Palestine

The incident is the latest in a pattern of Israeli measures in the occupied territory since the Gaza genocide began.

Israel has barred the grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for one week.

The Jerusalem Governorate said in a post on Facebook that Sheikh Muhammad Hussein was detained by Israeli forces after delivering his Friday sermon at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Later, the governorate confirmed that Hussein had been released, but was temporarily banned by Israeli authorities from entering Islam’s third-holiest site in occupied East Jerusalem for one week, with the possibility of the ban being renewed.

According to the Quds News Network, Hussein was arrested for the contents of his sermon, during which he prayed for mercy for Palestinians killed by Israel and relief for those held in Israeli prisons.

In a message to Al Jazeera, the Jerusalem Governorate said “the arrest was carried out in order to serve him [Hussein] with an order banning him from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque for one week, with the possibility of renewal. This is not the first time such a measure has been taken against him.”

Israel has not commented on Hussein’s brief arrest or banning.

The incident is the latest in a pattern of escalating Israeli measures in occupied Palestinian territory since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since then, including at least 243 children, amid what rights groups say is an intensifying campaign of military raids, settler violence and expanding Israeli control.

On Friday, six Palestinians, including children, were reportedly injured during an attack by settlers in Huwara, Nablus.

Local sources said settlers set upon a Palestinian family, including an elderly man, using pepper spray and physically beating them.

The attack took place on land belonging to the family. Israeli forces were reportedly present and protected the settlers during the attack.

Israeli forces then allegedly assaulted residents and arrested three members of the family, including 80-year-old Ibrahim Ismail al-Jabour.

The incident comes amid growing international concern over violence in the occupied West Bank. Last month, Amnesty International released a report accusing the Israeli government of carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the territory. The report concluded that the campaign was state-led and not the result of rogue settlers or far-right ministers.

Andy Burnham, who is expected to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, took to social media to apologise for the Labour Party’s initial stance on Israeli attacks in Gaza. He’s now calling for accountability of the Netanyahu government.

Medics report 12 injuries alongside eight deaths in Gaza as Israeli air strikes target civilians and displaced families.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least eight people in Gaza, including two children, aged 10 and 6, Palestinian health officials have said.

Medics said on Wednesday that an Israeli air strike killed one person near a school in Gaza City. Twelve people were wounded in the two incidents. The Israeli military said it struck fighters in Gaza City, but was unaware of casualties.

Another ‌Israeli air strike hit a tent for displaced people in the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, killing at least four people, including a 10-year-old child.

Later on Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said a six-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. Another strike hit a ⁠vehicle westward of the city, killing one person, ⁠medics said, taking Wednesday’s death toll to at least seven. An eighth death was later recorded, but more details were not immediately available.

The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment on any of those incidents.

The latest killings come despite Israel and Hamas agreeing to a United States-brokered “ceasefire” in October last year. Although large-scale fighting has largely paused, Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the territory have continued.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israeli army violations of the “ceasefire” have killed at least 1,084 people and wounded 3,491 others since the truce took effect. The latest casualties bring the overall death toll in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 to at least 73,110, with 173,599 others injured, the ministry said.

Israel has also expanded its control of the enclave to about 11 percent beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” demarcating areas of the Gaza Strip agreed in the truce.

Last week, a group of United Nations agencies and NGO groups warned that the continued expansion of areas under Israeli control endangers civilians and relief efforts. Already dozens of Palestinian families have been forced to leave their homes near the line.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in the Strip remains dire. In its latest report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it recorded nearly 9,300 cases of chickenpox across more than 130 health facilities. “The rise in reported chickenpox cases is occurring in a displacement environment already marked by severe overcrowding, deteriorating hygiene conditions, and widespread environmental health hazards,” it said.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, held in Israeli prisons without charge since December 2024, is being tortured and on the verge of death, according to his lawyer who found him badly beaten on July 2nd.

Two Palestinian mothers believe a viral image of a bound Gaza detainee shows their missing son, leaving them desperate for answers. Israel acknowledges the photo is real but has not revealed the man’s identity.

