Occupied

Israel is holding a record 360 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank in its prisons, many without charge or trial, in what rights groups call a system of control and abuse. Families say the detentions, marked by torture and neglect, are meant to crush Palestinians.

While the world talks of a Palestinian state, Israel is quietly playing a different game to surround, slice up and claim the West Bank.

Piece by piece, Israel is playing out strategies first perfected in the ancient Chinese game of Go.

The Israeli parliament has voted to annex the occupied West Bank – a move unlikely to become law but described as an “insult” by United States Vice President JD Vance.

President Donald Trump insists annexation won’t happen, but Israeli settler violence is escalating.

So are US-Israeli relations in upheaval?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and Consul General in New York

Mark Pfeifle – Republican strategist and president of Off the Record Strategies

Gideon Levy – Columnist at Haaretz newspaper and author of “The Punishment of Gaza”

It has been a week since the ceasefire was announced in Gaza. When we heard the news in the occupied West Bank, we celebrated. We felt relief and hope that the genocide is finally over. But we also realised that there is no ceasefire for us.

The daily violence we have been subjected to for decades is showing no signs of abating. Since October 7, 2023, the brutality of our occupier has only intensified. Today, life in the West Bank has become almost impossible.

Violence, dispossession and paralysis

After the ceasefire deal was announced, a friend’s little daughter cheered; she then asked to go with her grandparents to pick olives. He told her that it would be difficult to do, to which she responded, “Why? Isn’t the war over?”

How do you explain to a child that the war ending in Gaza does not mean Palestinian families in the West Bank still can access their land to harvest olives? People still cannot reach their groves because of barriers set up by the Israeli military or they fear attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers, or both.

There are daily violent assaults on Palestinian farmers and their land. Since October 7, 2023, there have been 7,154 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestian people and property – some of them deadly.

Almost 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and settler mobs, including 212 children; more than 10,000 Palestinians have been displaced. Settlers and soldiers have destroyed 37,237 olive trees since October 7, 2023.

Even life in urban areas has become unbearable.

As a resident of Rawabi, a city north of Ramallah, I, too, feel the suffocation of the occupation every day.

If I need to travel outside my city to run errands, shop, obtain official paperwork, or anything else, I could get stuck at a checkpoint for hours and never make it to my destination. There are four iron gates, a military tower, and a barrier between Rawabi and Ramallah; they can make the 10-minute trip between Rawabi and Ramallah last an eternity.

Throughout the West Bank, there are 916 Israeli barriers, barriers and iron gates, 243 of which were constructed after October 7, 2023. These open and close at the Israeli army’s whim, meaning a Palestinian can get stuck at one barrier for hours. This disrupts every aspect of life – from family visits to urgent medical care to school attendance and transportation of goods.

We have also been denied access to Jerusalem and thus our freedom of worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Few Palestinians are given the special permits needed to enter the city. We last had access to Jerusalem more than 20 years ago. This means an entire generation of young people know nothing about the city except from the pictures and stories told by their parents and grandparents.

Even at night, the Palestinians are not left alone by the occupation. Any Palestinian home may be subject to a raid by the Israeli army, with soldiers breaking the front door, terrorising the family inside and detaining without charge some of its members. Neighbours would, too, be terrorised with Israeli soldiers firing tear gas canisters for no reason, just to cause more suffering.

The right to a normal life—to worship, to spend quality time with friends and family, to move freely, to access regular medical care and education —are all denied to the Palestinians in the West Bank.

The spectre of annexation

Over the decades since the occupation of 1967, Israel has managed to control almost half of the land of the West Bank. It has done so by constructing settlements and confiscating land from its Palestinian owners by declaring it either “state land” or “military zone”. The theft of Palestinian land accelerated after October 7; at least 12,300 acres (4,9787 hectares) were seized in two years.

In many cases, confiscated land is used to establish new settlement outposts or to expand existing settlements.

Settlement construction in the West Bank is not random. Rather, land is selected in a way that encircles Palestinian villages and towns, creating a settlement belt around them that prevents any form of geographical continuity between Palestinian territories, thus thwarting the dream of a future state.

To maintain these illegal settlements, Israel has also laid its hands on the West Bank’s natural resources. It has seized almost all water resources. This has ensured a massive water reservoir in the West Bank to serve the settlement expansion.

For the Palestinians, this has been disastrous. They are now almost completely dependent on Israeli water company “Mekorot”, which gives very small quotas of water to densely populated Palestinian areas, while settlers receive several times the Palestinian share per capita.

Every summer, when drought settles in, Palestinians are forced to buy extra water at exorbitant prices from Mekorot. Meanwhile, Palestinian wells and rain water tanks are often attacked and destroyed.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli government has accelerated its efforts to carry out annexation. We feel that the seizure of Area C – an area established by the Oslo Accords where Israel has full civilian and security control – is imminent. This would mean razing Palestinian villages and communities and expelling people towards Area A, which constitutes just 18 percent of the West Bank. Area B will follow. The process of forced expulsion has already started with Bedouin communities in the two areas.

