Palestine

Opposition leader dismisses Netanyahu’s warning of possible attacks during next month’s general election.

Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “fear-mongering” after the incumbent leader warned that the country’s enemies may attack before next month’s general election.

Lapid, who heads the Yesh Atid party, dismissed the warning after meeting the prime minister on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Netanyahu posted an online video that showed him posing in front of a fighter jet at a military base and saying there were “indications that, ahead of the elections, our enemies will try to attack us”.

He did not specify which enemy he had in mind. But in recent weeks, he has issued warnings to Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority, promising retaliation in the event of an attack.

Lapid requested an urgent security briefing after the warning, and in an online post afterwards, he said he was certain the election would take place on time and that “there is no reason to panic the public”.

“The elections will take place on time, and no one has an excuse to disrupt them,” he said.

He accused Netanyahu of using military bases as “props for election campaign videos” and of failing to heed warnings before the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, which set off Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. More than 76,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.

“Netanyahu ignored every warning before October 7, and now, 28 days before the election, he’s suddenly busy fear-mongering,” Lapid said. He added: “I of course will not violate the confidentiality of the security briefing but it must be said — security threats must be handled professionally and responsibly.”

The election, scheduled for October 7, is Israel’s first vote since the Hamas-led attacks, which plunged the Middle East into turmoil as Israel went to war in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. The election could determine whether Netanyahu remains in power after one of the most consequential periods in Israel’s history, or is defeated by centrist rivals promising to usher in a new era.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, was first elected prime minister in 1996. In recent weeks, he has had to deny media reports that his partners in the Middle East warned him of a potential Hamas attack, an allegation his political rivals have seized on.

Polls show him in a close race to stay in power.

According to a Reuters polling average, no candidate has a clear path to power. The average shows Yashar, the party of Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief who has emerged as Netanyahu’s most formidable rival, leading the prime minister’s right-wing Likud party by 2 points.

Based on the average, parties opposed to Netanyahu would hold 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset, 15 more than the parties that back him, but they may be unable to form a coalition.

Lapid is one of several opposition figures in the race. He, Eisenkot and other opposition leaders have agreed to coordinate to remove Netanyahu’s government. Under the agreement announced last week, each leader pledged to work in their constituencies to increase turnout and attract support from various sectors of society to secure a majority and form a new government.

The prime minister said in a separate post on Tuesday that he has held a security briefing with Lapid in which he raised alerts about possible attacks “on the various fronts ahead of the elections”.

He stressed that he holds regular briefings with the opposition leader.

The resolution cites a ‘lack of accountability’ by Israel’s government and an ‘inability to secure justice’ by the US.

The United States Senate has blocked a resolution that would have required President Donald Trump’s administration to report on the killing of nine Americans in the occupied West Bank and on Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children in military detention.

The resolution failed 47-53 on Tuesday, with senators voting largely along party lines.

It was brought to the floor by Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, and cited a “lack of accountability” from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an “inability to secure justice” from the US government.

Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to vote against advancing the resolution, while Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, joined Democrats in supporting it.

Van Hollen forced the vote under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which allows individual members of Congress to demand a formal State Department report on the human rights practices of any country that receives US security assistance.

“Violence is raging in the West Bank, & despite the deaths of nine Americans, the wrongful detention of even more, & the daily torment of Palestinians, we have no accountability from the U.S. or Israeli govt”, Van Hollen wrote on X before the resolution was brought to a vote.

Nine Americans killed

The resolution called for an unclassified report within 30 days of adoption. It would have detailed investigations into the deaths of the Americans, the treatment of US citizens held in Israeli prisons, and the conditions facing Palestinian children in Israeli military detention.

The measure cited the deaths of nine American citizens in the occupied West Bank since January 2022, including Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist and Al Jazeera correspondent who was shot in the head and killed in May 2022 while reporting in the city of Jenin.

It also included Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier in September 2024, and Sayfollah Kamel Musallet, who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in July 2025.

The others were Amer Mohammad Saada Rabee, who was 14; Tawfic Abdel Jabbar and Mohamed Ahmad Alkhdour, both 17; Omar Assad; Khamid Ayyad; Nasrallah Abu Siyam; and Khamis Rabee Jabara.

The resolution also noted the arrests of several Palestinian-American children by Israeli forces.

Among them was Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old from Florida, who was arrested in February 2025 and held in pretrial detention for nine months without contact with his family. It noted that US embassy officials and lawyers who met him told his family that he had lost nearly a quarter of his body weight, contracted scabies, and was beaten and tortured.

Other Palestinian Americans who remain in custody include Adam Wajeh Abdelfattah Karakrah, 16, and Sama Safi, 20, a student detained in June in raids targeting students at Birzeit University.

The resolution cited rights groups that have documented the deaths of at least 44 Palestinians in Israeli military camps since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. Those groups, it said, have documented widespread abuses, including beatings, sexual violence, harassment and threats, “pointing to systemic and deliberate mistreatment”.

It also went on to note a sharp escalation in Israeli settler pogroms in the occupied West Bank, and stressed that there have been no convictions for the killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli settlers since 2020.

The 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) concluded on Monday with artificial intelligence (AI), the Israel-Palestine conflict and the US-Israel war on Iran dominating world leaders’ addresses during the general debate.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in his final address before his term ends, warned that the future of the world would be shaped by four tests: AI, climate change, wars and inequality.

“Across all four tests, the decisive issue is power. Power over force, money, energy, technology, rules and the future. That is why the UN Charter – and the work of the United Nations – matter more than ever,” Guterres said.

Speeches ranged from calls to reform the UN to appeals for upholding international law, as the global body has been undermined by the unilateral foreign policy pushed by United States President Donald Trump.

Here are the biggest takeaways from this year’s summit:

Palestine

The situation in Palestine was a key issue among members amid Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza despite the so-called “ceasefire” and escalating settler pogroms in the occupied West Bank.

France, Canada, Iraq, the United Kingdom and others called for Palestinian sovereignty during their speeches.

“What credibility do we have if we continue to remain inactive in the face of Gaza,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in his address.

“Some boast of a supposed peace, but this peace hasn’t reopened humanitarian routes for a single second,” he said, adding: “Must we stand by and watch this spectacle that shames us all?”

Macron, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud chaired a meeting at the UNGA on Palestinian statehood, which is being actively undermined by Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has accelerated construction of illegal settlements and provided impunity to settlers in the occupied territory.

At the same time, the US-led Board of Peace unveiled a 66-project reconstruction blueprint with proposed funding of $2.4bn for the Gaza Strip on the sidelines of the UNGA.

