Smotrich opposes reinstating administrative detention for violent Israeli settlers

Israel’s Army Radio has reported that Israel’s internal intelligence service, Shin Bet, was likely to recommend that the government reinstate administrative detention for violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as the violence has reached record levels in recent months.

The measure was ended in November by then-Defence Minister Israel Katz. It allows Israeli authorities to hold people without charge or trial.

The far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has expressed his opposition to reinstating the policy, saying he hopes “the defence minister will not agree to this under any circumstances”.

“The decision to neutralise the use of this draconian tool was brave and correct – it is undemocratic and dangerous,” Smotrich said.

Despite his opposition on what appear to be principled grounds, however, Israeli authorities continue to use administrative detention routinely against Palestinians.

The Israeli NGO B’Tselem said that as of June this year, more than 3,000 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention.

Palestinian groups accuse Israel of ‘physical and psychological destruction’ of child prisoners

Palestinian prisoner organisations have accused Israel of carrying out “physical and psychological destruction operations” against child detainees in its prisons.

In a joint statement marking World Children’s Day, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, and Addameer said more than 1,630 children have been arrested in the occupied West Bank since the war on Gaza began.

About 350 children, including two girls, are currently held in Israeli prisons, with more than 90 in administrative detention without charge, the groups said.

The organisations said children face “torture, starvation, medical crimes, systematic looting and deprivation”, adding that Israel “treats them as a ‘security threat’, not as children in need of protection and care”.

Israel’s seizure of Palestinian bodies ‘tantamount to torture’ of families

We’ve been speaking to the mother of a boy killed earlier this week by Israeli forces during a raid in the Far’a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She just wants to receive the body of her child and lay him to rest in a dignified manner in a marked grave that she can visit.

This boy, 15, named Jadallah Jihad Jumaa Jadallah, was shot. Several Israeli soldiers were caught on video milling and walking around past him for minutes, as he moved and tried to sit up. He bled to death.

After the boy died, Israeli soldiers took his body, in what has become an established policy by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. Israeli soldiers not only fail to lend help to those they injure and prevent medical crews from getting to them to offer life-saving aid, but they also take the bodies of the Palestinians they kill.

It is a policy that is tantamount to torture of the families. We’ve seen this time and time again across the occupied West Bank, not just in this one incident.

HRW accuses Israel of war crimes over West Bank camp displacements

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcibly displacing 32,000 Palestinians from three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.

The rights group released its 105-page report, calling for criminal investigations into senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz.

The findings document what HRW describes as ethnic cleansing during “Operation Iron Wall“, a large-scale military operation in the West Bank that started on January 21.

Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel/Palestine director, said in a post on X that the displacements were a “second Nakba”, referring to the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with Israel’s establishment in 1948.

He also said this was the “second largest – after Gaza – displacement of Palestinians since 1967”.

It's not just Gaza. New @hrw 105 pg report finds that Israel’s emptying of three West Bank refugee camps since early 2025—forcibly displacing 32,000 people & destroying 100s of homes—amount to war crimes, ethnic cleansing & crimes against humanity. A🧵1/7 https://t.co/2TepaSGv3S pic.twitter.com/87BqVWxScX

— Omar Shakir (@OmarSShakir) November 20, 2025

Israeli forces raided Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps in January and February, ordering residents to leave via loudspeakers mounted on drones before demolishing homes.

Satellite imagery analysis shows more than 850 buildings destroyed or heavily damaged. Displaced residents have not been permitted to return.

Israeli officials say their operations are part of a broader counterinsurgency strategy across the territory. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned in February the camps would become “uninhabitable ruins” if residents “continue their acts of terrorism”.

HRW is urging governments to impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials and enforce International Criminal Court arrest warrants.

Satellite images show scale of Israel’s destruction to West Bank camps

Here are some satellite images gathered by Human Rights Watch of the refugee camps where Israel has carried out large-scale raids over the past year.

“The Israeli military had razed and bulldozed homes, clearing areas and demolishing residential buildings, for what in the satellite imagery appears to be new widened military access roads,” HRW said.

<sub>Nur Shams refugee camp, in the northwest of the occupied West Bank. The image on the left was taken in October 2024 and the one on the right was taken in July 2025.


