Occupied East Jerusalem

French President Emmanuel Macron urged full support for the US plan to end the Gaza war, calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of all captives, and humanitarian access. Macron, however, blasted expanding West Bank settlements, which he said threaten Palestinian statehood and regional peace.

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.

“The dawn of freedom will emerge, and the flag of Palestine will fly high in our skies.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was applauded by the UN General Assembly after he vowed Palestinians will not leave their homeland.

Video shows US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posing for photographs while placing a note in the Western Wall alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rubio is reportedly ‘seeking answers’ from officials after Israel’s strike on Qatar upended efforts to end the Gaza war.

Palestinians face mass arrests, displacement in the occupied territory as Netanyahu pushes settlement expansion.

Israeli forces have sealed off entrances to Tulkarem in the northern occupied West Bank, further escalating a campaign of raids, arrests and collective punishment that has displaced thousands of Palestinians as the military relentlessly destroys Gaza.

Footage from Thursday night shared by residents showed soldiers marching Palestinians in lines through the streets in what many described as a humiliating show of force.

Tulkarem Governor Abdullah Kamil appealed to the international community on Friday, urging the United Nations General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and humanitarian groups to act against what he called “crimes” being committed against the city’s nearly 100,000 residents.

Kamil said Israeli forces were “arbitrarily and unjustly” carrying out mass arrests, storming homes, destroying property and “terrorising children and women”, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

On Thursday, Israeli forces in Tulkarem were allegedly struck by what Israel called an explosive device that injured two Israeli soldiers.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Doha, described “videos of the Israeli forces dragging hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians from their homes, from their cafes, from even a garage … in a show of humiliation”.

“They’re trying to remind everyone that if there is any incident in any place in the occupied West Bank that they do not like … they’re going to crack down, not just on the perpetrators … but on everyone in that vicinity,” said Ibrahim.

She added that Israel’s crackdown has displaced “tens of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes … rendering the city, the refugee camps into ghost towns”. Ibrahim said Palestinians see this as part of a broader policy, with Israeli forces trying “to crack down on Palestinians and really … remind them who has the upper hand and control in the occupied West Bank”.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, five young Palestinians were shot and wounded by Israeli forces in the village of Deir Jarir, Wafa reported. One of the injured was arrested before receiving medical treatment, according to the village council. Israeli soldiers also closed the village entrance for several hours.

Israeli troops stormed Nablus and the nearby town of Beit Furik at dawn on Friday, raiding several neighbourhoods in the Old City and surrounding areas.

Witnesses said shops were ransacked, while in Beitin, east of Ramallah, Israeli soldiers seized a house and converted it into a military barracks.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the raids, saying international silence had emboldened Israel to press ahead with unilateral measures aimed at destabilising the territory.

‘There will be no Palestinian state’

The escalation comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advances an illegal settlement expansion plan that would all but eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.

On Thursday, he signed an agreement to push forward with construction in the so-called E1 area near the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, several kilometres to the east of Jerusalem.

“We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Netanyahu declared at the signing ceremony, adding: “We are going to double the city’s population.”

The project, which has been driven by far-right ministers in the government, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, covers a 12sq km (4.6sq mile) stretch of land and foresees 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers. Critics say the plan would cut off large parts of the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem while linking together major settlement blocs.

Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in occupied territory are illegal, regardless of whether they have Israeli government approval.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has officially moved forward with a settlement expansion plan in the occupied West Bank that would make any future Palestinian state virtually impossible.

The Israeli leader signed an agreement on Thursday to move ahead with the project, which would bisect the West Bank.

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

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

The settlement, on a 12sq-km (4.6sq-mile) tract of land east of Jerusalem, is known as “East 1” or “E1”.

The development plan, which includes 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers, would cut off much of the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem while linking up thousands of Israeli settlements in the area.

East Jerusalem carries particular significance to Palestinians as their choice for the capital of a future Palestinian state.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

Reporting for Al Jazeera from Amman, Jordan, because Israel has banned Al Jazeera from the West Bank and Israel, Hamdah Salhut explained that this expansion is controversial because it destroys any territorial continuity from the West Bank to East Jerusalem, further dismantling any possibility that there could be a Palestinian state in the future.