This is our reality here in the West Bank. While peace conferences and meetings were held and peace in the Middle East is declared, we know nothing of it. Every day, every hour, every minute, we are harassed, intimidated, dispossessed and killed.

For decades, Israel has rejected political solutions and pursued a policy of controlling land, people, and resources. It has continued to wage war on us even when its bombardment has stopped. The only way to achieve true peace is to acknowledge the occupation and end it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

United States President Donald Trump has said that Israel cannot annex the occupied West Bank, a statement that puts him firmly at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his ultranationalist government who have been pressing for annexation of the Palestinian territory.

Trump made his surprise remarks while speaking to reporters on Thursday, ahead of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arrival in the US to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday.

“ I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope. I will not allow. It’s not gonna happen,” Trump said.

Asked whether he had discussed his plans to block any Israeli annexation attempts with Netanyahu, Trump was noncommittal.

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna allow it. Whether I spoke to him or not, I’m not allowing Israel to annex the West Bank. There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now, OK?” the US president said.

Trump did not offer details of what actions he would take to prevent the possible annexation of the occupied West Bank, and analysts questioned whether the notoriously capricious US leader would change his mind.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mouin Rabbani, an analyst and non-resident fellow at the Qatar-based Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, said Trump’s statement was a “positive” development, but he questioned whether the President would “follow through”.

“One attaches value to Trump’s words at their own peril,” Rabbani said.

“So the question now becomes, is he going to ensure that Israel does not annex the West Bank, and if it does, what will he do about it? Will his mind perhaps be changed by another conversation that he has?”

Trump’s comments potentially place his administration on a collision course with the far-right Israeli government led by Netanyahu, members of which have made the annexation of the occupied West Bank and Gaza a formal political goal.

In July, Israeli lawmakers voted 71-to-13 in favour of a non-binding motion in the Knesset calling for the annexation of the West Bank.

The proposal was initially brought by Israel’s finance minister and far-right political leader, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank and holds a position within Israel’s Ministry of Defence where he oversees the administration of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Smotrich and other far-right members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition have also voiced staunch opposition to efforts to reach a deal to end Israel’s war on Gaza, even threatening to topple the government if an agreement is reached.

In advance of Australia, France, Britain, Canada, Portugal and other countries moving to recognise Palestinian statehood, Smotrich unveiled a plan allowing for the construction of thousands of homes in a controversial illegal settlement that bisects the occupied West Bank.

The massive settlement expansion on occupied land, when completed, “finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise”, he said in August.

“Anyone in the world who tries today to recognise a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground,” he added.

Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank has been ongoing since 1967, stretching deep into Palestinian territory and carving up the landscape thanks to a network of roads and other infrastructure controlled by the Israeli government and military.

The International Court of Justice ruled in July 2024 that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal and must be discontinued and the land returned to Palestinians.

Israel has been a cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government is heavily dependent on financial, military and intelligence support from the US to maintain its ongoing campaign in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and parts of Lebanon and Syria.

Any reversal of US policy could trigger a political crisis in Israel, particularly among the far-right parties who make up Netanyahu’s coalition government.

Referring to Gaza briefly on Thursday, Trump described the overall situation as “really bad, very bad”.

Despite suggesting a peace deal could happen “soon”, Trump offered no details or clarity except to say that “very, really good talks” had been held with leaders of Arab states and Netanyahu.

Earlier this week, Trump met with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss ending Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza.

Israeli forces arrested a Palestinian student, Baraa Jamal Karama, during a raid on her home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. In the footage, a soldier shushes her as she calls out, while another points his gun at the person filming.

Israeli action in Tulkarem city comes as Palestinians have been subjected to ‘collective punishment’ in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces have detained more than 100 Palestinians in raids on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem and have imposed a curfew, Al Jazeera Arabic reports, as the Israeli offensive in Gaza City has forced more than 200,000 Palestinians to flee the largest urban center in the enclave.

As reported earlier, Israel’s military has been conducting raids in Tulkarem after it said two Israeli soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was “hit by an explosive device“.

Soldiers stormed shops and cafes, detaining patrons, as well as residents in their vehicles, forcing them to march in line towards an Israeli military checkpoint, a WAFA correspondent reported.

Israeli forces launched a campaign of violence in the occupied West Bank after six people were killed in a shooting attack in occupied East Jerusalem earlier this week. Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the shooting, in which both suspects were killed.

In response, Israel ordered the demolition of the homes of the two suspects, as well as sanctions on their family members and residents of their towns, Qatanna and al-Qubeiba, northwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank.

“There has been a complete siege and lockdown of these areas,” Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said on Tuesday following the shooting. “Collective punishment is in full swing in the occupied West Bank.”

