Gaza marks one year of 'ceasefire': fighting persists, West Bank violence disrupts olive harvest

October 10 marks one year since the ceasefire in Gaza took effect, yet more than 100 humanitarian and human rights organizations say the agreement exists "in name only." According to Islamic Relief, since the ceasefire came into force, a Palestinian in Gaza has been killed or wounded by Israeli forces on average every 90 minutes.

The Gaza Ministry of Health says that as of October 12, 1,493 people had been killed and 5,299 wounded since the ceasefire began, up from 1,460 deaths a week earlier. The cumulative death toll since October 2023 has reached 74,382.

Among the Palestinians killed in Gaza over the past week:

• Four people were killed in a drone strike near the Panda commercial center in western Gaza City on Saturday; Israel said it targeted members of Hamas's Nukhba force.
• Also on Saturday, eight-year-old Shahd al-Najjar was killed by Israeli fire while she was inside a tent in western Gaza City.
• Seven-year-old Jihad al-Ghandour died of wounds from a separate shooting near the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza City on Sunday.
• A child and mother were killed on Thursday when Israeli warplanes struck a house in the al-Sabra area of Gaza City, after an evacuation warning had been issued.
• According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, a drone strike on a charging point in western Khan Younis killed four people on Sunday.
• Two other men were killed in a strike near a mosque in al-Mawasi, in the south, on Monday.

In statements describing the attacks, the Israeli military said some of those killed during the week were Palestinian gunmen. The military said two men killed near the Jordanian field hospital were members of Islamic Jihad; Wafa identified one of them as a recently released former prisoner. The Israeli military also said separately that a civil defense worker killed while rescuing the wounded near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza was a Hamas sniper; Hamas denied the accusation and the claim has not been independently verified.

Gaza's health system continues to collapse:

• The Gaza Ministry of Health says 44% of essential medicines are completely out of stock.
• A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel found that after a year of ceasefire, none of Gaza's 36 hospitals is operating at full capacity.
• According to a joint statement by NGOs, more than 18,500 patients need medical evacuation and more than 1,000 have died while waiting.
• The Ministry of Health said no patients were allowed to leave through the Rafah crossing in the past week.

Israeli forces also continued this week to push the so-called Yellow Line, the boundary marking Israel's area of control, deeper into residential neighborhoods of Gaza City, triggering a new wave of displacement. After a year of ceasefire, the Peace Committee — Gaza's transitional oversight body — has failed to complete most of its core commitments: no international stabilization force has been deployed, aid trucks are entering at only about a third of the agreed rate, and Israel now controls nearly two-thirds of the Gaza Strip — far more than the roughly 50% it was expected to retain before withdrawing further and handing control to Palestinians in the future.

Olive harvest under coordinated attacks

The Palestinian olive harvest — traditionally a time of family gathering and celebration — is taking place amid increased obstruction by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Olive pickers have been killed, attacked and blocked, while many isolated families have endured days-long settler sieges.

Pogrom-style attacks include:

• On October 7, Ali Hassan Yasser al-Bazzari, 44, was shot dead when settlers and soldiers opened fire on olive pickers on farmland between Burqa and Ramin, northwest of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, at least 16 others were wounded in the attack.
• The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Israeli forces attacked ambulance crews trying to reach wounded olive pickers and detained three medics. Soldiers then raided a nearby village and made arrests, while settlers carried out the passing attack unhindered.
• The Palestinian Committee for Resistance against Colonization and the Wall recorded 19 settler attacks on Friday alone, another 12 on Saturday and 18 more on Sunday, according to Wafa.
• The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din previously documented 109 settler-related incidents during the harvest in 75 Palestinian communities over 10 days, from September 27 to October 6.
• According to the committee, settlers and soldiers have destroyed about 50,000 trees since the start of this year.

According to Wafa and field reports from local residents and activists, the attacks repeat a familiar pattern from village to village:

• Settlers in Qusra stole a farmer's olives before using a bulldozer to destroy more than 50 of his trees.
• In Birin, settlers from the newly established Adorim outpost set dogs on a 79-year-old woman picking olives nearby, sending her to hospital.
• Settlers from the same outpost repeatedly cut the power to about 20 homes during the week.
• In al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, soldiers accompanied settlers into the village's residential streets on Sunday, kicking an elderly woman trying to get home and firing live bullets and tear gas at homes "with no clear reason," according to Israeli field monitor Jonathan Pollack. Daily incursions are part of a months-long settler campaign against villagers there.
• In Deir Abu Mash'al, a solidarity harvest organized by the Committee against the Wall and Settlements was attacked by settlers in Area B, wounding eight people, including a photojournalist shot in the thigh, according to Wafa.

Israeli forces have also regularly blocked the harvest. Soldiers used drone-mounted loudspeakers to drive farmers out of Wadi Abwein and chased olive pickers at several other locations.

Israeli settler chat groups show they interpret these attacks through an inverted, messianic lens, viewing Palestinian olive pickers coming to their own land in Deir Abu Mash'al as trying to "seize" it, and treating the olive harvest itself as a cover for Palestinians to gather "intelligence" rather than pick olives that families have harvested there for generations. Settlers have repeatedly been documented stealing olives from Palestinian land since the harvest unofficially began late last month.

Political calculations ahead of elections

Once again, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has postponed Palestinian legislative elections — this time until September next year, citing Israeli restrictions on election materials and monitors entering Gaza and East Jerusalem, along with ongoing settler violence. Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative said the decision reflects the fact that "everything is concentrated in the hands of the executive authority," with no parliament or independent judiciary to exercise oversight.

In Israel, with key parliamentary elections expected on October 27, Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen said his alliance — made up mainly of Palestinian citizens of Israel — is ready to support an anti-Netanyahu bloc from outside the government. According to The Times of Israel, that support would be given in exchange for policy commitments, including a path toward a Palestinian state — a potential route to the majority that polls show neither bloc can reach without the support of the Arab party.

Israeli authorities also began demolishing homes this week in al-Dahiya, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Naqab, after a district court rejected a petition to freeze the demolition orders; about 60 homes face demolition.

In diplomatic news, the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem officially became a reduced "mission" after the deadline Israel set for its closure expired; the office has long handled Britain's relations with the Palestinians.