Hossam Hassan uses his FIFA World Cup news conference to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.

Egypt coach Hossam Hassan has reiterated his support for Palestine days after dedicating his team’s historic knockout win at the World Cup to the Palestinian people and waving their flag at the biggest sporting event in the world.

Hassan broke away from discussing his team’s upcoming round-of-16 match against Argentina to give an impassioned monologue about the plight of the Palestinian people at his news conference on Monday.

“If there is anyone in the world who does not feel for the Palestinian people, then they are not human — whether they are Arab, European, or American,” Hassan said. He spoke for more than four minutes on the subject and was applauded by many of the assembled media.

Israeli attacks across Gaza have continued to kill Palestinians, despite an ongoing “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. Israel has killed at least 73,066 people, including at least 20,179 children, in Gaza since the beginning of its genocidal war on October 7. At least 463 of those have been killed due to starvation, including 157 children.

More than 2million Palestinians in Gaza, largely displaced and living amid ruins, face uncertainty following the Israeli genocide.

Hassan was asked what prompted him to wave the Palestinian flag after his team’s penalty-shootout win over Australia on Friday, and he responded by saying it was “simply a human reaction”.

“Everywhere in the world, including in Europe or America, if someone hurts an animal, we see animal rights being defended and the whole world reacts,” Hassan said. “It has become normal to hear that two or three thousand people die in a single day because of a missile.”

The genocide sparked pro-Palestinian protests around the world, with athletes, including Spain’s Lamine Yamal, showing their support.

While Hassan dealt with questions about Lionel Messi and his team’s chances against the holders, he also spoke at length about Palestinians.

“Regardless of religion… I am a human before being Arab or anything else. My message, through football, is this: Please, just as FIFA’s slogan calls for respect among us, I hope there will be respect for people’s right to live,” Hassan said.

With a win over Argentina, Egypt would reach the quarterfinals for the first time.

“My dreams have no limits. My ambitions have no limits. I promise that we will do everything to live up to the expectations [of fans],” Hassan said. “We’re no underdogs. We’re big in every respect. We are a civilisation that is 7,000 years old, even more than 7,000 years.”

Hassan conceded that his side were not favourites for Tuesday’s clash, but insisted they were far from overawed.

“We know we are playing against the World Cup holders and one of the greatest players ever [Messi], but we do not fear them.

“[The] responsibility makes us focus on ourselves and on what we can produce on the field,” he added.

“We have a responsibility towards Egypt and the Arab world and Africa. We represent all of them.”

A Palestinian technocratic committee will take its place to manage the enclave’s day-to-day governance.

The Palestinian group Hamas has announced the dissolution of the body that has governed Gaza for nearly two decades, paving the way for a technocratic committee to implement civilian rule in the war-ravaged, besieged territory.

The move on Monday marks a significant political shift by Hamas, which has governed Gaza since its fighters seized control from rival Palestinian movement Fatah in 2007 after Hamas won legislative elections the previous year.

Since a United States-brokered “ceasefire” with Israel took effect in Gaza last October, the group has repeatedly said it is prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance, but the question of its disarmament remains unresolved.

Mohammed al-Farra, head of the government’s emergency committee, “has decided to submit his official resignation from his position and to announce the dissolution of the Government Emergency Committee, as a demonstration of the seriousness of these measures, in implementation of the agreed arrangements, and to facilitate the administrative transition process”, read a statement released by Gaza’s Government Media Office on Monday.

A Hamas official said the group wished for the swift entry of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a body which is tasked with overseeing the future administration of Gaza under a US-backed plan to end Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

“Hamas has taken a new step in that it will no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, in order to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told the AFP news agency.

“We hope for the swift entry of the [NCAG], and Hamas affirms its readiness to hand over governmental responsibilities to the committee to ensure its success.”

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said Hamas’s announcement appears to be “politically significant”.