Israel’s growing crackdown in the West Bank

Israel has launched a crackdown on the occupied West Bank since it launched its devastating war on Gaza, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians, arresting thousands, and demolishing hundreds of homes and civic infrastructure. Even before the October 7, 2023, attack inside Israel by the Hamas-led Palestinian groups, Israeli military and settler violence was at its highest in years.

Israel’s military operation has fuelled the forced displacement of more than 40,000 Palestinians.

“Israel’s deadly military operation in the occupied West Bank, unfolding in the horrific shadow of its ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip, has had catastrophic consequences for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians who are facing a rapidly escalating crisis with no foreseeable prospects of return. Unlawful transfer of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, said in a statement on June 5.

As well as the Israeli military actions against Palestinians, violence by Israeli settlers spiked during the war on Gaza. At least 1,860 incidents of settler violence in the occupied West Bank were recorded between October 7, 2023, and December 31, 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The rise of far-right leaders to power has pushed Israel further towards right, with politicians at the highest levels, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, openly indulging in anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

“We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Netanyahu reiterated at an event in Maale Adumim, an illegal Israeli settlement just east of Jerusalem, on Thursday.

“We are going to double the city’s population.”

All the settlements are considered illegal under international law and are considered the biggest hurdle in the resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Last September, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling on Israel to end its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories within a year. Still, Israel has since expanded its settlements in complete disregard of international laws and norms.

Issa Amro lives in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. He never knows how far he can venture out of his neighbourhood, due to attacks by Israeli settlers and random checkpoint closures. His video diary shows the challenges Palestinians living in Hebron face as settlers try to take their land, supported by the Israeli state and military.

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank amid a sharp escalation of violence, following the country’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call this week to take over most of the territory.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the dead man as Ahmed Shehadeh, 57, saying he was killed on Friday by “occupation bullets” near the al-Murabba’a checkpoint south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian news agency Wafa cited Amid Ahmed, director of the Red Crescent’s Emergency and Ambulance Centre in Nablus, as saying Israeli soldiers prevented his crew from reaching the site of the shooting.

The Israeli military claimed in a statement that a man had “hurled a suspicious object” at soldiers operating near the checkpoint, after which they “eliminated” him.

Further south, troops carried out multiple raids in Bethlehem, with soldiers entering the Khalayel al-Louz area southeast of the city and setting up a military checkpoint, according to Wafa.

The news agency also reported raids on the villages of Artas and al-Ubayyat, where soldiers tore down posters of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.

In parallel, Israeli settlers wielding knives and sticks stormed the village of Khallet al-Dabaa in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron, injuring 20 people, including a three-month-old infant.

Palestinian activist Osama al-Makhmara told the Anadolu news agency that the injuries ranged from bruises and fractures to stab wounds, claiming that nine people were taken to hospital for treatment.

Four months ago, Israeli authorities demolished 25 homes, agricultural structures and water wells in the village, citing “unlicensed construction”.

Israel’s drive to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank was given renewed impetus by far-right finance minister and settler leader Smotrich, who said on Wednesday that Israel should annex roughly 82 percent of the West Bank.

Smotrich said he wanted “maximum territory and minimum [Palestinian] population” to be brought under Israeli sovereignty, “to remove, once and for all, a Palestinian state from the agenda”.

More than 700,000 settlers, or 10 percent of Israel’s population, live in 150 illegal settlements and 128 outposts spread across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Xavier Abu Eid, former communications director for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Al Jazeera that Israeli flags and settlements were now visible across the 30-40km (18-25 miles) between Ramallah and Nablus.

“Clearly, the maps that were presented by Smotrich are being designed on the ground by settlers and the Israeli army,” he said.

‘Too little, too late’

Smotrich launched his maximalist campaign as France, Britain, Belgium, Australia and Canada pledged to formally recognise a Palestinian state during the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month.

The diplomatic push comes as Israel mounts its full-scale offensive on Gaza City as part of takeover plans for the entire enclave, while accelerating its West Bank annexation plans in the background.

On Friday, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen announced on X that her country would join the growing international drive for a two-state solution, which is being spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia. She called it “the most significant international effort in years to create the conditions for a two-state solution”.

The previous day, Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo adopted a resolution saying that peaceful coexistence in the Middle East cannot be achieved while Israel “issues implicit threats to occupy or annex further Arab lands”.

The League said any lasting settlement must be based on a two-state solution and the 2022 Arab Peace Initiative, which offers a full normalisation of relations in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967.

But the PLO’s Abu Eid told Al Jazeera that time was running out. “Many people feel that there is no longer a two-state solution to speak about, and perhaps this late international response recognising the state of Palestine is once again seen as too little, too late,” he said.

Mass arrests

As Israel grabs more Palestinian territory in the West Bank, its forces have ramped up their campaign of mass arrests, detaining at least 70 people across dozens of villages over the past week.

Wafa reported arrests in the town of Haris, near Salfit, where village council head Omar Samara, deputy head of the village council Tayseer Kulaib, and a “large number of villagers” were detained.

