Palestine this week: Israel resumes Gaza strikes, pushes settlement expansion in West Bank

Just hours after US envoy Jared Kushner left a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aimed at salvaging the Gaza ceasefire, Israeli airstrikes targeted residential areas in the territory. By the weekend, senior Israeli officers described a return to pre-ceasefire rules of engagement.

The August 17 meeting between Kushner and Netanyahu established two working groups on disarmament and humanitarian issues, but core issues remained unresolved. Israel is unwilling to withdraw troops from Gaza, citing Hamas's refusal to disarm, and has blocked aid, supplies, and construction materials needed for reconstruction. Hamas, for its part, accused Israel of violating the 15-point plan announced by US President Donald Trump on July 30 by continuing attacks and refusing to withdraw.

Kushner said he had no objection to strikes on "imminent threats" but warned against broad interpretation. However, subsequent airstrikes suggested his warning had little effect in limiting Israel's understanding of "imminent threat."

Hours after Kushner's departure, an airstrike on a crowded cafe at Gaza City's port, which also served as a displacement camp, killed at least seven Palestinians, including a child. The next day, a strike on a former police headquarters in Gaza City killed at least nine people, including the acting director of Gaza's police force, the head of the women's police unit, and a 13-year-old girl.

A Hamas source told Al Jazeera that the officials were gathered to prepare for the handover of weapons under Trump's peace plan. If accurate, Israel killed the very organizers of the disarmament process it demanded. The same day, another airstrike killed a man in Nuseirat, whom Israel described as a Hamas commander.

The campaign continued throughout the week. A drone strike on Saturday killed a Palestinian in Deir el-Balah, whom Israel also identified as a Hamas commander.

The catalyst for Israel's return to hawkish posture in Gaza over the weekend was kites. After several kites landed in Israeli border areas, Defense Minister Israel Katz on Sunday ordered the military to treat any kite, balloon, or drone from Gaza as a "act of war," threatening attacks and displacement of residential areas. Netanyahu's office also declared "Gaza will not return to the pre-October 7, 2023 status."

Subsequent attacks on Sunday killed at least three Palestinians, including four-year-old Muhammad Abdel Salam Taha. Early Monday, an airstrike on a family tent in Deir el-Balah killed two brothers.

Gaza's Health Ministry reported that casualties since the ceasefire in October totaled 1,288 dead and 4,290 wounded as of Monday. The overall Palestinian death toll since October 7, 2023, stands at least 73,422.

E1 settlement project advances

Meanwhile, Israel continued to advance illegal settlement projects in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, widely seen as a fatal blow to the prospects of a Palestinian state along 1967 borders under the two-state solution.

On August 18, Israel tendered 1,234 apartments in the southern section of the E1 project in occupied East Jerusalem, moving the long-frozen project into active construction. The Palestinian committee against the separation wall and settlements said the plan would sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank by linking it to the Maale Adumim settlement bloc, and fragment the West Bank into northern and southern parts.

The move drew global condemnation. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, and Norway called the tender "unacceptable" and warned of "legal and reputational consequences" for those involved. The European Union is reportedly preparing a sanctions package if construction begins.

Eight Arab and Muslim countries issued a joint rejection. Over 100 former French and British ambassadors wrote in Le Monde on Saturday that settler violence and home demolitions "amount to ethnic cleansing," calling for suspension of trade and an arms embargo.

The United States, Israel's closest ally, when asked about E1, merely repeated the standard statement that it "does not support Israeli annexation of the West Bank" without naming the project. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a long-time settlement supporter, days earlier cited the Ten Commandments to warn settlers not to seize property of Palestinian Americans, threatening sanctions against those besieging homes in the village of Qusra, including the house of US citizen Loui Abu Ridi. Huckabee called settlers who besiege Palestinian homes "terrorists."

The gap between a Christian Zionist ambassador willing to call settlers "terrorists" and a State Department unwilling to name a major illegal settlement project reflects Washington's dilemma: restraining Israeli excesses while remaining the primary guarantor.

The gap between condemnation and sanctions also manifested in Israel's handling of war crimes cases in Gaza. On Wednesday, the military released investigations into the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab and six family members in January 2024 – the first time Israel admitted firing at their car – and the killing of 15 medical staff in Rafah in March 2025. However, at the same time, Israel closed three other investigations, including the killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) staff in April 2024.

The Hind Rajab Foundation said it does not trust Israeli investigations to deliver justice. Britain, Australia, and Canada called the closure of the WCK investigation – announced on World Humanitarian Day – "shameful."

Siege, arson, and land grabs in the West Bank

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report last week found that more Palestinians were displaced by settler attacks, home demolitions, and forced evictions in the first four months of 2026 than in all of 2025. HRW accused the Israeli government of "arming, funding, and granting impunity" to settlers. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 216 settler attacks causing casualties or damage in July alone.

This week, the pattern continued. According to Palestinian news agency Wafa and local activists, in al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, settlers overturned a car carrying women, children, and elderly on Thursday, injuring five, then rammed another car two days later. By Sunday, Israeli forces sealed the village's only remaining entrance.

In Qusra, south of Nablus, the siege of three homes entered its third week, leaving families without food, water, and medicine. Activist videos showed soldiers throwing a family's belongings out of a house they were occupying.

Settler attacks and arson spread throughout the week. In Sa'ir, northeast of Hebron, armed settlers killed 17-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh and seriously wounded a man in his 70s during a raid that also set a house on fire. In Khallet al-Farra, west of Yatta, settlers torched a house while a family of five slept inside.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, described the attacks as "pogroms against defenseless civilians." Experts increasingly support this view, noting that West Bank attacks increasingly match the definition of a pogrom: "organized violence" against a group based on "race or religion."

Meanwhile, Israel's territorial control continued to expand. New or expanding outposts were recorded at Tal al-Asur and Marj Sia, east of Ramallah; Umm Safa, northwest of Ramallah; and Mount Tarousa, west of Hebron, where the "Doron" outpost – one of 19 settlements approved last year – received its first caravans, according to Wafa. Israeli settlements and outposts are considered illegal under international law.

In the northern Jordan Valley, Israeli NGO B'Tselem reported that armed forces and settlers cut the last water pipes supplying several Bedouin communities, placing 47 families – more than 300 people – at immediate risk of displacement amid Israel's "Crimson Thread" fence project.

Israeli forces also killed two Palestinians this week. Fathi Zedan Khazem was shot during a raid on his home in Jenin on Friday and left to die after soldiers blocked an ambulance, according to Wafa. Two days later, 14-year-old Islam Ahmad Ajjouri was shot dead during a raid on the Askar al-Jadid refugee camp, east of Nablus.