Israel Election Deadlock Leaves Palestinians Facing West Bank Sieges and Gaza Strikes

Israel's election results remain undecided, while parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel won 19 seats — the highest ever. Nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra'am and the Joint List, up 64% from 2022. If opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot's bloc gains those seats, an anti-Netanyahu coalition would hold 67 seats; without them, the only options are a unity government among the Jewish blocs or another election.

Netanyahu's Likud party, however, accuses the Palestinian parties of "stealing" the election, making unproven claims of Qatari funding. Qatar denies the allegation, and police sources told The Times of Israel there is no evidence of widespread fraud. By Sunday, election committee chairman Noam Sohlberg declared the vote had been conducted "according to the rules."

Still, rhetoric undermining the legitimacy of Palestinian ballots is echoing in coalition talks. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party, ruled out cooperation with Palestinian partners. Eisenkot set four conditions for anyone joining his coalition, including recognition of Israel as "a Jewish, democratic, free and equal state" and mandatory national service for all citizens, including Palestinians — conditions the Palestinian parties are unlikely to accept.

Despite this, Palestinian politicians say they are willing to support an Eisenkot government from outside if it ends the rule of Netanyahu and the far right. Meanwhile, thousands marched in Tel Aviv in support of a coalition that includes parties representing Israel's Palestinian citizens.

Ten days of siege in Hebron

While Israeli voters are absorbed by the unclear election outcome, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank continue to face repeated closures, most prominently in Hebron. As of October 29, Al Jazeera's data unit recorded 10 blocked entrances and about 5,000 people displaced from their homes. The city has seen at least 120 arrests and 13 businesses demolished as of Friday, when the army also blew up the homes of two people accused of carrying out an attack. Palestinian officials accuse the government of using the campaign to win settler votes; no Israeli official has confirmed this.

On November 2, Governor Khaled Dudin announced that the army had withdrawn from Hebron after a 10-day siege and that displaced families could return. According to The Jerusalem Post, the army chief of staff had proposed withdrawing from Hebron before the election but Netanyahu refused.

Even though the operation has ended, the damage remains: more than 120 people detained, and daily economic losses estimated at 10–12 million shekels ($3.2–3.8 million) in a city that contributes about 40% of Palestinian industrial output.

Besieged at home, expelled from the land

Hebron is only the largest of several closures still under way in the West Bank. In Masafer Yatta, at least 12 villages have been cut off, and Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces arrested 10 teachers from the Jinba school on Sunday.

Yousef Shanaran — whose family has been besieged at home in Wadi Rakhim for four weeks — told Al Jazeera on Monday that settlers had poisoned the well outside his house, which the family had already been unable to reach for days because of the siege. "No water, no food, nothing," he said. "No one is allowed to bring us anything."

The closures come as settlers and, increasingly, Israeli forces obstruct the olive harvest across the West Bank. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded 397 settler attacks causing injuries or damage in the first 26 days of October — the highest monthly figure since OCHA began tracking such incidents in 2006.

A familiar pattern repeats in many villages: settlers attack olive pickers, the army declares a closed military zone and forces farmers to leave, and the harvest is lost.

Amid reports of arrests and deportations of solidarity activists who came to the West Bank to help with the olive harvest in recent days, activists accuse settlers of assaulting three activist journalists in Umm al-Khair. Israel also revoked Brad Lander's travel permit after he was detained while picking olives two weeks ago.

Gaza: a "ceasefire" still full of casualties

In Gaza, strikes continue daily as the UN Human Rights Office warned on October 30 that Palestinians are being pushed into ever-smaller areas, calling the "Yellow Line" a "kill zone" that is moving westward.

As of November 2, Gaza's Health Ministry said the death toll since last year's ceasefire had reached 1,593. Sunday was the bloodiest day of the week, with at least 8 people killed. Among the victims recorded in the past week:

• Government employees and police officers were among the dead. On October 28, a drone strike on a Ministry of Economy facility in al-Mawasi, Rafah, where staff and security forces had gathered, killed 5 people, including Agriculture Ministry official Wajdi Abu Bakr, who died Sunday of wounds from the attack.
• On November 1, a drone strike in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, killed 5 men; Gaza's Interior Ministry said they were police officers.
• Israeli strikes also claimed children's lives. Six-year-old girl Tahani Shalalfeh died of gunshot wounds in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, on October 27; eight-year-old boy Yamen Saqr died on October 30 of wounds from Israeli fire in Khan Younis, according to Wafa and local activists. Zain Owais was reported killed on November 1 along with her father Mohammed Ali Owais and a third man in a strike near Taj Mall in Gaza City.
• On October 27, a young man was killed in an airstrike west of Rafah, and a member of the Bseiso family died of earlier wounds in Gaza City, according to Gaza Now. Mohammad al-Bayouk was killed in Khan Younis on October 28, and Mohammed al-Najjar was killed near Jabalia on Thursday.
• On Friday, the body of a 47-year-old man killed in an airstrike in al-Waha, north of Gaza City, was found, Wafa reported.
• Ibrahim Saeed died Sunday of wounds from tank fire in al-Musaddar, and Yusuf Abu Younis died Monday of wounds from a drone strike in Khan Younis a day earlier, according to local activist Hamza al-Masri.
• On Monday, Mahmoud Qaffa and Asaad Qeshta were killed in separate airstrikes in Khan Younis, and Ibrahim al-Saayida, 40, was killed in al-Musaddar, according to Wafa and Haaretz.

Israeli authorities claim many of those killed during the week were Hamas members but have provided no evidence. Among them were Diaa Abu al-Rous, killed north of Nuseirat on Saturday, and Mohammed Qudeih, killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis the same day; the army said they belonged to Hamas's Nukhba force, while Palestinian sources described Abu al-Rous as a teacher.

The deaths come as winter approaches and humanitarian conditions are unlikely to improve: two newborn girls died of burns in a tent fire in al-Mawasi on Friday, and shelter conditions are dire. Gaza's Ministry of Social Development says about 200,000 tents are needed but only a few dozen have entered because of Israeli restrictions.

With no hospital in Gaza fully functioning, the Red Cross warned Monday that the health system risks collapse after 26 hospitals stopped operating, while fuel shortages threaten the remaining facilities.