Jenin refugee camp, which has been heavily targeted by Israeli forces. The one on the left was taken in November 2024 and the image on the right was taken in July 2025.</sub>

_{Tulkarem refugee camp months apart}

Israeli forces raid Nablus, arrest Palestinians in wide-scale operation

Israeli forces have raided the occupied West Bank city of Nablus and several surrounding villages, arresting residents. The raids began overnight, the Wafa news agency reported, with military vehicles storming several neighbourhoods.

The report said the Israeli forces broke into commercial shops near the National Hospital in central Nablus and fired live ammunition in the area. Several young men were arrested outside the hospital.

Israeli forces raid homes in Qalqilya and Tulkarem, arresting six people

Israeli forces have carried out arrests in the West Bank towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem, the Wafa news agency has reported.

In Qalqilya, a town near the border with Israel, Wafa reported that four men were arrested during morning raids by Israeli forces on several homes. In Tulkarem, two people were arrested.

Footage shows settlers stoning car with child inside in West Bank

The Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, has published footage of what it says was an attack by Israeli settlers on a group of Palestinians driving through the occupied West Bank.

The incident took place on Monday, during an assault by settlers on the village of al-Jaba, southeast of Jerusalem. They torched three Palestinian homes, one shack and three vehicles, according to Dhyab Masha’la, the head of the local council.

According to B’Tselem, this footage shows the moment a group of settlers began throwing stones at the car, in which a child, her mother and their uncle were travelling. One of the projectiles breaks through a side window and flies into the car.

On Monday 17.11.2025, settlers raided the village of al-Jab'ah. In one of the assaults, a group of masked settlers stoned a car carrying a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, her four-year-old sister, their mother, and their uncle, and set fire to two vehicles parked nearby. In… pic.twitter.com/6IfhTM7in8

— B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) November 19, 2025

Israeli forces arrest 56 people in Hebron governorate: Report

Israeli forces have carried out a mass arrest campaign in Hebron governorate for a second straight day, rounding up dozens of people in a local stadium, according to the Wafa news agency.

In total, Israeli forces detained 56 people, most from the town of Beit Ummar to the north of Hebron, said the agency. In addition, Israeli forces raided numerous homes and destroyed residents’ property during raids in the area, it added.

Yesterday, as we reported, Israeli forces arrested and interrogated at least 150 people from Beit Ummar, where they also positioned snipers on rooftops and imposed tight restrictions on movement.

Israeli forces shoot, injure 13-year-old during Nablus raid: Report

Earlier, we reported on an ongoing Israeli military raid in the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. The Wafa news agency now reports that Israeli forces opened fire in Nablus, injuring four people, including a 13-year-old.

Israeli forces, settlers block Palestinian farmers from land near Hebron

Israeli forces and armed settlers have detained Palestinian farmers and prevented them from accessing their land in the south Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank. The incident occurred in the Huwara area east of Yatta, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Activist Osama Makhameh told Wafa that soldiers and settlers blocked farmers heading to plough their fields.

Israel seizes 445 acres of Palestinian land near Nablus

Israel has begun seizing 1,800 dunams (445 acres) of land near Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

COGAT, the Israeli Defence Ministry body overseeing civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, announced the seizure on Thursday, The Times of Israel reported.

The land will be used for “infrastructure development, the expansion of archaeological excavations, and the uncovering of additional historical findings”, according to a COGAT statement.

‘Isolated’ Israel seeks to sabotage peace in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria

Tamer Qarmout, an associate professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says the situation in Gaza with Israel’s ongoing ceasefire violations is “not an ideal situation”.

But overall, the momentum generated to secure a UN Security Council resolution gathering international support behind Trump’s plan and a peacekeeping force is important, he added.

“It is also not great news for Israel,” Qarmout told Al Jazeera, “which historically has had an upper hand in dictating the politics of this region, but now it has to share decision-making with the US and other powerful forces”.

“What we see is Israel in a sabotage mode. It is trying to sabotage the arrangements to establish peace in Gaza under the UN security mandate. It is constantly trying to sabotage any peace-making in Lebanon, and it is also expanding its influence in Syria as well,” Qarmout added.