However, the board’s plan excludes the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), saying it has no role in the future of Gaza. The decision was described by Palestinian political analyst and playwright Ahmed Najar to Al Jazeera as aligned with Israeli efforts to “marginalise and ultimately dismantle the agency, removing it not only from Gaza’s present but from its future”.

Dozens of delegates left the hall in protest as Netanyahu delivered his speech, in which he declared that Israeli forces would continue fighting against Hamas and Iran.

Trump defends military action on Venezuela, Iran

In his address, Trump emphasised that while others spoke of peace, he “made peace”.

Trump defended his actions in abducting the then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and said, since his military operation, hundreds of political prisoners had been freed in the South American country and that Caracas had signed the largest oil deal in history last month, covering “65 billion barrels of oil, which will benefit both Venezuela and the United States enormously and help drive down the cost of energy all over the world”.

“It was perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils – you’ve all heard that,” Trump boasted.

Trump reiterated that he would never allow Tehran to have nuclear weapons and that the 12-day war in July 2025 had “obliterated their nuclear programme beneath mountains of rubble” as the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran had sunk “159 ships of their navy” to the bottom of the sea.

“I have a big decision to make – will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before … or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again,” he said, adding: “I believe we make a deal right after the elections.”

Popular Iranian officials

During sideline talks and one-on-one meetings, Iranian officials were in demand.

In his speech to delegates, President Masoud Pezeshkian emphasised that Iran had only “defended ourselves” amid attacks on his country and killings of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, scientists and children.

“We are not terrorists, our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country,” he said.

Pezeshkian added Iran would not accept that peaceful nuclear technology is held exclusively in the hands of a few countries.

“We will not bow our head and give up the right that is inherently ours,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the summit, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met his counterparts from India, Qatar, Turkiye, Pakistan, Ukraine and other countries.

He also met US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in a four-hour meeting mediated by Qatar.

AI dominance

World leaders used their time at the podium to call for a global approach to using AI as interest in the technology grows, but fears that it could escalate if unchecked are also growing.

In his address, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said AI was the “most consequential technology in the history of mankind”.

“It will impact science, the economy, politics, security, and the very essence of our humanity. Humans can and should be in the driver’s seat. We have a choice: we can compete, cooperate or slow down. For me, cooperation is the best way forward,” he said.

While discussions are moving away from a good-versus-bad dichotomy, officials disagreed on approaches.

While Guterres and the European Union called for safety standards and international rules, Trump said AI innovation should not be constrained by international regulation, adding that the US should control its AI sector.

Xi skips the UNGA

Chinese President Xi Jinping skipped the UNGA despite being in the US for a summit with Trump. He sent Vice President Han Zheng to attend.

Xi rarely attends the UNGA. He had sent Premier Li Qiang in his place last year. In 2024, Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the annual gathering.

Without mentioning Iran in his address, Han reiterated Beijing’s position that “sovereignty and security of countries in the Middle East, including the Gulf, should be respected”.

“China calls for advancing the governance of the West Bank and the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza in accordance with the principle of the Palestinians governing Palestine. It also calls for bringing the Palestinian question back onto the right track of the two-state solution at an early date,” he said.

Han also called for a “people-centred approach and develop AI for the positive and for good, narrow the digital divide, and promote development that is universally beneficial”.

Mohammed Abu Hijleh still finds it hard to believe that his mother passed away just over a week ago; she had suffered from nothing more than diabetes. But the restrictions Israel imposes on various cities, towns, and villages in the occupied West Bank can alter a Palestinian’s life in an instant.

Zahriya Abu Hijleh, 66, was attending her niece’s wedding reception in her hometown of Deir Istiya, northwest of Salfit, on September 20, when she suddenly felt dizzy and collapsed.

After she was taken to the town’s medical centre, the doctor immediately ordered her transfer to Salfit Governmental Hospital, a facility just an eight-minute drive from Deir Istiya.

Mohammed requested an ambulance, but the vehicle could not enter the town because the iron gate operated by Israeli forces at the entrance was closed. Instead, an ambulance from the medical centre transported her to the gate, and from there, she was taken off the stretcher, carried past the gate on foot, and transferred to a second ambulance waiting on the other side.

It is a scenario that happens repeatedly in the occupied West Bank, Mohammed told Al Jazeera.

“My mother was breathing her last; had the gate been open, we wouldn’t have lost her on the way,” he said.

Medics later determined that Zahriya had suffered a pulmonary embolism and required urgent treatment, according to her family.

“Sadly, she died due to the delay,” Mohammed said. “She had no prior health issues other than diabetes.”

Comprehensive closures

The military checkpoints and iron gates erected by Israel in the West Bank have become a significant source of misery for Palestinians.

They disrupt daily life, causing delays for people trying to reach work, schools, and universities, while also posing a daily threat to the lives of the sick.

Israel periodically imposes closures on the West Bank for various reasons, including Jewish holidays. The current closure runs from September 27 to October 3, coinciding with the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

While Israeli settlers move freely between West Bank cities, and even storm Palestinian villages and towns under Israeli army protection, Palestinians are forced to wait for hours at closed checkpoints.

Ibtihal Mansour from Nablus endured such an ordeal last Friday while visiting her in-laws’ home in the village of al-Janiya, near Ramallah.

The family left the village at 10am, hoping to reach Nablus within 45 minutes. But they encountered closures at the Atara and Ein Siniya checkpoints north of Ramallah, effectively trapping them in the area.

“We tried taking alternative routes west of Ramallah, but were surprised to find the road between Ramallah and Nablus blocked by settlers, with all vehicle traffic completely halted. We remained on the roads, trying to find any way through, until midnight, a span of more than 14 hours,” she told Al Jazeera.

Her children were crying, exhausted after spending so long confined in the vehicle. Passing through one roadblock near Nablus, in an area called al-Lubban Asharqiya, a soldier forced Ibtihal to wake the children. When her 11-year-old son did not wake up, she said that the soldier punched him in the head, causing him to jolt awake crying.

“The scene was heartbreaking; I felt a deep lump in my throat and profound sorrow. Long hours of waiting in the vehicle ended with an assault like this, and the ordeal didn’t even end there,” she said, explaining that they had to turn back. “We were forced to spend the night at my sister-in-law’s home in Ramallah before setting out early the next morning for Nablus.”

Like Ibtihal’s family, many Palestinians travelling between cities and villages are forced to stay overnight in hotels or at relatives’ homes. Some municipalities have converted wedding halls and mosques into shelters for those stranded, providing meals donated by residents of towns near the checkpoints.

