Two Palestinian brothers are the only survivors after Israeli troops killed their parents and two siblings in Tammun in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian health authorities. The boys say soldiers opened fire on their family car and beat them after the shooting.
Published On 15 Mar 202615 Mar 2026
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Several Palestinians were killed after armed Israeli settlers attacked the village of Abu Falah in the occupied West Bank. Witnesses say the settlers carried out the attack under the protection of Israeli forces.
Published On 8 Mar 20268 Mar 2026
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A father and his daughter have been killed in an Israeli drone attack in central Khan Younis, southern Gaza, as Palestinians continue to suffer amid worldwide attention on the United States-Israeli war on Iran.
The two were killed early on Saturday. In a separate attack later in the day in Khan Younis, another person was killed and a young girl wounded, according to Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground.
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Israeli forces continue carrying out air strikes, artillery shelling, and naval bombardment on Gaza on a daily basis, despite an October 11 “ceasefire” as Israel continues its ongoing genocide.
Suffering in Gaza and the occupied West Bank remains acute as the world focuses on the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran.
In the past 48 hours, two additional people have been wounded, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
Israeli army-affiliated militias, meanwhile, have advanced east of Gaza City, with heavy gunfire reported in the area. Initial reports also stated a member of the Palestinian police was abducted.
Israeli warplanes also struck several locations east of the Tuffah neighbourhood, near Gaza City, while the Israeli navy fired heavy machineguns and shells towards the coast of Gaza City, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The Rafah border crossing, meanwhile, remains closed. Israel had shut it amid its attacks on Iran.
The Rafah crossing, located on Gaza’s southern border, had reopened only last month allowing a limited number of Palestinians to leave for the first time in months, including patients in urgent need of medical care. Thousands remain blocked from travelling for treatment.
The Karem Abu Salem crossing, also known to Israelis as Kerem Shalom, is partially open for the entry of humanitarian aid only, under strict restrictions.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population of more than two million people was displaced during Israel’s war on the territory, and the enclave remains heavily dependent on humanitarian assistance.
In a February report, Human Rights Watch said Israeli restrictions had contributed to shortages of medicine, reconstruction materials, food and water inside the Strip.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza, 640 Palestinians have been killed and at least 1,700 wounded, according to the Health Ministry. At least 72,123 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, while 171,805 people have been injured.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported its teams in Hebron are treating a Palestinian injured by live fire near the illegal Karmei Tzur settlement, built on Palestinian land north of Hebron.
Three Palestinians were also injured on Saturday after being physically assaulted by Israeli settlers in the Ras al-Ahmar area, south of Tubas, Wafa reported. Medical sources at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said their teams responded to three people with injuries.
Israeli forces also conducted raids in the towns of Qaffin and Kafr al-Labad, north of Tulkarem, early on Saturday, Wafa said.
A Palestinian man was also injured after being assaulted by Israeli soldiers near the village of Azmut, east of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.
Palestinians have faced a wave of intensified Israeli military and settler violence across the West Bank since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.
At least 1,094 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023, according to the latest United Nations figures.
Thousands of worshippers attend prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, with others turned away despite carrying required permits.
Published On 27 Feb 202627 Feb 2026
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About 100,000 Palestinian worshippers have prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for the second Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite Israel imposing severe restrictions on access to the holy site.
Worshippers were subjected to thorough security screening on Friday as they made their way through the Qalandiya checkpoint in the occupied West Bank north of Jerusalem to pray, an Al Jazeera team reported, amid a heavy deployment of Israeli forces around the city.
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Israeli authorities imposed rules at the start of Ramadan to limit entry for Friday prayers to just 10,000 Palestinian worshippers with daily permits – a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands who would attend in normal years.
Under the Israeli rules, only men over 55, women 50 years or older, and children under 12, accompanied by a relative, are permitted to enter.
Visitors are also required to complete digital verification procedures at crossings when returning to the West Bank.
As well as the restrictions, Israeli authorities recently announced bans on 280 Jerusalem residents, including religious figures, journalists, and released prisoners, from attending prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The push to limit Palestinians’ access to the holy site during Ramadan is widely seen as part of an effort to pressure Palestinian communities and erase the Palestinian cultural identity of occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians view as the capital of their future state.
The restrictions have further increased since the genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Despite the restrictions, attendance at the mosque was considerably higher than the supposed cap of 10,000 visitors, as it was the previous week, when Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf, the religious authority that administers the compound, said 80,000 people attended the first Friday prayers of Ramadan.
Yet many Palestinians who attempted to attend, including some who said they had the necessary permits, found themselves turned away by Israeli authorities.
Najati Oweida, who travelled from Hebron, told Anadolu that Israeli soldiers turned him back despite presenting a permit.
“The occupation claims it has provided facilitation, but the procedures are strict,” he said. “I only want to pray at Al-Aqsa. Why am I being prevented?”
Another man, Ali Nawas, 58, told the news agency that he and his wife had travelled for more than an hour from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, only for his wife to be turned back at the Qalandiya checkpoint, despite her having a permit.
“I was forced to return with her. How could she go back to Nablus alone?” he said.
