Netanyahu says next step is demilitarising Gaza, not reconstruction

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the next stage will be disarming Hamas and demilitarising the Gaza Strip, not reconstruction.

Speaking to Israel’s parliament or Knesset following the announcement of the retrieval of Ran Gvilli’s remains earlier today, Netanyahu said: “We have an interest in advancing this stage, not delaying it”.

Demilitarizing in Israel's eyes is leveling the rest of Gaza to get all the 'terror' tunnels. That means having to (re)move all the rubble to get to the supposed tunnels underneath, which is estimated to take 7 to 15 years....

Netanyahu will never allow reconstruction while there are still Palestinians in the area.

More than 37,000 Palestinians displaced last year in occupied West Bank in all-time high: UN

More than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank in 2025, a record high amid unprecedented levels of Israeli settler violence, the United Nations warned, citing new figures from its humanitarian office.

The Palestinian territory “saw record levels of displacement and settler violence”, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference, pointing to a new publication by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Noting that “last year, more than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced over the course of 2025”, Dujarric said this was mostkt due to “operations carried out in refugee camps”.

“Across the northern governance of the West Bank, OCHA also reports that over 1,800 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians,” that caused casualties, damage or both in 2025, he added.

The UN spokesperson further noted that this was “the highest annual figure on record by the United Nations, and marks the ninth consecutive annual increase”.

Rome protests after gendarmerie officers allegedly threatened by Israeli settler

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Italy to seek clarification and convey Rome’s strong protest after two gendarmerie officers were threatened by a person, believed to be an armed settler, in the occupied West Bank, according to a statement.

“The two carabinieri [gendarmerie] were stopped in Palestinian territory, near Ramallah, likely by a settler at gunpoint,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The statement noted that the two military personnel were on a site-inspection visit on Sunday to prepare for a mission of European Union ambassadors to a village near Ramallah.

“The military personnel were threatened by an armed man in civilian clothes, presumably an Israeli settler, who pointed a rifle at them,” said the ministry.

“The soldiers [who had diplomatic passports and cards, and a car with diplomatic licence plates] were ‘interrogated’ by the civilian,” the ministry noted.

The statement added that the officers did not respond to the initial threats with violence.

‘No excuses left’ for Israel to avoid opening Rafah crossing: Mustafa Barghouti

Israel has “no excuses” left to maintain restrictions and attacks on Gaza after the remains of the last Israeli captive were found, the Palestinian leader says.

“There are no excuses left for Israel, not only to allow the opening of Rafah crossing in both directions, but also there are no excuses for Israel’s continual bombardment of Gaza,” Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Al Jazeera.

“The ceasefire is respected only unilaterally from the Palestinian side, and Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement already 1,300 times, taking the lives of more than 480 Palestinians,” Barghouti said.

To retrieve one body, the Israeli military mobilised a fleet of tanks, drones, and what locals described as “explosive robots”. They turned a neighbourhood into a “kill zone”, dug up approximately 200 Palestinian graves, and left four civilians dead in their wake.

The focus of this overwhelming force was Ran Gvili, an Israeli policeman killed more than two years ago, the last Israeli captive in Gaza after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave.

His successful recovery on Monday was hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a triumph of commitment. But just metres (yards) away from where Gvili’s remains were carefully extracted, a very different, gruesome reality persists.

According to the National Committee for Missing Persons, more than 10,000 Palestinians remain entombed under the rubble of Gaza, decomposing in silence, lost and without identity.

Families grieve without closure for their missing, presumed dead loved ones. There are no explosive robots clearing the way for them, no forensic teams flying in to identify them, and no global outcry demanding their recovery.

International media do not rush to break news about them.

The digging up of the al-Batsh cemetery in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood has become a visceral symbol of a deadly double standard: A world where one Israeli corpse commands the attention of an army, while thousands of Palestinian bodies are treated as part of the decimated, apocalyptic landscape.

A ‘kill zone’ around the graves

Khamis al-Rifi, a journalist in Gaza who reported from the vicinity of the incursion, detailed the sheer scale of force used to isolate the area.

“It started with exploding robots and air strikes … clearing the path for the tanks,” al-Rifi told Al Jazeera. He explained that approaching the cemetery was impossible, as tanks enforced a deadly perimeter, firing at anything that moved.

From his position near the “Yellow Line”, Israel’s self-proclaimed buffer zone inside Gaza, al-Rifi described a “wall of fire” created by artillery and helicopters to protect the engineering units. Inside this sealed zone, witnesses and video footage obtained later revealed that the forces spent two days churning up the earth.

“They dug up about 200 graves,” al-Rifi said. “They pulled the martyrs out, tested them one by one until they found the [Israeli] body.”

The disparity was most evident in the aftermath. Gvili’s remains were airlifted for dignified burial in Israel. The Palestinian bodies, however, were left to the mercy of bulldozers.

“When citizens went to the area [after the withdrawal], they found the martyrs put back randomly … covered with sand by the bulldozers,” al-Rifi said. “Some bodies were still visible on the surface.”