“This is an angry Israel. An isolated Israel, that is now, more or less in confrontation with Trump,” he said.

Are they though, it seems more like Trump is handing Israel Gaza on a silver platter while pushing the possibility of Palestinian statehood further out of reach. It's not a peacekeeping force Trump's plan is calling for. It's to do the dirty work, disarming any resistance which the IDF has failed to do in 2 years of its genocidal campaign.

This 'confrontation' is just another good cop bad cop routine like with Biden, while both are pushing for the same ultimate goal, ethnic cleansing, steal the land.

Top Dutch diplomat says Gaza ceasefire ‘holding’ despite expected violations

Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel has said he believes the ceasefire in Gaza “is holding”, telling reporters that there would be violations, but that Trump’s plan, which was endorsed by the UN Security Council this week, had more support than any plan in the past.

“It won’t be easy,” he told reporters at a meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels. “Now, we have a plan on the table that offers peace, stabilisation and a path to a two-state solution,” he added. “We should get behind this plan.”

It's not a ceasefire, demolitions continue, daily killings of Palestinians continue, aid blockade continues, and now Israel is expanding the 'green' zone, moving the yellow line taking more territory.

The Netherlands is complicit in the genocide as many other European countries.

UN reports 7,500 airspace violations by Israel in Lebanon during truce

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) also says Israel’s military is responsible for 2,500 ground violations by troops during the year-long ceasefire with Hezbollah.

UNIFIL added 360 “abandoned weapons caches” from Hezbollah have been handed over to the Lebanese army since November 2024.

“All these violations are reported to the UN Security Council,” it said in a statement.

Israel continues to occupy at least five points on Lebanese territory following its invasion of south Lebanon last October. A ceasefire agreement reached in November stipulated that Israeli soldiers should withdraw from south Lebanon, but that never happened.

Founded in 1978, UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops after Israel invaded southern Lebanon earlier that year. Israel would reinvade in 1982 and occupy south Lebanon until 2000, when Israeli forces were expelled by Hezbollah.

OIC welcomes UN vote to extend UNRWA mandate

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has commended the UN General Assembly for renewing UNRWA’s mandate. The UN’s Fourth Committee voted 149-10 yesterday to extend the UN Relief and Works Agency’s mandate until June 2029.

The OIC said the vote highlights international consensus on the Palestinian cause while rejecting Israeli policies, including annexation and settlement expansion.

OIC Welcomes UNGA Resolutions on Palestinians and UNRWA: https://t.co/CYNaTqeLPE pic.twitter.com/eVqsvgtvz0

— OIC (@OIC_OCI) November 20, 2025

France condemns Israel’s latest deadly strikes on Lebanon

France’s Foreign Ministry has denounced Israel’s latest deadly attacks on southern Lebanon and urged its ally to abide by the year-old ceasefire.

“We are concerned about this intensification of Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon,” said an unnamed ministry spokesperson quoted by Reuters news agency. “We condemn the Israeli strikes that are killing civilians in the south. Our position is one of respect for the ceasefire of 27 November 2024.”

The Israeli military has stepped up air strikes on southern Lebanon – killing more than a dozen people in recent days – in what it claims are strikes targeting Hezbollah and Hamas.


_{Paramedics at the site of an Israeli strike that killed several people in the southern city of Sidon, Lebanon}

You're guarantor of the Lebanon ceasefire together with the US, that means you have responsibility for the ceasefire. You should condemn yourself for not acting on the daily violations.

UK’s Corbyn calls for Palestine Action delisting as jailed constituent joins hunger strike

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has urged the UK government to reverse its ban on Palestine Action, a pro-Palestine activist group targeting arms companies, in a letter to Justice Secretary David Lammy.

The independent MP wrote to Lammy on Wednesday, raising concerns about constituent Amu Gib, one of a group of Palestine Action members who launched a hunger strike in protest against their detention.

Gib has been held since June for alleged offences related to a break-in by demonstrators at a military base, with a trial not scheduled until January 2027 – far exceeding the UK’s standard 182-day pre-trial custody limit.

Corbyn cited UN officials who condemned the proscription as “not justified” and said the ban has led to more than 2,000 arrests. The hunger strikers are demanding immediate bail, fair trials, and the group’s de-proscription.

