Israeli ministers exploit Palestinian repression in election campaign

Ahead of October elections, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc trailing in polls, far-right Israeli ministers have turned the occupation apparatus into campaign material over the past week—not just as policy but as political messaging.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose face appears on campaign billboards across the occupied West Bank, released an AI-generated ad warning he would do to the Negev and Galilee—areas with large Palestinian populations inside Israel—what he did in the West Bank by building Jewish settlements there, with the slogan “Ahmed has reason to fear.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded with his own AI video depicting overweight Palestinian prisoners entering Israeli jails on an assembly line and emerging emaciated and weeping. He also posted footage berating female Palestinian prisoners and separately raising Israeli flags at seized United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) facilities in occupied East Jerusalem.

These actions are not merely rhetorical excess but are tied to policy, as they echo government actions or pressures during the week—from confiscating UN facilities to a right-wing push for a post-election ground offensive to retake Gaza City rather than proceeding with Hamas disarmament.

Gaza returns to its bloody former self

After a lull ahead of talks with the Trump-appointed peace council, Israel had framed its attacks on Gaza as targeting specifically designated Hamas “commanders,” though in practice this also included figures from the Gaza police force.

That veneer was stripped away this week as the death toll among Gaza civilians rose again. A drone killed three members of the Abdin family as they were farming their land in al-Qarara on August 28. Another man was reported killed the following day, August 29, near Deir el-Balah. Separate strikes killed at least four people working as delivery riders or traveling by electric bike, and a quadcopter dropped a bomb on children collecting water near a road intersection in the old Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.

On August 30, a strike near a bakery west of Deir el-Balah killed Husam Osama Nasir and three-year-old Tim Said Mahmoud Hamdan. On August 31, two Palestinians were killed and several wounded in an Israeli airstrike targeting the entrance of a residential building near Municipality Park in Gaza City.

Hospitals have also been affected. A drone struck a medicine warehouse inside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah on August 29, wounding three people. Hospital officials said cancer-treatment drugs had run out after the attack damaged the hospital's water tank and laboratory equipment.

Beyond daily strikes, Israeli journalist Amir Bohbot reported on Walla News that Israeli military leadership now views a ground operation to retake Gaza City as “inevitable.” The plan, presented by the commander of Israel's Southern Command, would involve relocating residents to new “humanitarian zones” but is planned after the October elections.

Gaza's Health Ministry reported an additional 32 deaths in the past week, bringing the total death toll since the October ceasefire to at least 1,320 as of August 31, and the overall toll since October 2023 to 73,456. About 58% of Gaza's population still faces “severe or catastrophic” housing conditions, according to the latest humanitarian report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Settler violence map expands

In the West Bank, settler efforts to forcibly drive Palestinians from their homes continue, including in al-Mughayyir, a village northeast of Ramallah, where soldiers and masked settlers raided together on the evening of August 30.

Soldiers shot four residents, blocked the village's only entrance while settlers surrounded a house and loaded stolen belongings onto pickup trucks.

Beyond al-Mughayyir and Qusra—where Israeli authorities erected three new metal barriers around the Ras al-Ain hill on August 27—settler violence spread across dozens of incidents this week, according to reports from the Palestinian news agency Wafa and OCHA. In al-Karmel, south of Hebron, soldiers fired on a car carrying women returning from a wedding on August 27, wounding Sanaa Abu Aram, Doaa al-Hroush, and 14-year-old Lana al-Hroush.

In Beita, south of Nablus, settlers attacked and searched homes on August 30; the Israeli NGO B'Tselem said such vandalism is “routine” and carried out with full backing of Israeli authorities, as soldiers sometimes participate and sometimes stand by.

Late on August 30, two Palestinians were killed and one detained in an Israeli raid on Nablus city. Elsewhere, settlers burned forests in Turmus Ayya north of Ramallah, assaulted a former Bethlehem governor, beat two elderly sisters picking figs in Silwad, abducted a British activist protecting the presence in Masafer Yatta, and removed gates from Palestinian farmland southeast of Bethlehem, according to Wafa and local activist reports.

Land confiscation, outposts, and demolitions

Meanwhile, the Israeli state has accelerated land confiscation that Smotrich is campaigning on. Israel issued military orders seizing land around al-Bireh on the outskirts of Ramallah to surround the nearby Psagot settlement—illegal under international law—with a “security route.” This is one of 46 such buffer zone orders issued since October 2023, according to maps and documents shared by the Committee Against Settlements and the Wall.

In Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, settlers bulldozed land to expand Beitar Illit under direct supervision of the settlement administration, according to a local source. Similar work began near al-Minya to convert an outpost into a formal settlement, per Wafa.

Israeli watchdog Peace Now reported that settlers have established at least 26 new outposts specifically in Area B—considered under full or partial Palestinian civil administration—over the past two and a half years, with over 100 square kilometers (39 square miles) now under settler control across both Areas A and B.

As Israeli illegal outposts are built or expanded, demolition of Palestinian homes continues. On August 31, Israeli forces demolished two homes in Nablus city and began large-scale demolition in the al-Saqi area of Birzeit, north of Ramallah, according to Wafa. The committee reported 80 Israeli demolitions in July alone.

In Qusra, dozens of settlers again surged into the besieged area on August 29, attacking an under-construction home with stones. When soldiers arrived about 40 minutes later, they detained and beat Palestinian residents rather than the settlers, who left without arrest. In a rare condemnation of settler violence, Netanyahu called the attackers “a small disruptive group”—but made no mention of the fact that no arrests were made of the settlers rampaging in the area.