‘The world’s largest graveyard’

While Israel used satellite technology and DNA labs to close the chapter on its missing policeman, Palestinian families are denied even the basic machinery to dig.

Alaa al-Din al-Aklouk, spokesperson for the National Committee for Missing Persons, stated last November that Gaza has become “the world’s largest graveyard”.

“These martyrs are buried under the rubble of their homes … without their last dignity being preserved,” al-Aklouk said. He highlighted the “fatal injustice” of an international community that mobilised resources for Israeli captives while blocking the entry of heavy civil defence equipment needed to recover Palestinian victims.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Al Jazeera on Monday that while he respects the right of any family to bury their dead, the contrast is inescapable. “The lack of equal treatment, the lack of respect to Palestinians as equal human beings, is really astonishing,” he noted.

A cost paid in blood

The dark irony of this Israeli mission is that it created new victims. On Tuesday morning, as residents approached the desecrated cemetery to check on the graves of their loved ones, Israeli fire struck again.

“Four martyrs fell in the area this morning,” al-Rifi said, noting that one of them, his relative Youssef al-Rifi, had simply gone to inspect the destruction left behind.

In its quest to close a raw chapter that has shaken its national psyche since October 2023, Israel opened new graves in 2026. The operation serves as a grim microcosm of the entire war: The sanctity of one side’s life and death is upheld at the absolute expense of the other’s.

Israel and AI

Fired for Criticizing Israel: How an Australian Journalist Fought Back

Antoinette Lattouf’s story stands out among the many journalists who were targeted, attacked, and punished for criticizing Israel; that’s because, in her case, some justice was actually served. In 2023, Lattouf was fired from her job presenting ABC Sydney, a magazine-style radio program, after sharing a Human Rights Watch report on social media, which detailed Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.

Her unlawful firing shed light on Australia’s “enormously influential” pro-Israel lobby, as she put it, and the control it has over the country’s media. ABC was forced to pay nearly $145,000 in damages to Lattouf for unlawful termination, a victory she plans to capitalize on.

This Gaza Fact Will SICKEN You - Media Covers It Up

https://truthout.org/articles/israel-wiped-out-2700-families-in-gaza-entirely-since-october-2023/

An analysis of Gaza’s civil registry by Al Jazeera detailed Monday how thousands of US-backed Israeli military’s attacks on the exclave become stories not only of individual casualties but of “lineage, heritage, and identity disappearing in an instant” — with 2,700 families entirely wiped out since October 2023.

In 6,000 families, Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City, just “a single sole survivor” has been left behind.

Israeli settler gangs attack Palestinian villages south of Hebron

Israeli settlers raided villages near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, wounding several Palestinians, including women and children.

Israeli gangs burned property and firewood, smashed windows and vehicles, and blocked ambulances after several Palestinians were hurt.

One of the injured, Samir Hamamda, told the official Wafa news agency he was beaten by settlers when a mob descended on his house, pelting it with stones and pepper-spraying inside, causing his wife and children to faint and be left with bruising and other wounds.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated two patients in the village of al-Fakhit, including a young man with a head injury and a girl with a broken hand.

Other residents in the Masafer Yatta area were also injured, including women and children, when the settlers smashed the windows of vehicles and homes.

In Khirbet al-Halawa, several Palestinians were hurt by stones thrown by the settlers, who also stole 150 sheep from the area, Wafa reported.

Palestinian siblings shot by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank

A Palestinian brother and sister have been shot and wounded by Israeli troops after leaving their home in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

Quoting local sources, Wafa news agency reported Khader Muhammad Shahada and his sister Sadeel, 19, children of a Fatah official, were both wounded in the legs during the attack.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it received a report of two injuries but medics were initially unable to reach the victims because of a heavy presence of Israeli soldiers.

The female victim was later transferred to hospital for treatment, but ambulance crews were unable to reach the male victim as he was detained by Israeli authorities and transferred to an unknown location.

Israeli settlers destroy hundreds of olive trees near Ramallah

A group of Israeli settlers have stormed Palestinian land near Ramallah and ripped out at least 200 olive trees.

The official Wafa news agency reported the latest assault occurred near the town of Turmus Aya, 22km (14 miles) northeast of the occupied West Bank’s main city.

Israeli forces and settlers carried out a record number of attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank last year – including 1,382 acts of destruction specifically targeting their land and prized olive trees, according to the Ramallah-based Occupation and Wall Resistance Commission.

Palestinian man, 20, dies after being shot during Israeli army raid

A 20-year-old Palestinian man has died after being shot by Israeli soldiers during an incursion in the town of ad-Dhahiriya in the occupied West Bank.

Palestine’s Health Ministry said the victim, Muhammad Rajih Nasrallah, sustained critical wounds to his abdomen when he was shot after Israeli forces stormed the town, southwest of Hebron, on Tuesday evening.

