Israel’s systematic campaign to expel West Bank Palestinians

The UN has documented nearly 3,000 settler attacks across the occupied West Bank since October 2023, driving communities from their land in what Palestinians say is a deliberate, violent campaign to displace them.

Israel lays siege to occupied West Bank’s Tubas, displaces tens of families

Israel has sealed off large parts of the Tubas governorate after sending heavy reinforcements into the northern Jordan Valley, shutting the region off from the rest of the occupied West Bank and imposing a sweeping siege.

Residents told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that military bulldozers piled earth across every approach road before dawn, while Israeli Apache helicopters fired rounds over empty fields around Tubas in a bid to threaten Palestinian residents.

Troops then began house-to-house searches in the city of Tubas as well as the four nearby towns, including Tammun and Aqqaba, as the army announced a new military operation it claimed was targeting resistance fighters.

Tubas Governor Ahmed Asaad dismissed that justification, telling Al Jazeera that the Israeli assault has nothing to do with security and everything to do with geography.

“The assault is targeting Tubas for its location near the Jordan Valley, in a new effort to impose new realities,” he said. Asaad said about 30 families had been forced from their homes, and troops had seized several buildings on high ground overlooking the governorate.

More than 50,000 Palestinians live across the five towns now encircled by the army.

It is Israel, not Gaza, that needs stabilisation

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/11/26/it-is-israel-not-gaza-that-needs-stabilisation

For two years, the world watched Gaza’s destruction unfold in real time and chose not to stop it. More than seventy thousand Palestinians were killed, and most of the Strip was reduced to rubble, while the same governments that hurried to contain other regional wars produced nothing more than empty warnings, sham ceasefires and aid arrangements that delivered death instead of relief.

Only now, after championing yet another so-called “ceasefire” that brought barely any relief on the ground, do they claim to be stepping in to help shape long-term peace and stability. Their focus, however, is already misplaced. They act as if Gaza is the side in need of stabilising, not the state that destroyed every form of stability there – Israel.

Indeed, global powers led by the United States now claim they are working to deliver “stabilising security” to our small, battered territory through structures of surveillance and control being built in collaboration with the very entity that genocided it.

So in the aftermath of this new “ceasefire”, Gaza faces a new and insidious form of control. Around 30 kilometres (19 miles) northwest of the Strip, in the so-called “Kiryat Gat” settlement built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Iraq al-Mansheya, officials say dozens of countries and organisations are now present inside the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), a foreign-run command hub for Gaza operations, which has rapidly expanded in recent weeks. Presented as the first concrete step in the US effort to “stabilise” Gaza, it is a hub where foreign officials oversee the Strip from a distance and begin shaping the model that will govern its future.

_{US Army personnel, Israeli military personnel and other international officials monitor screens displaying maps and imagery of the Gaza Strip during a media tour inside the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) on November 20, 2025 in Kiryat Gat, Israel.}

But if these architects of stability are so devoted to Gaza’s future, why not step inside and walk among its people? Are they afraid of the devastated survivors they claim to help? Or do they know that once they enter Gaza, even their safety cannot be guaranteed from Israel’s bombs? What is clear is that, by positioning themselves alongside Israel’s military, they have chosen to work with the perpetrators, turning the promise of peace into yet another instrument of control.

...

For the past two years, Gaza’s people have endured the most extreme form of collective punishment. And now, these new “peace” efforts feel as if the world wants to punish Gaza even further for enduring and surviving Israel’s genocide.

The hands that vetoed ending this genocide repeatedly at the UN, while warmly embracing Israeli leaders and arming their warplanes with autographed bombs, will never bring peace to Gaza. The eyes of the world that watched Israel’s terror and chose to look away cannot absolve their complicity by suddenly pretending to monitor Gaza closely. Their focus must be on the true source of instability, on containing the state-driven, deranged violence that proudly assaults the essence of humanity on every screen. Instead of portraying Palestinians as the threatening force, the world must restrain and hold to account those who wield real power to destroy lives daily.

Israel identifies deceased hostage returned by Hamas as Dror Or. Two more hostage bodies remain in Gaza

Israeli forensic examiners have identified the remains of a deceased Israeli hostage returned from Gaza as those of Dror Or, the prime minister’s office said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Hamas transferred the remains to Israel through the Red Cross. The handover leaves two deceased hostages – an Israeli and a Thai national – still in Gaza from Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Blow to lobby amidst Tucker Carlson’s extraordinary apology; GHF ends operations

In a more setback to those supporting the action of the Netanyahu regime in Gaza, Tucker Carlson has issued a stunning apology for previously supporting conflicts in the Middle East. His apology has come at a time when more and more supporters of the Netanyahu regime are publicly admitting their inability to defend the goings on in Gaza. Former speech writer of the Obamas, Sarah Hurwitz, is one of them. Rifat Jawaid argues that this is the most defining moment in American history. Meanwhile, the UN has said that it would take as much as $70 billion to rebuild Gaza.

