Occupied West Bank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Essence of childhood destroyed’

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond the casualty count

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Generational trauma

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Khour, that stability begins with her parents.

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

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

Israeli settlers have vandalised and burned a mosque in the occupied West Bank village of Jaljulia, north of Ramallah. Racist slogans were scrawled on the walls by the settlers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disabled Palestinian shot, injured in West Bank

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

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

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

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

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

Both Amnesty International and Oxfam released reports this week documenting a rise in state-backed Israeli settler violence across the occupied West Bank over the past three years. What’s driving the escalation? Al Jazeera’s Marah Rayan breaks it down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A surveillance camera caught a brutal assault by an Israeli soldier and settlers on two young Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Video shows them slamming the victims onto the ground and repeatedly beating them, including with a plank of wood, leaving them motionless on the ground.

When the European Union issued its latest tranche of sanctions against Israeli settler groups and their leaders, Regavim, founded in part by the country’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, these groups welcomed the measures as a “badge of honour.”

Another sanctioned figure, Daniella Weiss, whose movement, Nachala, has held conferences on the Gaza border to discuss plans for settlement expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory, likewise dismissed the European penalties as “ridiculous” and “banal”.

In total, the EU sanctioned four entities and three individuals associated with the settler movement, which includes high-profile characters such as Weiss, Regavim and its director, Meir Deutsch, and the Amana cooperative association, which offers logistical and financial support to settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Even government figures have been targeted in recent Western actions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a son of the settler movement, was sanctioned by the United Kingdom, Canada and several other countries for his alleged role in supporting or enabling violence in the West Bank, highlighting how the settlement project has the support of the highest echelons of the Israeli state.

Overall, the nonchalant response from the targeted figures and entities suggests that none of the EU measures will do anything to stop settlement expansion or make individuals accountable for the growing wave of violence against Palestinians.

Ironically, the largely toothless measures might instead become a source of domestic prestige for their leaders, analysts say, as few would expect these hardline settler figures to spend their summers in Paris or London and thus be affected by the sanctions. Instead, a wave of terror in the occupied West Bank will likely continue, with the tacit support of the government.

Endemic violence

In the eyes of many activists and observers who spoke to Al Jazeera, the EU’s focus on group and individual “violations” falls far short of articulating the scale of the highly coordinated settler attacks or the extent to which the state and society support them.

Following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, United Nations and human rights monitors have documented systemic lethal settler attacks in places such as the South Hebron Hills, where residents of villages like Susiya and Umm al-Khair have been killed or seriously injured in collective incursions.

In the northern West Bank, Palestinian residents of villages around Nablus and Ramallah have seen their homes, vehicles and olive groves torched during nighttime settler raids. Entire Bedouin herding communities in the Jordan Valley have also been forcibly displaced following sustained campaigns of intimidation and violence.

All of this underscores the depth and breadth of settler activity, which, according to people on the ground, has the direct support of the Israeli government.

“It’s gotten much worse since October 2023. They now have the courage to attack into the heart of densely populated Palestinian villages. I see them, they came into the heart of my village outside Ramallah, they feel safe to do so,” Tahseen Alayan, deputy director of Al-Haq, told Al Jazeera.

“If you buy a sheep, they will steal it. If you build a house, they will destroy it. If you buy a car, they will burn it.”

Examples of Israeli government complicity in these settler raids are not hard to find, and the statistics indicate collective efforts to entrench Israeli control over the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967.

Israeli forces and settlers are accused of killing an estimated 1,168 people in the occupied West Bank since October 2023 and injuring a further 12,666 Palestinians. Another 33,000 people have been displaced, while Israel has also detained nearly 23,000 Palestinians in the West Bank during this period, many without charge.

“The violence does not happen in a vacuum,” Alayan continued. “This is an extension of the Israeli government; settlement is at the core of their identity. They are protected by the government and by the occupying services, and they freely admit it.”

A tragic incident that comes to mind is settler Yinon Levi, who allegedly shot dead Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in Masafer Yatta last year. Despite the murder being captured on video, Levi nevertheless remains at large.

“Even if they are ever prosecuted, the sentences rarely reflect the severity of the crime,” Alayan said. “These people return to their homes and are seen as heroes.”

‘Entitlement and superiority’

This sense of impunity that settlers appear to be imbued with cannot be detached from the appointment to ministerial positions of leading figures or sympathisers of the settler movement – notably Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, the latter born in an illegal settlement in the occupied Golan Heights.