“It has been viewed as part of the concession from the Hamas side in order to move the negotiations forward, to pave the road for the technocratic committee to arrive to the Gaza Strip and take responsibility after months of an increasing power vacuum there.”

Mahmoud stressed that the move doesn’t mean that Hamas is relinquishing its political or military role in Gaza, but rather “stepping back from the direct civilian government in Gaza”.

The head of the NCAG welcomed Hamas’s announcement.

“We affirm that the [NCAG] is fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available,” Ali Shaath, head of the committee, wrote on social media.

Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative overseeing the US-founded Board of Peace for Gaza, which would supervise the NCAG’s work, said the decision “underscores the importance of bringing the roadmap discussions to a successful conclusion”.

“It is the bridge between declarations and implementation,” he added.

Mladenov noted that once an agreement is reached on the remaining implementation provisions, the NCAG will be able to assume its responsibilities.

The NCAG has remained based outside Gaza for months, reportedly due to Israeli objections to its entry into the besieged enclave.

Israel has ruled out allowing Hamas to rule the enclave but has also rejected a direct takeover by the Palestinian Authority, which controls the occupied West Bank, at this stage.

Elyas Abu Safia says his father can barely breathe or speak after more than 555 days in Israeli prison.

The son of a prominent Palestinian doctor abducted and held by Israel without charge has issued an urgent appeal for his father’s release, warning that his health has sharply deteriorated after more than 555 days in prison, as a rights group warned that his life was in danger.

Elyas Abu Safia, the son of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, said in a video message on Sunday that his father, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, showed signs of severe abuse after Israeli authorities transferred him to solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison.

“The day before yesterday, the lawyer Nasser Odeh managed to visit my father, where he told us painful details about this visit,” said Elyas, who is also a doctor.

“My father was unable to breathe. My father was unable to speak,” he said, adding: “His face was disfigured from the marks of torture and pain, and the blood he endured inside the prison, especially after the last court session held in Jerusalem.”

Israeli forces arrested Abu Safia at work on December 27, 2024, as they intensified their attacks on northern Gaza’s healthcare system as part of the genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza. Two months earlier, an Israeli drone attack killed another of his sons, Ibrahim, at the entrance of the hospital where he worked.

Elyas accused Arab and Muslim leaders of abandoning his father.

“You deprived us even of your voices, your solidarity and your support, which should have been there from the start of the detention,” he said.

“But sadly, your silence is a betrayal and a crime, and complicity in torturing my father and the hostages inside Israeli prisons,” he added.

‘The most shocking testimony’

Physicians for Human Rights Israel warned that Abu Safiya’s life is in immediate danger after his transfer to the Rakefet section of Nitzan prison.

The group said lawyer Nasser Odeh visited Abu Safia on July 2 and documented severe injuries, signs of assault, difficulty breathing and repeated loss of consciousness. It said guards brought him into the visit with his hands and feet bound and surrounded him with masked officers.

Odeh also saw fresh bruises and injuries on Abu Safiya’s head, around his eyes, ears and neck. The wounds were so severe that the lawyer struggled to recognise him, the group said.

“The information we received raises serious and immediate concerns for Abu Safiya’s life. The lawyer’s testimony is among the most shocking we have heard since the beginning of the war: a man detained without charge tells his lawyer that he believes they will kill him, after he arrived for the visit injured, suffering from difficulty breathing, and on the verge of losing consciousness,” Naji Abbas, director of the Prisoners and Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights, told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Israeli authorities have not filed charges against Abu Safia. They classified him as an “unlawful combatant”, a designation Israel has used to hold Palestinians for prolonged periods without trial.

Physicians for Human Rights has demanded his release, along with other imprisoned Palestinian doctors. In March, United Nations experts also called on Israel to free Abu Safia immediately and ensure he receives medical care.

He is one of 14 Palestinian doctors from Gaza currently held by Israel without charge.

Egypt and Morocco fans celebrated their World Cup success by singing ‘My Blood is Palestinian’ at a Dallas fan zone, in a show of Arab solidarity with Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have offered the clearest signal yet that they are considering the establishment of new Jewish settlements on what remains of the Gaza Strip after almost three years of their country’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the enclave.