The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) recorded 942 checkpoints, closure points, and obstacles across the occupied West Bank as of September 25, up from 793 in March 2024.

The total length of the obstacles amounts to approximately 107.7km (70 miles), according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The CRRC says the closures effectively fragment Palestinian communities, making access to workplaces, schools, medical facilities, and agricultural land dependent on whether roads and crossings are open.

Al Jazeera has reached out to Israeli authorities for comment on the road closures and the allegations from Palestinians in this article, but has yet to receive a response.

Strangling Hebron and Jerusalem

In Hebron – which has an Israeli settler presence in the centre of the Old City – the Israeli army has closed the Ibrahimi Mosque to Palestinians and tightened restrictions at checkpoints and gates leading to the site until Wednesday, all while securing access for settlers to celebrate Jewish holidays.

Issa Amro, coordinator of the Youth Against Settlements group, told Al Jazeera that soldiers have closed checkpoints and imposed curfews in several city neighbourhoods, restricting resident movement and making it increasingly difficult to reach the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque.

“The area west of the mosque contains settlements and closed zones, while access from the east is limited to a few roads. These measures make reaching the site both more difficult and more dangerous,” he explained.

The situation in occupied East Jerusalem is also fraught, as Israel imposes strict restrictions on Palestinian movement and access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, while thousands of Israeli settlers enter the site and move about unhindered under heavy security escort.

Activist Fakhri Abu Diab told Al Jazeera that Israel’s closures in occupied East Jerusalem during the Jewish holidays are part of attempts to impose religious sovereignty over the city.

Abu Diab explained that Israeli settlers and hardliners head either to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque or to synagogues to perform religious rituals, while Palestinians are forced to remain at home.

He described how the closures disrupt daily life in East Jerusalem, shutting shops, schools, and workplaces, and halting movement.

“Israeli police restrict the movement of Jerusalemites. Families and vehicles attempting to move about risk being attacked by extremists and settlers, while the latter are permitted to roam freely and dominate the streets,” he said.

Israel’s national security minister declares ‘we are the owners of the place in Al-Aqsa’ during heavily guarded incursion.

Hundreds of Israelis led by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under police protection.

The Jerusalem governorate on Monday said Israeli forces closed intersections and streets surrounding the Old City that lead to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which Jews refer to as the Temple Mount, in occupied East Jerusalem on the third day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

It said the Israelis danced in circles and sang inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque during the raid, noting that 900 people entered the compound in the morning.

“We are the owners of the place in Al-Aqsa and in the prisons, and we have turned the lives of terrorist prisoners into hell,” Ben-Gvir said.

“The people of Israel are on the path to absolute victory, and today we pray in Al-Aqsa, which is the most important place for the Jewish people.”

Monday’s intrusion came as Israeli authorities forced dozens of Palestinian shopkeepers to close their businesses and residents to remain inside their homes in areas near the mosque to allow Jewish prayers during Sukkot.

“Dozens of Palestinian owners of shops, cafes and restaurants in the Cotton Merchants Market in Jerusalem’s Old City were forced to close them during the Jewish Sukkot holiday to make way for Jewish prayers in the market,” the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said in a statement.

‘Playing with fire’

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh described the incursion as “playing with fire and a dangerous provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world”.

He also warned that Israel was seeking to ignite a “religious war” in the region.

Since 2003, Israeli police have allowed groups of Israelis to make daily incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, except on Fridays and Saturdays.

Israel often imposes restrictions on Palestinian worshippers. It prevented Eid al-Fitr prayers at Al-Aqsa this year, allowing only 10,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, home to 3.3 million people, into one of Islam’s holiest sites for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan.

The Houston Texans’ linebacker wore eye black with the names of slain sisters Lana, 12, and Bana, eight.

American football player Azeez Al-Shaair has once again honoured Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, despite previous fines and the threat of being removed from games, this time wearing the names of sisters Lana and Bana Ahmad on his eye black during his latest National Football League (NFL) game.

The Houston Texans linebacker took the field against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday wearing the names of Lana, 12, and her sister Bana, eight, who were killed along with their family in an Israeli air attack earlier this month.

Hours before the game, Al-Shaair posted about the sisters on his Instagram account and followed it with a photo of the black tape bearing their names that he would later wear during the game. The image also showed part of Al-Shaair’s black shoes with flags of Palestine and Sudan stitched on them.

Al-Shaair, a Black American Muslim player, has repeatedly spoken about the plight of Palestinians. On September 13, he wore the name of Hind Rajab, the five-year-old girl who was killed in Gaza after Israeli soldiers opened fire on her family’s stranded car on January 29, 2024.

The NFL fined him $11,491 for breaching the league’s code of conduct on players’ clothing and equipment during a match against the Buffalo Bills.

However, basketball player Kyrie Irving stepped in and offered to pay the fine for Al-Shaair, who later confirmed that he had been in touch with the nine-time NBA All-Star.

Al-Shaair brushed off talk of the fine while speaking to reporters last week. “It’s bigger to me; what’s a life worth? Is a life worth $11,000? No, I think it’s priceless,” he said.

In his subsequent game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Al-Shaair then wore an eye black — a sticker or paint frequently used by NFL players to reduce glare — with the name of Wafa Akila, an eight-year-old who was killed along with her father in an Israeli attack in western Gaza as they were making their way home.

He was also fined in January, during the NFL’s last season, for displaying the message “Stop The Genocide” on his nose tape. While it did not specifically refer to a particular conflict, it was widely understood to be about Gaza and Sudan.

Following his NFL outing in which he wore the name of Rajab, Al-Shaair was informed he would have to remove the eye black or he would not be permitted to continue playing in the game, according to reports in US media.

US Democratic politician Isaiah Martin condemned the NFL’s reported reaction to Al-Shaair wearing eye black with the names of slain Palestinian children.

“This harms no one by letting him do this,” Martin said in a post on X. “I think it’s absurd they were fining him, but those were the ‘rules’ and he agreed to pay the fine. Removal from the game is INSANE. This shouldn’t stand!”

The Israeli genocide in Gaza has severely limited education for the Strip’s 660,000 children, with 90 percent of schools left damaged or destroyed.

Israel has killed at least 21,500 children since October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Demonstrators protest against UK government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Police in the United Kingdom have arrested more than 50 people protesting in support of the banned Palestine Action group outside a Labour Party conference in the northwestern English city of Liverpool.

The local Merseyside Police confirmed the arrests in a statement published on Sunday.

The police said those taken into custody at the protest, organised by Defend Our Juries, had displayed material in support of Palestine Action, proscribed as a “terrorist” group by the Labour government in July 2025 under the Terrorism Act.