In a sign of state-settler cooperation to achieve direct control of the West Bank, in contravention of the Oslo Accords, Israel last year announced plans for the establishment of the E1 settlement that would link occupied East Jerusalem with its growing Maale Adumim bloc.

According to plans outlined by Smotrich, when established, this settlement would kill any hopes of the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and fulfil a biblical prophecy that many in the movement have been working towards.

Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor of social-political psychology from the Department of Education at Tel Aviv University, interpreted the thinking behind the settlers leading this violence across the West Bank.

“It is divine order to settle West Bank. With divine order you do not argue but achieve it in the way Yehoshua carried it 3,000 years ago when he entered the promised land,” he explained. “He achieved it with sword, so we need to do the same.”

Shai Parnes of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem told Al Jazeera that the absence of international pressure has bolstered the alliance between the state and settler movement.

“The Israeli regime is an apartheid regime based on Jewish supremacy and institutionalised discrimination against Palestinians,” Parnes told Al Jazeera.

“Any Israeli, civilian or soldier, who harms a Palestinian receives full immunity and support from the Israeli systems, and Israel itself receives this from the international community. These facts explain the Israelis’ sense of entitlement and superiority.”

Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, one of Israel’s leading sociologists, described the channelling of “Jewish supremacy” from the individual to the group, to the state, and back again, as a “closed loop”.

This, he said, fosters a sense of superiority among individuals, and when combined with a militarised society, makes violence against the native Palestinian population, who are in the way of realising this supposed biblical prophecy, almost inevitable.

“Some believe they’re in the West Bank because God said it was theirs. Others are there because they’re too poor to be anywhere else, and have been told they’re superior anyway,” he said.

“Two-thirds of the time, these same people are soldiers. They carry guns all the time. Looking on while they carry out this violence against Palestinians are other soldiers who believe almost exactly the same thing, and behind them politicians. Like I said, it’s a closed loop.”

Irish Taoiseach Martin says the far-right ministers have shown ‘a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine’.

Ireland has barred Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, from visiting the country, citing their conduct towards pro-Palestinian activists and support for policies that would displace Palestinians from their homeland.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheal Martin – known as the Taoiseach – confirmed the move on Friday, saying the two far-right ministers had advocated positions that amounted to “a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine”.

Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have repeatedly called for Israel to annex Palestinian territories and push Palestinians out of Gaza, provoking condemnation from rights groups and several foreign governments.

Martin also referenced the treatment of pro-Palestinian activists who were part of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last month.

Ben-Gvir provoked widespread condemnation when he shared video of himself mocking the detained activists as they knelt on the floor, blindfolded, with their hands bound.

In a statement, Ireland’s justice ministry said Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan had instructed immigration officers to refuse entry to Ben-Gvir and Smotrich should they seek to enter the state.

Ben-Gvir became a minister in 2022, after an alliance with Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionist party came third in legislative elections.

Smotrich, who himself lives on an illegal Israeli settlement, has been a vocal advocate of Israel annexing the occupied West Bank, saying he hopes to “kill the idea” of a Palestinian state.

Together, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich form a cornerstone of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.

‘Justifies EU sanctions’

Addressing Ireland’s travel ban at a summit in Montenegro, Martin said the two Israeli ministers should also be subject to EU sanctions.

“In my view, their behaviour justifies sanctions at EU level as well, and that’s something that we will raise, whether we can get sufficient support across the European Union is a different matter,” Martin was quoted by Irish broadcaster RTE.

Since Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza, Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel.

In 2024, Ireland officially recognised the Palestinian state, after which Israel ordered the closure of its embassy in Dublin.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have faced bans from other European countries over their conduct, including Britain, Spain and Slovenia. Last month, France banned Ben-Gvir from entry.

A Palestinian doctor has been killed and three people injured in an Israeli attack in central Gaza, as Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian homes and property in northern and southern parts of the occupied West Bank.

The attacks across Palestine on Saturday, the fourth day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, came amid continued Israeli violations of a United States-backed “ceasefire” implemented in October aimed at halting Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Dr Jamal Abu Aboun, the head of anaesthesia at Al-Yafa Medical Hospital in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, was killed in an Israeli strike near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, also in Deir al-Balah on Saturday.

