Occupied East Jerusalem

Commercial premises among buildings facing demolition as military incursions intensify near Qalandiya and Kafr Aqab.

Israeli forces have begun demolishing shops in the vicinity of the Qalandiya refugee camp, north of occupied East Jerusalem, as part of a wider military incursion across several Palestinian neighbourhoods, witnesses and medical officials say.

The raids, which began early on Tuesday, have extended into the nearby town of Kafr Aqab, where Israeli troops deployed in large numbers, carried out house searches and forcibly evicted residents from their homes, according to local media reports.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its medical teams treated at least three people injured during the raids in Qalandiya and Kafr Aqab. The injuries included a bullet wound to the thigh, wounds caused by shrapnel from live ammunition, and injuries resulting from physical assault.

The Jerusalem governorate reported that at least three Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire, in addition to dozens of cases of suffocation caused by the firing of tear gas and stun grenades, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

Several Palestinians were detained during the large-scale incursion that was also accompanied by the deployment of military vehicles and bulldozers.

Among those arrested are Anan Mohammed Taha and his father, Mohammed Taha, residents of the Qalandiya refugee camp, Wafa said.

‘Intimidation’ and ‘anxiety’

Residents said Israeli forces ordered several families to evacuate their homes, with at least three houses converted into temporary military outposts in Kafr Aqab. Homeowners were reportedly told the operation would continue until at least Wednesday morning.

Israeli forces also stormed the youth club inside the Qalandiya refugee camp and turned the facility into a military base, according to Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent.

Journalists covering the operation were also targeted, including Al Jazeera Arabic reporters, with Israeli forces firing stun grenades and tear gas canisters in their direction during the raid in Kafr Aqab.

According to the Jerusalem governorate authorities, stun grenades were also fired directly towards students in the area as they were returning home from school, while private surveillance cameras were seized.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Kafr Aqab, said Israeli forces are continuing to “intimidate” Palestinians.

“They have raided Palestinian stores, Palestinian shops, and they’ve destroyed some of the plaques, some of the advertisement billboards that were here”, in an attempt to further cripple the Palestinian economy, Ibrahim said.

“This is part of the anxiety that Palestinians live through day in and day out as these Israeli raids continue on a daily basis,” she added.

Israeli incursions across the West Bank average “60 raids per day”, Ibrahim said.

In addition to the demolitions, Israeli forces confiscated goods from commercial shops in the Qalandiya refugee camp, Kafr Aqab and parts of northern Jerusalem, citing alleged unpaid municipal taxes.

Most Palestinians living in these areas hold Jerusalem residency identification cards. Residents say they are subject to high municipal taxes while receiving few basic services.

Separately, confrontations were also reported in the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, after Israeli forces stormed the area.

The Israeli security cabinet has approved 19 new settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank as the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves to prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state.

As Netanyahu’s government has made the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory a priority, the United Nations has said Israeli settlement expansions in 2025 have reached their highest level since 2017.

“These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually from 2017 to 2022.

Under the current far-right government, the number of settlement and outposts in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem has risen by nearly 50 percent – from 141 in 2022 to 210 now. An outpost is built without government authorisation while a settlement is authorised by the Israeli government.

Nearly 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population of 7.7 million people lives in these settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

Here’s everything you need to know about the newly approved settlements and what they mean for the future of Palestinian statehood.

Where are the new settlements?

The new settlements are spread across the West Bank – home to more than three million Palestinians – from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south.

Most of them are close to the densely populated Palestinian villages of Duma, Jalud, Qusra and al-Lubban Asharqiya in the Nablus governorate and Sinjil in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, according to Peace Now, an antisettlement watchdog group based in Israel. Other locations identified by the watchdog for the new settlement areas are in the northwestern West Bank, in the Salfit governorate, near the Palestinian towns of Sa’ir and Beit Sahour, and other areas near Bethlehem and in the Jericho governorate.

Israel’s construction spree is entrenching the occupation and squeezing Palestinians out of their homeland. Settlements dot the West Bank and are often connected by Israeli-only highways while Palestinians face roadblocks and security checks, making their daily commutes harrowing experiences.

Israel has also built Separation Barrier that stretches for more than 700km (435 miles) through the West Bank restricting movement of Palestinians. Israel says the wall is for security purposes.

Under a dual legal system, Palestinians are tried in Israel’s military courts while crimes committed by settlers are referred to a civilian court.

Israel’s latest approval also includes settlements in Ganim and Kadim, two of the four West Bank settlements east of Jenin that were dismantled as part of Israel’s 2005 disengagement plan, a unilateral withdrawal ordered by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Israel controls most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory Palestinians want to be part of a future state along with Gaza. Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a 1967 war. It later annexed East Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as their future capital.

Israeli settlements and outposts are Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land and they can range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high-rises. About 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Peace Now.

The latest approval comes at a time when the United States has been working with Israel and Arab allies to move the Gaza ceasefire into a second phase. After a meeting on Friday of top officials from the US, Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar in the US city of Miami, Florida, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Israel of committing repeated violations of the ceasefire that began in October.

Israel still controls nearly half of Gaza’s territory since a ceasefire was announced on October 10 after more than two years of a genocidal war killed more than 70,000 Palestinians.

Has settlement construction spiked in recent years?

The new settlements bring the total number approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Smotrich, who is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself.

In May, Israel approved 22 new settlements in the West Bank, the biggest expansion in decades.