US embassy services will be available in the illegal West Bank settlement of Efrat, starting on February 27.
Published On 24 Feb 202624 Feb 2026
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The United States has announced it will soon provide in-person passport services at an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
The US Embassy in Jerusalem said it would start providing the service for Efrat, located between the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem and Hebron, on February 27.
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It will be the first time the US has “provided consular services to a settlement in the West Bank”, according to a US embassy spokesperson quoted by the Reuters news agency.
The embassy said it would plan similar on-site services in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the illegal Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem, and in cities within Israel, such as Haifa.
The US currently offers passport and consular services at its embassy in West Jerusalem as well as at a Tel Aviv branch office.
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, home to 3 million Palestinians who seek the territory as part of a future state, are illegal under international law.
Nevertheless, far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Israel to increase settlement expansion, or even annex the Palestinian territory.
This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government approved measures to expand control over the occupied West Bank and claim large tracts of Palestinian territory as Israeli “state property”.
The move was roundly condemned by more than 80 United Nations member countries.
Much of the West Bank is already under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-government in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
According to the International Court of Justice, about 465,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Palestinian territory, spread across some 300 illegal settlements and outposts.
Among them are an estimated tens of thousands of dual US-Israeli nationals. The Efrat settlement is home to many American immigrants.
US President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has said he opposes Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank. But his administration has not taken any steps to curb Israel’s expanding settlement presence.
In addition to advancing settlements, Israeli forces regularly carry out violent raids, demolitions, and arrests in the occupied West Bank, where attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have also intensified, often under the protection of Israeli soldiers.
In January alone, at least 694 Palestinians were driven from their homes in the West Bank because of Israeli settler violence and harassment, the highest number since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza erupted in October 2023, according to the United Nations.
Joint statement says Israeli land grab is ‘deliberate and direct attack’ on the viability of a Palestinian state.
Published On 24 Feb 202624 Feb 2026
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Foreign ministers of 19 countries, including Turkiye, Qatar, France and Brazil, have signed a joint statement condemning Israel’s moves to unlawfully extend and consolidate its control over Palestinian land.
The statement issued late Monday by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Israel’s plans to begin land registration in the occupied West Bank, which will sanction the seizure of land from Palestinians who cannot prove ownership, as “de facto annexation”.
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“Changes are wide-ranging, reclassifying Palestinian land as so-called Israeli ‘state land’, accelerating illegal settlement activity, and further entrenching Israeli administration,” said the joint statement, also signed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as the heads of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Israel’s plans, signed on February 15, will see registration introduced across Area C, which makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank’s territory, according to the illegal settlement monitoring organisation, Peace Now.
The joint statement warned Israel’s moves could permanently alter the “legal and administrative status” of territory that is largely under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule, but which would constitute part of a future Palestinian state.
“Such actions are a deliberate and direct attack on the viability of the Palestinian State and the implementation of the two-State Solution,” the statement said, rejecting measures altering “the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”.
Signatories also called on Israel to end settler violence against Palestinians, pledging to take “concrete steps, in accordance with international law, to counter the expansion of illegal settlements in Palestinian territory and policies and threats of forcible displacement and annexation”.
The foreign ministers stressed that Israeli settlements constitute “a flagrant violation of international law”, including previous United Nations Security Council resolutions and the 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The landmark ICJ ruling stated that Israel’s “abuse of its status as the occupying power” rendered its “presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful”.
According to the ICJ, approximately 465,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, spread across some 300 settlements and outposts, which are illegal under international law.
Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Israel’s land registration plan could lead to the “dispossession of Palestinians of their property and risks expanding Israeli control over land in the area”.
Signatories of the statement urged Israel to immediately release withheld tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority in accordance with the 1994 Paris Protocol.
They also stressed the importance of preserving the historic and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan.
Attack on Nablus-area mosque is latest in surge of Israeli settler and military violence targeting Palestinians.
Israeli settlers have defaced and set fire to a mosque in the occupied West Bank during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, marking the latest incident in a wave of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the territory.
The Wafa news agency reported on Monday that settlers graffitied racist slogans on the walls of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq Mosque, located between the towns of Sarra and Tal, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank.
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Worshippers arriving for the day’s first prayers found the damage and a smouldering fire that spewed black smoke across the mosque’s entrance and stained the ornate doorway, The Associated Press reported.
“I was shocked when I opened the door,” Munir Ramdan, who lives nearby, told the news agency. “The fire had been burning here in the area, the glass was broken here and the door was broken.”
Ramdan told AP that security camera footage showed two people walking towards the mosque carrying gasoline or petrol and a can of spray paint, and running away a few minutes later.
The attackers spray-painted graffiti denigrating the Prophet Muhammad, as well as the words “revenge” and “price tag” – a term used to describe attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property.
The assault comes amid a wave of intensified Israeli settler and military violence across the West Bank in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the nearby Gaza Strip.
At least 1,094 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began in October 2023, according to the latest United Nations figures.
Last week, the UN Human Rights Council warned in a new report (PDF) that Israeli policies in the West Bank – including “the systematic unlawful use of force by Israeli security forces” and unlawful demolitions of Palestinian homes – aim to uproot Palestinian communities.