Last Monday, Smotrich, who made his continued participation in the ruling coalition conditional on being granted increased control over Israel’s settlement enterprise, told reporters that his ministry had prepared plans for three settlements in northern Gaza, and that all that was needed to move forward was the green light from Netanyahu.

The following day, Netanyahu came close to providing it. Speaking on Israel’s staunchly right-wing Channel 14, he refused to rule out the prospect of settlements in Gaza.

“The question is whether you prefer to do or to talk,” the prime minister replied cryptically when asked whether the establishment of settlements was a possibility. “And yes, I prefer not to address it.”

Israel’s current settlements – in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem – are illegal under international law.

In clearing the way for any future settlements in Gaza – and for what Netanyahu euphemistically told Channel 14 viewers was the “voluntary migration” of its remaining population, a process widely characterised by international jurists as ethnic cleansing – Israel has killed more than 73,000 of its occupants.

At the same time, Israel has been accused by United Nations-backed experts of deliberately imposing a famine on survivors in Gaza and, most recently, of furthering its genocide in Gaza through the deliberate targeting of children.

The degree to which preparations are under way for the physical establishment of any settlements in Gaza – which previously had 21 illegal settlements before the Israeli government decided to dismantle them in 2005 – is difficult to ascertain. The area north of Gaza City has been largely razed by Israel, with its deliberate campaign to demolish Palestinian homes and institutions, destroying almost everything not hit with bombs from the air.

Supporters of settlements in Gaza see that now empty land as a perfect opportunity to cement a buffer between Israel and Gaza.

With elections due in Israel, it is beneficial for politicians such as Smotrich and Netanyahu to insinuate that this is now the plan.

“The Israeli public has been subjected to almost endless incitements to genocide since October 7,” said Neve Gordon, an Israeli professor at Queen Mary University of London. “People who watch legacy media in Israel have no understanding of the level of destruction in Gaza, or the kind of suffering that has gone on there.

“There are even spots, tourist spots, where some people in Israel go to watch the bombing. This is the constituency that statements like Smotrich’s are designed to appeal to. These are the people who would like to see more settlements in Gaza, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously ” he said. “[But] this isn’t just rhetoric. There is a definite and consistent push from across much of Israel’s politics to resettle the Gaza Strip.”

A history of ethnic cleansing

A growing number of hardline religious Israelis have been seeking to resettle the Gaza Strip since the 2005 disengagement. Since then, analysts and historians have described concerted efforts by those supporting settlements to capture the institutions of Israeli public life, gaining dominant voices in the education system, the media and other areas of government.

Organisations such as the far-right settler group Nachala have openly championed the resettlement of the enclave. Months into Israel’s genocidal war, Nachala held a conference explicitly promoting Israel’s return to Gaza, entitled ”Settlement Brings Security and Victory”. It was attended by numerous government ministers, including Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Despite what critics describe as his success in establishing settlements on a scale unparalleled since the 1990s, Smotrich continues to struggle in the polls. His Religious Zionist party may not secure enough votes in the next election – which must be before the end of October – to meet the minimum threshold to get into parliament. That perhaps explains why Smotrich is eager to inflate the prospects of settlements in Gaza and attract more support from the Israeli right-wing.

Political advantage

The irony is curious for observers such as Orly Noy, the editor of the Hebrew-language Local Call magazine.

Smotrich “has been the most effective member of the cabinet in promoting the interests of the settlers in the West Bank”, she said. “He has really made a revolution in that sense,” referring to the judicial, economic, and infrastructure overhauls initiated under Smotrich’s watch, that he appears to be receiving little credit for among his base.

The stakes for Netanyahu are potentially more dramatic, analysts pointed out. Currently on trial on multiple corruption charges, the PM faces a jail sentence if found guilty.