"What happens in Palestine, does not stay in Palestine" briefing by UN Human Rights Experts

On 30 October 2025, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People held a virtual briefing, streamed on UN Web TV, titled “Safeguarding Human Rights, Ensuring Accountability and Ending the Unlawful Occupation of Palestine”. The Committee Chair, Ambassador Coly Seck, opened the meeting by situating the discussion in the context of two years of intense suffering in Gaza and recent developments since the 13 October 2025 Gaza Peace Summit, including a fragile ceasefire, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces. He underlined the Committee’s mandate and the centrality of a two-State solution on pre-1967 lines, noting the Committee’s 50th anniversary on 10 November 2025.

More Arrests Outside Royal Courts of Justice As Palestine Action Case Stitched Up By The Government

Steven Methven reports from the Royal Courts of Justice on the first day of the judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action.

UN Expert Accuses Israel of Ethnic Cleansing, Says Gaza Is a ‘Crime Scene’

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese addressed the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine, stating that the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is critical. She described Gaza as “a crime scene” and accused Israel of annexation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide.

Amnesty warns ‘genocide not over’ as Israel strikes across Gaza


_{People walk through the damaged gate of Al-Aqsa University surrounded by tents sheltering displaced Palestinians, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on November 24}

Rights group Amnesty International has warned that “Israeli authorities are still committing genocide” in Gaza, waging new attacks and curbing critical aid access, despite the declared ceasefire.

Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire deal – more than 500 times in seven weeks – killing at least 347 Palestinians and injuring 889 people since the deal that was meant to end its genocidal war came into effect on October 10. Nearly 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began more than two years ago.

The rights organisation issued a statement on Thursday, as Israeli forces carried out a series of air strikes in southern and central Gaza, including in areas beyond the yellow line where they are supposed to remain withdrawn under the agreement.

“So far, there is no indication that Israel is taking serious measures to reverse the deadly impact of its crimes and no evidence that its intent has changed,” said Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard. “In fact, Israeli authorities are continuing their ruthless policies, restricting access to vital humanitarian aid and essential services, and deliberately imposing conditions calculated to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza.”

“The world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over,” she said.

Some of Israel’s strikes on Thursday morning targeted buildings in central Gaza’s Bureij camp and eastern Khan Younis, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondents on the ground.

They add to hundreds of attacks that Gaza’s civil defence says are brazen violations of the fragile seven-week ceasefire.

They also come as Israel’s military carried out another wave of raids and arrests across the occupied West Bank, including in the areas of Qalqilya, Tubas, Hebron, Tulkarem and Nablus.

During their raid in Tubas, Israeli forces conducted field interrogations and assaulted at least 25 people who required medical treatment, according to a local Palestinian Red Crescent official quoted by the Wafa news agency.

More Palestinian prisoners released

The first stage of the Gaza truce moved closer to completion on Wednesday after Israel transferred the bodies of 15 Palestinian prisoners to Gaza authorities, a day after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad handed over the body of another Israeli captive.

Palestinian armed groups have now released all living captives and returned the remains of 26 of 28 captives stipulated to be transferred under the deal.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the latest handover shows the group’s “steadfast commitment to fully complete the exchange process and its ongoing efforts to finalise it despite significant difficulties”.

Israel, for its part, has freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and returned the bodies of 345, many of whom showed signs of torture, mutilation and execution.

But the ceasefire continues to face major hurdles, including the presence of dozens of Hamas fighters trapped in tunnels on the Israeli-occupied side of the yellow line in southern Gaza – 20 of whom Israel says it has killed over the past week.

On Wednesday, Hamas urged ceasefire mediators to pressure Israel to allow the Hamas fighters safe passage. The group accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire by targeting the fighters who are “besieged in the tunnels of Rafah”.

“We hold (Israel) fully responsible for the lives of our fighters and call upon our mediators to take immediate action to pressure (Israel) to allow our sons to return home,” Hamas said in a statement.

Will the ceasefire progress to phase two?

Meanwhile, discussions are under way on how to transition to the second phase of the ceasefire, which is to include deploying an armed international stabilisation force, tasked with demilitarising Gaza, and developing an international body to temporarily govern the Gaza Strip and oversee reconstruction.

Turkish, Qatari and Egyptian mediators met in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss the second phase, reported Reuters. But major questions hang over nearly every part of the plan, as well as Israel’s commitment to seeing it through.

