Israel continuing to deny entry to UNRWA staff, aid supplies

The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) says Israel is continuing to block its international staff and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

Still, about 12,000 of its local staff are pushing ahead with the delivery of “healthcare, psychosocial support, and education to the people, often under unimaginable conditions”, the agency said in a post on X.

Israel had banned UNRWA from operating in territory it controls last year, claiming a number of its employees were members of Hamas.

The International Court of Justice ruled last week that Israel, as an occupying power, has to support relief efforts provided by the UN and its entities, including UNRWA. It also found that Israel has not substantiated its claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are Hamas members.

In its post, UNRWA said “a ceasefire alone is not enough. “Food, hygiene kits, tents, and other supplies are desperately needed,” it added.

UNRWA international staff and humanitarian aid continue to be denied entry into #Gaza.

Food, hygiene kits, tents, and other supplies are desperately needed.

A #ceasefire alone is not enough.

Around 12,000 of our staff continue to deliver healthcare, psychosocial support, and… pic.twitter.com/lIZDyHlS0U

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 26, 2025

Humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘still deteriorating’ as Israel restricts aid

The amount of aid coming into Gaza is very small. We were expecting 600 trucks of humanitarian aid every day, as part of the ceasefire deal. This would include food, medicine, shelter items, fuel and cooking gas.

But according to UN partners, there has not been a single day since the ceasefire in which 600 trucks have entered.

We’re seeing the effect on the streets. People are still starving. They say they have not received tents, tarps or other shelter items. They say they have yet to receive medicine.

Shortages of everything persist across the Gaza Strip, where more than 2 million Palestinians have lost everything, and are completely reliant on what comes through the crossings.

There are commercial trucks entering for the private sector, so you see many goods in the markets, but who is able to afford them? Palestinians in Gaza do not have cash. Many people spent all of their savings during the war.

At the end of the day, Palestinians say there is no difference on the ground and that the humanitarian situation is still deteriorating.

Israeli forces arrest 40 Palestinians across occupied West Bank overnight

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has reported that Israeli forces arrested 40 Palestinians overnight in raids on various areas of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces carry out raids across occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have carried out raids in numerous locations across the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency and our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.

Wafa reported that four people were arrested in the city of el-Bireh, with Israeli forces assaulting the son of one of the detained men during the arrest. Two others were detained in the village of Deir Abu Mash’al, west of Ramallah, Wafa reported.

Seven people were arrested in raids on the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp in Jericho city, Palestinian sources told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Other raids targeted a house in Nilin, west of Ramallah; Balata camp, east of Nablus; a suburb south of Tulkarem; al-Tabaqa, south of Dura; and the village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.

Israeli forces raze land near Nablus: Report

Israeli forces have bulldozed land in the Palestinian village of al-Lubban Asharqiya, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, in an attempt to expand the perimeter of nearby illegal settlements, the Wafa news agency reports.

They have also begun constructing a road for Israeli settlers in the area, which Palestinians will be prevented from using, Wafa says, quoting local sources.

Since the war in Gaza started in October 2023, Israeli military forces and settlers have carried out more than 38,000 attacks on Palestinians and their land or property in the occupied West Bank, according to the Ramallah-based Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.

Stun grenade fired by Israeli forces critically injures teenager near Hebron

Israeli forces raiding the Palestinian town of Beit Awwa, near Hebron, have clashed with residents and fired stun grenades and tear gas, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic and the Wafa news agency report.

One of the stun grenades critically injured a 15-year-old Palestinian in the head, says Wafa. The teenager, who was hit while heading to school, has been hospitalised in Hebron, according to the agency.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces also carried out a raid in Qalandiya camp, near Jerusalem, according to our colleagues on the ground.

Israeli forces arrest five, assault family in occupied West Bank raids

Israeli forces have carried out further raids in the occupied West Bank, making five arrests in one town and assaulting a family in another, Wafa reports. The news agency reported that five people had been arrested in the town of Deir Ballut in the Salfit governorate, as Israeli forces raided their homes.

In a separate raid in the Salfit governorate, Israeli forces raided the homes of a senior Fatah official and his sons in the town of Biddya, assaulting the men, Wafa reported.

Israeli forces demolish two buildings in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have demolished two buildings belonging to Palestinian brothers in a village in the occupied West Bank, Wafa is reporting.

Quoting a local activist, the news agency reported that Israeli forces surrounded the village of Marj al-Ghazal in the Jericho governorate while the demolitions were carried out.