“These violations, together with pervasive and growing settler violence committed with impunity, are fundamental to the coercive environment that induces forced displacement and forcible transfer, which is a war crime,” the report said.
It added that these policies are aimed at “altering the character, status and demographic composition of the occupied West Bank, raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing”.
Back in the West Bank village of Tal on Monday, resident Salem Ishtayeh told AP that the Israeli settlers’ assault on the local mosque was “directed especially” at Palestinians who are fasting during Ramadan.
“So they like to provoke you with words. It’s not that they are attacking you personally, they are attacking your religion, the Islamic faith,” Ishtayeh said.
According to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, settlers vandalised or attacked 45 mosques in the West Bank last year.
The Israeli military and police said they responded to the latest incident and were searching for suspects.
But human rights groups say the Israeli authorities have allowed the settlers to operate with total impunity in their attacks against Palestinians.
Israeli organisation B’Tselem has accused Israel of actively aiding the settlers’ violence “as part of a strategy to cement the takeover of Palestinian land”.
The UN also warned last year that settler attacks were being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.
Kazakhstan and Kosovo have also pledged to participate, while Egypt and Jordan will provide training for police officers.
Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have pledged to send troops to Gaza, the commander of a newly created International Stabilization Force (ISF) has said during a meeting of United States President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace.
US Army General Jasper Jeffers, who has been appointed as the head of a future Gaza stabilisation force by Trump’s board, said on Thursday that the Indonesian contingent to the mission has “accepted the position of deputy commander”.
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“With these first steps, we will help bring the security that Gaza needs,” Jeffers said during a meeting of the board in Washington, DC.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who was among several world leaders participating in the meeting, said his country would contribute up to 8,000 personnel to the planned force “to make this peace work” in the war-torn Palestinian territory, where Israel’s genocide has killed at least 72,000 people.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said his country will also send an unspecified number of troops, including medical units, to Gaza, while Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that his country is ready to deploy police officers to Gaza.
Albania, whose prime minister recently made a two-day official visit to Israel, has also said it will contribute troops, while neighbouring countries Egypt and Jordan have said they will participate by training police officers.
Indonesia, which was one of the first countries to commit to sending troops, has sought to reassure potential critics that its participation is intended to ensure international law is upheld in Gaza, amid Israel’s genocidal onslaught.
Indonesia’s foreign minister met with both United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour in New York on Wednesday, in advance of President Subianto’s participation in the Board of Peace meeting.
“Indonesia’s mandate [on troop deployment] is humanitarian in nature with a focus on protecting civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction as well as training and strengthening the capacity of the Palestinian Police,” Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a recent statement, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper.
“Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations or any action leading to direct confrontation with any armed group,” the ministry said, responding to questions raised over its future role in Gaza by Amnesty International.
The head of Amnesty International Indonesia, Usman Hamid, has voiced concerns that Indonesia risked violating international law through its participation in the Board of Peace and the planned stabilisation force for Gaza.
Hamid warned that Indonesia’s deployment of troops to Gaza “means putting Indonesia at risk of participating in a mechanism that will strengthen violations of International Humanitarian Law”.
“The Peace Council does not include members from the most disadvantaged Palestinians, but instead includes members from Israel, which has for nearly eight decades carried out an illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people, even committing genocide in Gaza,” Hamid wrote last week in an open letter to the speaker of the People’s Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia.
Palestinians have also voiced concerns that Trump’s Board of Peace will only further entrench Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces continue to carve out more “buffer zones” and restrict the entry of food and other aid, months into a so-called “ceasefire” with Hamas, during which almost 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.
The Gaza stabilisation force differs from other peacekeeping forces deployed by multilateral organisations such as the UN or the African Union.
In neighbouring Lebanon, more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 countries continue to participate in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was created in 1978.
Indonesia, along with Italy, is one of the largest contributors of troops to UNIFIL, which has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli forces, despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
A new United Nations Human Rights Office report says Israel’s military campaign and blockade of Gaza have created living conditions “increasingly incompatible with Palestinians’ continued existence as a group in Gaza” as it presses its genocidal war on the enclave.
The report released on Thursday states that “intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza”.
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“This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Covering the period from November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025, the report documents Israel’s security forces’ “systematic use of unlawful force” in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
It highlights “widespread” arbitrary detention and the “extensive unlawful demolition” of Palestinian homes, stating that the measures seek to “systematically discriminate, oppress, control and dominate the Palestinian people”.
These policies are altering “the character, status and demographic composition of the occupied West Bank, raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing”.
In Gaza, the report condemns the killing and maiming of “unprecedented numbers of civilians”, the spread of famine and the destruction of the “remaining civilian infrastructure”.
At least 463 Palestinians, including 157 children, starved to death during the 12-month period, according to the findings.
“Palestinians faced the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risking being killed while trying to get food,” it says, adding that the famine and “foreseeable and repeatedly foretold” deaths directly resulted from actions taken by the Israeli government.
Israeli forces launched new air strikes and artillery attacks across the Gaza Strip, as families in the besieged enclave woke to begin their Ramadan fast under bombardment.