“Until this moment, Israel has not given up on its plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza,” said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations Middle East and North Africa programme, told Al Jazeera. “Either Gaza stays permanently as a refugee camp in ruins that is unlivable, uninhabitable, and that sustains conditions that are designed to bring about collapse to life there … or Hamas retaliates and Israel uses it as an excuse to resume the genocide.”

Amnesty’s Callamard urged for continued global pressure on Israel to abide by international law and to not allow the ceasefire to serve as a “smokescreen for Israel’s ongoing genocide”.

“The international community cannot afford to be complacent: states must keep up pressure on Israel to allow unfettered access to humanitarian aid, lift its unlawful blockade and end its ongoing genocide,” said Callamard.

This Movie Gives You A Look At Something Rare: Palestine Before Israel

Dena Takruri speaks to “Palestine 36” director Annemarie Jacir about the challenges of making a film about Palestinian history today.

PALESTINE 36 I Official US Trailer

"Fun Fact: About 32 seconds into this trailer you see Arab men unloading barrels from a ship. One of the dock workers accidentally dropped a barrel and it opened up to reveal machine guns. This is known at the "Cement Affair," or "Cement Incident" and it happened in the port of Yaffa/Jaffa in 1935.

The dock workers first reported the discovery of these weapons to my grandfather, Yacoub Al Ghussein, because my grandfather's office was in Jaffa, and my grandfather was a leader of the Arab Higher Comittee, which was the Palestinian government at that time. The shipment of "cement" was destined to a Jewish merchant named J. Katan. This immediately sparked riots not just in Palestine, but throughout the Arab world. And later would lead to the Arab Revolt of 1936, which is of course what this movie is about.

If you pause the clip and look closely, you'll see in the barrels "White Star Cement" which was the name of the type of cement being shipped. Kudos to the directors of this movie for their attention to detail and historical fact. I painted a large scale mural of Palestinian Jaffa Oranges in Cincinnati - Google "Welcome To Jaffa" and you will see my work, or follow me on instagram @welcometojaffa. I am so excited to see this movie. My grandfather was one of the palestinian leaders arrested by the British and exiled to the Seychelles islands for being a leader of the Arab Revolt of 1936. I am proud of all of us new generation of Palestinians who have been using their voices and talent to advocate for Palestine, especially after these past two years of genocide. The world is finally waking up!"

The Rise of Palestinian Nationalism: The Struggle for a Free Palestine

The idea of a Palestinian nation didn’t appear overnight—it was born from the same 19th-century forces that created the modern nation-states. As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, new national identities emerged across the Arab world. In Palestine, we have overwhelming evidence that Palestinian identity was already defined by the end of the 19th century. It took on political form after World War I, when British betrayal and Zionist colonization turned a promise of independence into a fight for survival. From al-Maqdisī’s 10th-century “I am a Palestinian” to the 1936-39 Great Revolt, this is the story of how Palestinians defined, defended, and died for their homeland.

The Palestine Action Review Stitch Up Is SO Much Worse Than You Think

The Palestine Action judicial review has been slammed for what appear to be dodgy doings in changing the judges, so you can always tell when the British state is nervous, because it stops pretending it isn’t.

And that’s exactly what’s happened with the Palestine Action judicial review. A judge who granted permission for the case has been removed from it. No reason, no explanation, just gone. And in his place the judiciary has quietly installed a panel that reads like the Home Office’s wish-list: the government’s former national-security attack dog, the judge who has already shielded the UK–Israel arms pipeline, and the senior public-law judge whose own family sits deep inside the financial networks tied to the very companies Palestine Action has been exposing.

And the Starmer government thinks people won’t notice. Well they’re going to after this rant. Get comfy because this is a long one, but you won’t hear half of this anywhere else, but more people need to, because this is one h*ll of a stitch up.

Palestinian prisoner paralysed after torture in Israeli jail

Eighteen-year-old Mohammed Abu Elezz spent 21 months in Israeli administrative detention. The physical and mental torture he endured left him paralysed. And like many Palestinians arrested in the past two years, he remains imprisoned even after release. Mohammad Elwan reports.

US teen Mohammed Ibrahim released from Israeli prison after nine months

Israeli authorities have freed Palestinian American teenager Mohammed Ibrahim after more than nine months of detention, in a case that advocates say embodies Israeli abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Mohammed’s release on Thursday came after a months-long pressure campaign from United States lawmakers and civil rights groups.

The teenager from Florida was 15 years old in February when he was arrested and taken from his family home in the town of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, near Ramallah. He turned 16 while being held in Israeli jail, where he drastically lost weight and contracted a skin infection.