My constituent is one of six political prisoners on hunger strike, demanding the right to a fair trial and the de-proscription of Palestine Action.

I have written to David Lammy to demand urgent action.

The government knows the truth: the weight of history is against them. pic.twitter.com/IzixW5CFod

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) November 20, 2025

UK legal scholars demand government drop new anti-protest powers

More than 80 legal scholars and practitioners have signed an open letter, urging the British government to withdraw a proposed law that would give police new powers to restrict protests, which they warn could impact pro-Palestine demonstrations.

The letter, addressed to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, opposes an amendment requiring police to consider the “cumulative impact” of demonstrations held in the same area when deciding whether to impose conditions on marches or assemblies.

The scholars “while the recent proposal is framed in general terms, the proposed new police power would have a direct and chilling impact on protests against Israel’s ongoing crimes in Gaza – including scholasticide and (what the UN International Commission of Inquiry deemed as) genocide”.

Signatories include professors from leading UK universities and practising lawyers. They warn that the measure would significantly erode protest rights in England and Wales and likely breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

The proposal follows months of large pro-Palestinian demonstrations and comes amid a government review of protest laws.

Ireland’s foreign minister calls for increased aid to Gaza amid fragile ceasefire

Helen McEntee, Ireland’s top diplomat, has appealed for more aid to enter Gaza.

McEntee was speaking to reporters ahead of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting, where she said it is “very welcome that we have a ceasefire, albeit a very, very fragile ceasefire”.

“It is very welcome that humanitarian aid has continued to flow,” adding that a substantial increase was needed as “tens of thousands of young people and children are still at risk, so there is much more that we need to do”.

Aid organisations have continued to issue warnings that not enough aid is getting into Gaza, and the humanitarian emergency there is being exacerbated by winter conditions across the territory.

EU warns vital supplies stuck at borders as winter nears in Gaza

The European Union has sent 56 tonnes of equipment to help build shelters for Palestinians in Gaza as winter temperatures drop and tents are damaged.

The EU announced the shipment on X, warning that “too many vital supplies remain stuck at the borders, leaving millions exposed as winter nears”. It added: “Aid must be let in at scale.”

The delivery comes as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that its tent supplies were “limited and expected to deplete shortly”. OCHA said thousands of Palestinians were displaced by flooding caused by rain last week.

In Gaza, families face flooded tents & heavy rain.

56 tonnes of shelter items for Gaza just reached 🇪🇬 thanks to an 🇪🇺 Humanitarian Air Bridge & @UNICEF.
 
Too many vital supplies remain stuck at the borders, leaving millions exposed as winter nears. Aid must be let in at scale. pic.twitter.com/5mLSwM72pe

— EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid 🇪🇺 (@eu_echo) November 20, 2025

Hamas accuses Israel of shifting ‘yellow line’ and triggering new wave of displacement

The Palestinian group has accused Israel of repeatedly breaching the so-called yellow line in the Gaza Strip, to which Israeli troops withdrew under the ceasefire, saying the violations have forced large numbers of Palestinians to flee yet again.

Hazem Qassem, a spokesperson for the group, said Israeli forces are shifting the yellow line westward on a daily basis, calling it a “flagrant breach” of the understandings tied to the ceasefire and one that is triggering new waves of displacement.

He urged mediators to pressure Israel to immediately halt these ongoing violations.

Three Palestinians wounded in Israeli settler attack in northern West Bank

Three Palestinians have been injured – one critically – after Israeli settlers attacked an area between the villages of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya, and Beit Lid, east of Tulkarem.

Violence in the occupied West Bank has broken new records this year, with settlers carrying out almost-daily attacks on Palestinians that have involved killings, beatings, and the destruction of property, often under the protection of the Israeli military.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission says Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone in an “ongoing cycle of terror”, which has been taking place in the shadow of the war in Gaza.

Two Palestinians suffer head injuries in Israeli settler attack

Illegal Israeli settlers have caused head wounds to two Palestinians after attacking them with stones to the east of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank.

The Wafa news agency reported the incident took place between the towns of Beit Lid and Kafr Qaddum during an ongoing protest against an Israeli plan to build a new outpost there.