“The body of Jamal Abu Aoun and three injured people, including a child, had arrived at the hospital following an Israeli drone strike that targeted a group of civilians near the hospital,” a medical source at Al-Aqsa hospital told the Anadolu news agency.

Earlier, Israeli artillery shelling targeted areas east and south of Khan Younis city in southern Gaza. Another artillery strike targeted al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

At least 922 Palestinians have been killed and 2,786 others injured in Israeli attacks since the October “ceasefire”, according to the Gaza Media Office.

Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, killing at least 72,000 Palestinians and injuring over 172,000 others, according to Palestinian figures.

In testimonies to The Associated Press news agency, Israeli soldiers described a climate of dehumanisation, permissive rules of engagement and the routine killing of Palestinians during the “ceasefire”.

Reservists who served in Gaza between last October and January said Israeli troops frequently opened fire on Palestinians approaching or crossing the so-called “Yellow Line”, an often poorly marked boundary separating Israeli-occupied areas from the rest of the enclave.

One soldier said that fellow troops celebrated after a strike on a vehicle carrying Palestinians killed everyone inside. “It was a jungle,” the soldier told AP. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”

Another reservist said commanders repeatedly emphasised holding territory at all costs. “There was a general feeling that human lives are not valuable,” he said.

Settler attacks in occupied West Bank

Elsewhere in occupied Palestine, Israeli settlers attacked several homes early on Saturday in the town of Beita, south of the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, according to Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

They threw stones at houses and smashed several vehicles, Wafa reported.

State-run Voice of Palestine radio reported Israeli forces firing light bombs into the sky over the town.

In the southern West Bank, settlers attacked Palestinian farmland and damaged several trees in Khirbet el-Muraq in Masafer Yatta, activist Osama Makhamra, who follows Israeli violations south of Hebron, told reporters.

Israeli settlers carried out at least 540 attacks in April against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, according to a monthly report by the Palestinian state-run Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.

The attacks ranged from “direct physical violence, uprooting trees, burning fields, preventing farmers from accessing their land, seizing property, as well as demolishing homes and agricultural structures”.

Israeli army raids, arrests and settler attacks have intensified across the West Bank since the start of the genocidal war in Gaza.

According to Palestinian figures, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 1,168 Palestinians, injured 12,666, displaced about 33,000, and detained nearly 23,000 in the West Bank since October 2023.

A digital register of land ownership in the West Bank is seen as an escalation of Israel’s occupation.

Occupied East Jerusalem, Palestine – A controversial Israeli plan to digitally register property ownership in the occupied West Bank is a “dangerous colonial occupation step that represents a direct assault on the historical and legal rights of the Palestinian people to their land and property”, the Palestinian Land Authority has said.

The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate and the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) have urged Palestinians in the West Bank not to engage with any Israeli “entities, committees, platforms, or procedures” of lands and property.

Israel reportedly launched the online “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” platform on which it plans to “update” property ownership in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday this week.

The Jerusalem Governorate and the CRRC have called on the international community, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and all international human rights and legal institutions to “take their urgent responsibilities to stop these illegal procedures and hold the occupying state accountable for its continuous violations against the Palestinian people, their land, and their resources”, they said.

Moayad Shaaban, head of the CRRC, which is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the move reveals “the occupation’s transition from traditional policies of field control to digital and administrative colonial engineering aimed at imposing permanent legal realities on the occupied Palestinian territory”.

‘Annexation’ by land registry

In May 2025, the Israeli Security Cabinet launched a new, aggressive land settlement process throughout the West Bank, with the aim of “completing the legal and administrative annexation of the occupied territories through fully registering the lands under Israeli authority”, the Jerusalem Governorate said.

Then, in July 2025, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank. The move was first tabled in 2024 by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in an illegal Israeli settlement.

On February 15, 2026, the permanent acquisition and registration of approximately 58 percent of Area C – the part of the West Bank over which Israel exerts total control – began.

Under that decision, Palestinian land registration in the Israeli “Tabu” – the land registry extract – began for the first time since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967. It is a final measure that will be difficult to challenge in Israeli courts, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported in February.

With the onset of land settlement, the Israeli Land Registry unit will take over the regulation and registration of land ownership in Area C. It also has the power to issue sales permits and to collect fees. Israel aims to complete the full settlement of 15 percent of the West Bank by the end of 2030.