“Words can’t describe the immense relief we have as a family right now, to have Mohammed in his parents’ arms,” Mohammed’s uncle Zeyad Kadur said in a statement. “We couldn’t believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe.”

Mohammed was arrested over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers, which he denied. His father, Zaher Ibrahim and other relatives told Al Jazeera earlier this year that Mohammed was blindfolded and beaten during February’s raid on his family home.

Israeli authorities did not allow him to contact his family while in prison, nor did he have any visitation rights. The only updates his loved ones were receiving were through US officials, who were granted access to Mohammed.

Throughout his detention, his family members pleaded with the administration of US President Donald Trump to push for his release — or at least ensure that he had access to adequate food and healthcare.

Israeli troops kill two Palestinians in Jenin as they try to surrender


_{Israeli soldiers during the deadly raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, November 27}

Israeli soldiers have shot and killed two Palestinian men during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin as the pair attempted to surrender to the military, according to video footage and witness accounts from the scene.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said journalists in Jenin reported on Thursday that the two men had “pulled their shirts up, showing that they were unarmed” before the military ordered them to go back into a building that they had been holed up in.

“And then they were shot dead. They were executed,” Odeh said, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the slain men as Al-Muntasir Billah Abdullah, 26, and 37-year-old Youssef Asasa.

The Israeli army said in a statement that its troops had pursued wanted individuals who were “affiliated with a terror network” in the Jenin area and had “initiated a surrender procedure that lasted several hours”.

After the men exited the building, “fire was directed towards the suspects”, the statement said. “The incident is under review by the commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”

But Odeh noted that, historically, Israeli reviews of the killings of Palestinians typically “do not end in indictments or criminal investigations”.

Describing the shootings as “heinous extrajudicial killings” and a “deliberate Israeli war crime”, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community “to take immediate action to halt the Israeli killing machine”.

Worsening violence

Israel deployed attack helicopters and drones in raids across the northern West Bank for a second consecutive day, as a months-long crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied territory intensified. Israeli troops continued to lay siege to large swaths of the northeastern Tubas governorate on Thursday, a day after they launched a wide-scale military operation in the area.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least 25 Palestinians have been injured and 100 others have been detained since the Israeli incursion began on Wednesday.

Israel has said the operation aims to root out Palestinian armed groups, but residents say the military has carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, blocked journalists and ambulances, and damaged infrastructure.

Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have faced a surge of Israeli military and settler violence in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which United Nations experts and top human rights groups have said is a genocide. The northern West Bank has been particularly hard-hit, with about 32,000 residents of several refugee camps in the area forced out of their homes since January and prevented by Israel from returning.

Last week, Human Rights Watch said the forced eviction of Palestinians from Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted,” a HRW official said in a statement.


_{Palestinians are forced out of their homes during an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp, November 27}

Violence part of ‘cruel system of apartheid’

On Thursday evening, Al Jazeera’s Odeh noted that the number of daily Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank has doubled over the past two years. “There are, on average, 47 Israeli raids on Palestinian communities every day,” she said.

Scores of Palestinians, including an 85-year-old man, were beaten by Israeli soldiers during this week’s military assault, Odeh added.

“[This raid] is more severe than other raids that are happening across the occupied West Bank. It is certainly the Israeli army flexing its muscle,” she said. “What we’re seeing is an escalated level of violence meted out to civilians.”

A representative for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) condemned the latest violence, noting that Israel continues to issue demolition orders in the northern West Bank despite “relentless” destruction over the past year.

Twelve buildings are slated for demolition in Jenin refugee camp later this week, Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA affairs for the West Bank, said in a social media post. Another 11 buildings are set to be partially demolished.

Baghdad Green Zone is back...
_{https://www.newsweek.com/what-iraqs-green-zone-why-protests-broke-out-baghdad-1737860}

US appears to back plan to divide Gaza, rebuild Israeli-controlled side

The United States Department of State has backed plans to establish what it calls “alternative safe communities” (ASC) in Gaza, part of a US-Israeli plan that would appear to divide the Palestinian enclave into two.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed to Al Jazeera that it supported the ASC “approach”, saying it was “seen as the most effective way to achieve” the goal of “moving people into safe accommodations as quickly as possible”.


The ASC plan has emerged in recent weeks as part of wider discussions that would see Gaza split into a “green zone” controlled by Israel and a “red zone” controlled by the Palestinian group Hamas.

There has been little clarity over how the plan would work, and details appear to still be in flux, but the broad outline, according to reporting in The New York Times and other outlets, is that reconstruction in Gaza would take place only in areas controlled by Israel and not in those where Hamas still operates.