Similarly, anger over his apparent determination not to hold an independent inquiry into his own government’s failings in the October 7 attack runs high, perhaps giving him a reason to suggest that he will move forward with building settlements and expelling Palestinians from Gaza.

“Look, if you want to distinguish yourself from the rest of the field ahead of the election, your time is now,” political analyst Ori Goldberg said. “This is your moment, and, if you want to propose imposing further hardship onto Palestinians, there is absolutely no Jewish member of [parliament] – apart from the [left-wing member of parliament] Ofer Cassif – who is going to oppose you.

“People don’t care anymore,” he said of the chances of the settlement of Gaza receiving any resistance from Israelis. “There’s just nothing [on the suffering in Gaza]. People have grown indifferent. There’s just a big black hole.”

Complicity

While the Israeli government may have no domestic qualms when it comes to building settlements in Gaza, it does have to contend with the international backlash – and that may be why the project does not move beyond the planning stage.

But would Israel face any real lasting consequences from building settlements in Gaza?

In the eyes of many, the Israeli government’s freedom to act comes from the unwavering diplomatic and military support of the US, as well as the financial support of Europe which, despite its occasional criticism, remains Israel’s foremost trading partner.

“In terms of international reaction,” author and fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Hugh Lovatt said of the prospect of settlement in Gaza, “from 2023 onwards we’ve seen the greatest expansion of settlements since the [1990s] Oslo Accords, as well as plans to render the two-state solution obsolete”.

“And, while there’s been some criticism, there’s been very little action,” Lovatt said. “I don’t know if that would be any different were it to happen in Gaza. It’s true that Gaza has been the focus of a great deal of international – and specifically US – attention since the ceasefire that the West Bank has not.”

However, whether that attention would act as a check on Israel’s attempts to expand its settlements is unclear.

“Would Israel risk such a blatant move to block Trump’s Gaza plan? I’m not sure,” he said of the US president’s plan for Gaza, which while heavily criticised for allowing Israel to continue its presence in the Palestinian territory, makes no mention of Israeli settlements.

“And while Europe has a very poor track record so far, an expansion of Israeli settlements to Gaza could push European states to act,” he said.

Students and supporters of a Luxembourg teacher fired over social media posts held a demonstration for her this week. Fatima Kurtic was fired in October over a post deemed anti-Israel. She told Al Jazeera about the motivations and costs behind her pro-Palestinian activism.

Israel has rejected a UN Commission report that says its army deliberately targets Palestinian children. But there are cases of children being shot by precision weapons, making it difficult to argue they were accidents.
Al Jazeera’s @emmawithrow explains.

Gaza’s first women’s amputee football team is reclaiming a space that war tried to take from them, challenging stigma around women and people with disabilities in sport.

Israel bombed a car near the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. As one of the men escapes, Israeli forces strike again. Double tap attacks are widely considered to be war crimes.

An Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi camp in Khan Younis has killed several people, including a mother and her child. More than one hundred tents belonging to displaced Palestinians were also destroyed.

The strike in Deir el-Balah is the latest Israeli attack amid ongoing ‘ceasefire’ violations.

At least three people have been killed in an Israeli air strike in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, health authorities say.

An eight-year-old and two men were killed in Monday’s attack, and several people were wounded, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

The strike occurred near Wadi Salqa Bridge on al-Baraka Street. The Palestinian news agency Wafa named those killed as Ali Fayez Isbaitan, Hassan Salman al-Hanajra and eight-year-old Malik Wael Abu Shaweesh.

Israeli military vehicles also advanced on Salah al-Din Street in the Nuseirat refugee camp, also in the central Gaza Strip, amid gunfire and shelling, Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency reported. Two people were reported injured by shelling in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

Despite the “ceasefire” that came into effect in October, Israeli forces continue to carry out strikes on the enclave.

Israeli attacks killed at least four Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, including a 13-year-old girl, and wounded several.

Ongoing violations

Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that 1,045 Palestinians have been killed since the “ceasefire” took effect and 3,380 have been injured. It has documented 3,465 Israeli violations of the agreement.