According to the statement, police respected the rights of people to protest lawfully while aiming to keep the peace and ensure the public are safe.

More than 250 protesters sat outside the conference centre holding banners with words supporting the group on Sunday, before dozens of police began making arrests.

English band Massive Attack singer Robert Del Naja was among those arrested.

After asking demonstrators if they were going to continue holding up the signs, officers led people away, telling them they had been arrested under the Terrorism Act.

Reporting from Liverpool, Al Jazeera correspondent Milena Veselinovic said the protesters wanted to put proscription “front and centre of the UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s agenda” on the first day of his party’s annual conference.

“Being arrested is nothing in comparison to what the people in Gaza are going through, and it’s also worth it, because this is about our right to free speech,” one protester told Al Jazeera.

Another said that “there are priests, there are healthcare workers, there are people who deeply care, and deeply care about right and wrong.”

Kerry Moscogiuri, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said protesting “is one of the most effective tools” to make government leaders listen and described the arrests as “a truly shameful attack on freedom of speech”.

“The new prime minister can reform our laws so that communities are protected in coming together and demonstrating on the issues they care about. Will he do so?” she said.

Activists also confronted Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband inside a restaurant in Liverpool, demanding that he lift the ban on the group and declare Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The activists left after Miliband reportedly refused to comment.

A civil disobedience campaign has emerged since Palestine Action was outlawed in July 2025, with more than 3,600 people arrested for showing their support for the group, often while holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

The UK Supreme Court is now set to hear the case after London’s Court of Appeal upheld the government ban in June.

The United States-led Board of Peace (BoP) has said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will have no role in Gaza – echoing a longstanding Israeli demand to sideline the organisation considered a lifeline for millions of Palestinians.

The board, which has been tasked with overseeing the “ceasefire” and Gaza’s reconstruction, said on Friday it would work only with partners it deems reliable and who it believes can meet the needs of Gaza’s population – a standard it says UNRWA does not meet.

The move comes as the BoP unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan on Wednesday aimed at beginning Gaza’s reconstruction, nearly a year after a so-called “ceasefire” came into effect in the devastated Palestinian territory.

The plan, presented on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), comes as key elements of the “ceasefire” remain stalled, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the disarmament of Hamas.

UNRWA was established in 1949 to cater to tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes by Jewish militias from areas that currently form part of Israel.

BoP’s stance on UNRWA comes as Israel’s genocide in the coastal enclave continues, with Palestinians facing nonstop attacks, severe restrictions on humanitarian aid and stalled reconstruction plans.

So what has BoP said about UNRWA, and does it keep toeing the Israeli line on the future of Gaza?

What did the Board of Peace say?

The BoP unveiled a 66-project reconstruction blueprint on the sidelines of the UNGA, with $2.4bn proposed for projects aimed at beginning Gaza’s recovery.

UNRWA was left off the list of UN agencies the board identified as partners.

“The Board of Peace’s policy as it relates to UNRWA’s involvement in Gaza is unchanged,” the BoP said in a post on X on Friday.

“We will only work with trusted partners who will deliver for the people of Gaza and contribute to a deradicalised Strip. UNRWA fails on those litmus tests.”

However, a BoP official, speaking to The Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity, confirmed that board members had met UNRWA officials several times.

The official said the agency’s programmes could continue if they served Gaza’s residents well, but maintained that “UNRWA’s days are over”.

The BoP, which US President Donald Trump launched earlier this year, was conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza after nearly three years of Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip.

What has UNRWA said?

In an indirect response, UNRWA acting Commissioner-General Christian Saunders said on Friday in Gaza, “UNRWA remains an institution of considerable humanitarian and strategic value, with capabilities and expertise that are difficult to replicate today.”

“To disregard these capabilities at a moment of such profound need is neither logical nor responsible,” Saunders said in a statement.

Former UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini on Thursday warned that removing the agency would have a “devastating” effect on Palestinians.

“They want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a further … devastating impact on the population,” Lazzarini told AP on Friday.

In a separate statement on X, Lazzarini said, “grandiose plans are what the Board of Peace does best”, noting widespread suffering across Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing genocide.

The agency has about 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza and remains heavily involved in healthcare, education, water and sanitation services. Its exclusion is particularly significant given the scale of displacement and the continuing restrictions on aid entering Gaza.

UNRWA has for decades provided aid and education services to Palestinians in Gaza, occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – the neighbouring countries where the Palestinian refugees have been living.

Palestinians see the agency as safeguarding their right of return to their homeland, while Israel wants it dismantled.

What has been Hamas’ response?

Hamas accused the BoP of adopting Israel’s position.

Spokesperson Hazem Qassem on Saturday called the decision to exclude UNRWA “a complete alignment with the Zionist [Israeli] position”, saying it was aimed at ending the agency’s operations, preventing it from delivering aid and undermining Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

Qassem said it was “strange for the peace council to adopt this hostile stance towards UNRWA while simultaneously failing to provide aid to Gaza or compel the occupation to abide by the ceasefire agreement and halt the daily killings of Palestinians in the Strip”.

Does the Board of Peace toe the Israeli line?

Experts say the workings and demands of the BoP align closely with Israel’s vision of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians.

UNRWA

Israel has for years sought to remove UNRWA from Gaza, accusing the agency of being infiltrated by Hamas.

The International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion in October, said allegations that “a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are ‘members of Hamas … or other terrorist factions’” had not been substantiated.

The BoP’s position strengthens the Israeli efforts to dismantle the UN agency.

Hamas disarmament

Hamas and other Palestinian factions agreed in July to a roadmap under which weapons would be surrendered in stages as Israeli forces gradually withdrew. The two processes were explicitly linked.

But following an August meeting between Nickolay Mladenov, the BoP’s director-general, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the board said Israeli forces would not withdraw beyond the “Yellow Line” until Hamas’s decommissioning was complete, including “light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike”.

Hamas maintains that it will not implement its obligations unless Israel fulfils its own.

Israel currently occupies more than 60 percent of Gaza while most of the territory’s 2.3 million people remain displaced.

Reconstruction

Article 17 of the BoP plan calls for “temporary reconstruction” beginning in areas designated free of Hamas control, including humanitarian compounds for unarmed civilians.

The proposed system would direct reconstruction, aid and shelter towards areas outside Hamas’s control while Israeli forces remain behind the so-called “Yellow Line”.

However, Israel has refused to allow the Palestinian technocratic committee into Gaza, open crossings or begin reconstruction until Hamas is completely disarmed.