Troops also arrested a man in Qalqilya city as they raided family homes.

Israeli prison conditions for Palestinians have long been described by rights groups as harsh and degrading, with reports of medical neglect and abuse.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office issued a statement on Bilal Barghouti, a 39-year-old from Beit Rima serving a life sentence in Israel’s Gilboa prison, describing the conditions in which he was being kept as “slow murder and systematic torture”.

Former detainees have said Barghouti, who suffers from a range of chronic illnesses, has lost a lot of weight, has been barred from visits, and subjected to beatings, insults and scalding with hot water.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Friday that Israeli forces had made more than 19,000 arrests – including at least 585 women and 1,550 children – across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the war on Gaza started.

It said the figure does not include arrests in Gaza itself, where the number is believed to be in the thousands, according to its statement carried by news agency Wafa.

The society also reported 77 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody, including 46 from Gaza. The bodies of 74 of those who died remain withheld by Israel, alongside at least 85 other prisoners whose remains are being kept from their families.

The United Arab Emirates warned Wednesday that Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank would cross a “red line,” and end “the vision of regional integration,” Anadolu reports.

“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace,” Emirati Special Envoy Lana Nusseibeh told The Times of Israel news outlet.

“It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” she said.

In 2020, the UAE signed US-sponsored agreements with Israel to normalize their relations. Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco also followed suit.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said early Wednesday that Israel plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“Israeli sovereignty will be applied to 82% of the territory,” Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told a press conference in Jerusalem.

The far-right minister called the West Bank annexation “a preventative step” against moves by many countries to recognize Palestinian statehood.

READ: Russia urges Israel to abandon E1 settlement plan, warning it threatens two-state solution

Several countries, including Belgium, France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood during the upcoming meetings of the UN General Assembly on Sept. 8-23, joining 147 nations that already do.

On Aug. 20, Israel approved a major settlement project, called E1, which aims to split the occupied West Bank into two parts, cutting off the northern cities of Ramallah and Nablus from Bethlehem and Hebron in the south and isolating East Jerusalem.

The international community, including the UN, considers the Israeli settlements illegal under international law. The UN has repeatedly warned that continued settlement expansion threatens the viability of a two-state solution, a framework seen as key to resolving the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In an advisory opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

READ: Israel launches 2nd phase of offensive to occupy Gaza City

More settler attacks also take place across the territory, with a Palestinian husband and wife hurt in the violence.

The Israeli army has carried out raids and arrests across the occupied West Bank, with incidents reported in the cities of Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah.

Multiple Palestinians were detained in the territory on Sunday, according to the Wafa news agency, including a child and a young man in the town of Yabad.

Reports suggested that a 37-year-old man was also arrested in the town of Beit Fajjar, while a 25-year-old man was taken into Israeli custody in the town of Nilin near Ramallah.

Several raids took place in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, just days after Israel launched a prolonged raid in the area that injured at least 58 people.

Israeli soldiers were also present in the towns of Kafr Malek, Nilin and Deir Qaddis, but did not make any arrests.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, intense and continuous gunfire broke out south of Hebron, as shown by online videos verified by Al Jazeera.

Wafa said that five Palestinians, including a girl, were injured by Israeli bullets and taken to hospital for treatment.

Israeli soldiers also allegedly fired live ammunition in the northern village of Sarra and the town of Sebastia, but no injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, a settler attack left a Palestinian man and his wife with injuries in Khallet al-Daba village in Masafer Yatta.

Israeli settlers also attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Kisan near Bethlehem.

The Wafa news agency reports that the settlers broke into Palestinian properties and looted them, while receiving protection from the Israeli army.

In the first eight months of the year, more than 1,000 Israeli settler attacks have been recorded in the occupied West Bank that caused injuries, property damage or both, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Settlers rampage on Palestinian land on a daily basis, with impunity and backed by the Israeli military.

Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, across the region since October 2023, according to OCHA.

As well as the Israeli raids and the settler attacks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said that Israeli authorities had engaged in unauthorised excavation and demolition operations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

“These operations deliberately target Islamic antiquities dating back to the Umayyad period, which stand as living witnesses and irrefutable evidence of Muslims’ rightful claim to the site,” the PA’s Jerusalem governorate said in a statement.

It said that Israel intends to remove the site’s Muslim history to build a Jewish temple there in the future.

“This reality definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state.” Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced a plan to effectively split the occupied West Bank in half, approving thousands of new Jewish settler homes between occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement.

The far-right minister said he will approve 3,000 new homes in the controversial E1 area project, hailing it as ‘Zionism at its best’.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced he will approve thousands of housing units in a highly controversial and long-delayed illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank, saying the move “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Smotrich announced his intention to approve tenders to build more than 3,000 homes in the E1 area settlement project that would connect Jerusalem and the existing Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, located several kilometres to the east.

“Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan that we began implementing with the establishment of the government,” he said.

Smotrich, who is also a minister in Israel’s Ministry of Defence with broad responsibility for approving settlements in the occupied West Bank, hailed the project as “Zionism at its best”.

“After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Maale Adumim to Jerusalem,” Smotrich added.

Israel Gantz, chairman of the Yesha Council – an umbrella organisation of illegal settlements in the West Bank – and head of the Binyamin Regional Council, also praised the “tremendous and historic achievement for the settlement movement”, according to Israel National News.

Gantz said it was a “true revolution in strengthening the settlement enterprise”, the outlet said.

Development of the E1 settlement – which is illegal under international law – has been frozen for decades.

Observers believe that its location will hinder the realisation of a future Palestinian state.

The planned settlement would effectively divide the occupied West Bank into northern and southern regions, preventing the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian territory connecting occupied East Jerusalem to major cities such as Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Israel postponed the plan in 2022 following US pressure. But in recent months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has approved road-widening projects in the area and begun restricting Palestinian access.

Maale Adumim mayor Guy Yifrach praised the new settlement, saying it will “connect Maale Adumim to Jerusalem and serve as a Zionist response of settlement and nation-building”.

“The Palestinians aimed to establish a stranglehold through illegal construction – this project will thwart that effort,” he said, according to Israel National News.

On Wednesday, Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said a total of 4,030 new housing units had been approved in the occupied West Bank.

Some 730 are west of the existing Israeli settlement of Ariel, while 3,300 had been approved in a new Maale Adumim neighbourhood that will connect it “with the industrial zone to its east”.

“The 3,300 housing units in Maale Adumim represent an increase of about 33 percent in the settlement’s housing stock – an enormous expansion for a settlement whose population has been stagnant at around 38,000 for the past decade,” it said.

It added that the Maale Adumim extension raised “serious questions about the need for the E1 plan”.

A Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank has been shot dead by an Israeli settler during a land-leveling operation in the village Duma. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim explains how the killing of 35-year-old Thamin Dawabsheh is part of a growing pattern.

Israeli authorities are moving forward with plans to dramatically expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite growing international condemnation and warnings that the move would destroy already moribund prospects for a two-state solution.

The Israeli government has set Wednesday as the date to discuss building thousands of new housing units in the E1 area, east of occupied East Jerusalem. The proposed expansion would link the large and illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement with Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank and isolating Palestinian communities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government also appears on the cusp of announcing its intention to occupy all of Gaza as its genocidal war on the besieged enclave rages on.

The E1 plan in the West Bank has long been criticised by the international community, including the European Union and successive United States administrations. In 2022, Israel postponed the plan following US pressure, but in recent months, the government approved road-widening projects in the area and began restricting Palestinian access – a move rights groups say indicates a renewed push to entrench control.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the top United Nations tribunal, reaffirmed that position last year, saying that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.

On Monday, Germany reiterated its strong opposition to the E1 project.

“We, as the federal government, strongly reject the E1 settlement project,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer said. “What we are concerned about is that a two-state solution is possible in the long term.”

The plan would see nearly 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) of Palestinian land stolen to build more than 4,000 settlement units, as well as hotels and roads connecting Ma’ale Adumim to West Jerusalem.

Palestinians say the project is part of broader efforts to “Judaise” East Jerusalem and entrench Israeli control over occupied territories in violation of international law.

Palestinian leaders seek the entirety of the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, and as a capital, East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in the 1967 war – for their future state.

Currently, more than 500,000 settlers are living in the West Bank, and some 220,000 others in East Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said the plan has been in the works since “the early 90s”.

“The plan has been described by US officials … as devastating and a disastrous plan,” Ibrahim said, as it threatens “the unity” of a potential Palestinian state.

According to Ibrahim, the Israeli objective is to ensure there is “no Palestinian state on the ground” by the time Western and European countries recognise Palestine as a state.

Israel would be “cutting the West Bank into so many different sections, fragmenting them, creating what Palestinians have been calling as cantons,” she said, predicting that his would push Palestinians into “very small, caged communities”.

Widening crackdown in the West Bank

The move comes amid a broader Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank. At least 30 Palestinians were arrested overnight across multiple cities including Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Among those detained were two women, a female journalist, and several former prisoners. The commission said more than 18,500 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023.

In Bethlehem, residents of Beit Iskaria village received forced displacement notices this week as Israeli forces moved to seize more land for settlement expansion in the Gush Etzion bloc. According to village council head Muhammad Atallah, soldiers ordered him and his family to vacate grapevine-covered farmland within 10 days.

Separately, Israeli forces carried out demolitions in the agricultural suburb near Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah, with reports that soldiers were accompanied by settlers. In Dar Salah, east of Bethlehem, a building under construction was demolished by Israeli military vehicles.

According to rights groups, July alone saw 75 demolitions in the West Bank targeting 122 structures, including 60 homes and dozens of agricultural and livelihood facilities.

