percent increase compared with the same period in 2024.

‘Essence of childhood destroyed’

The children in the Dheisheh refugee camp reflect a wider pattern of childhood experiences under Israeli occupation, set out in a report the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released on Tuesday.

It examines Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October 2023.

Titled, “The essence of childhood has been destroyed”, it found that Israeli forces have killed at least 20,179 Palestinian children and wounded more than 44,000 across the occupied territory, most of them in Gaza – where it said that the deliberate targeting of children constituted part of the genocide in the Palestinian territory.

The report also documents a pattern of killings, mass arrests, torture, sexual violence and attacks on schools and hospitals.

In the West Bank, it records a sharp rise in settler violence against children and killings by Israeli forces, among them a two-year-old girl shot dead in January 2025. Children, the report notes, are held in Israeli detention, with no lawyer and no word sent to their parents, a separation it says can amount to enforced disappearance. Schools, too, are targets: 85 across the West Bank are under demolition or stop-work orders, and others have been closed or attacked by soldiers and settlers.

Beyond the casualty count

The UN commission argues that Israel has created conditions in which Palestinians live in a constant state of “diffused, ambient terror, that does not require constant bombing to remain effective”.

“We are talking about repeated shocks, about continuous events that never end,” says Lemis Farraj, a psychologist and the project coordinator at Shorouq in Dheisheh, emphasising that a child’s physical and mental health cannot be separated from each other.

The report calls this continuous traumatic stress, distinct from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), because there is no single event to recover from. The danger does not just come from experiencing one raid, but from the fear that comes with waiting for the expected raids that will likely come in the future.

Diyar explains that when the army enters her neighbourhood, she has to stay home and wait, no matter what her plans were. “Our life stops,” she says.

Her brother, Mustafa, says that the repetition has worn the fear flat.

“When I see the army, I [am] used to it and I stop being afraid.”

Farraj sees the same in the young children she treats: a startle at an ordinary sound, certainty that a raid has begun, and regression – skills already learned suddenly lost again.

Five-year-old Khour Hammad, who lives a few alleys away from the older children, has experienced the same raids.

She explains that both of her parents are in prison. Israeli forces arrested her father in July 2023 and her mother last March, according to the family.

Khour remembers the night the army came for her mother. Half-asleep, she heard a man’s voice and thought her father had finally come home. She climbed out of bed expecting him. Instead, she found soldiers inside the house.

The soldiers tried to question Khour. She says that she “felt like I was going to throw up”.

Handed an old family photo, she brightens at once, pointing out her mother, Islam Amarna, and her father, Osama Hammad, and rattling off memories in bursts.

Generational trauma

While Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank face different lived experiences, the UN finds the same cause behind the harm: a military occupation described as a “long-term mechanism of domination, subjugation and oppression”.

Farraj adds that children are affected not only by their own experiences of trauma, but also by what is passed down from parents and grandparents.

“The first generation of the Nakba lived in shock and passed it on to their children,” she says, referring to the ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinians following the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The report similarly notes that Palestinian refugees, now in their fifth generation, have internalised a sense of “dispossession from the Nakba” alongside present-day experiences of occupation.

In the West Bank, roughly one in four Palestinians are refugees; in Gaza, it is about 70 percent.

Israeli violence and forcible displacement have been carried through generations of Palestinians, compounding as the cycle repeats. Farraj says trauma recovery depends on stability: family support, schooling, safe spaces and a predictable routine, all of which remain precarious under Israel’s occupation.

For Khour, that stability begins with her parents.

“I want the whole world to listen and see my picture,” Khour says, “and get my mom and dad out of prison.”

In the early hours of another day of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, 20-year-old Hamza al-Ghazali, who lives in the Zeitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City, set out once again in search of an insulin pen.

It was not the first time he had moved between pharmacies and medical centres, looking for a dose. The effort has become a recurring part of his life since the outbreak of war in October 2023 and the tightening Israeli restrictions on the entry of medicines and medical supplies into the Gaza Strip.

Hamza knows that delaying an insulin dose is potentially life-threatening. Type 1 diabetes requires strict daily treatment and continuous monitoring. However, under war and blockade conditions, managing the disease has turned into a daily, high-risk struggle.

Hamza recalls how his health condition was more stable before the war. He used to obtain insulin from pharmacies at prices ranging between 25 and 35 shekels ($8.5 and $12) per pen, sometimes even less.