The injured Palestinians were taken to Rafidia Governmental Hospital in Nablus for treatment, it added.

Israeli settlers, backed by troops, assault Palestinians in West Bank

Israeli settlers have carried out a series of attacks across the occupied West Bank, torching property and assaulting Palestinians before Israeli forces moved in to make arrests.

In Huwara, south of Nablus, dozens of settlers from a nearby illegal settlement set fire to a vehicle scrapyard after storming the northern part of the town, local sources told the Wafa news agency.

Meanwhile, west of Ramallah, settlers accompanied by Israeli soldiers beat four Palestinians as they tried to remove a soil barrier that settlers had placed in front of their farm near the village of Kafr Nima. The four men were then arrested by Israeli forces.

Video shows Israeli troops shooting Palestinian boy, leaving him to die

Israeli soldiers walk around relaxed while 15-year-old Jad Jadallah struggles in agony. The soldiers shot him in the back, then watched on as Jad signals for help, tries to move and sit up, before finally collapsing.

Jad bled to death over 35 minutes, just metres away from his home.

Looking on helplessly was paramedic Hassan Fuqaha. “We tried to get to him. The soldiers stopped us. They signalled to us with lasers and flashlights to leave,” he says. “We had to pull back to a safer place.”

Fuqaha says barring paramedics from saving the lives of Palestinians has become standard practice. It’s also a regular policy for Israeli soldiers to retain the bodies of Palestinians they kill.

Palestinians in Hebron face Israeli army raids, settler assaults

Israeli forces raided the Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron, according to Palestinian sources.

Earlier, several Palestinians were wounded when Israeli settlers launched an attack on the village of Khirbet al-Markaz in the Masafer Yatta area, also south of Hebron.

The latest violence comes during near-daily raids and settler assaults targeting Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank. UN figures show Israeli settler violence has struck Palestinian communities more than 2,400 times over the past two years, forcing at least 3,055 people from their homes, including 1,529 children.

Most of those uprooted are Bedouin and herding families who are particularly vulnerable as settlers attack with impunity.

Gaza sanitation collapse a ‘public-health catastrophe’: UNICEF

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is warning that the collapse of basic sanitation services in the Gaza Strip has become a public-health disaster as infrastructure remains destroyed from Israeli attacks.

The agency says half of all families in Gaza are now using improvised toilets, including buckets, while 21 percent have witnessed open defecation, a reflection of the severe breakdown in water and sanitation systems after months of Israeli bombardment.

UNICEF teams are working to install emergency latrines and expand access to safe water, but the needs remain far greater than current capacity.

Years of Israel’s blockade and tight restrictions on aid continue to choke the flow of basic supplies into Gaza, preventing meaningful repairs to water and sanitation networks as well as devastated homes, roads, infrastructure and the healthcare system.


_{Children sort through trash at a landfill in Nuseirat refugee camp}


Gaza official warns toxic materials may be seeping into groundwater

A senior municipal official in central Gaza is warning that toxic materials from Israeli bombardment may be seeping into the territory’s groundwater, further threatening an already devastated water system.

Tariq Shahin, director of Deir el-Balah municipality, told Al-Aqsa TV news channel that widespread destruction of infrastructure has left water and sanitation networks in ruins and urgently in need of reconstruction.

Clearing the massive volumes of rubble of destroyed buildings requires resources far beyond the capacity of local municipalities, he added.

Israel’s blockade is preventing the entry of heavy machinery and essential equipment, leaving authorities unable to clear debris – where thousands remain buried – or carry out large-scale repairs to shattered infrastructure.

‘Shocking massacre’: More details emerge on Gaza killings

The death toll from Israeli air strikes on Gaza over a roughly 12-hour period has risen to 33 – mostly women and children, hospital sources say.

Four Israeli air strikes on tents sheltering displaced people in southern Khan Younis late Wednesday and early Thursday killed 17 people, including five women and five children, according to officials at Nasser Hospital.

In Gaza City, two air attacks on a building killed 16 people, including seven children and three women, according to officials at al-Shifa Hospital in the northern part of the city, where the bodies were taken.

Hamas condemned the Israeli strikes as a “shocking massacre”. Israel said it targeted Hamas fighters.