Along with arrests and demolitions, Palestinians have also seen a rise in settler attacks in recent months. Armed settlers, often backed by Israeli soldiers, have rampaged through Palestinian villages, torched crops, vandalised homes, and assaulted residents with impunity, resulting in several Palestinian deaths.

Rights groups and United Nations officials have warned that settler violence has reached record levels, part of what they describe as a coordinated campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians from key areas of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities issued a six-month ban on Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territory, from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to the Wafa news agency, the Jerusalem governorate, quoting lawyer Khaldoun Najm, said the ban on Hussein follows the expiration of his eight-day ban.

This most recent ban was imposed after his Friday sermon, where he condemned Israel’s starvation policy against Palestinians in Gaza.

Last week, Hussein was handed an initial eight-day expulsion order from the mosque.

Moscow says Israeli troops did not intervene as settlers attacked a Russian diplomatic vehicle and verbally threatened diplomats.

Moscow has lodged a formal complaint with Israel over an attack by Israeli settlers on a Russian diplomatic vehicle near an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday that Moscow considered the attack a “gross violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961”, and expressed “bewilderment and disapproval” that the attack “occurred with the connivance of Israeli military personnel”.

According to Zakharova, the vehicle belonging to Russia’s representation to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and bearing diplomatic registration plates was attacked on July 30 near the “illegal Israeli settlement of Giv’at Asaf”, located east of Ramallah and some 20km (12 miles) north of Jerusalem, by a group of settlers.

“The vehicle sustained mechanical damage. The attack was accompanied by verbal threats directed at the Russian diplomats,” the spokeswoman said, adding that Israeli soldiers present “did not even bother to stop the aggressive actions of the attackers”.

According to reports in Russian media, the vehicle came under attack while carrying members of Russia’s diplomatic mission to the PA, who are also accredited with Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

The Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv has sent a demarche letter to Israeli authorities, Zakharova added.

Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, raised the attack on the diplomatic vehicle at a UN Security Council session on Tuesday focused on Israeli captives in Gaza.

Polyansky said the attack on Russia’s vehicle in the occupied West Bank comes at a time when “Israeli authorities have embraced the policy of cleansing and colonising” the Palestinian territory.

“It is ordinary Palestinians and even foreigners who every day become victims of relentless raids by security forces and settler violence,” Russia’s UN representative said.

The “attack on an official vehicle of the Russian Mission to the Palestinian Authority” was carried out “under the lenient eye of the Israeli military”, he said.

“It is clear that a systematic policy of exiling Palestinians – whether from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank – is fraught with new risks and dangers for stability and security in the Middle East and could once again bring the region to the brink of a major war,” he added.

Violent attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank have surged since October 2023, with the UN reporting that almost 650 Palestinians – including 121 children – have been killed in the territory by Israeli forces and settlers between January 1, 2024 and the start of July 2025.

A further 5,269 Palestinians were injured during that period, including 1,029 children. Settler attacks alone accounted for more than 2,200 casualties and cases of damage to property, the UN said.

More than 60 Palestinian women are staging a hunger strike to demand the release of the body of Palestinian activist and English teacher Awdah Hathaleen, who was shot dead last week in the village of Umm al-Kheir, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Two women have received medical treatment as a result of the collective action, which started on Thursday.

The group is demanding the unconditional release of the body of the 31-year-old community leader who co-directed No Other Land, a documentary film that won an Oscar award this year. Israeli police set several conditions, including holding a quick and quiet burial at night outside the village, with no more than 15 people in attendance.

The protesters are also demanding the release of seven Umm al-Kheir residents arrested by Israeli forces who remain in administrative detention – a quasi-judicial process under which Palestinians are held without charge or trial.

Umm al-Kheir is part of Masafer Yatta, a string of Palestinian hamlets located on the hills south of Hebron, where residents have fought for decades to remain in their homes after Israel declared the area an Israeli military “firing” or training zone.

Iman Hathaleen, Awdah’s cousin, said women aged 13 to 70 were taking part in the hunger strike. “Now, as I’m talking, I am starving and I am breastfeeding,” she told Al Jazeera. “We will continue this until they release the body, so that we can honour him with the right Islamic tradition. We have to grieve him as our religion told us to.”

Awdah was taken by an ambulance to Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva on July 28, where he was pronounced dead after having been shot by an Israeli settler. The police transferred his body to the Abu Kabir National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Jaffa for an autopsy, which was completed on Wednesday. They then refused to return the body unless the family agreed to restrictive conditions on the funeral and burial.

‘A tactic to break their spirit’

Fathi Nimer, a researcher at the Al-Shabaka think tank, said Israel’s policy of withholding the body of a Palestinian was common practice. “This is not an isolated incident; there are hundreds of Palestinians whose bodies are used as bargaining chips so that their families stop any kind of activism or resistance or to break the spirit of resistance,” Nimer told Al Jazeera.