“I started to know all the pharmacies, and they also knew me, because I was always buying insulin pens,” Hamza says.

But this changed drastically with the war and the tightening of restrictions on the entry of medical supplies. The price of a single insulin pen rose to between 75 and 100 shekels ($25 and $34), and, as Hamza needs six to seven pens per month, he was forced to try to extend the use of each pen for as long as possible.

Fight for survival

The suffering of diabetes patients in Gaza extends to restrictions on the entry of medicines through border crossings, measures that have led to a severe shortage of insulin, glucose metres, and test strips.

Hamza notes that this shortage has created an unstable medical reality, where, in some cases, medicines that may have been stored for long periods or in improper conditions appear on the market, raising concerns about reduced effectiveness or uncertain quality due to the lack of alternatives.

A year ago, when an Israeli blockade on the entry of food led to a famine in northern Gaza, Hamza was forced to eat anything he could find.

But for Hamza, it wasn’t just about securing enough nutrition for his body, but also about finding the right balance between the insulin he had access to and the food he could find.

If he ate more without sufficient insulin doses, then he could have dangerously high blood sugar levels. If he reduced his food intake out of fear of running out of insulin, then that could result in severe and potentially fatal hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).

“I was afraid for myself during the shelling in northern Gaza,” said Hamza. “We were under siege. If the house was bombed, I might survive under the rubble, but die from low blood sugar. And if I ate without insulin, my sugar could rise dangerously. I was living between two fears all the time.”

He adds that the fear was not only about losing insulin, but also about losing glucose metres and test strips, which he relies on daily to monitor his condition. Every time he was forced to evacuate, the first thing he would carry was his “diabetes bag”.

Equipment shortages

Glucose test strips have been in short supply, limiting Hamza’s ability to monitor his blood sugar levels on a daily basis and forcing him to rely on judging his physical symptoms.

Hamza notes that the cost of a glucose metre ranges between 250 and 300 shekels ($85 and $120), but the real problem lies in the availability of test strips.

Without them, the device becomes useless, forcing some patients to repeatedly buy new devices. Hamza estimates that more than 80 percent of diabetes patients in some areas are unable to test their blood sugar regularly, which he describes as a “medical disaster”, as it turns treatment into daily guesswork.

According to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, between 70,000 and 80,000 diabetes patients in the Palestinian enclave are at risk due to the severe shortage of insulin and test strips, in addition to the collapse of medical follow-up services and poor nutrition.

Endocrinology and diabetes specialist Dr Adli al-Ghouti notes that about 2,500 children in Gaza are living with Type 1 diabetes, and are in a highly critical health condition.

As a result of insulin shortages, a lack of proper storage conditions, and power outages, a real crisis is unfolding.

Al-Ghouti warns that the deterioration of insulin quality, the expiration of the stock available in Gaza, and improper storage can all reduce effectiveness, creating a false sense of security while blood sugar levels remain uncontrolled, potentially resulting in severe complications such as diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening emergency condition.

“Taking an expired dose of insulin may cause significant harm inside the body, while giving a temporary impression of improvement,” Dr al-Ghouti said.

Diabetes is therefore no longer a condition that can be managed easily in Gaza. Between the shortage of insulin, a lack of testing tools, rising prices, and deteriorating nutrition, even the simplest aspects of treatment turn into a daily struggle for survival.

Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, according to a new UN inquiry. The report says more than 20,000 children were killed between October 2023 and October 2025. Israel rejected the findings.

Israel is pushing humanitarian groups and rights defenders to scale down operations in Palestinian territories.

Children are “increasingly unprotected” as humanitarian groups and rights defenders are forced to scale back their operations in the Palestinian territories, the United Nations has warned.

Many civil society and aid organisations in Gaza and the West Bank have been labelled “terrorists” by pro-Israel groups or politicians, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child warned in a statement issued on Monday, noting that their absence leaves children vulnerable.

“For more than three decades, these organisations have played a vital role in defending Palestinian children, including in the Israeli military courts, and in documenting grave violations against Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces,” the committee said.

“Without them, Palestinian children will be even less protected, and violations of their rights risk continuing with impunity,” it added.

Issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the statement noted that tactics used to delegitimise these human rights groups also include “military raids, travel bans, personal financial sanctions, threats of arrest, destruction of records, and even threats of secondary sanctions against partners who support their work”.