After unveiling the reconstruction plan on the sidelines of the UNGA, BoP high representative Mladenov said once again the proposed plan depends on Hamas’s disarmament.

What is the situation in Gaza?

Almost a year after the October 2025 ceasefire, reconstruction has yet to begin on any meaningful scale and Israeli forces continue to occupy large parts of the Strip.

At least 1,451 Palestinians have been killed and 4,953 wounded in Israeli attacks since the “ceasefire” began in October 2025, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

The healthcare system is on the verge of “total collapse”, the ministry said last week, while shortages of fuel, medical supplies and spare parts have disrupted hospitals, water and sanitation services.

The scale of destruction is also immense. More than half of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics remain nonfunctional, less than 1.5 percent of cropland is accessible and undamaged, and reconstruction needs have reached an estimated $71.5bn.

Nearly 84 percent of Gaza’s population – more than 1.76 million people – are living in displacement sites or damaged and inadequate shelters, the UN has said.

Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Hakim Mar’i spends his days lying on a single bed, his disfigured leg raised. The windows of Mar’i’s dilapidated apartment, his latest temporary shelter, are covered with old blankets. Unable to work, Mar’i has no money for electricity, so the blankets have to do. At night, his family lives in near darkness.

The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp. For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary. But now, even the physical structure – their home – that tied those generations together is gone.

The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp. For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary. But generations lived there, and now, the physical structure – their home – that tied his family together over the years is gone.

Impoverished, Hakim’s family is in disarray. With its debts mounting and its members facing another eviction, he said he has considered taking his life several times over the past year and a half.

Mar’i cannot afford treatment for his debilitating leg injury, which has developed severe infections. He said he sustained it while working as a labourer inside Israel in 2019. The wound worsened after Israeli soldiers severely beat him when they forced his family from the Tulkarem camp. Diabetes and other untreated conditions have piled on, but he is unable to pay for the needed medical care.

“This joint here is completely gone,” he said, gesturing at the swollen, blackened lower leg that prevents him from working.

“The medicine – by God, the medicine, I haven’t been able to get. My wife and kids tell me: get out travel. Go to America, Turkey – so I can the medical treatment I need… I’m a sick man.”

His mother, Salwa, sat beside him, less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) from their former four-storey home. She wept when asked about the family home that was built floor by floor after they were first displaced in 1948 from al-Khudayra, the Arabic name for Hadera, a city in Israel. “We really put a lot into that house,” she said.

After their removal, the Israeli military razed the Mar’i home so a road traversing the now-emptied camp could be built. “Seeing it destroyed was really painful for us – all of us,” she said.

It has been more than 20 months since Israeli forces emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps in a sweeping military operation in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians whose families had already been refugees for three generations. Constantly renewed orders for a closed military zone now prevent their return.

Since January 2025, Hakim’s family has been forced to move four times. First, they fled to a converted youth centre before landing in a cramped apartment with their four children, all under 15.

Unable to pay rent, the family could see the landlord’s generosity run its course as this once-temporary housing arrangement now has no end in sight. Hakim owes money at the local shops for food he bought on credit. Some nights, the children eat at neighbours’ houses.

“I have children. I have food. I have drink,” he said. “My hands are empty. Nobody is with me. Nobody is standing beside me.”

‘We’re already at the brink’

The Mar’i family is among more than 33,000 Palestinians forcibly removed from the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps by Israeli forces in early 2025. This is the largest single episode of forced displacement in the West Bank since Israel’s occupation began in 1967, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

UN satellite imagery shows that 20 percent of all buildings across the three camps have been destroyed and another 28 percent are damaged.

“The level of destruction we are seeing is severe and unprecedented,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

According to Friedrich, 85 percent of those displaced have no regular income after many lost jobs when the camps were emptied. More than 80 percent of residents are renting, an unfamiliar expense for families who never paid for housing or utilities inside the camps.

The closed military zone covering the camps is renewed every two months, Friedrich said, with no indication of when – or whether – residents will be allowed to return. “What we saw there is forced displacement,” Friedrich said. “The UN’s position is very clear: People have to be allowed to return. The camps must be rebuilt.”

Unlike after the 2000-2005 second Intifada when the Jenin camp was rebuilt, displaced families and UNRWA staff fear there is no return plan this time.

The Israeli military stated the camps were emptied for “operational security” in its effort to root out fighters from the camps. Friedrich worried the aim of the military operations is to “change the geographical expression of the Palestinian refugee issue”.

Now more than 20 months into what was meant to be an emergency response, funding shortages have left UNRWA unable to cover the vast needs of the displaced population. It has moved some operations to keep schools and basic health clinics functioning. With funds dwindling, the agency has shifted to a “targeted approach”, leaving thousands without support.

Friedrich pointed to a rise in gender-based violence linked to the economic strain on families and to growing depression and anxiety among displaced children observed by UNRWA’s psychosocial teams. “We’re already at the brink now,” he declared.

‘Everyone went their own way’

While Hakim’s displacement plays out in the shadow of the camp, the family of Khadija Zbeidat face their own imminent eviction on the outskirts of Tulkarem. They live in the neighbourhood of Dhinnaba, where sparse houses are interspersed with greenhouses. They are unable to afford a residence closer to the city centre.

As Khadija sat on a couch in the middle of the yard, her many children and grandchildren ran past a small patch of plants she has planted – one of her few remaining joys. “I love plants,” she said. “We had many flowers in our home in the camp. Having the plants here is all I have to feel like myself,” she told Al Jazeera.

Khadija, a widow, shares a tiny spartan room with nine family members, nearly all children, along with a small bathroom and a kitchen barely big enough for one person to cook in. A worn couch takes up one corner. The ceiling is peeling above it.

The room was given to them rent free by a relative of Khadija’s brother-in-law after they spent four months crammed into her daughter’s house with nine other people. “It got really cramped, the pressure on each other,” Zbeidat said. “And we became a burden too.”

Khadija’s family was displaced in January 2025 from the Tulkarem camp’s Haret al-Nadi section, a significant part of which has been destroyed, she said.

“The camp was excellent,” she said of their life before. “I swear, I wish they’d take us back. Everything was close to us, dear – … the closeness, that sense of belonging and the warmth, the company and the neighbours.”

The memories that she cherishes most dearly and that bring her to tears are of food: the stuffed grape leaves and the maamoul cookies made as a neighbourhood together for Eid. This year, there was none of it.

“Nothing. No cookies,” she said. “Nobody even had it in them to do anything any more. Everyone went their own way – scattered.”