“Awdah was very loved in the village, so this is a tactic to break their spirit,” he added.

Meanwhile, Yinon Levi, the Israeli settler accused of firing the deadly shots, was released after spending a few days on house arrest. A video of the incident filmed by local activists shows Levi opening fire on Awdah, who died from a gunshot wound to his chest.

An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy. pic.twitter.com/xH1Uo6L1wN

— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025

Residents in Umm al-Kheir on Monday documented Levi’s return to the area. Pictures shared on social media groups depicted him overseeing bulldozing work alongside army officers at the nearby Carmel settlement.

Levi is among several Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank who were previously sanctioned under the former administration of United States President Joe Biden for perpetrating violence against Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump reversed those sanctions in an executive order shortly after taking office for a second term in January. The United Kingdom and the European Union, however, maintain sanctions against Levi.

Nimer said sanctions against individuals do little to stop settler violence and the expansion of Israel’s illegal outposts. “It’s not just individuals – there needs to be real international action to sanction Israel and to stop any of this kind of behaviour,” he said.

A ‘continuous trauma’

Iman, Awdah’s cousin, said Levi’s return makes her worried about her family’s safety. “Today, we are afraid that he’s back and can do this again, maybe he will shoot someone else,” she told Al Jazeera. Her father, Suleiman Hathaleen, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2022.

Oneg Ben Dror, a Jaffa-based activist and friend of the Hathaleen family, said the hunger strike was a desperate gesture for a community that has lost all hope of obtaining justice via legal means.

“The women feel that it’s their way to protest, it’s a last resort to bring back the body,” she said. “The community needs the possibility to mourn and… start the recovery from this horrible murder.”

She added that the presence of Levi and other settlers on the ground in Umm al-Kheir was a “continuous trauma and a nightmare for the community and for his wife”, who has been widowed while caring for three young children.

Dozens of left-wing Israeli and international activists on Sunday took part in a march in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to echo the demands voiced by the hunger strikers. Four activists were arrested during the demonstrations.

The United Nations office has reported 757 settler attacks on Palestinians since January, up 13 percent from 2024, as deaths since January near 1,000.

The Israeli army has also intensified raids across the occupied West Bank and the demolition of hundreds of homes. On Monday, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin. The Israeli municipality also issued a demolition order targeting the home of Palestinian residents in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian authorities say 198 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, while 538 were killed in 2024. At least 188 bodies are still being withheld by Israeli authorities.

Khamis Ayyad, 40, died of smoke inhalation after settlers set fire to vehicles in town of Silwad, Health Ministry says.

A Palestinian man has been killed after Israeli settlers set fire to vehicles and homes in a town in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says.

The ministry said on Thursday that Khamis Ayyad, 40, died due to smoke inhalation after settlers attacked Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, around dawn. Ayyad and others had been trying to extinguish the fires, local residents said.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the settlers also attacked the nearby villages of Khirbet Abu Falah and Rammun, setting fire to more vehicles.

A relative of Ayyad’s, and a resident of Silwad, said they woke up at 2am (23:00 GMT) to see “flames devouring vehicles across the neighbourhood”.

“The townspeople panicked and rushed to extinguish the fires engulfing the cars and buildings,” they said, explaining that Ayyad had been trying to put out a fire burning his brother’s car.

Ayyad’s death comes amid burgeoning Israeli settler and military violence across the West Bank in tandem with Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

Settlers have been attacking Palestinians and their property with impunity, backed by the Israeli army.

Earlier this week, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian from Masafer Yatta, the community whose resistance to Israeli settler violence was documented in the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, with which he helped, was killed by an Israeli settler.

The suspect, identified as Yinon Levi, was placed under house arrest on Tuesday after a Magistrate Court in Jerusalem declined to keep him in custody.

According to the latest data from the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), at least 159 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank between January 1 and July 21 of this year.

Hundreds of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have also been reported so far in 2025, including at least 27 incidents that resulted in casualties, property damage, or both, between July 15 and 21, OCHA said.

Observers have warned that the uptick in Israeli violence aims to forcibly displace Palestinians and pave the way for Israel to formally annex the territory, as tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes in recent months across the West Bank.

Earlier this month, the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – overwhelmingly voted in favour of a symbolic motion calling for Israel to annex the West Bank.

On Thursday, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that “there is a moment of opportunity that must not be missed” to exert Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, according to a Times of Israel report.

“Ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the statement said, using a term used by Israeli settlers and their supporters to refer to the occupied Palestinian territory.

Back in Silwad, Raafat Hussein Hamed, a resident whose house was torched in Thursday’s attack, said that the settlers “burned whatever they could and then ran away”.

Hamed told the AFP news agency that the attackers “come from an outpost”, referring to an Israeli settlement that, in addition to violating international law, is also illegal under Israeli law.

The Israeli military told AFP that “several suspects … set fire to property and vehicles in the Silwad area”, but forces dispatched to the scene were unable to identify them. It added that Israeli police had launched an investigation.