Israeli forces block Palestinian olive farmers from reaching lands in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have blocked more Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank from reaching their olive groves for harvest, Wafa is reporting. The news agency reported that Israeli forces had entered the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, forcing the farmers to leave the area.

Israeli forces attack students in al-Khader in West Bank: Report

Israeli forces have fired bullets and tear gas at Palestinian students in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reports.

Citing a local source, the news agency reported that Israeli forces took up positions in the town and fired bullets, tear gas and stun grenades at the students as they were returning home, resulting in a number of students inhaling tear gas.

Palestine’s GDP plummets 29% during Israel’s war on Gaza: UN

The Palestinian economy has contracted 29 percent since the Gaza war began, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency.

Gaza has borne the brunt with its economy collapsing by 87.4 percent between 2023 and 2025. The occupied West Bank has also suffered severely with its GDP falling 17.1 percent over the same period.

Unemployment has surged to about 32 percent for both men and women while the number of Palestinians working in Israel has plummeted from 178,000 to just 35,300 – an 80 percent drop.

“Immediate and coordinated measures are needed in the context of the ceasefire to sustain jobs and businesses, support incomes and strengthen social protection,” said Ruba Jaradat, ILO’s regional director for Arab states.

Movement restrictions have intensified dramatically with 849 Israeli checkpoints now set up across the occupied West Bank, the report said.

Jeremy Scahill on Gaza Ceasefire, Talking to Hamas & Israel's Doctrine of Dehumanizing Palestinians

Israel has carried out repeated attacks in Gaza and killed about 100 Palestinians over the past two weeks since the U.S.-backed ceasefire deal with Hamas came into effect. Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, is one of the few Western journalists in regular contact with Hamas leaders. "It's utter malpractice on the part of all of these news organizations that have not regularly been interviewing the leaders, the negotiators of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This is, by default, allowing the dehumanization narrative of Palestinians to just take hold," he says.

What the UK Did in Gaza is SHOCKING & no one's allowed to talk about it

UK Government SECRET Role in Gaza EXPOSED

Families in Gaza struggle to identify deceased loved ones

This is one of the most emotional moments for us across the Gaza Strip. This is not the first time we’ve witnessed the return of unidentified bodies during Israel’s war. We’ve seen families and friends in hospitals and morgues clinging to a fading hope of recognising a loved one from fragments of their clothing or from their physical features.

But they are often unable to confirm their identities because of the decomposition, and that is the problem. There is an absence of forensic laboratories and testing.

Mourning becomes impossible, leaving people in emotional limbo. We’ve seen this clearly on the faces of mothers, fathers and other surviving family members.

Gaza opens office to identify bodies of returned Palestinians

Gaza’s Health Ministry has announced it’s opening a new office to work on identifying the remains of hundreds of Palestinians returned by Israel under the ceasefire with Hamas.

It called on “anyone who can identify the martyrs through their belongings or identifying marks” to visit Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital in the next three days.

The ministry launched an online portal showing censored photos of the bodies to help families identify missing relatives remotely.

The remains of most of the Palestinian bodies returned under the truce have gone unidentified, with medical workers saying many show signs of torture and execution. Israel hasn’t provided data or names, making identification of hundreds of corpses nearly impossible.

Israel knew full well what the identities were of those they tortured to death. Just another way to torture Palestinians as a group.

Hamas says it will hand over body of Israeli captive tonight

Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, says it will hand over the body of a deceased abductee it recovered on Monday in Gaza at 9pm local time (18:00 GMT).

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire, Hamas has already returned 20 living captives from Gaza and is now trying locate the bodies of others in the war-battered Strip. 


_{Red Cross workers arrive for a search for bodies in Hamad City, Khan Younis}

One million people in Gaza require mental health treatment: UN

The World Health Organization says two years of fighting have more than doubled the number of people in Gaza who need mental health care, rising from about 485,000 to more than one million.

Before Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that about 500,000 children in Gaza needed mental health and psycho-social support. Now almost all children are in need, it says.

In #Gaza, the number of people needing mental health care has more than doubled to over 1 million in two years.

Most displaced families live in overcrowded, makeshift sites, often in unsafe areas.

We continue scaling up our response.

Read: https://t.co/LElT9fNMme pic.twitter.com/l9b4j0GRsO

— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) October 27, 2025

Israeli military not allowing tents, mobile homes into Gaza

Today there’s been two main locations where the search for captives has gone on with the help of heavy machinery from Egypt, which was finally allowed entry by Israel into Gaza last night. Search teams were distributed over areas of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, as well as in the eastern part of Gaza City to the north.