Shelling struck areas east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza at dawn on Thursday, where Israeli troops remain deployed. Warplanes also hit Rafah and areas east of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent.
A day earlier, medical officials at Nasser Medical Complex confirmed that two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire near the so-called “yellow line” in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis.
Israeli forces continue to demolish homes and infrastructure in areas they control, flattening entire neighbourhoods and entrenching displacement.
The attacks form part of Israel’s repeated breaches of the ceasefire that began on October 10, 2025.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says those violations have killed 603 Palestinians and wounded 1,618 others as of Monday.
Violence has also intensified in the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday evening, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the death of 19-year-old Nasrallah Mohammad Jamal Abu Siam, who succumbed to wounds sustained during a settler assault on Mukhmas, northeast of occupied East Jerusalem.
Settlers, operating under the protection of Israeli forces, opened fire and stole dozens of sheep from Palestinian farmers. Three of the wounded were shot with live ammunition.
With Abu Siam’s killing, the number of Palestinians shot dead by settlers alone since October 7, 2023 has risen to 37, according to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.
Moayad Shaaban, head of the commission, described events in Mukhmas as a “dangerous escalation in organised settler terrorism”, citing a “full partnership between settlers and the occupation forces”.
Israeli troops also raided the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, wounding two young men with live fire, one critically. Soldiers detained several others during the incursion.
In Jerusalem, Ramadan has brought further restrictions at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The mosque’s imam, Sheikh Akrama Sabri, said Israeli authorities are “imposing a reality by force” by limiting worshippers while allowing extremist Jewish incursions into the compound.
Occupation authorities have issued more than 100 deportation orders barring young Jerusalemites from entering the mosque and restricted West Bank worshippers to 10,000 permits under strict age and security conditions. Al-Aqsa can hold up to half a million people.
Sheikh Sabri said Israeli forces question worshippers during tarawih prayers in what he described as “provocation upon provocation”.
Israeli forces carried out violent raids across the occupied West Bank, detaining Palestinians and demolishing homes. A young man was killed by settlers in Mukhmas, Jerusalem, while restrictions on West Bank worshippers at Al-Aqsa added to tensions during Ramadan.
Published On 19 Feb 202619 Feb 2026
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Attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have intensified recently, backed by Israeli forces.
A young Palestinian man was killed and four other people were injured when a group of Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli forces, opened fire on a village in the occupied West Bank.
The death of the young man on Wednesday evening, identified as Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19, marks the first killing of a Palestinian by Israeli settler gunfire so far this year, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.
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During the attack on the village of Mukhmas, located northeast of occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli settlers also stole dozens of sheep from local Palestinian residents, Wafa reports.
The attack on Mukhmas and other Palestinian towns and villages constitutes a “dangerous escalation in systematic terrorism and reflects a complete partnership between the settlers and the occupation forces,” Mu’ayyad Sha’ban, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, told Wafa.
Calling for international protection for Palestinian communities, Sha’ban said that settlers have now killed 37 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, but the escalating violence would not deter Palestinians from holding onto their land.
Mukhmas and the adjacent Bedouin community of Khallat al-Sidra have faced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers, often occurring with the protection or presence of Israeli forces, according to reports.
The governorate of Jerusalem, one of the 16 administrative districts of Palestine, said in a statement that the killing of the young man by Israeli settlers was a “fully-fledged crime… carried out under the protection and supervision of the Israeli occupation forces.”
Translation: Martyr of the town of Mukhmas, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, who ascended after succumbing to his injury from settler gunfire during the attack on the town northeast of occupied Jerusalem.
The governorate said the attack was part of a dangerous surge of violence carried out by settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and characterised by the widespread use of live ammunition, direct shooting at Palestinian citizens, as well as burning local Palestinian homes, damaging vehicles and property, and seizing land.
Armed settler violence is being supported by “pillars of the Israeli government”, foremost among them far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the governorate added, according to Wafa.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since 2023, and more than 10,000 people have been forcibly displaced.
Since the start of this year alone, almost 700 Palestinians in nine communities have been displaced due to settler attacks, including 600 displaced from the Ras Ein al-Auja Bedouin community in Jericho governorate, OCHA reports.
Earlier this week, Israel’s government approved a plan to designate large areas of the occupied West Bank as Israeli “state property”, shifting the burden of proof to Palestinians to establish ownership of their land in a longstanding situation where Israel has made it all but impossible to obtain property titles.
Described as de-facto annexation of the West Bank, the Israeli government’s decision has drawn widespread international condemnation as a grave escalation that undermines the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
Israel’s attempted land grab and killings by settlers come amid a sharp increase in Israeli military operations across the occupied West Bank, where forces have intensified raids, carried out forced evictions, home demolitions, and other repressive measures in multiple areas.
UN warns that Israel’s plan will lead to widespread dispossession of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
More than 80 United Nations member states have condemned Israel’s plan to expand control over the occupied West Bank and claim large tracts of Palestinian territory as Israeli “state property”.
“We strongly condemn unilateral Israeli decisions and measures aimed at expanding Israel’s unlawful presence in the West Bank,” Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on Tuesday, speaking on behalf of the coalition of 85 member states and several international organisations.