Some 700,000 Israeli settlers already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as illegal settlement has expanded under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rights groups say settlement approvals, along with rising settler violence against Palestinian communities, have accelerated since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

EU says the sanctioned individuals and groups violated a range of rights, from the right to physical and mental integrity, to the right to education.

The European Union has sanctioned four entities and three individuals it says are “extremist Israeli settlers” responsible for “serious” human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The EU said they had violated a range of rights, including the rights to physical and mental integrity, privacy and family life, freedom of religion and education.

The announcement on Thursday is part of an EU sanctions package agreed earlier this month to punish Israeli settlers and Hamas leaders.

The sanctions include the Nachala Settlement Movement and its director, Daniella Weiss. The EU says the group “encourages and facilitates coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians”.

Israeli NGO Regavim and its director, Meir Deutsch, are also on the sanctions list for lobbying “for the demolition of Palestinian property” in order to expand Israel’s control over the entirety of the West Bank, plus the demolition of an EU-funded Palestinian primary school.

Also sanctioned is the Hashomer Yosh NGO and its president, Avichai Suissa for supporting “at least 28 violent outposts and settlements”. It also recruits armed volunteers and provides guards who engage in violent attacks, the EU added.

The Amana cooperative association of the settler movement Gush Emunim was also sanctioned, the EU stating it had likewise “played a key role in initiating, financing, and facilitating at least 30 violent outposts and settlements”.

Long-awaited sanctions

With Thursday’s additions, the EU said it now sanctions 136 persons and 41 entities from a range of countries under its Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime.

The regime was created in 2020, and applies to acts such as genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations or abuses.

The measures targeting Israeli settlers because of violence against Palestinians were long-awaited, having been blocked by the self-styled illiberal government of Hungary’s former premier Viktor Orban.

However, the appointment of new Prime Minister Peter Magyar saw the veto quickly lifted earlier this month.

Israel earlier condemned the sanctions, asserting that Jews have the right to settle in the occupied West Bank, despite that being in violation of international law.

In 2025, the expansion of Israeli settlements reached its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking data.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the West Bank has been gripped by almost daily violence involving Israeli troops and settlers. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, according to the UN.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 3,111 people since March 2, with 9,432 injured, according to Lebanese Health Ministry.

An armed Israeli settler blindfolded and detained a Palestinian man near the village of Beit Iksa in the occupied West Bank, dragging him onto a road as Israeli forces stood nearby. The Palestinian farmer was reportedly trying to reach his land before he was captured.

A group of Israeli settlers attacked Israeli rights activists as they were conducting a tour near illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli security forces arrested the activists.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says US has ‘no alternative but to accept’ Tehran’s 14-point proposal to end war.

In the occupied West Bank, a marathon is a political statement. Palestinians ran alongside the separation wall today, a structure that cuts them off from their land, their families, and even the sea. Al Jazeera’s @leila.shw reports from Bethlehem.

The CPJ says the ‘lack of concrete progress’ in the FBI investigation represents a failure by the US government.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded a “public progress update” from United States authorities on the FBI probe into the Israeli military’s killing of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, who was shot dead in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

In an open letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI chief Kash Patel, the CPJ said on Thursday evening that “the effectively stagnant status of this case is inconsistent with ensuring the security of US citizens anywhere in the world.”

It said the “lack of concrete progress” represents a failure by the US government to respond to the “killing of one of its citizens by a foreign military”.

It noted that there had been no formal interviews with witnesses, “despite the willingness of multiple witnesses to cooperate”, and no signs of FBI activity to gather evidence in Israel or Palestine.

Longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, Abu Akleh, was covering Israeli army raids in the West Bank city of Jenin when she was killed by Israeli forces on May 11, 2022. She was wearing a clearly marked press vest when she was shot dead.

Israel initially accused Palestinian fighters of her death, but the Israeli military later released a statement saying “it is not possible to unequivocally determine the source of the gunfire which hit” Abu Akleh. It added that there was a “high possibility” that she was hit by Israeli gunfire.

Many independent investigations conducted by CNN, The Associated Press news agency, and The Washington Post concluded that Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted, the CPJ letter noted.

‘Justice remains elusive’

The CPJ asked for a public update on the status of the investigation, a commitment to a timeline for the investigation, and the public release of its findings. It also said the investigation needs to be “impartial and independent, free from political considerations”.

Abu Akleh’s family said in a statement on Thursday, “despite the passage of time, justice remains elusive,” adding that the lack of justice “sends a dangerous message that journalists can be targeted without consequence”.