Like the Mar’i family and others, they were not allowed to bring their belongings during their abrupt displacement. Some residents have since been allowed to retrieve belongings once or twice from their homes in the camps, but much of what they own remains left behind. Khadija’s daughter-in-law at one point returned to the ruins of the camp – at the risk of being shot – to retrieve a doll left behind that Khadija’s granddaughter Sandy would not stop crying about.

In Tulkarem, displaced families live either in the poorest areas closest to the camp, like the Mar’is, or on the cheaper outskirts, like the Zbeidats, remaining close enough to the health and schooling services that UNRWA still provides. But even a simple trip to buy groceries requires Khadija, who has no car, to travel 2km (1.2 miles).

At night, the family sits outside rather than in the stifling heat of the poorly ventilated room, watching Israeli military drones pass low overhead. “What to do? We’re used to seeing them, to having them around, to them raiding houses,” Khadija said. “It doesn’t matter any more.”

The military raids that always haunted life in the refugee camps have now come to wherever the displaced refugees have fled to. “We don’t feel safe,” Khadija said. “Nor the kids. It’s dangerous. When they want to go out somewhere, my heart stays busy until they come back.”

Waiting to be kicked out again

For months after the displacement, landlords, relatives and shopkeepers absorbed much of the shock, allowing families to stay for free or buy food on credit. But as the emergency stretches to almost two years now, that informal safety net is fraying. The pressure is felt particularly in economically moribund Tulkarem, where many families had relied on jobs inside Israel before Palestinian work permits were revoked after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel and the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023.

The owner of the property where Khadija’s family is staying recently sent his sister to tell Khadija’s family to leave. “They think it’s been too long,” Khadija explained. “They want the land, to benefit from the land and the room. … But where can we get money, where to pay from? The rent is very high, and we can’t afford it. We don’t know what to do if she comes again and kicks us out.”

Hakim’s family is on the brink of eviction too. Like others, he received from UNRWA a one-time rental subsidy of 3,000 shekels ($985) and a separate 1,700-shekel ($560) multipurpose cash payment for short-term assistance. “Every minute, I am waiting for the landlord to kick us out,” he said.

Khadija’s family survives on credit from shopkeepers who know their situation and, for now, still extend it – but patience is wearing thin.

Hakim said this goodwill is collapsing: “You tell them: ‘Give me a day, two days. Be patient with me.’ They won’t bear it.”

As distant as a return to her family’s lands in 1948 feels now, Khadija still hopes to return to the camp one day. But she worries that her children may inherit an even more precarious existence than the one that preceded this latest dispossession – refugees for generations displaced yet again. “Only God knows what tomorrow will bring us,” Khadija said.

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Smotrich told Ynet News that Israel needs to “go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza’.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says the Israeli military should “go to war” in the occupied West Bank and repeat what it “did in Gaza”.

Using a biblical term for the occupied West Bank, the minister told Ynet News in an interview published on Sunday that Israel needs to “go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority”.

Smotrich was responding to a question on how Israel should combat the increasing “security tensions” in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli violence against Palestinians has been steadily growing since the eruption of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, but the attacks have intensified significantly this year.

“We need to tell” Israeli forces, he said, “Just as you dismantled Hamas in Gaza, there won’t be terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria”. “No terrorists, no weapons, no tunnels.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded more than 1,330 settler-related attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank from January to late July, averaging six a day, the highest rate in about 20 years.

Various settler groups, often supported or protected by Israeli soldiers, have attacked Palestinians in several ways, including shootings, besieging homes and engaging in other forms of communal violence that experts have described as “pogroms“.

Rights groups warn that settlers are increasingly armed with military-issued weaponry and wear military uniforms during attacks, blurring the line between settler and soldier.

Military closure

The comments come as Israeli authorities announced a comprehensive military closure across the occupied West Bank, citing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The heightened restrictions on the movement of Palestinians are set to remain in place until October 3.

Meanwhile, in occupied East Jerusalem, hundreds of Israelis stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy protection from Israeli police on Sunday.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Israelis entered the compound through the Moroccan Gate and performed Talmudic rituals, as Israeli forces increased restrictions around the mosque and across Jerusalem’s Old City.

Gaza City, Gaza Strip – The partially collapsed roof above Masada Abu Jarad’s apartment is now made up of broken concrete with twisted steel bars protruding from its edges.

And underneath the section of the room that is now open to the elements after the building’s partial collapse, Masada’s family have pitched a tent to provide shelter.

The 60-year-old knows the structure is dangerous. The Palestinian Red Crescent and the Civil Defence visited the family last week and warned them that they should leave. But in Gaza, where Israel refuses to allow proper reconstruction to take place after almost three years of its genocidal war, there are few places for them to go.

“We have no options,” Masada says. “I want to leave, but who will give me an alternative?”

She has lived in the building in Gaza City’s Palestine Square area for the past year, after returning to northern Gaza from displacement earlier in the war. But this still isn’t home. Masada’s family is originally from Beit Lahiya in the far north of the Strip, but had to leave early in the war after Israel decimated the area. They are still unable to return.

After repeated displacement, the prospect of moving again without a safe destination has become exhausting. And even if they could move, the cost is prohibitive.

“Even if there is a better place, tell me how I can afford to rent it,” Masada said.

Masada’s experience reflects a wider housing crisis across Gaza for the Palestinians who have survived Israel’s war, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians.

A joint assessment by the United Nations, World Bank, and European Union found that 371,888 housing units, 76.6 percent of the housing stock, had been destroyed or damaged as of October 2025. The assessment also found that rebuilding Gaza will need more than $71bn over the next decade.

The dangers of Gaza’s depleted and damaged housing stock became starkly visible on September 16, when a six-storey war-damaged residential building in Gaza City collapsed, killing 21 people, including 12 children, according to the UN and Gaza Civil Defence.

The collapse has become a warning for families living in other damaged structures.

‘I stay awake so they can sleep’

Abdullah Abu Hajar, 40, lives with his wife and five children in the al-Najma building in Gaza City’s southern Remal neighbourhood.

The six-storey building is severely damaged and unstable. About 17 families, roughly 50 to 60 people, are living there, according to Abdullah.

On the outside walls, municipal notices warn residents and passers-by that the building is unsafe and at risk of collapse.

At night, while his wife and children try to sleep, Abdullah stays awake and listens.

Every unfamiliar sound, such as concrete shifting, stones moving or an unexplained creaking somewhere inside the building, puts him on alert.

“I stay awake all night, keeping watch,” he said. “I can’t close my eyes. I keep just listening to sounds around me.”