The committee said this made it “increasingly impossible for these organisations to operate safely or protect the children and families who turn to them for help”.

The committee urged the international community to hold Israeli authorities accountable for the attacks committed against Palestinian human rights defenders.

It urged the Israeli authorities to lift the restrictions faced by humanitarian individuals and groups.

“Despite grave risks and limited resources, child rights defenders have continued to stand with Palestinian children and families in extraordinarily dangerous conditions. They must be protected, not punished,” the committee said.

Israel has cracked down significantly on humanitarian operations in Gaza since the “ceasefire” that began on October 10, banning Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, after it failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff, further depriving Palestinians in the besieged enclave of life-saving assistance.

In February this year, 17 international aid groups petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to be allowed to keep working in the Gaza Strip and other areas in the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli government has planned to halt their life-saving work.

Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wishah dedicated his life to documenting the voices of his people, showcasing their grief, displacement, survival and resilience under Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, before he was killed by an Israeli attack.

An old clip has resurfaced showing Andy Burnham saying Israel would be his first overseas visit if elected as UK Prime Minister. The new MP for Makerfield is under the spotlight amid expectations he’ll challenge Labour leadership. Here’s what he’s previously said about Israel-Palestine.

London, United Kingdom – Activists who gained access to the widely condemned Great Israeli Real Estate Event in London have shared photos with Al Jazeera that show property in illegal settlements being marketed.

The invite-only event, held at Edgware United Synagogue, was part of a roadshow promoting the sale of land and property in Israel, but in reality, these included homes in areas such as Givat Zeev and Tivuch Shelly in the occupied West Bank, as well as settlements in East Jerusalem.

“Exciting new project just 10 minutes from Jerusalem!” read a leaflet advertising homes, “some with pools!” in Maale Adumim, a West Bank settlement illegal under international law.

Isabel, a member of the Jewish Anti-Zionist Action group who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said that the mood at the fair was peaceful and heavily protected, including by plainclothes men fitted with body cameras.

She did not hear any participants mention Palestinians, she said, adding that when it came to the occupied Palestinian territory, real estate agents spoke of “Anglo-communities” where English-speaking people from the United States, the UK and South Africa could relocate to.

She said a popular selling point used by real estate agents was that due to the war on Gaza, it was a good time to buy property in Israel, as prices had dropped and they might be willing to offer a discount.

The atmosphere reminded her of the opening week of university with social chatter, stalls and strangers pushing flyers at attendees.

“Unlike outside the synagogue, where there was lots of protests, it was calm inside with a heavy police presence, [security] people even wearing body cams. The room was all set up with stalls, in what I would describe as like freshers’ fair. On the tables were free pens, chocolates.”

When Isabel spoke with representatives from the Israeli real estate company Harey Zahav, she was shown advertisements for properties in Jerusalem as well as Netanya, a resort city in central Israel.

More than 100 British legislators, including members of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, had signed a letter on Friday urging the government to “uphold its obligations under international law” and ensure the event “promoting illegal activities does not proceed”.

Layla Moran, a British MP of Palestinian descent and one of the letter’s signatories, described the sales as “unacceptable”.

Gaza war could mean discounts, said participants

When Isabel told participants she was interested in something a little quieter, they said in hushed tones that they also had a portfolio of properties in “Judea and Samaria”, the Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.

One representative said that organisers asked them not to advertise properties in these locations. When asked why, he said it was due to these “crazy times” when people wanted to stop purchasing property in Israel.

He said they had all the information packs for those properties, but requested her details so he could send them to her afterwards.

At the stand of Tivuch Shelly, another Israeli real estate company, Isabel said representatives were more reticent to discuss properties in the occupied West Bank, but were openly advertising properties in Givat Hamatos and Ramat Eshkol, two settlements in occupied Jerusalem, on their flyers.

An activist with Jewish Anti-Zionist Action at one point shouted out that “this event sells property on illegally occupied stolen Palestinian land” before he was removed by security.

But the overall mood inside the fair was in sharp contrast to the protests and tense atmosphere outside the event.

In the buildup, rights groups, including Amnesty International, as well as the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, slammed the event for openly advertising the sale of land in illegal Israeli settlements.