Palestinian leaders push back

Palestinian Authority presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh on Thursday insisted that a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is the key to peace in the region. He called it and the two-state solution “inevitable” despite Netanyahu’s move.

Rudeineh condemned Israeli settlements as illegal under international law and accused Netanyahu of “pushing the entire region towards the abyss”.

He noted that 149 United Nations member states have already recognised Palestine and called on all countries that have not yet done so to recognise a Palestinian state immediately.

How did we get here?

Netanyahu has long championed settlements in occupied Palestinian territory and fought any efforts towards peace between Israel and Palestine. He railed against the signing of the Oslo Accords, two agreements in the 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that many hoped would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

“I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords,” Netanyahu was caught on video boasting in 2001.

In 1997 during his first term as prime minister, Netanyahu helped establish the settlement of Har Homa in East Jerusalem, CNN reported. He added in an interview with the Israeli news site NRG that a Palestinian state would never be formed while he was in office.

More recently, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said settlements such as E1 will help erase Palestine from the map, even as Palestinian statehood gains increasing recognition from UN member states.

“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” Smotrich said.

The UN General Assembly demanded in September 2024 that Israel end its presence in the West Bank by withdrawing its military, immediately stopping work on new settlements and evacuating settlers from occupied land.

More than 100 nations voted for the resolution. Fourteen voted against.

The vote followed an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in July 2024 that said Israel’s continued presence in occupied territory was unlawful and Israel was “under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from the occupied Palestinian Territory”.

Netanyahu called the opinion a “decision of lies”.

More recently, 21 countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan, condemned Israel’s plan to build its new settlement.

Germany announced on Thursday that it will back a France-led proposal for a two-state solution, the Bloomberg news agency reported. Berlin is planning to support a UN resolution this week to adopt the New York Declaration, led by France and Saudi Arabia and calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and a right to return for refugees.

Belgium, France and Malta have pledged to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly session this month. Other countries, including Australia, Canada and the UK, have announced conditional recognitions, but it has remained unclear whether they will do so at the gathering.

The situation in the West Bank and Gaza

The settlement expansion news comes amid escalating violence.

On Monday, six people were killed in a shooting attack in Jerusalem when two Palestinian gunmen attacked a bus stop at the Ramot Junction. Several others were wounded.

Israeli forces responded by storming towns and demolishing the homes of the Palestinian suspects in the West Bank.

Al Jazeera reported on Thursday that nearly 100 men were arrested in Tulkarem in the West Bank. The arrests came after an attack that “lightly wounded two soldiers,” Haaretz reported, quoting the Israeli army.

In Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed at least 64,656 people and wounded 163,503 since it began in October 2023, Netanyahu is continuing to push “voluntary migration“, a euphemism for forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.

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.

Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian American, has been held in Israeli prison without contact with his family since being illegally detained in February. His relatives and rights groups are calling for his release, citing his worsening health and lack of due process.

“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.

Israel’s far-right finance minister has approved plans for thousands of illegal homes in the occupied West Bank — saying it ‘buries the idea of a Palestinian state’. Bezalel Smotrich announced 3,401 illegal housing units will be built in the controversial E1 settlement project.

On June 25, Mutawakil al-Mohamad and his family woke up to the sound of Israeli soldiers pounding on their door with their rifles.

It would be the last time they woke up in their family home in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Israeli forces arrived at 7am in military convoys with two heavy bulldozers, and al-Mohamad was terrified the soldiers would raid his house and arrest him or his loved ones.

Instead, the soldiers told the family their home was in a designated “military zone” and ordered them to vacate immediately so they could bulldoze it to the ground.

“When I opened the door, I told the soldiers: ‘My young children are scared.’ I asked them to give me 10 minutes, then we will all be out of the house,” al-Mohamed said. The soldiers obliged, he recalled from Ramallah, the administrative capital of the occupied West Bank, where he now lives.

Demolitions and displacement

Israel is demolishing more Palestinian homes across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, at a higher rate in 2025 than any previous year since the occupation began in 1967.

Israeli authorities have already destroyed 783 structures – a figure that does not include the large-scale destruction in refugee camps – leading to the forced displacement of 1,119 people, according to the United Nations.