Abdullah explained that he feels worried for his children, even though they have adapted to the danger. But he has not.

And after the September 16 building collapse, he grew even more fearful. Since then, he said, he has barely slept.

“I’m already on edge,” he said. “But I don’t know where I can go.”

Abdullah and his family were displaced from Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza after it was attacked by Israel, and moved repeatedly during the war, eventually finding the al-Najma building.

His extended family faces the same uncertainty. Abdullah said that one of his relatives has been moving between southern and northern Gaza, looking for a place where he can pitch a tent.

“I told him to come and stay with us,” Abdullah said. “But he is hesitant because of the condition of this building. At the same time, he has nowhere else to go.”

A room among the rubble

For Islam Hassanein, 36, the same fears are entwined with the place she calls home.

A mother of five, Islam has spent nearly a year living with her family in a single room on the third floor of a damaged building.

She found the room after searching for somewhere to stay. It was filled with rubble and debris.

“We cleaned it and stayed in it,” she said.

The building is leaning and visibly damaged. The plumbing doesn’t work, so the family uses a bathroom outside. There is little that resembles a family home.

But leaving has proved no easier than staying. “We keep looking, but we can’t find anywhere,” she says. “They might even force us out of here. What are we supposed to do?”

Islam says she would leave immediately if she were offered a safe place.

“If they find us a good place and provide us with a tent, we will leave from the morning,” she says. “But where is this place? And where is the tent?”

The building itself regularly reminds her of the dangers.

“Every day, you hear the cracking,” she says. “People who live here tell us, ‘It’s cracking.’ Then a column fell, and they took us out of the building temporarily.”

The potentially deadly risks will become harder to manage as winter approaches, with its colder and wetter weather.

Water can enter through exposed roofs and walls, and the already weakened structure will face additional pressure from heavy rain.

“Last winter was terrifying,” Islam said. “We were constantly afraid that the building would collapse. I spent most days in my family’s tent because this building was full of openings and would flood whenever it rained.”

“Now, I am very afraid of this winter, and I don’t know what we are going to do.”

The UN says thousands of people are sheltering in damaged buildings considered unsafe because better housing options are unavailable.

Israeli restrictions on the entry of tents, tarpaulins and other essential shelter materials are making the situation more difficult, leaving Gaza in a state of limbo, unable to move on from the war, particularly as Israel can choose to escalate the conflict at any time.

UNICEF estimates that nearly 84 percent of Gaza’s population, more than 1.76 million people, are living in overcrowded displacement sites or damaged and inadequate shelters, with little protection from cold, heavy rain and flooding.

Islam says the war has forced families to take risks they once would have considered unthinkable.

She worries about her five children, but sees few choices available to her.

“They are all afraid,” she said. “But what can we do? If there is an alternative, I will leave. We leave it to God.”

Shehbaz Sharif speaks as Islamabad, Riyadh and Ankara army chiefs meet to discuss Mecca pact, closer military ties.

Pakistan’s prime minister has condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, warning that any “threat to the sanctity” of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina is a “red line that must never be crossed”.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday, Shehbaz Sharif denounced recent Houthi attacks as “deplorable”.

He added that an attack by the Iran-aligned Yemeni group, which Riyadh says targeted Mecca, “outraged Muslims across the globe”. The Houthis have dismissed the accusations as a “heinous lie”.

Last month, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye signed a trilateral defence pact, formally known as the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. The pact states that an attack on any member will be treated as an attack on all. However, Islamabad and Ankara have refrained from getting involved in Riyadh’s ongoing fight with the Houthis.

The ⁠military ⁠chiefs of all three countries met in Riyadh on Friday and ⁠discussed enhancing intelligence sharing and military ⁠coordination, ‌the Pakistani military said. The chiefs reviewed the security situation and ⁠threats facing Saudi Arabia, ⁠affirmed a commitment to collective defence and ⁠pledged to turn ⁠Mecca Agreement commitments into effective cooperation, the ‌army added.

It is not clear what, if any, support Ankara and Islamabad may provide to Riyadh. In a written interview published by the US media outlet Newsweek on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said support could include “intelligence, logistics or ammunition, with more extensive military assistance possible depending on the scale of the threat”.

Iran and Palestine

In Sharif’s UN address, he also referenced the US-Israeli war that was launched against Iran in late February, as well as Islamabad’s role as a co-mediator.

Pakistan’s efforts culminated in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed by Washington and Tehran, which was intended to help end the conflict.

The accord has since unravelled while regional countries push for a conclusive end to the war, which has caused a global energy crisis and exacerbated tensions across the Middle East.

“Yet amid the roar of missiles, drones and guns, the voice for diplomacy must echo even louder and stronger,” Sharif said.

He added that the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blockaded, and the Bab al-Mandeb waterway, which is now largely under Houthi control, are “arteries of the global economy” that should remain free and safe.

The Pakistani prime minister also denounced what he described as Israel’s “genocidal agenda” in Palestine, while condemning “Israeli aggression against Lebanon and Syria”. These were sentiments echoed earlier in the day by Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in his UN General Assembly address.

India, Kashmir, Afghanistan

Closer to home, Sharif’s speech touched on tensions with Pakistan’s neighbours.

Criticising India, he accused New Delhi of weaponising the Indus waters, which both countries have jointly managed for more than six decades. The two neighbours heavily rely on the Himalayan river network.

Sharif warned that “any attempt to stop, impede or divert Pakistan’s share of the waters will be treated as an act of war”.

He also called for what he described as a “just and fair solution” to the Kashmir dispute, which both Pakistan and India claim in its entirety. Sharif alleged that there have been attempts to “alter the legal status” of Kashmir through demographic engineering.

Another pressing issue for Islamabad is the threat posed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban. Sharif said groups operate from “sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, with the aim of destabilising Pakistan”, insisting that attacks launched from Afghanistan “must come to a grinding halt”.

This comes as the latest cross-border fighting left several Afghan Taliban fighters dead on Friday.

Macklemore says ‘being apolitical during a genocide doesn’t work’, promises to donate proceeds to Palestinian causes.

Grammy Award-winning rapper Macklemore has announced a string of shows in support of Palestine after he was controversially dropped from Ed Sheeran’s United States tour after speaking out against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The 43-year-old American rapper, who has almost 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify, announced his Free Palestine Tour on Thursday, with shows set to take place in Dublin, Paris and London in late October.

Macklemore said he will be joined by other musicians and will announce their names soon. He added that US shows are currently being organised.

He said all proceeds raised from the tour will be donated to causes supporting the Palestinian people and the wider movement.