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“Such decisions are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law and must be immediately reversed. We underline in this regard our strong opposition to any form of annexation,” Mansour said.
“We reiterate our rejection of all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,” he said.
“Such measures violate international law, undermine the ongoing efforts for peace and stability in the region, run counter to the Comprehensive Plan and jeopardise the prospect of reaching a peace agreement ending the conflict”, he added.
The Comprehensive Plan is a November agreement between Israel and Hamas to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which includes a halt to Israel’s illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Signatories to the joint statement on Tuesday include Australia, Canada, China, France, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye , the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
The joint statement follows Israel’s decision to implement land registration in Section C of the West Bank for the first time since 1967, when Israel began its occupation of Palestinian territory.
Section C makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank’s territory, according to the illegal settlement monitoring organisation Peace Now.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, earlier this week, warned that Israel’s land registration plan could lead to the “dispossession of Palestinians of their property and risks expanding Israeli control over land in the area”.
Guterres warned that the process could be both “destabilising” and unlawful, citing a landmark 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that stated Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful and must end.
Israel’s “abuse of its status as the occupying power” renders its “presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful”, the ICJ said in its ruling.
“Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” the court added.
According to the ICJ, approximately 465,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, spread across some 300 settlements and outposts, which are illegal under international law.
Separately on Tuesday, a 13-year-old Palestinian child was killed, and two other children were seriously injured, in the occupied West Bank’s central Jordan Valley area by ammunition discarded by the Israeli military, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The injured children, aged 12 and 14, are receiving treatment in hospital, Wafa said.
This week, the Israeli government approved a plan to designate large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property”, shifting the burden of proof to Palestinians to establish ownership of their land.
The decision, which undermines the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, has prompted regional condemnation, with many describing it as a de facto annexation which is illegal under international law.
In recent years, Israel has intensified its military incursions, expanded illegal settlements, and demolished Palestinian homes, all as part of a series of aggressive actions to steal more Palestinian land.
In total, at least 37,135 Palestinians were displaced across the occupied West Bank in 2025, a record high amid Israeli military incursions and settler attacks, according to figures compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
According to UNRWA, Israeli military incursions have forcibly displaced at least 33,362 Palestinians from three northern refugee camps: Jenin (12,557), Tulkarem(11,862) and Nur Shams (8,943).
In addition to those displaced during Israeli operations, at least 3,773 have been forced from their homes due to Israeli home demolitions, settler violence, and access restrictions.
The West Bank governorates with the largest number of forced displacements include:
As part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel, the occupied West Bank was divided into three areas – A, B and C.
This led to the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) – an administrative body that would govern Palestinian internal security, administration and civilian affairs in areas of self-rule, for a five-year interim period.
Area A initially comprised 3 percent of the West Bank and grew to 18 percent by 1999. In Area A, the PA controls most affairs.
Area B represents about 22 percent of the West Bank. In both areas, while the PA is in charge of education, health and the economy, the Israelis have full control of external security, meaning they retain the right to enter at any time.
Area C represents 60 percent of the West Bank. Under the Oslo Accords, control of this area was supposed to be handed over to the PA. Instead, Israel retains total control over all matters, including security, planning and construction. The transfer of control to the PA never happened.
Although Area C is the least populated part of the West Bank, with about 300,000 Palestinians compared with about 3 million in Areas A and B, the vast majority of home demolitions and settler attacks occur there, due to it being under full Israeli military and administrative control.
The Israeli Civil Administration rarely grants building permits to Palestinians in this area, so nearly all construction is considered illegal and subject to demolition.
Since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank has steadily risen.
According to data from OCHA, settlers have attacked Palestinians more than 3,700 times in the occupied West Bank over the past 28 months.
The number of settler attacks has risen sharply since 2016, with 852 recorded in 2022, 1,291 in 2023, 1,449 in 2024 and 1,828 in 2025 – an average of five attacks per day, according to data from OCHA.
Every West Bank governorate has faced settler attacks over the past year.
Data from OCHA shows that between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025, the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate recorded the highest number of settler attacks with 523 incidents, followed by Nablus with 349 and Hebron with 309.
Settlers are Israeli citizens living in illegal, Jewish-only communities, known as Israeli settlements, built on Palestinian-owned land that Israel occupied in 1967.
Benjamin Netanyahu – Israel’s longest-serving prime minister – has bolstered settlement expansions since he first came to power in 1996, undermining the 1993 Oslo Accords, which called for the freezing of settlements and a mutually negotiated two-state solution.
Today, roughly 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, totalling between 600,000 and 750,000 people, live in about 250 settlements and outposts dispersed throughout the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Many of these settlements are located near Palestinian population centres, often leading to increased tensions and restrictions on movement for Palestinians.
Nearly a year since the Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won an Academy Award, its co-director, Hamdan Ballal, says Israeli settler attacks on the cluster of occupied West Bank villages known as Masafer Yatta have only gotten worse, as those involved in the documentary bear the brunt of Israeli reprisals.
The latest bout of violence came on Sunday, when Israeli settlers stormed Ballal’s hometown of Susya, despite an Israeli court ruling designating the area around his home as closed to non-residents. Israeli army officers called by the family to enforce the ruling, issued two weeks prior, sided with the attackers.