Outside, hundreds of protesters shouted slogans and held posters reading, “Stop Israel’s illegal sale of stolen Palestinian land” and “Thou shalt not steal”.

The Metropolitan Police said 15 people were arrested during the demonstrations “for a range of offences, including public order matters”.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has written to Khan, calling for the event to be investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

Khan earlier said he had discussed the event with the London police force and had been told that any allegations of criminality relating to the potentially unlawful sale of property at the fair would be assessed by the Met as part of a probe.

Israeli settlement expansion

Israeli settlers are Israeli citizens who live illegally on Palestinian land.

Israel started building illegal settlements after capturing the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the June 1967 Six-Day War, and now, more than 700,000 settlers – 10 percent of Israel’s population – live in 150 illegal settlements and 128 outposts spread across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The government has openly funded and built settlements, and Israeli authorities give their settlers in the occupied West Bank about $5.6m a year to monitor, report and restrict Palestinian construction in Area C, which is administered solely by Israel and comprises more than 60 percent of the West Bank.

United Nations bodies and most countries view the West Bank settlements as illegal, citing international conventions.

But the US has provided diplomatic cover to Israel for decades, with Washington consistently using its veto power at the UN to protect Israel from diplomatic censure.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel has transferred authority over Hebron to the army. It includes control of the key holy site, Cave of the Patriarchs. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh explains.

Since Israel launched its latest war on Gaza, Palestinian activist Mohammad Hannoun has been a figurehead in demonstrations across Italy.

Wrapped in a keffiyeh and waving the national flag, as head of the Palestinian Association in Italy he delivered impassioned speeches condemning the Italian government’s military cooperation with Israel and demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza.

The 63-year-old Jordanian national, who lives in the port city of Genoa and is an architect by profession, was arrested in December, under the accusation of having raised around 7 million euros ($8.1m) through his non-profit Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (ABSPP) that allegedly ended up in Hamas’s coffers.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed “appreciation and satisfaction” when the so-called “Operation Domino” led to the arrest of nine people, including Hannoun, described by investigators as the “head of the Italian cell of the Hamas organisation”.

But Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation last month demanded a “comprehensive re-evaluation” of the evidence, describing it as too “generic”, according to the ruling seen by Al Jazeera.

The material presented in court consisted of Israeli intelligence sent to Italian authorities, as well as open-source online information whose provenance and reliability had not been established.

Hannoun’s case is not an isolated one.

Last month, Amin Abu Rashid, a Dutch national of Palestinian origin, was acquitted in the Netherlands by the Rotterdam District Court of financing Hamas, after a years-long legal battle landed him in jail for a year. Similarly, the evidence had relied on Israeli government reports and unverified newspaper articles.

The UK-based advocacy organisation CAGE International described Abu Rashid’s acquittal as a “direct rebuke of the use of Israeli intelligence as the basis for prosecuting Palestinian humanitarian organisers in Europe”.

Anas Mustapha, head of public advocacy at CAGE, told Al Jazeera that relying on Israeli evidence to prosecute Palestinians was tantamount to relying on Chinese information to try Hong Kong dissidents.

This practice constitutes a “major threat to the rule of law in Europe”, he said.

“Israeli intelligence is being laundered through European legal systems to suppress Palestinian civil society,” said Mustapha. “The aim is to disrupt and restrict activism and action against the state of Israel.”

‘Battlefield evidence’

Nicola Canestrini, who is among the lawyers representing the nine defendants including Hannoun, liaised with Abu Rashid’s representatives over the course of several months to challenge the use of so-called “battlefield evidence” in both Italian and Dutch courts.

The term refers to evidence collected by military forces during active hostilities or combat operations. Just like a standard crime scene, the collection of this type of evidence under European requirements must be presented with a chain of custody – the chronological documentation of the seizure, transfer, analysis, and storage of the materials.

In Hannoun’s case, the files alleging cooperation between the ABSPP and Hamas’s military wing were not accompanied by a chain of custody, but sent by an Israeli official “whose personal details remain confidential”, according to court documents.

The only indication of their provenance was the word “Avi”, which Canestrini said was later found to mean Israeli intelligence official Avi Abramson.

The evidence purportedly originated from hard drives found in Gaza’s hospitals as they were taken over by Israeli forces, namely in al-Shifa, al-Rantisi and Jabalia, as well as the Maghazi refugee camp and other locations across the Gaza Strip.