This means the areas where the majority of Gaza’s estimated 2.2 million residents still live, including Gaza City and central regions such as Deir el-Balah, would not see any reconstruction despite the desperate situation Palestinians there continue to live in.

“Addressing the immediate need for secure housing in Gaza [is our] central concern,” the State Department spokesperson said.

“US efforts are directed toward rebuilding in those parts of Gaza where the majority of the population currently resides,” the spokesperson added, although it was unclear if that meant that rebuilding would also occur in non-Israeli-controlled areas under the ASC plan or whether the US hoped that the majority of Gaza’s population would move to Israeli-controlled areas.


Some reports suggested that the ASCs would consist of compounds housing 20,000 or 25,000 people in container-sized units, such as those currently used in disaster relief. It is not currently clear how these compounds could be expanded to accommodate all Palestinians in Gaza.

“If they [the US and Israel] could establish a proper situation, people might move there, but it’s not feasible,” Hussein, a Palestinian from Gaza City, said of the US plans. “What are they going to establish, with what infrastructure? It would need water, electricity. It would take years.”

_{The remains of the southern city of Rafah, where the first compound is slated to be established}

Who will pay?

Officials quoted in The New York Times said the first ASC compound was still months away from completion. Israeli soldiers were expected to begin clearing an area around what remains of Rafah in the south this week. But that work could be delayed if tunnels, unexploded ordnance or human remains are encountered.

Two people involved in the project estimated that the cost for just the initial compound could reach tens of millions of dollars. Overall, the cost of reconstructing Gaza is expected to come to at least $70bn and take several decades. Where the funding for the reconstruction will come from is unclear.

Who will pay for the proposed ASCs is equally ambiguous. The administration of US President Donald Trump is reported to have ruled out funding their construction while Israeli politicians have yet to confirm their final position. The US State Department spokesperson did not comment on the funding, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Engineering a new Gaza

While few Palestinians currently live in Gaza’s Israeli-controlled zone, US hopes are understood to rest on the idea that development, security and presumably access to medical care and welfare would be enough to draw people from other areas of Gaza.

But complicating US ambitions is that access to the “green zone” is heavily restricted for Palestinians, a situation that is likely to continue going forward.

According to The New York Times, Israeli security services are likely to conduct background checks on Palestinians seeking shelter in the new compounds, giving Israel a veto over who will be allowed in.

The outlet added that European diplomats have expressed concern that the eventual criteria could exclude large numbers of Palestinians, including civil servants, such as police and medical staff, who have worked under Hamas’s 18-year administration of the enclave as well as their family members.

And aid agencies said the idea of providing aid only to people in certain areas to the exclusion of others goes against humanitarian principles.

“We deliver aid where people are,” said Tamara Alrifai, the director of external relations for the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA. “We don’t provide services where we’d like people to be. That goes against the entire philosophy of aid and development.”

“This is about delivering the services people need to where the people are, not creating an artificial village and imposing what services you think people need onto them,” she said.


_{US planners are said to hope that access to food, security and aid will draw people into the Israeli-controlled ‘green zone’}

Division, partition and shrunken space

Arab and European officials as well as agencies such as Refugees International have expressed concern that the division of Gaza into red and green zones may pave the way to permanent partition. The idea has also drawn comparisons to the occupations of Baghdad and Kabul, where green zones became effective Western enclaves.

However, the suggestion of dividing Gaza is not entirely new. Speaking in April, Netanyahu spoke of plans to “divide up” Gaza by building a new Israel-controlled security corridor between Rafah and Khan Younis, suggesting Israel was preparing to separate the two cities.

As recently as September, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich characterised Gaza as a “real estate bonanza”, telling an audience that he was already in negotiations with the Americans on how to divide up the enclave after the war.

Smotrich and other Israeli settler leaders have consistently called for Israel to create illegal settlements for Jewish Israelis in Gaza and essentially force the Palestinian population out in what would amount to ethnic cleansing.

“How can you divide it?” Yossi Mekelberg of Chatham House asked rhetorically. “You can’t squeeze 2 million people into a space even smaller than that which they’re already in.”

“Imposing an Israeli or American solution onto Gaza just isn’t going to work. If you’re going to even try to achieve something lasting, you need to begin with an understanding of Gaza’s history, culture and trauma,” Mekelberg added. “Palestinians need to be part of any settlement, or it’s never going to be stable.”

In Gaza, news of US and Israeli plans for the future of Palestinians is doing little to reassure a population battered and displaced after two years of Israeli assaults. “No one has talked to us. No one has thought about what people here need,” Hussein said. “What about people’s homes and land? Do they just give them up to go and live in a container?”