“We strongly condemn the occupation’s systematic policies of targeting and destroying the Palestinian people,” it said.

It called on the mediators and parties sponsoring the “ceasefire” to compel Israel to implement all of its terms and “immediately cease its ongoing violations”.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Sunday that a total of 73,054 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 173,480 injured since Israel launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023.

Also during the “ceasefire”, the Israeli military is continuing to expand the area it is occupying inside the Strip and to issue forced displacement orders. It says Palestinians are not allowed to approach the Israeli-occupied area beyond the “Yellow Line”, which encompassed 53 percent of Gaza’s territory at the start of the ceasefire and had increased to 64 percent by March.

Anadolu reported that Israeli military vehicles have moved the “Yellow Line” markers about 150 metres (165 yards) to the west in central Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for Israeli forces to occupy 70 percent of the Strip.

Rats are invading displacement camps across Gaza, where piles of garbage, overflowing sewage and overcrowded shelters are worsening a public health crisis. Doctors report more severe skin diseases as families struggle without proper sanitation or adequate medical care.

Videos show Israeli settlers, protected by Israeli soldiers, trying to seize a house under construction on the outskirts of the town of Qabalan, just south of Nablus, in the 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.”

In the early hours of another day of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, 20-year-old Hamza al-Ghazali, who lives in the Zeitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City, set out once again in search of an insulin pen.

It was not the first time he had moved between pharmacies and medical centres, looking for a dose. The effort has become a recurring part of his life since the outbreak of war in October 2023 and the tightening Israeli restrictions on the entry of medicines and medical supplies into the Gaza Strip.

Hamza knows that delaying an insulin dose is potentially life-threatening. Type 1 diabetes requires strict daily treatment and continuous monitoring. However, under war and blockade conditions, managing the disease has turned into a daily, high-risk struggle.

Hamza recalls how his health condition was more stable before the war. He used to obtain insulin from pharmacies at prices ranging between 25 and 35 shekels ($8.5 and $12) per pen, sometimes even less.

“I started to know all the pharmacies, and they also knew me, because I was always buying insulin pens,” Hamza says.

But this changed drastically with the war and the tightening of restrictions on the entry of medical supplies. The price of a single insulin pen rose to between 75 and 100 shekels ($25 and $34), and, as Hamza needs six to seven pens per month, he was forced to try to extend the use of each pen for as long as possible.

Fight for survival

The suffering of diabetes patients in Gaza extends to restrictions on the entry of medicines through border crossings, measures that have led to a severe shortage of insulin, glucose metres, and test strips.

Hamza notes that this shortage has created an unstable medical reality, where, in some cases, medicines that may have been stored for long periods or in improper conditions appear on the market, raising concerns about reduced effectiveness or uncertain quality due to the lack of alternatives.

A year ago, when an Israeli blockade on the entry of food led to a famine in northern Gaza, Hamza was forced to eat anything he could find.

But for Hamza, it wasn’t just about securing enough nutrition for his body, but also about finding the right balance between the insulin he had access to and the food he could find.

If he ate more without sufficient insulin doses, then he could have dangerously high blood sugar levels. If he reduced his food intake out of fear of running out of insulin, then that could result in severe and potentially fatal hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).

“I was afraid for myself during the shelling in northern Gaza,” said Hamza. “We were under siege. If the house was bombed, I might survive under the rubble, but die from low blood sugar. And if I ate without insulin, my sugar could rise dangerously. I was living between two fears all the time.”

He adds that the fear was not only about losing insulin, but also about losing glucose metres and test strips, which he relies on daily to monitor his condition. Every time he was forced to evacuate, the first thing he would carry was his “diabetes bag”.

Equipment shortages

Glucose test strips have been in short supply, limiting Hamza’s ability to monitor his blood sugar levels on a daily basis and forcing him to rely on judging his physical symptoms.

Hamza notes that the cost of a glucose metre ranges between 250 and 300 shekels ($85 and $120), but the real problem lies in the availability of test strips.