United Nations experts and organisations, including Human Rights Watch, have found that Israeli military actions in Gaza, including the forcible displacement of patients from those hospitals, amount to war crimes.

Canestrini and his legal team argued in court that unverifiable evidence collected by a state undergoing trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was inadmissible.

“There’s a short-circuit in the legal system that is very troublesome for the rule of law,” the lawyer told Al Jazeera. “We’re seeing a foreign state under investigation for war crimes and crimes against humanity bringing evidence forward, and Italian authorities copying and pasting it in their reports.”

Additionally, rather than file an arrest warrant through established international cooperation channels, Israel sent the documents through a “spontaneous information exchange”. That measure bypasses oversight mechanisms established by the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) and the UN Military Evidence Guidelines.

“I believe this was done wilfully to avoid checks and balances that guarantee the respect of human rights,” the lawyer said.

Al Jazeera contacted Italian officials Riccardo Perisi, director of the Service for Combatting Extremism and External Terrorism, and District Attorney Marco Zocco, who declined to comment on Hannoun’s case due to ongoing legal proceedings. Avi Abramson, the Israeli intelligence official identified as the source of the evidence, did not respond to requests for comment.

Crackdown on dissent

Palestinian solidarity has been repressed across Europe since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, with protest bans, police violence and a wave of legal prosecution.

According to the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), an independent organisation offering legal assistance to organisations and individuals advocating for Palestine, European states have systematically deployed “counterterrorism” and “public order” measures against Palestine solidarity efforts.

ELSC found a pattern of repression to “demobilise opposition to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians” in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, “advanced through alliances between state actors, Zionist lobby groups, and arms manufacturers”.

In Italy, activities around Palestinian solidarity are increasingly “equated with terrorism,” Italo Di Sabato, the national coordinator of Osservatorio Repressione (Observatory on Repression), an Italian organisation focused on tracking state control and defending the right to protest, told Al Jazeera.

The observatory documented cases in which pro-Palestinian activists were targeted by lawsuits, searches and administrative sanctions. “The objective is stifling any real form of solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Di Sabato said.

He argued that accepting opaque evidence to be used against Hannoun would have created a dangerous legal precedent.

“Israel’s aim was to have a free zone where everything is permitted,” Di Sabato said. “The political meaning of the Supreme Court of Cassation’s ruling is that the rule of law cannot be suspended when we deal with Palestine.

“What today constitutes the basis for the repression of Palestinian activism could tomorrow be the basis for the repression of any form of dissent.”

Israeli attack reportedly kills one person in central Gaza’s Bureij camp, as a disabled Palestinian is shot in the West Bank.

Israeli forces have carried out a deadly attack in a refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Palestinian media reports, as casualties continue to mount in the enclave despite a “ceasefire” declared months ago.

The Israeli drone attack in the Bureij camp on Saturday killed one person and injured two others, reported the Wafa news agency.

The Palestinian Information Center identified the person killed as Muawiya al-Aydi, a local municipality worker.

Further north, a separate Israeli attack injured a person at a gathering in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood, according to Wafa.

Despite a ceasefire technically in effect since October, Israel’s military has regularly attacked Gaza, over half of which is under Israeli military control in defiance of the ceasefire’s terms.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least two Palestinians have been killed and 11 injured in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 48 hours.

The ministry said 983 people have been killed and 3,122 injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire was declared.

Hamas has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the agreement through its continued attacks and by shifting the so-called “Yellow Line” that demarcates Israeli-controlled areas in Gaza.

“Israeli actions reflect its unwillingness to implement the ceasefire agreement and aim to blow up the negotiation track and thwart the efforts being made, while continuing escalation to serve political and electoral considerations,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem on Friday.

Disabled Palestinian shot, injured in West Bank

Israeli troops also carried out a series of violent raids in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, part of a pattern of near-daily operations since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

According to Wafa, Israeli forces deployed stun grenades and tear gas during two separate incidents near Bethlehem, causing numerous injuries: one during a raid on the Dheisheh refugee camp and the other while blocking access to the Solomon’s Pools reservoirs.

A disabled Palestinian man was also shot and injured in the town of Duma, near Hebron.

Wafa said Israeli forces shot the man, while Israeli media cited Israeli police as saying an Israeli settler was responsible. According to Israeli police, the settler felt threatened by the man who was carrying a rock.