He was taken to hospital before succumbing to his injuries.  Wafa news agency reported that another young Palestinian man was also shot during the raid, receiving moderate injuries.

Dozens of Palestinians arrested in Israeli raids across occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have carried out attacks on a number of locations in the occupied Palestinian territory, arresting dozens of people, many of whom were assaulted.

Twelve Palestinians, including two women, were arrested in Israeli incursions across Hebron governorate, Wafa news agency reported. Palestinian men from three generations of one family were assaulted during a raid on Fawwar camp, while three others were beaten in a separate raid south of Hebron.

Ten Palestinians were detained in the village of Amatin, east of Qalqilya, three in Bethlehem governorate, and two in a dawn raid on the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp south of Jericho.

Israeli forces also made arrests during raids on the villages of Madama and Burin, south of Nablus, leading to schools in the area being suspended for the day for the safety of students and teachers.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said Israeli forces arrested and conducted field interrogations with at least 130 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since Tuesday night, with most being released.

It described Israel’s actions as amounting to collective punitive measures, saying Israeli forces have escalated arrests and interrogations since the start of the year.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian home in West Bank’s Sa’ir

Israeli settler gangs attacked a Palestinian home in the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. The mob of settlers pelted the house with stones, causing damage to the property and vehicles on Tuesday night, the Wafa news agency reported.

It was the third settler attack in the town in the past week, Wafa said. An eight-month-old Palestinian was injured in an assault on the town last month.

Israeli forces demolish Palestinian homes south of Bethlehem

Israeli forces have begun demolishing two Palestinian homes in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

The town’s deputy mayor, Hosni Issa, told the Wafa news agency the houses belonged to two brothers and were being demolished under the pretext of lacking a building permit.

Israeli soldiers sealed off the area and prevented residents from coming near the demolition site, Issa said.

Israeli forces arrest man in southwestern Syria as attacks continue

Israeli soldiers have entered areas in southern Syria’s Quneitra governorate and arrested an unidentified man there, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reports.

Eight Israeli military vehicles stormed the village of Ain al-Qadi to carry out the arrest, the agency said, while other forces set up checkpoints in the area.

The arrest follows an advance by Israeli soldiers on Tuesday into the old city of Quneitra, where they demolished a number of buildings.

Israel seized territory in Syria’s Golan Heights in the 1967 war and has held it ever since. Israel was already attacking Syria before the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of its regional enemy Iran, in December 2024, but since then, its military incursions have become more frequent and violent.

Israel has repeatedly violated a 1974 agreement by occupying more land in Syria along the Israeli border, calling it a “buffer zone”, while also setting up checkpoints and abducting people deep inside Syrian territory.

‘Deeply disappointed’: Israel court postpones Gaza media ban ruling

An international media association expressed disappointment after Israel’s Supreme Court again postponed ruling on a petition seeking free and independent media access to war-battered Gaza.

Since the outbreak of Israel’s bloody war on Gaza in October 2023, its government has barred foreign journalists from independently entering the blockaded territory.

“The Foreign Press Association is deeply disappointed that the Israeli Supreme Court has once again postponed ruling on our petition for free, independent press access to Gaza,” the FPA said in a statement.

“All the more concerning is that the court appears to have been swayed by the state’s classified security arguments, which were presented behind closed doors and without the presence of the FPA’s attorneys.

“This secretive process offers no opportunity for us to rebut these arguments and clears the way for the continued arbitrary and open-ended closure of Gaza to foreign journalists.”

The FPA said there were no security arguments that justify what it called Israel’s “blanket ban” on media access to Gaza.

Oxfam refuses to provide Israel with details of Palestinian staff in Gaza

Oxfam says it will not disclose the personal details of its Palestinian staff to Israel, citing its army’s deadly attacks in Gaza that have killed hundreds of aid workers.

As part of a crackdown on NGOs providing life-saving aid to Palestinians, Israel last year demanded that some of the charities working in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem hand over detailed information about their Palestinian and international staff, operations and funding.

On January 1, Israel withdrew the licences of 37 aid groups, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, International Rescue Committee and Oxfam, saying they failed to adhere to the new “security and transparency standards”.

But Oxfam has said it will not share data about its Palestinian employees.

Israel ‘must evacuate all settlers’ from occupied West Bank: UN

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has strongly denounced “state-backed settler violence” in the occupied West Bank, which it says is driving “forced displacement” in the territory.

“The law is clear here: Israel must end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, halt settlement expansion and evacuate all settlers,” said Ajith Sunghay, the head of the office in Palestine.

“Forcible transfer of Palestinians within the occupied West Bank is a war crime and may amount to a crime against humanity.

“Accountability must be ensured for past and ongoing violations of Palestinians’ rights under international law.”

State-backed settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement, chipping away at Palestinian presence in strategic locations.
Between 23 and 25 January, at least 10 serious settler attacks were recorded across the West Bank, resulting in property damage, injuries,…

— UN Human Rights Palestine (@OHCHR_Palestine) January 28, 2026