The UN chief has condemned what he described as Israel’s “relentless” expansion of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. It “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian state”, Guterres said this month.

Palestinians have also been facing increasing settler violence since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

According to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), settlers have attacked Palestinians nearly 3,000 times over the past two years.

Settler attacks often escalate during the olive harvest from September to November, a vital time of year that provides a key source of income for many Palestinian families.

Settlers are often armed and frequently accompanied or protected by Israeli soldiers. In addition to destroying Palestinian property, they have carried out arson attacks and killed Palestinian residents.

Every West Bank governorate has faced settler attacks over the past two years, data from OCHA shows.

Are the settlements legal under international law?

No. The UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Committee of the Red Cross all consider Israeli settlements as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which outlaws settler activity.

In a landmark judgement in July 2024, the ICJ, the UN’s top court, found that Israel’s occupation, settlement activity and annexation measures are illegal. In its nonbinding advisory opinion, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

The judges pointed to a wide list of policies – including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians – all of which it said violated international law.

Two months later, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian territory within a year.

But Israel has defied the resolution by the global body backed by its ally – the United States. Washington has extended diplomatic cover to Israel against numerous UN resolutions.

Since returning to power in January, US President Donald Trump has adopted a permissive stance towards Israeli settlement activity, breaking with longstanding US policy.

In 2019, he said Israeli settlements in the West Bank were not inherently illegal under international law. Trump also revoked his predecessor President Joe Biden’s sanctions on several settlers and groups accused of perpetrating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

US sanctions on settlers under Biden came under Washington’s long-held policy that settlements are the biggest impediments to the two-state solution to the conflict.

However, Trump and his officials have repeatedly said Israel cannot annex the West Bank. “It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” Trump told Time magazine in October. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

What will the new settlements mean for the future of a Palestinian state?

The growing settlements – together with other projects undertaken by Netanyahu’s government like the E1 settlement plan that will split the West Bank – are further squeezing Palestinians in occupied territory.

Settlement expansions have drawn criticism from the international community, including Israel’s European allies, who said the steps undermine prospects for a two-state solution.

But Netanyahu and his far-right cabinet, including Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have doubled down on their rhetoric against a Palestinian state.

“On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state,” Smotrich said in his statement on Sunday.

In June, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway slapped sanctions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir for inciting violence.

Several European nations, including the UK and France, as well as Australia recognised Palestinian statehood in September in a push for the two-state solution.

Israel condemned the move, and Netanyahu said he won’t allow a Palestinian state. He has previously boasted how he scuttled the 1993 and 1995 Oslo peace accords by boosting settlement expansion in occupied territory.

“It’s not going to happen. There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said in an address in September. “For years, I have prevented the creation of that terror state against tremendous pressure, both domestic and from abroad.”

Palestinian officials condemn the actions as part of a ‘systematic policy of displacement’ in the occupied territory.

Israeli forces have stormed towns in the occupied West Bank and demolished a residential building.

Soldiers fired stun grenades and tear gas on Monday as they carried out the demolition in East Jerusalem. Palestinian officials accused Israel of a campaign of displacement in the city, saying the operation was part of a systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.

Scores of Palestinians were displaced as Israeli bulldozers tore through a four-storey residential building. Activists called it the largest such demolition in the area this year.

Three bulldozers destroyed the building with 13 apartments in the Wadi Qaddum neighbourhood of the Silwan district, south of Jerusalem’s Old City, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents reported.

Israeli forces cordoned off surrounding roads, deployed heavily across the area and positioned security personnel on the rooftops of neighbouring houses. During the operation, a young man and a teenage boy were arrested.

Residents were told the demolition order was issued because the building had been constructed without a permit.

Palestinians face severe obstacles in obtaining building permits due to Israel’s restrictive planning policies, activists say, a policy that they assert is part of a systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.

Israel’s security cabinet has recently approved the recognition of 19 new settlements in the West Bank, expanding the total number approved this year to 69 as the government continues its settlement push.

‘Systematic policy of displacement’

The Jerusalem governorate, affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, condemned the demolition.

“The building’s destruction is part of a systematic policy aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinian residents and emptying the city of its original inhabitants,” the governorate said in a statement.

“Any demolition that expels residents from their homes constitutes a clear occupation plan to replace the land’s owners with settlers.”

The Jerusalem municipality, an Israeli authority whose jurisdiction over East Jerusalem is not recognised under international law, said the demolition was based on a 2014 court order.

Israeli human rights groups Ir Amim and Bimkom said the demolition was carried out without warning despite a scheduled meeting on Monday to discuss steps to legalise the building.

“This is part of an ongoing policy. This year alone, around 100 East Jerusalem families have lost their homes,” the groups said, calling Monday’s demolition the largest of 2025.

Escalated attacks

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli forces damaged agricultural land and uprooted trees in the northern town of Silat al-Harithiya.

In the city of Halhul, north of Hebron, Israeli forces stormed several neighbourhoods with large numbers of military vehicles, deployed sniper teams and took up positions across the city.

Al Jazeera Arabic journalists reported that Israeli vehicles entered Halhul through multiple checkpoints, including Nabi Yunis, while closing the Halhul Bridge checkpoint linking the city to Hebron.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have also sharply escalated attacks across the West Bank.

More than 1,102 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, about 11,000 wounded and more than 21,000 arrested, according to Palestinian figures.