Israel expands Gaza offensive as Cairo talks stall

Eight months after the Gaza ceasefire agreement that has existed more on paper than on the ground, the past week saw its terms further eroded.

As Palestinian factions met in Cairo to push the deal beyond its first phase, Israel tightened its grip on Gaza — expanding earthen walls along an ever-widening 'Yellow Line', demolishing homes nightly, and killing displaced families in airstrikes. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll since the ceasefire has surpassed 970. Immediately after the latest exchange of fire with Iran on Sunday, Israel completely closed Gaza's last crossing points, before announcing they would reopen on Tuesday.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence, land seizures, and military raids continued to rise — much of it, residents and human rights monitors say, with Israeli soldiers looking on or actively assisting.

Redrawing the map

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call last week to expand Israeli control to 'the first 70% [of Gaza]' — far exceeding the limits agreed in the October ceasefire — residents and local monitoring networks say Israeli forces are pushing the earthen berms along the 'Yellow Line' westward across the Strip: digging earth at al-Zaarba in southern Mawasi Rafah, leveling farmland and greenhouses south of Khan Younis, planting yellow concrete posts near Ard al-Limon and in Rafah's al-Bardawil neighborhood, and burning agricultural land toward the Netzarim corridor.

Amid this wave, residents and activists also report evacuation warnings being used to stage demolitions across the Strip. They say troops destroy residential areas in eastern and northeastern Khan Younis almost nightly, with explosions echoing across central Gaza.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Israeli researcher Or Fialkov shows the boundary pushed deeper into Beit Lahia, Netzarim, and southern Khan Younis — in northern, central, and southern Gaza — with a preliminary assessment that Israel is about a month away from controlling 70% of Gaza.

Deadly attacks across Gaza expand

As Israel expands its control of the Strip, ongoing military raids target displaced civilians in tents and crowded apartment blocks. The Gaza Health Ministry said 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza City on June 4.

Five members of the Labad family were among the dead — Hassan Rabah Labad, his wife Manar, sons Mohammed and Tamim, and daughter Rahaf — leaving 9-year-old Hala as the sole survivor, according to Gaza activist Hamza al-Masri. The Israeli military and domestic intelligence later told Israeli media that the strikes had eliminated senior Hamas internal security commanders, identifying Hassan Labad as a deputy leader.

The strike was one of a series of killings throughout the week. On June 5, according to Wafa, an armed helicopter struck a tent in Khan Younis, killing 18-year-old Bushra al-Barahmeh. On June 6, a drone hit a tent sheltering the displaced Qaddoum family near the Gaza City passport office, killing eight — including a father who had celebrated his first child's birthday the day before. Hours earlier, a strike on a family home in Khan Younis killed 26-year-old Muhannad Farwana on his wedding day.

On June 7, Israeli forces killed at least 13 Palestinians across al-Mawasi, Gaza City, and Deir el-Balah, including five at a police station on al-Rashid Street and four — including a woman and a child — near al-Buraq School in Gaza City. In each case, the military said it had targeted gunmen but provided no evidence.

At sea, Israeli naval forces killed two fishermen off Deir el-Balah over the weekend and detained four others, according to Wafa reports. On June 8, Palestinian health officials told Reuters that six Palestinians, including a child, had been killed in Israeli strikes.

The Gaza Health Ministry said May was the deadliest month of the year, with 119 people killed.

The killings occur as the humanitarian system collapses, according to the UN. Israel closed the northern Zikim crossing in late May, channeling all supplies through a single congested crossing at Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom). Simultaneously, funding cuts have forced aid groups to reduce food and water supplies. The UN estimates prices in Gaza are 235% higher than pre-October 2023 levels.

In a rare protest move, Israel's Supreme Court overturned a blanket ban on Red Cross visits to over 9,000 Palestinian prisoners, even as the lawyer for detained Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said his client had been moved to solitary confinement.

Against this backdrop, Palestinian factions arrived in Cairo, meeting with Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators to discuss the second phase of the ceasefire. Hamas signaled to Al Jazeera that it would hand administrative control to a technocratic national committee and keep weapons off Gaza's streets, but would not fully surrender arms, linking any disarmament to an Israeli withdrawal; Israel and Trump-appointed Peace Council Envoy Nickolay Mladenov have made the next phase of the ceasefire conditional on disarmament.

Settlers set the West Bank ablaze

A series of videos and images in recent days show settlers burning farmland and olive groves across rural Ramallah and Nablus — including in Burin, where residents say settlers lit four fires simultaneously as soldiers blocked firefighting teams; in Madama, Jalud, as-Sawiya, Duma, Deir Sharaf, Shuqba, and repeatedly in al-Mughayyir, where flames approached homes.

Video shows soldiers standing with settlers next to blazing fields. The arson comes at a time when farmers typically harvest crops such as wheat and barley.

Local activists also describe police accompanying settlers stealing crops in al-Farsh and Wad al-Rakhim. In Hawwara, footage shows a soldier alongside settlers beating two Palestinians during a mass settler attack that left at least nine wounded, according to local medics. In Jiljiliya, activist networks report three settlers — one masked, carrying a military-issue rifle — attacked workers on June 7, striking Yousef Sumaya with the rifle butt before firing into the air, in the same village where a settler killed 16-year-old Yousef Kaabneh last month.

Al Jazeera contacted Israeli authorities about allegations of soldier involvement in the attacks but received no response.

The scorched West Bank also saw two Palestinian youths, one an infant, killed by Israeli forces. On the morning of June 5, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced the death of 18-year-old Haitham Ezzedine Omar Hamida during a night raid in Beitin; the Israeli military said a group of Palestinians had thrown Molotov cocktails at a vehicle.

That same day near Hebron, troops fired on a family car, killing 7-month-old Sam Abu Haikal and wounding his parents. The military said soldiers opened fire on a vehicle accelerating toward them — a reason previously given in similar situations — and an investigation showed the victims were civilians not involved.

Accompanying such violence was a series of property confiscation orders. Military orders this week placed more land under state control, while Israel's Higher Planning Council approved an additional 2,162 settlement units near occupied East Jerusalem, Nablus, and Hebron.

Meanwhile, UNRWA said the closure orders for Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps, which have displaced over 33,000 Palestinian refugees since early last year, have been extended until the end of July.

On the morning of June 7, Israeli police said a shooting near Kochav Yair in Israel killed one Israeli and wounded several others. Two Palestinian suspects were killed, and within hours, Wafa reported Israel tightened closures across Tulkarem and Qalqilya, neighboring cities on the other side of Israel's separation wall.