In the Palestinian refugee camps, Israel has destroyed about 600 structures in the Jenin camp and a combined 300 structures in the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps as part of military raids it launched at the start of this year, according to figures that Al Jazeera obtained from the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.

Human rights groups, civilians and analysts said the real aim of Israel’s tactics  – systematic home demolitions and forced displacement – is to make life unbearable for Palestinians so more will consider leaving if they can.

“Israel’s goal in the West Bank is the same as its goal in Gaza. … It wants to target all Palestinians,” said Murad Jadallah, a human rights researcher with Al-Haq.

Jadallah argued that Israel’s war in Gaza, which many experts have called a genocide, has shocked the world and distracted many from its unprecedented destruction in the West Bank.

“Israel is benefiting from the images of destruction it has created in Gaza in order to push its agenda in the West Bank,” he told Al Jazeera.

Little support

Since the start of this year, about 40,000 Palestinians have fled Israeli military operations in West Bank refugee camps.

Many have struggled to find affordable replacement accommodations, renting instead in whatever villages where they find room, staying with relatives in overcrowded homes or languishing in public buildings converted into shelters for displaced people, Jadallah said.

Ahmed Gaeem, 60, recalled Israeli soldiers evicting him, his wife, five children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews from their building in the Tulkarem refugee camp in March.

The family was also told by Israeli soldiers that Tulkarem had been designated a “military zone” and they would not be allowed to return for some time.

“We left with the clothes on our backs and nothing else. We didn’t have time to pack anything,” Gaeem told Al Jazeera.

A few weeks into Israel’s military campaign, one of Gaeem’s sons managed to return briefly to assess the damage to their home from a distance.

Their home – like countless others – was destroyed. Its windows were shattered, the door hinges blown off and walls caved in.

Gaeem’s family is currently renting three homes in Iktaba village, a few kilometres from Tulkarem city, for a combined rent of about $1,300 – a fortune for a family surviving on meagre savings.

Gaeem noted that while his salary as a Palestinian Authority (PA) civil servant is $500 a month, he hasn’t been paid in months because of the PA’s ongoing economic crisis.

Over the past several years, the PA has cut salaries and struggled to pay its staff as a result of dwindling donor support and Israel’s refusal to hand over tax revenue it collects on the PA’s behalf, an arrangement laid out in the Oslo Accords.

The PA itself was born out of the Oslo peace agreements of 1993 and 1995, which were signed by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The accords ostensibly aimed to bring about a Palestinian state in the years that followed.

Unprecedented crisis

The Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three zones.

The PA was tasked with overseeing security and executive functions in Area A and executive functions in Area B while Israel remained in total control of Area C.

This control allowed Israel to quietly and gradually expand illegal settlements – after encircling and then demolishing Palestinian homes and communities – in Area C, a largely agricultural region that makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank.

In July, the Israeli army issued two orders that gave it an additional legal pretext to demolish homes in Area B – a power previously held only by the PA under the Oslo Accords. The orders enabled Israel to assume control over building and planning laws and laws pertaining to agricultural sites.

Before these measures, most demolitions in Areas A and B were carried out during military operations or as reprisals against Palestinians who resisted the occupation. Israel now has an additional legal basis to destroy Palestinian homes by claiming the owners do not have building permits.

Israel systematically denies building permits to Palestinians as part of a broader policy of confiscating Palestinian homes and land, according to human rights groups.

Among the record number of demolitions carried out across the West Bank this year, the UN documented the destruction of 49 structures in Areas A and B.

Under international law, Israel is prohibited from destroying private property anywhere in occupied Palestinian territory and from establishing settlements or outposts.

“The extension of demolitions in Area A and B and the way Israel is changing the legal status in Area B are unprecedented,” said Tahani Mustafa, an expert on the West Bank with the International Crisis Group think tank.

She added that Israel appears to be trying to confine Palestinians to ever smaller pockets of land in Area A. Israel’s ultimate plan, she fears, is to make life increasingly unbearable for Palestinians in urban centres, likely by imposing more checkpoints and barriers to restrict movement and carrying out more raids

Israel’s intensifying assault on Palestinians across the West Bank already has people like al-Mohamed fearing that his family could be evicted again.