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“The ruling was supposed to make things better for us, but the opposite happened,” Ballal told Al Jazeera on Monday. “Israeli authorities did nothing to enforce the decision, but joined the settlers in the attack.”
One of his brothers was held in a chokehold by an army officer and later hospitalised with breathing difficulties. Four other relatives – two brothers, a nephew, and a cousin – were detained for several hours as they arrived at the scene. They have all since been released.
The Palestinian film director said his family was ambushed by the same Israeli settler who led an attack against him as he returned from the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles last March. Then, he had been taken away in a blindfold by a group of Israeli settlers and army officers and released a day later with injuries to his head and stomach, leading to global condemnation.
Ballal said the retaliation for the documentary has since been directed against his family, rather than himself, to avoid media attention. His relatives have been routinely prevented from grazing sheep and ploughing the land. At times, they have been arrested, questioned about his work and whereabouts, or intimidated to vacate their homes.
“My family is paying because of me; because I shared the movie and I shared the truth,” he said.
The film, which won the Oscar for best documentary on March 2, follows Palestinian journalist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham as they try to protect Palestinian homes amid tensions with settlers in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor also shares directing credits.
Israeli settlers in the area often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access, and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.
The Israeli army argues that it has to demolish the Palestinian villages to convert the area into a military “firing” or training zone. It did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Sunday’s incident.
Across the occupied West Bank, Israel’s far-right coalition government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been openly promoting new measures to expand Israeli control over the Palestinian territory.
Most recently, it announced the resumption of the land registration processes for the first time since 1967, which Israeli rights groups say will accelerate the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in violation of international law.
Ballal’s family has not been the only one to pay the price for the acclaimed documentary.
Adra, the Palestinian protagonist in the film, had his home in at-Tawani raided by the Israeli army in September, after clashes broke out with a group of Israeli settlers that trespassed in his olive grove.
In July, Awdah Hathaleen, an activist, football player and a consultant for No Other Land, was shot dead, in the chest, in the village of Umm al-Khair. The father of three was a key figure in non-violent resistance against settler violence in Masafer Yatta. His assailant, Israeli settler Yinon Levi, later said, “I’m glad I did it,” according to witnesses.
Ballal said he does not hesitate to describe these attacks as being “terrorist”, as they leave the Palestinian community in Masafer Yatta constantly fearing for their safety.
“It’s a simple right for Palestinians to feel safe in their homes,” he told Al Jazeera. “We are scared; we are in danger, and it’s been like this for a long time.”
“International law doesn’t work for Palestinians,” he continued. “But we are human, and we have a right to live.”
The Israeli government has approved a plan to begin land registration in the occupied West Bank, meaning it will be able to seize land from Palestinians who cannot prove ownership.
For the first time since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, it will register such land as property of the state – also known as settlement of land title – in Area C of the occupied West Bank.
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Area C is the part of the West Bank that remains under direct Israeli control. It covers about 60 percent of the West Bank.
According to Israeli media, Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, who submitted the proposal to restart land registration with Minister of Justice Yariv Levin and Minister of Defence Israel Katz, said the move was a continuation of “the settlement revolution to control all our lands”.
The Palestinian Authority presidency said the decision amounts to “de facto annexation” of the West Bank. It is the formalisation of the ongoing process of building settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law over the past several decades.
Here’s what we know about how this could be implemented:
During Jordanian control of the West Bank from 1949 to 1967, the administration primarily followed the British Mandate of land ownership, under which land was registered as state or private property.
But only about one-third of the land in the West Bank was formally registered under this process. Large numbers of Palestinians living in the region had no documentation or other means of proving they owned their own land. Many of them had also lost documents or they had been destroyed during the 1967 six-day Arab-Israeli war, which resulted in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
When Israel took control of the West Bank, it discontinued the process of land registration.
Now, the government has decided to restart the land registration, a move that many Israeli human rights groups and political analysts have condemned.
Xavier Abu Eid, a political analyst based in the West Bank, described the Israeli government’s move as a “de facto annexation of Palestinian territory”.
“What they are doing is the implementation of annexation, packaging it as a mere bureaucratic process,” he told Al Jazeera.
He added that it reaffirms the idea that “there is a colonial power that sets two different sets of legislation depending on ethnic and religious identity, defined also as apartheid.”
In 1993 and 1995, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. They laid out administrative control of the West Bank and Gaza and divided the occupied West Bank into three areas – Area A, Area B and Area C.
The new Palestinian Authority (PA) was granted full administrative control of 18 percent of the land – Area A – and joint control with Israel over 22 percent – Area B. Area C remained under complete Israeli military control. These areas were meant to be in place for five years, after which full administrative control would be handed to the PA. However, this transfer never took place.
The land registration that will now be restarted will apply to Area C, which is home to more than 300,000 Palestinian people.
According to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, in Area C, about 58 percent of the land remains unregistered. In a statement on Sunday, the group warned that the Israeli government’s land settlement process will now facilitate full Israeli control of this unregistered land.