Abu Akleh’s death became a symbol of the wider Palestinian struggle. Murals of her have adorned the cities of the occupied territory as people remember her for her fearless reporting.

Since her killing, Israel has killed 258 journalists and media workers, the CPJ reported. Israel has acknowledged killing a number of journalists, alleging they had links to armed groups, accusations their employers deny and the CPJ calls “deadly smears”.

“The prevailing culture of complete impunity enjoyed by Israel is a direct factor in the continued targeting of journalists without deterrence,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director. “Without an independent investigation and real accountability, such attacks will only continue to escalate, emboldening those who seek to silence the truth through violence.”

Israeli forces have raided the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, firing live ammunition that killed a 26-year-old Palestinian man and wounded four others, including children. Dozens of people have suffered tear gas inhalation.

An Israeli settler was filmed throwing rocks and trying to break into the home of Palestinian activist Issa Amro while an Israeli soldier watched. The settler was briefly arrested and then released.

Palestinians in central Gaza and the occupied West Bank have begun voting in municipal elections, the first local vote held since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Polling stations opened at 7am (04:00 GMT) on Saturday for 70,000 eligible voters in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area – the first electoral exercise in the besieged enclave in 20 years.

The vote in a single city in Gaza is largely symbolic, with officials calling it a “pilot”. Deir el-Balah was selected because it is one of the few areas in Gaza not destroyed by Israeli forces.

Nearly 1.5 million registered voters in the occupied West Bank are also voting to determine the makeup of the local councils overseeing water, roads and electricity.

The elections come amid a tightly restricted political landscape and deep public disillusionment, as the Palestinian Authority (PA) seeks to project reform and legitimacy amid growing public frustration over corruption, political stagnation and the absence of national elections since 2006.

Most electoral lists are backed by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement or independent candidates, with no official participation from Hamas, which controls parts of Gaza.

Linking the occupied West Bank and Gaza

With much of Gaza decimated by more than two years of war, the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission chose to hold its first vote in Deir el-Balah. It had to improvise because it was unable to conduct traditional voter registration.

“The main idea is to link the West Bank and Gaza politically as one system,” its spokesperson, Fareed Taamallah, said.

The commission has not coordinated directly with either Israel or Hamas ahead of the Deir el-Balah vote and has been unable to send materials like ballot papers, ballot boxes or ink into Gaza, he added.

Though Palestinian voter turnout has gradually decreased, it has been relatively high in past local elections by regional standards, according to commission figures, averaging between 50 and 60 percent.

Gaza’s first election in 20 years

Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and seized control of Gaza from the Fatah-led PA a year later.

It did not put forth candidates for Saturday, but polling from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicates it remains the most popular Palestinian faction in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Ramiz Alakbarov, the United Nations deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, called the elections “an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period”.

Hamas controls half of Gaza, which Israeli forces partially withdrew from last year, including Deir el-Balah, but the coastal enclave is preparing to transition to a new governance structure under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan.

The plan established a Board of Peace composed of international envoys and a committee of unelected Palestinians, intended to operate under it.

Progress towards further phases, including disarming Hamas, reconstruction and a transfer of power, has stalled.

Electoral reform

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, 90, signed a decree last year to overhaul the electoral system in line with some demands from Western donors.

The reforms allow voting for individuals rather than party lists (slates), lowering the eligibility age to run and raising quotas for female candidates.

In January, another Abbas decree required candidates to accept the programme of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the group that leads the PA. The programme calls for the recognition of Israel and renouncing armed struggle, in effect, sidelining Hamas and other factions.

The slates in major West Bank cities are dominated by Fatah, the faction that leads the PA, and independents, some with ties to other factions. It marks the first time in six local elections that no other faction has officially put forward its own slates.

In the occupied West Bank, the PA exercises limited autonomy, and local councils oversee services from rubbish collection to building permits.

Votes are being held in villages in Area C, which covers about 60 percent of the West Bank and remains under direct Israeli control. Full administrative control would have been handed to the PA according to the 1995 Oslo Accords.

Votes will also be held in municipalities that Israel’s military has occupied since it launched a ground invasion in the northern West Bank last year.

Campaign posters have been plastered across cities, though many – including Ramallah and Nablus – will not hold elections because too few candidates or slates registered.

The PA’s power has withered amid years without peace negotiations with Israel and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.