He said most Palestinians predict that Israel will turn its attention to the West Bank’s cities after it finishes its military raids in the nearby camps.

“It’s hard for us to go anywhere else other than the West Bank,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This is our land. It’s where we want to live and where we want to die.”

Funerals have been held for the two Palestinians, including a US citizen, who were killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Friday. The family of Sayfollah Musallet, who was beaten to death, is calling on the US State Department to investigate and hold the perpetrators to account.

“For some, genocide is profitable.” UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has issued a blistering report accusing major companies of profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian land.

In this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is Dr Gabor Mate, a retired physician, author and Holocaust survivor who has written extensively on trauma and child development, as well as Israel and Palestine.

Mate talks about the colonial foundations of Zionism, how living under it has traumatised Palestinians and the ways mainstream media distorts the realities on the ground in Gaza.

Phil Lavelle is a TV news correspondent at Al Jazeera.

At least four Palestinians, including a teenager, have been killed in the occupied West Bank, where soldiers have been carrying out deadly raids for months and settlers have been violently rampaging against civilians unchecked, backed by the military.

The teenager was shot by Israeli forces, while the other three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli settler attack on the town of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah. Seven others were injured in the settler attack.

Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the town, burning vehicles and homes as residents of neighbouring villages attempted to confront them, local sources said. Israeli troops provided protection for the settlers and fired live rounds.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated at least five wounded Palestinians who suffered gunshot wounds, with some in serious condition.

Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh said the settlers were acting “under the protection of the Israeli army”.

“We call on the international community to urgently intervene to protect our Palestinian people,” he added, in a message on X.

In the other deadly incident, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Israeli troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid on al-Yamoun, a town west of Jenin.

The ministry identified the teenager as Rayan Tamer Houshieh and said he succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the neck.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that its teams had handled “a very critical case” in al-Yamoun, involving a teenager, before pronouncing him dead.

The al-Yamoun incident marked the second time a teenager has been reported killed in the occupied territory in two days.

On Monday, the Health Ministry said that Israeli fire killed a 13-year-old, identified as Ammar Hamayel, in Kafr Malek.

The occupied West Bank is home to more than 3 million Palestinians who live under harsh Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas cut off from each other by a myriad of Israeli checkpoints.

Israel has so far built more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, which are home to about 500,000 settlers – Israeli citizens living illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

Daily Israeli raids

Although Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has garnered more attention, Palestinian suffering in the occupied West Bank has been acute, with hundreds of deaths, thousands of people displaced, house demolitions and significant destruction since October 7, 2023.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Palestine has expressed alarm at the “wave of renewed violence” by Israeli settlers and armed forces in the West Bank earlier this year.

“Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

Separately, earlier on Wednesday, a 66-year-old woman was shot in the head and killed by Israeli forces during a raid on the Shu’fat refugee camp, north of occupied East Jerusalem, according to several local media reports.

The Jerusalem governorate identified the woman as Zahriya Joudeh al-Obaid.

Her husband, Joudah Al-Obeidi, a 67-year-old resident of the camp, said his wife was standing on the roof of their home when Israeli forces stormed the area. He confirmed that police shot her in the head, and that she had posed no threat.

Like other refugee camps in Israeli-occupied areas, Shu’fat has seen repeated Israeli raids that often result in deaths, injuries and arrests.

In the northern West Bank, large-scale military incursions into Jenin and its refugee camp, as well as Tulkarem and the Nur Shams refugee camp, have resulted in widespread destruction and displacement of at least 40,000 people, according to UN figures.

Since Israeli forces launched its latest operation in Jenin 156 days ago, at least 40 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Wafa news agency.

UN spokesman says Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not delivering supplies safely to those in need.

The United Nations says the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is a “failure” from a humanitarian perspective.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said aid operations have stalled because the GHF is not delivering supplies safely to those in need.

“GHF, I think it’s fair to say, has been, from a principled humanitarian standpoint, a failure,” Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Friday. “They are not doing what a humanitarian operation should do, which is providing aid to people where they are, in a safe and secure manner.”

The UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, citing concerns that it prioritises Israeli military objectives over humanitarian needs.