Israeli authorities have provided few details about how the process will unfold, but essentially, it will likely involve transferring legal ownership of land to the Israeli state and issuing evictions to Palestinian communities, as has been happening in East Jerusalem in recent years, experts told Al Jazeera.
Michal Braier, an architect and the head of research at Bimkom, an Israeli human rights organisation that focuses on land and housing rights, said it is likely Israeli authorities will take the same approach in the West Bank as they have taken in East Jerusalem since 2018. In East Jerusalem, only 1 percent of settled land has been registered to Palestinians from 2018 to 2024, according to Bimkom.
Braier said Israel will begin by selecting the areas of land it wants to register. The government has set a goal of registering about 15 percent of the unregistered land within the next four years, she added.
“Now we can pretty clearly guess that this 15 percent will be lands where they assume that they can prove the state ownership easily or they can easily reject Palestinian ownership claims because a lot of these unregistered lands don’t have clear records and the records go a very, very long time back. So it will be very hard to prove Palestinian ownership,” she told Al Jazeera.
In theory, she said, Palestinians will be able to file land claims as part of the new process, but in practice, it is likely that they will be prevented from successfully doing so.
“Even if they do file claims, the legal bars they need to meet are very difficult to obtain. On top of this, there is the problem of Absentee Property Law, which moves land into the state’s hands and is yet unclear how exactly it will be practised in the occupied West Bank. So Palestinians are highly likely to lose their individual property rights,” she said.
The Absentee Property Law is an Israeli law enacted in 1950 that states that Israel has the right to seize property of “absentees” – people who were expelled, fled or who left the country after November 29, 1947, the day the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to end the British Mandate and recommend the creation of a Palestinian and a Jewish state. Israel was founded less than six months later.
Braier said land registration “will be used as another mechanism to grab land that they could not grab until now for different reasons and to build more settlements and push out Palestinians from Area C”.
According to a Times of Israel report, an Israeli government resolution linked to the land registration bill has allowed for an initial budget of $79m for the land registration process in Area C from 2026 to 2030. The report added that during this process, Israel, which already has civilian and military control of the area, will establish 35 ministerial positions and set up state agencies to begin the process of registering land.
Peace Now described the Israeli government’s decision to restart land registration in the West Bank as “a mega land grab of Palestinian property”.
“Land registration will result in the transfer of ownership of the vast majority of Area C to the state, leaving Palestinians with no practical ability to realise their ownership rights,” the group said in a statement on Sunday.
Abu Eid said the land registration process the government intends to undertake amounts to a “full-fledged ethnic cleansing policy” and added that it is a moment that will be “remembered as a turning point in Israeli attempts at erasing the Palestinian cause”.
But he noted that the Israeli government’s decision has not arisen in a vacuum as Israel has “allowed for a wave of terror attacks by Israeli settlers and the expansion of colonial settlements all over the West Bank” for years.
“Palestinians in general are not just dispossessed of their land and natural resources but come under attacks that are dealt with utter impunity both by the Israeli regime and by the international community,” he said.
“In al-Auja, for example, near Jericho, from 100 Palestinian families that used to live in the place a few months ago, now there is not a single family left,” he added.
He said it is likely that Israel will expect thousands of displaced people from the West Bank to go to Jordan.
“You should not forget the incitement coming out from members of the Israeli government claiming that Jordan should be turned into Palestine while Palestine should be left for the Zionist project,” Abu Eid said.
The West Bank is home to about 3.3 million Palestinians. It is divided into 11 governorates with Hebron being the most populous at 842,000 residents. Jerusalem follows with 500,000, Nablus with 440,000, Ramallah and el-Bireh with 377,000 and Jenin with 360,000.
Since the Israeli occupation in 1967, the Palestinian people have been subject to land seizures and illegal settlement expansion.
Today, about 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in settlements and outposts that are Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land. These range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high rises. Last year, the Israeli government approved the construction of new settlements in the region, seeking to advance “de facto sovereignty” in the region.
In all, the number of settlements and outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has risen by nearly 50 percent since 2022 – from 141 to 210 now.
Besides eroding Palestinian people’s land rights, Israel has also carried out frequent raids in the West Bank, where Palestinians are also subject to checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, home demolitions and settler attacks.
The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem estimated that settler attacks against Palestinians have forcibly displaced 44 communities across the West Bank in recent years. These attacks have also resulted in the deaths of Palestinian people. Since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, settler attacks have also intensified.
At least 1,054 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers from October 7, 2023, to February 5 of this year, according to the latest United Nations figures.
Braier said Sunday’s approval of Israel’s land registration in the West Bank will result in a rise in violence in the region.
“Area C is being cleared out by what is usually regarded as settler violence, but this violence is actually state violence, backed by state mechanisms, so this is all working together to expand Israeli control over Area C and expand settlement in Area C,” she said.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s “expropriation of land and properties, transfer of populations, and legislation aimed at the incorporation of the occupied section are totally invalid and cannot change that status”.
The ICJ has also ruled that Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal and must be terminated “as rapidly as possible”.
Braier said the Israeli government’s latest decision on land registration also contravenes international law.
“International law is clear: As an occupying power, Israel cannot exercise sovereign powers, including final determination of land ownership, in an occupied territory,” she told Al Jazeera.