Other Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and vandalised property near Bethlehem, including assaulting Palestinian electrical workers and stealing water pipes, said Wafa.

A UK court has sentenced four pro-Palestine activists to jail for a raid on an Israeli arms factory near Bristol in 2024. Palestine Action says their aim was to ‘dismantle drones and weaponry’ they believed would be used to kill people in Gaza.

Israel continues to expand settlements in the occupied territory, which are illegal under international law.

The Israeli government has allocated a first tranche of an expected $388m in new funds for the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The anti-settlement group Peace Now reported on Thursday that the government had allocated 152 million shekels ($51m) to prepare construction plans for 69 illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank.

The cabinet later reportedly postponed a decision about a 1-billion-shekel ($338m) allocation. That proposal, if passed, would mark one of the largest expansions of illegal Israeli settlements in decades.

“The government decided to postpone the decision [on the 1-billion-shekel allocation] and refer it to the Security Cabinet which is expected to convene on Sunday,” Peace Now wrote.

Under the yet-to-be-approved plan, construction for the settlements, including infrastructure and public buildings, would begin despite necessary planning protocols not having been carried out in accord with Israeli law.

Peace Now accused the government of intending to bypass planning and construction regulations.

“October 7 proved that the right-wing approach has failed: the conflict cannot be ‘managed,’ and the Palestinians cannot be ‘defeated’,” the group said in a statement.

“Israel must reach a political solution and diplomatic agreement, but instead the government is only sinking us deeper into the mire and condemning us to many more years of bloody conflict.”

Israel has come under growing condemnation for expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France and Norway imposed sanctions on networks involved in financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence against Palestinians.

According to Peace Now, the current Israeli government has approved 103 settlements since it took office in December 2022. From that figure, 51 are entirely new settlements.

On Wednesday, Amnesty International published a report accusing the Israeli government of playing a central role in what it describes as the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The report described the government’s actions as “integral”.

At least 117 villages in the West Bank have been subject to either complete or partial displacement due to settler attacks, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Amnesty also condemned the upcoming “Great Israeli Real Estate Event”, which is due to take place in London on Sunday.

The event, which has also been held in the United States and Canada, promotes the sale of properties in the occupied West Bank, which campaigners say is in violation of international law.

At a motion for a vote of no confidence against Arwa Elrayess, the first Palestinian president of the University of Oxford’s debating society, Oxford Union, she was accused by a 20-year-old student of contributing to “an atmosphere of hostility and harassment”.

In a video of the forum last week at the prestigious university, which was shared with Al Jazeera, Elrayess is seen replying to Ben Ashworth, “Not just in my career within the union but in my existence as a Palestinian, there seems to always be this post-mortem vilification of Palestinians.”

The room was full of onlookers as Elrayess, who became the head of the Oxford Union late last year, stood tall in a green sequinned dress.

“Palestinians, when they talk, are for some reason a danger. Our very existence is something that is scary,” she added.

The motion was filed after screenshots of text messages from Elrayess were quoted in outlets including The Telegraph and the BBC as saying that the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 was “proportional”.

The text also said groups branded as terrorists were often later “lauded as heroes”.

Ashworth cited the Sunday Telegraph directly in his accusation. The newspaper’s political editor, Camila Turner, whose father serves as chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, had carried the claim that Elrayess said Hamas would be “lauded as heroes”.

But Elrayess did not make any statement of support for Hamas.

Nine months ago – before Elrayess was president – she was in a group chat of students meant to discuss politics.

In the group chat, October 7 and Palestine – and broader conversations on resistance groups – were discussed.

“Analysing something is not giving it moral legitimacy,” she told Al Jazeera. “Even though I described explicitly in all the messages that I’m not describing this as legitimate or morally justified, I’m just providing analysis; all of this was stripped away when it was reported in The Telegraph or the Daily News.”

The full quote in question on the group chat read: “Any resistance group will inevitably be deemed a terrorist organisation by the West until they achieve their liberation, by which time they’ll be lauded as heroes as history has historically proven.”

‘Entirely misquoted’

The messages were not meant as commentary on Hamas specifically, she argued.

“It was entirely misquoted; I believe it was entirely intentional to frame as having said something that I simply did not say,” she told Al Jazeera.