“If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years,” Macklemore said in a statement.

“There has been a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires that try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now. It’s 2026. Being apolitical during a genocide doesn’t work anymore,” he continued.

“People are asking artists to show up, educate themselves and be in community. To use the stage for more than entertainment. To push back when the call for a Free Palestine is met with attempts to silence it.”

English punk rap duo Bob Vylan have expressed their support for the tour, responding to Macklemore’s Instagram post with a heart emoji. The British YouTuber and influencer known as Chunkz, who has more than four million followers on Instagram, also praised Macklemore.

Attempts to silence Macklemore

On September 4 at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, Macklemore, who was one of Sheeran’s opening acts, expressed support for Palestine.

“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘Free Palestine’ … My message is for peace; love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality,” Macklemore told the audience at the time.

Soon after, the rapper announced that he had been dropped from the Sheeran tour.

Venue owner Robert Kraft later confirmed that Macklemore was barred from performing at his Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Kraft denounced what he described as the rapper’s “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery” and argued that such actions led him to decide that allowing Macklemore to perform at his venue “would cross that line”.

Kraft is a Jewish-American billionaire and has donated to several Israeli causes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, said in 2019 that Israel did not have a “more loyal friend” than Kraft.

Macklemore claimed Sheeran and his team removed him from the tour following pressure from Kraft.

He alleged that Kraft rallied the owners of the remaining stadiums that the tour would include and persuaded them not to allow him to perform. The rapper said that Kraft then told Sheeran the tour would not go ahead unless he was dropped.

Neither Kraft nor Sheeran have commented on Macklemore’s allegations that stadium owners were contacted by Kraft.

Israeli bulldozers uprooted olive groves near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank weeks before the annual harvest.

Israeli army bulldozers have ploughed through rows of olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, just as Palestinian farmers were preparing to begin their annual harvest, residents told the Reuters news agency.

Palestinian farmer and landowner Abd Alfattah Tamimi said the army had destroyed the olive trees planted on his family’s land as well as his neighbours’.

The demolition in the village of Deir Nidham started on Monday and continued on Tuesday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

“They don’t care about anyone, but God is up there, and we are steadfast here with our souls,” he said. “They are uprooting, and we will plant again with the help of God,” he said.

Another farmer, Nather Tamimi, told Reuters the timing of the demolition was designed to inflict maximum damage ahead of harvest season, which traditionally begins in October.

He said that his family produced about 120 drums of olive oil from the land each year.

The Israeli army also “uprooted all kinds of trees even from between the houses”, Nather Tamimi said.

Israel’s military said it was checking Reuters’ request for comment but had not responded by Wednesday evening.

In the past, Israel has cited the need to clear land of olive trees to prevent security threats or ambushes on troops.

Palestinian human rights groups reject this, saying the destruction in effect deprives Palestinian farmers of income from the sale of olives and olive oil, while uprooting trees ‌they view ⁠as a symbol of their connection to the land.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Israeli attacks on agricultural land in August affected 21,508 trees, including 19,375 olive trees.

They estimated this year’s olive production at 21,000 tonnes, compared with local demand of about 15,000 tonnes.

Excluding Ra’am and the Joint List leaves Palestinian citizens in Israel without major Knesset representation options.

Israel’s Central Elections Committee has voted to bar both main Arab electoral lists from next month’s election, putting the political representation of Palestinian citizens of Israel before the Supreme Court weeks before voters go to the polls.

The committee voted on Wednesday to disqualify the United Arab List, or Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, and the Joint List, an alliance of the Arab-led Hadash, Ta’al and Balad parties. It also voted separately to bar Hadash legislator Ofer Cassif and Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh. The election is scheduled for October 27.

The bans are not final. Decisions against individual candidates require Supreme Court approval, while lists can appeal their exclusion. Adalah, the legal centre representing the parties and candidates, says it will challenge the votes when the court hears the cases next week.

Ra’am called its exclusion “political and unacceptable”, saying the decision was intended to prevent it from influencing the balance of power and changing the government.

The Joint List said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir were trying to discourage Arab citizens from voting “because they fear our ability to bring down the government of genocide and racism”. Its leader, Yousef Jabareen, questioned how the committee could bar parties representing more than 1.25 million voters.

Abu Shehadeh told Al Jazeera that his exclusion was an attempt to silence criticism of government policy and said the decisions would be challenged in court and through public protest. Rejecting the allegation that he supports violence, he told The Times of Israel: “I have never called for violence or terrorism. I oppose armed struggle.”

The petitions invoke Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset, which allows a list or candidate to be excluded for denying Israel’s existence as a “Jewish and democratic state”, inciting racism or supporting armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or an organisation designated as terrorist.

Netanyahu’s Likud party sought to disqualify the Joint List and Cassif, and was among the groups that filed against Ra’am. Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party also sought to bar Abu Shehadeh. Adalah disputes the allegations. It says the case against Ra’am presents no evidence that the party supports armed struggle, while the Joint List petition relies heavily on old material, including bills proposed in previous Knessets.

Abu Shehadeh’s case has drawn a different response. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara found no legal basis to exclude the other targeted parties and candidates but said an article he published on October 8, 2023, which she said may constitute support for armed struggle, warranted serious examination. The committee voted 31-4 to bar him. Adalah says the article contains no such call.

The push to bar Abu Shehadeh drew support from parties outside Netanyahu’s coalition. According to The Times of Israel, opposition parties voted to disqualify him, as did Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the elections committee. The vote broke with decades of precedent in which committee chairs abstained from disqualification votes. Abu Shehadeh’s exclusion still requires approval from the full Supreme Court.

Why the Arab vote matters

Ra’am joined the coalition government formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2021, helping end Netanyahu’s 12 consecutive years in office in 2021, although Abbas had previously discussed cooperation with Netanyahu as well. Now Likud itself has filed petitions against Arab representation, while Ben-Gvir’s party has pursued separate exclusions.

A Channel 12 poll published on Tuesday projected seven seats for the Joint List and five for Ra’am, against 50 for Netanyahu’s current coalition bloc. The 12 projected Arab seats would not automatically back Netanyahu’s opponents, as mainstream opposition parties remain divided over whether to govern with Arab support. But removing both lists would change the possible routes to the 61-seat majority needed to form a government.

The Supreme Court has overturned previous committee bans on Arab lists and candidates, including Balad’s exclusion in 2022. It must now decide whether the evidence meets the legal threshold for barring the two principal lists seeking to represent Palestinian citizens of Israel. The ruling will determine who can appear on the October ballot.