“This position was reinforced by the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion, which found that similar settlement of land title proceedings in East Jerusalem violate the laws of occupation,” she said.
“Furthermore, the decision to authorise Israeli civilian authorities to manage the land registration procedures likewise constitutes a clear indication of the annexation of the area,” she added.
On October 26, 1994, Israel and Jordan signed the Wadi Araba Treaty, which formally ended the state of war between the two nations that had existed since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Under the agreement, Israel and Jordan established diplomatic ties, agreed to exchange territory and opened the way for cooperation in trade, tourism, transport links, water resources and environmental protection. Jordan also signed the agreement seeking to ensure a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine would be established.
But the public in Jordan, opposition groups and human rights groups have repeatedly called on the government to sever relations with Israel due to its continuing aggression in Palestine.
In 2014, many Jordanians took to the streets, calling on the government to scrap its peace treaty with Israel after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
In 2024, a similar call was issued by Jordanian activists as Israel conducted its genocidal war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians.
On Sunday, Jordan, which shares a 482km (300-mile) border with Israel and the West Bank, condemned Israel’s decision to reinstate land registration in the West Bank. Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Israel’s move as a “flagrant violation of international law”.
While Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel still holds, Abu Eid said Sunday’s decision by the Israeli cabinet is a serious and sensitive matter for Jordan, particularly if thousands of people are forcibly displaced from the West Bank.
Furthermore, he said, Israel has been acting against the principles of the Jordan-Israel peace agreement for years.
“If peace agreements are aimed at creating the conditions to enhance cooperation and establish a two-state solution, Israel goes against all of such principles, seeking the expansionist ‘Greater Israel’ agenda,” he said.
“Jordan takes such matters seriously and will certainly seek to have collective action with other regional and international allies,” he added.
The world’s largest shipping company MSC has been moving goods to and from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, with the help of European port operators.
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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Israel’s decision to resume the land registration processes in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967 will facilitate the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in violation of international law, Israeli rights groups say.
The land registration process – also known as settlement of land title – has been reinstated after nearly six decades, following the government’s approval on Sunday of a proposal submitted by far-right Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, and Minister of Defence Israel Katz.
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While Israel has increased the confiscation of Palestinian land through military orders, with the activity reaching record levels in 2025, the new move gives Israel a legal avenue that “systemati[ses] the dispossession of Palestinian land to further Israeli settlement expansion and cement the apartheid regime”, Bimkom, an Israeli human rights organisation that focuses on land and housing rights, said in a statement.
Michal Braier, head of research at Bimkom, told Al Jazeera that land registration will be inaccessible to large segments of the Palestinian population who never had their land formally registered, or who may fail to prove ownership.
In the occupied West Bank, land registration under the Jordanian Administration – which followed British Mandate rule and lasted from 1949 to 1967 – covered about 30 percent of the total area. As a consequence, about 70 percent of the West Bank is “completely unregistered”, Braier said, making it “very hard to determine who actually owns the land”.
Even for those whose land was registered, “the legal bar for proving land ownership is very, very high, in a way that most Palestinians won’t have the proper documents to prove it”, said Braier.
In 1968, Israeli occupation authorities froze most land settlement procedures in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, making transfer of ownership down the family line hard to prove for Palestinians.
Additionally, legal documents could have been lost or stored in homes that are now out of reach to Palestinian refugees displaced by the Arab–Israeli war (1948-49) – when the newly-founded Israel seized control of 77 percent of Palestine – and in the Six Day War of 1967, which ended with Israel capturing the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria, while occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said the newly reinstated process of land registration amounts to a “full annexation” of Palestinian land.
“This is a way for Israel to take control over the West Bank,” Hagit Ofran, a Peace Now member, told Al Jazeera. “The government is asking for papers that are dating back to the British mandate or to the Jordanian time 100 years ago.”
“This is something that, very rarely, Palestinians will be able to prove, and therefore, by default, the land will be registered under [Israel’s] name,” she added.
Israel’s Supreme Court last month rejected a petition opposing the resumption of the land registration process, filed by local human rights groups Bimkom, Yesh Din, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and HaMoked. The court deemed it “premature” to rule on the implementation of the government’s decision.
Israeli authorities have provided few details on how the process will unfold. Yet, a similar scenario has already played out in occupied East Jerusalem, where the settlement of land title that began in 2018 resulted in the expropriation of Palestinian land.
Research conducted by Bimkom found that only 1 percent of the East Jerusalem land registered for ownership between 2018 and 2024 was registered to Palestinians, while the rest came under the control of the Israeli state or private Israeli owners.
The move expanded Israel’s de facto annexation over East Jerusalem in breach of international law, including, most recently, an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2024.
In its landmark ruling, the World Court found that Israel’s “expropriation of land and properties, transfer of populations, and legislation aimed at the incorporation of the occupied section are totally invalid and cannot change that status”.
More broadly, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory – comprised of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – was unlawful, and must be terminated “as rapidly as possible”.
Braier said the Israeli government’s decision was its latest move expand control over Palestinian territory in breach of international law.
“The government is not hiding its intentions. They want to expand settlements and push Palestinians into as small an area as possible.”