The newly formed private organisation began operations on May 26 after Israel had completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine.

It says it has distributed more than 18 million meals since then.

On Friday, more than 30 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s Tariq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Israeli forces were targeting parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza with artillery fire and ground attacks.

“The Israeli military is deepening its ground operations,” Azzoum said, saying there were clashes in the eastern part of the city.

The besieged territory remained under a communications blackout for a second day on Friday. Hamas has denounced what it described as an Israeli decision to cut communication lines in Gaza, calling it “a new aggressive step” in the country’s “war of extermination”.

Israel continues to force civilians into what it calls the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi, a barren coastal strip with no infrastructure, which it has repeatedly bombed. A drone strike on a tent there killed at least two people on Friday.

The attack left “everyone on the ground quite confused about where they can go in order to find safety”, Azzoum said.

Israel locks down occupied West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, Israel sealed all crossings and checkpoints between Palestinian towns and cities early on Friday, shortly after it launched a wave of air strikes on targets in Iran.

Sources told Al Jazeera the closures were imposed without any indication of when they might be lifted.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulances were being denied access to patients, including those in urgent need of medical care.

In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli forces closed Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing Palestinians from attending Friday prayers.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa held an emergency cabinet meeting in response and activated crisis committees across the West Bank.

In a speech to Israel’s parliament, the Argentinian leader criticised Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s advocacy for Palestinian rights.

Argentinian President Javier Milei has announced that his country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem next year, as the populist leader signalled his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly isolated government.

Argentina’s embassy is currently located in Herzliya, just outside Tel Aviv. But in a speech to Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, staunchly pro-Israel Milei said he was “proud to announce” his country will move its “embassy to the city of west Jerusalem” in 2026.

“Argentina stands by you in these difficult days,” Milei said.

“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about a large part of the international community that is being manipulated by terrorists and turning victims into perpetrators,” he told the Knesset.

The Argentinian leader, currently on his second state visit to Israel since taking office in 2023, said Buenos Aires will continue to demand that Israeli captives held in Gaza be released, including four with Argentinian citizenship taken during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack.

Milei also criticised Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was detained and deported by Israeli authorities this week after being taken with other activists from a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza.

Thunberg has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and deliberate starvation of the territory’s Palestinian population.

“[Thunberg] became a hired gun for a bit of media attention, claiming that she was kidnapped when there are really hostages in subhuman conditions in Gaza,” Milei said, according to a translation of his remarks from Spanish provided by the Knesset.

Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, with the overall death toll after more than 20 months of war surpassing 55,000 Palestinians.

Delicate issue

Milei had pledged to move Argentina’s embassy during his first visit in February 2024, in which he also prayed at the Western Wall, a revered religious site for Jews in Jerusalem.

Speaking in advance of Milei’s address to parliament this week, Prime Minister Netanyahu said “the city of Jerusalem will never be divided again”.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most delicate issues in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with Israel claiming the entirety of the ancient city as its capital, while Palestine claims its occupied eastern sector as the site of any future Palestinian state.

Israel first occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, before unilaterally annexing it in 1980 in a move rejected by the United Nations Security Council. Due to its disputed status, the vast majority of the 96 diplomatic missions present in Israel host their embassies in the Tel Aviv area to avoid interfering with peace negotiations.

Currently only six countries – Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and the United States – have embassies located in West Jerusalem.

During his first term in 2017, President Donald Trump made the shock decision to unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital before moving the US embassy there a year later, prompting Palestinian anger and the international community’s disapproval.

This status was not revoked under the Biden administration and Washington continues to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital today.

Thousands of right-wing Israelis have marched through occupied East Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 following the Six-Day War.

They made their way through Palestinian neighbourhoods, chanting “death to Arabs” and anti-Islamic slogans.

Police forces were dispatched in advance, as the settlers regularly assault and harass Palestinians in the Muslim quarter.

Right-wing Israelis also stormed the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.

Last year’s procession, held during the first year of the Gaza war, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians. Four years ago, the march contributed to the outbreak of an 11-day war in Gaza.

Videos show right-wing Israelis attacking Palestinians, chanting anti-Muslim slogans and storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Israel’s “Jerusalem Day,” marking the occupation of the city in 1967.