Two Palestinian teenage boys have been killed by Israeli forces in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency, in the latest deadly violence in the territory continuing in tandem with Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The bodies of 15-year-old Ahmad Ali Asaad Ashira al-Salah and 17-year-old Muhammad Khaled Alian Issa, who were killed at dawn, were withheld by the Israeli army, the report said, adding that two more children were also injured in the gunfire.

The deadly incident came as Israeli forces arrested at least 25 Palestinians in multiple raids across the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa.

The arrests include 10 Palestinians in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron; two in the town of Idhna, west of Hebron; three in the town of Dura al-Qari, north of Ramallah; one in the city of Ramallah; five in the village of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah; and four in the city of Nablus.

‘Making Palestinian lives impossible’

Since the start of the war on Gaza, Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank has escalated dramatically, with near-daily reports of mass arrests, killings and Israeli settler attacks, often supported by Israeli soldiers. Settlers have been rampaging with impunity, attacking and killing Palestinian civilians and burning their properties and olive groves.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 948 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli soldiers since October 7, 2023. Of that figure, at least 204 are children.

Meanwhile, from the beginning of 2024 until the end of June 2025, more than 2,200 Israeli settler attacks were reported, resulting in more than 5,200 Palestinian injuries, according to OCHA figures. In that same period, nearly 36,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced across the occupied West Bank due to Israeli military operations, settler violence or home demolitions carried out by the Israeli government.

The Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank is part of the Israeli government’s strategy for preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, according to Amjad Abu El Ezz, a lecturer of international relations at the Arab American University.

The increased number of killings, and the destruction of Palestinian homes and vehicles by Israeli settlers in coordination with the Israeli army, aim to encourage Palestinians to leave their land, Abu El Ezz told Al Jazeera from Ramallah.

Israel is weakening the governing Palestinian Authority, “making Palestinian lives impossible”, while at the same time “building Israeli facts on the ground” to prevent the Palestinians from building their own state, he added.

“We are talking about more than 700,000 Israeli settlers. They have weapons, they are acting as an army in parallel to the Israeli army,” Abu El Ezz said.

On Wednesday, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Knesset lawmakers voted 71-13 in favour of the motion on Wednesday, a non-binding vote which calls for “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” – the Israeli terms for the area.

The motion, advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, is declarative and has no direct legal implications, though it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates in the parliament.

The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement has called the Israeli parliament’s non-binding vote on the annexation of the occupied West Bank a “dangerous escalation”.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said the move was a “clear disregard for the international community” and a way for Israel to implement “its criminal plans targeting the land of Palestine and its people”.

The West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Since then, Israeli settlements have expanded exponentially, despite being illegal under international law and, in the case of settlement outposts, Israeli law.

Knesset lawmakers vote 71-13 in favour of annexation, raising questions about the future of a Palestinian state.

Israel’s parliament has approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Knesset lawmakers voted 71-13 in favour of the motion on Wednesday, a non-binding vote which calls for “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” – the Israeli terms for the area.

It said that annexing the West Bank “will strengthen the state of Israel, its security and prevent any questioning of the fundamental right of the Jewish people to peace and security in their homeland”.

The motion, advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is declarative and has no direct legal implications, though it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates in the parliament.

The idea was initially brought forward last year by Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in an illegal Israeli settlement and holds a position within Israel’s Ministry of Defence, where he oversees the administration of the West Bank and its settlements.

The West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Since then, Israeli settlements have expanded, despite being illegal under international law and, in the case of settlement outposts, Israeli law.

Palestinian leaders want all three territories for a future state. Some 3 million Palestinians and more than 500,000 Israeli settlers currently reside in the West Bank.

Annexation of the West Bank could make it impossible to create a viable Palestinian state, which is seen internationally as the most realistic way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last year, the Israeli parliament approved a similar symbolic motion declaring opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Hussein al-Sheikh, deputy to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the motion was “a direct assault on the rights of the Palestinian people”, which “undermines the prospects for peace, stability and the two-state solution”.

“These unilateral Israeli actions blatantly violate international law and the ongoing international consensus regarding the status of the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank,” he wrote in a post on X.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that it strongly rejects any motion for annexation.

The ministry stressed that the “colonial measures” reinforce a system of apartheid in the West Bank and reflect a “blatant disregard” for many United Nations resolutions and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which was issued in July 2024.

The statement, carried by the official Palestinian Wafa news agency, also warned that such actions deliberately undermine the prospects of implementing a two-state solution.

The ministry added that while settlement expansion continues, de facto annexation is already occurring on a daily basis.

Following Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, Israeli forces have intensified attacks on Palestinian towns and villages in the occupied West Bank, displacing thousands of Palestinians and killing hundreds. Settlers, often backed by Israeli soldiers, have also escalated assaults on Palestinians, their land, and property.