Without them, the device becomes useless, forcing some patients to repeatedly buy new devices. Hamza estimates that more than 80 percent of diabetes patients in some areas are unable to test their blood sugar regularly, which he describes as a “medical disaster”, as it turns treatment into daily guesswork.

According to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, between 70,000 and 80,000 diabetes patients in the Palestinian enclave are at risk due to the severe shortage of insulin and test strips, in addition to the collapse of medical follow-up services and poor nutrition.

Endocrinology and diabetes specialist Dr Adli al-Ghouti notes that about 2,500 children in Gaza are living with Type 1 diabetes, and are in a highly critical health condition.

As a result of insulin shortages, a lack of proper storage conditions, and power outages, a real crisis is unfolding.

Al-Ghouti warns that the deterioration of insulin quality, the expiration of the stock available in Gaza, and improper storage can all reduce effectiveness, creating a false sense of security while blood sugar levels remain uncontrolled, potentially resulting in severe complications such as diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening emergency condition.

“Taking an expired dose of insulin may cause significant harm inside the body, while giving a temporary impression of improvement,” Dr al-Ghouti said.

Diabetes is therefore no longer a condition that can be managed easily in Gaza. Between the shortage of insulin, a lack of testing tools, rising prices, and deteriorating nutrition, even the simplest aspects of treatment turn into a daily struggle for survival.

A United Nations commission of inquiry has accused Israel of systematically targeting Palestinian children in the occupied Palestinian territory, saying Israeli actions amount to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and war crimes in the occupied West Bank.

In a report released on Tuesday, the commission said about 30 percent of those killed in Gaza since Israel’s war began in October 2023 were children, and that attacks on maternity and neonatal units, along with an aid blockade, have devastated children’s chances of survival.

The commission says Israeli forces have destroyed orphanages and schools, and Palestinian children have been arbitrarily arrested, tortured and subjected to sexual abuse in detention. It warns that killings and serious injuries have continued even after the October 2025 “ceasefire”, in defiance of international law.

UNICEF estimates more than 50,000 children have been killed or wounded since the war began, with at least one Palestinian child killed on average every day in the eight months since the October “ceasefire” took effect.

These images document the lives and losses of Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank as they struggle to survive bombardment, displacement and imprisonment – and to hold on to a future that is being systematically stripped away.

Israel is pushing humanitarian groups and rights defenders to scale down operations in Palestinian territories.

Children are “increasingly unprotected” as humanitarian groups and rights defenders are forced to scale back their operations in the Palestinian territories, the United Nations has warned.

Many civil society and aid organisations in Gaza and the West Bank have been labelled “terrorists” by pro-Israel groups or politicians, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child warned in a statement issued on Monday, noting that their absence leaves children vulnerable.

“For more than three decades, these organisations have played a vital role in defending Palestinian children, including in the Israeli military courts, and in documenting grave violations against Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces,” the committee said.

“Without them, Palestinian children will be even less protected, and violations of their rights risk continuing with impunity,” it added.

Issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the statement noted that tactics used to delegitimise these human rights groups also include “military raids, travel bans, personal financial sanctions, threats of arrest, destruction of records, and even threats of secondary sanctions against partners who support their work”.

The committee said this made it “increasingly impossible for these organisations to operate safely or protect the children and families who turn to them for help”.

The committee urged the international community to hold Israeli authorities accountable for the attacks committed against Palestinian human rights defenders.

It urged the Israeli authorities to lift the restrictions faced by humanitarian individuals and groups.

“Despite grave risks and limited resources, child rights defenders have continued to stand with Palestinian children and families in extraordinarily dangerous conditions. They must be protected, not punished,” the committee said.

Israel has cracked down significantly on humanitarian operations in Gaza since the “ceasefire” that began on October 10, banning Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, after it failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff, further depriving Palestinians in the besieged enclave of life-saving assistance.

In February this year, 17 international aid groups petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to be allowed to keep working in the Gaza Strip and other areas in the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli government has planned to halt their life-saving work.