To the Jewish Chronicle, though, Elrayess reiterated her position by saying, “I condemn Hamas’ targeting of innocent civilians, just as I condemn the targeting of innocent civilians by the [Israeli army] or any other actor.”

After refuting the allegation and misquotations, Ashworth is seen in the video yelling at Elrayess, asking whether she condemns Hamas again.

Ashworth, who is not Jewish, has faced criticism for recently visiting Israel with the Pinsker Centre, a think tank formerly known as the Pinsker Centre for Zionist Education.

The motion for a vote of no confidence overwhelmingly failed, receiving 126 votes, 116 of which were online signatures, far below the 150 needed to proceed to a poll.

This is not the first misinformation campaign against Elrayess.

In October 2025, just before her election as president of the debating society, falsified minutes were ratified by an unnamed member of the union, alleging that Elrayess “argues that alumni members shouldn’t be allowed to vote, reiterating her claims that they are incapable of making a rational judgement”.

Elrayess believes that the minutes were made up and spread to “paint me as someone who hates alumni of this institution”.

After an internal disciplinary process, the person who falsified the minutes was suspended from office and the minutes were de-ratified.

Shortly after her win, opposition within the Union brought forward a number of charges against Elrayess, ranging from misuse of social media to antisemitism. In January, it was found that the charges were un-evidenced. By this point, however, Elrayess had lost two months of her presidency.

Alongside this, an article was published in the Oxford Standard alleging that she was related to a leader of Hamas who happened to share the same surname as her, and that she had created and shared a cartoon of herself stepping on a lizard and a hook-nosed anti-Semitic caricature to celebrate her victory.

The claims, again, were false. The cartoon linked to an anonymous meme page that Elrayess had nothing to do with, and she had no family ties to Hamas. The article had no author attributed to it, and the Oxford Standard did not contact Elrayess or reply to her emails, fact-checking the article.

Within days, Elrayess had emails from journalists at The Jerusalem Post, Jewish Chronicle and The Telegraph, asking her to clarify her family affiliation with Hamas and her views of Jewish people, stemming from the stark untruths shared in the nameless Oxford Standard article.

The only cause for the allegations, some have observed, appeared to be Elrayess’s Palestinian identity.

A colleague and friend of Elrayess, who wished to remain unnamed, described to Al Jazeera a sense of distress among Elrayess and her friends.

“The level of attacks that Arwa and her friends received was astounding,” he said.

The Oxford Standard, which no longer exists, deleted both the article and their website altogether. But the rumours they began, with no facts to back them up, have snowballed into national news headlines of Oxford Union’s first Palestinian president being a supporter of Hamas and a proud anti-Semite.

Tweets by prominent Zionist influencers like Eylon Levy, former spokesperson for Israel, sharing the lie that Elrayess is a Hamas heiress, with now-broken Oxford Standard links and no factual corrections.

‘I’m a very proud Palestinian’

Elrayess’s dedication to debate and free speech has brought controversy to her tenure. She invited prominent Israel supporter Tommy Robinson to a debate, triggering widespread protest in Oxford, and has engaged with conservatives and Zionists in her union and her own appointed committee.

Oliver Jones-Lyons, director of finance of the Oxford Union, works alongside Elrayess and describes himself as a “pretty public Zionist”.

Still, despite their diametric positions, Lyons-Jones does not endorse the growing smear campaign against Elrayess.

“I have never felt oppressed, abused or discouraged from sharing my views openly, quite the opposite in fact,” said Jones-Lyons in a statement to Al Jazeera. “Me and Arwa obviously vehemently disagree on a lot of issues; however, our conversations about issues that are deeply personal to both of us have never once been aggressive and have always been productive, in fact I can certainly say Arwa has changed my mind on issues I never thought I would.”

Oxford Union member Oliver Goldstein said, “Personally, I like Arwa. I don’t agree with many of her comments, but do I feel unsafe as a Jewish student at the Oxford Union? No … I don’t think she’s an anti-Semite.”

Despite the inundation of misinformation, Elrayess remains determined.

“My father is from Gaza,” she said. “He would always tell me, ‘It doesn’t really matter what you say or do not say; people will always find a way to spin it in such a way that you become a target, because you’re already a target.”

She said she lives by her father’s words.

“I’m not resigning from my position. They can throw 1,000 different letters in 1,000 different articles. I’m very vocal, and I’m a very proud Palestinian.”