Hamas’s armed wing announced it located one body and will return it via the Red Cross to Israel at any moment. Palestinians in Gaza also want to dig out the bodies of their loved ones buried in piles of rubble from relentless Israeli attacks over the past two years.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military is not allowing tents and mobile homes to get in as well as other crucial equipment needed for people to survive these difficult living conditions.

Water here is not available all the time. Some food is available but not an amount that is enough for everyone, and it’s also a question of affordability now as prices are still high, beyond what most families could afford.

Medical necessities are also still not available in hospitals despite the ceasefire with Israel now in its third week.

 
Gaza children ‘scrambling for water’ after return home: UNRWA

Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA in Gaza, says no other organisation has the capacity or experience to “take on the load” required in delivering essential services to war-ravaged Gaza.

Rose said 23,000 Palestinian children have returned to school since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire started three weeks ago.

“It is very critical to them, the children, a sense of normality, but also to give their parents and their communities a sense that life is getting back to normal,” he told Al Jazeera.

“That reality for children in Gaza is not going to shopping malls with their parents, but its living in tents and scrambling for water and there has to be some way to factor that in.”

Israeli settler attacks rise 13% in occupied West Bank in six months

Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have surged with 757 incidents recorded in the first half of 2025, 13% more than the same period last year, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

The violence accompanies rapid settlement expansion. Israeli NGO Peace Now reports 84 new settler outposts were established in the past year in the occupied West Bank, up from the previous year’s 49.

The UN said the attacks – frequently backed by Israeli soldiers – are pushing Palestinians off their land as part of Israel’s annexation strategy, which violates international law.

Jailed icon Marwan Barghouti can unify Palestinians, says son

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti’s son has urged US President Trump to “seize the opportunity” created by the Gaza ceasefire to secure his father’s release from decades of Israeli imprisonment.

“He’s capable and has the track record to unify the Palestinian people,” Arab Barghouti said. “Someone like him represents a great opportunity for the international community to prove that they are serious about supporting the two-state solution.”

Earlier this month, Barghouti’s wife Fadwa also urged Trump to intervene. Trump said in an interview with US magazine Time on October 15 he would be “making a decision” on the matter, without specifying a timeline.

Sometimes dubbed the “Mandela of Palestine” by his supporters, long-jailed Marwan Barghouti, 66, was one of the leaders of the second intifada, and is often cited as a possible successor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Polls in Gaza and the West Bank agree. He would easily win the vote against Hamas and the PA.

UN, France slam Israel after attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

The United Nations and France have condemned an Israeli attack near UN peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon after international soldiers neutralised an “aggressive” Israeli reconnaissance drone.

Known as UNIFIL, the UN force works with the Lebanese army to enforce the ceasefire that ended more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel. Despite the truce, Israel continues to launch attacks.

“We are very concerned about the incident that occurred on Sunday in which an Israeli drone dropped a grenade in the vicinity of a UNIFIL patrol, and subsequently an Israeli tank fired a shot at the peacekeepers in Kfar Kila in the UNIFIL area of operations,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

“Our colleagues at UNIFIL are in touch with the [Israeli army] to protest vehemently what has happened. It’s not the first time that we feel we’ve been targeted in different ways … [including] pointing lasers or warning shots. It’s very, very dangerous,” he added.

According to a French diplomatic source, the UNIFIL troops involved in Sunday’s incident were French.

“France condemns the Israeli fire that targeted a UNIFIL detachment on October 26, 2025,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “These incidents follow those observed on October 1, 2, and 11, when the Israeli army had already targeted UNIFIL positions.”

Makes you wonder what will happen when Unifil leaves Lebanon in 13 months.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/29/un-unifil-lebanon-peacekeeping-mission-withdrawal

The UN security council has voted to extend the body’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon for a further 16 months, but ordered it finished at the end of 2026 under Israeli and US pressure.

Israel can't wait to get rid of neutral observers.

Lebanon says 2 killed in Israeli attack on the south

Two brothers were killed in an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon, bringing the total death toll from such attacks to 13 over the past week.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a statement the two brothers were killed in Israeli bombing of the village of al-Bayyad in the Tyre district. Lebanese official news agency ANI said the two were killed in an attack on a sawmill in al-Bayyad.

Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesperson said it “eliminated two terrorists from the Hezbollah terrorist organisation while they were working to restore a terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon”.

Israel’s air force has stepped up bombings saying it’s striking members of Hezbollah and its infrastructure despite an ongoing truce in Lebanon reached in November 2024. Lebanese leaders have accused Israel of attempting to prevent reconstruction of the region, devastated by last year’s war, by targeting the machinery including diggers and bulldozers.