An Al Jazeera cameraman has been killed in Gaza, and mosques in the West Bank have been set on fire, while Israeli officials speak of a deliberate policy of expanding control – stealthily in Gaza and by decree in the occupied West Bank.
This week, the land grabbing campaign, which has been largely unofficially pursued by Israeli officials, became an open declaration in some places. In Hebron, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that he had „abolished” the 1997 Hebron Agreement, stripping the Palestinian Authority of urban planning authority over the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque.
In Gaza, Israeli television reported that Israel, after the United States blocked another ground offensive, had opted for what its own officials called a „creeping” or „quiet” annexation: pushing its control lines westward without announcement.
An Israeli airstrike in the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza killed Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah, the 12th staffer for the network to be killed in Gaza since October 2023.
The week has further reinforced trends that have been ongoing since the beginning of the summer: on the one hand, international condemnation is growing, and on the other, the state is expanding its authority over Palestinian lands in Gaza and the West Bank, seemingly in defiance of international law and agreements.
Annexation – silently and loudly
The loudest move came in Hebron. At the inauguration of a new illegal settlement called Doran, Smotrich announced that Israel had nullified the Hebron agreements and would now exercise urban planning powers in the occupied West Bank city’s H2 area, which includes Israeli settlements and the Ibrahimi Mosque.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry partially backtracked, saying the agreement itself had not been abrogated, but a cabinet decision months earlier had transferred planning powers to the Jewish community and holy sites. The Palestinian Authority called the move illegal, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation warned that it would undermine the city’s status, and even the US State Department said it „does not support Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.”.
In Gaza, the parallel process of annexation is quieter but, by Israeli admission, deliberate. Israel’s Channel 13 reported that after the administration of US President Donald Trump blocked a major ground operation, Israel has opted for a „creeping” annexation: pushing the so-called Yellow Line westward and carrying out periodic incursions without notice. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights estimates that Israeli forces now control about 64 percent of Gaza, compared with 53 percent under the October 10 ceasefire that was supposed to halt Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian enclave.
In the West Bank, the „louder” approach is being pursued both through the illegal settlement system and through the unbridled expansion of Israel’s security apparatus. After the Israeli military announced last week that it would build a permanent post inside Area A – the occupied West Bank territory that is supposed to be under full Palestinian administrative control – for the first time since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, bulldozers have been working all week to build the military base. In the northern Jordan Valley, local Palestinian activists reported that construction of the „Crimson Thread” barrier, which is intended to isolate the area from Nablus and Tubas, is progressing after the Israeli Supreme Court lifted the restriction blocking it the previous week.
In a rare operation, hundreds of Israeli border police demolished homes in four settler outposts. At the same time, Wafa reported that the Israeli Civil Administration, headed by Smotrich, had also approved the construction of 576 new housing units in the settlements.
Death toll from post-ceasefire ceasefire reaches 1,000; Al Jazeera journalist killed
More than eight months after a nominal ceasefire in Gaza, the killing continues. The Gaza Health Ministry's death toll since the ceasefire passed 1,000 on June 17 and reached 1,024 by June 22. The cumulative death toll from the genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 has exceeded 73,000. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told the UN Security Council briefing on June 18 that more than 250 children have been killed since the ceasefire.
Amid the ongoing crisis, a strike on the Safadi family's home on al-Thalathini Street in Gaza City on June 20 killed a father, Hussein al-Safadi, and his daughters, Lana, 14, and Zina, four; the mother later succumbed to her injuries. Al Jazeera correspondents reported that there had been no advance warning in the area.
On the same day, a strike on the Abu Hasna family home in al-Bureij killed three people, including Ahmad Wishah, an Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman who was the brother of a colleague killed in April. Al Jazeera called the attack a premeditated murder and dismissed as „baseless” the Israeli military’s unsubstantiated claim that Wishah was a Hamas operative. He was the 12th Al Jazeera staffer to be killed in Gaza since October, among at least 260 Palestinian journalists killed since then, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Also this week, the Israeli Supreme Court again rejected the appeal of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who is being held without charge and, according to his lawyers, in solitary confinement with signs of torture.
As these accusations persist, foreign pressure continues to mount. Norway announced plans to ban trade with West Bank settlements, 85 members of the US House of Representatives urged Washington to halt the E1 settlement project, and the UN warned that Israeli settler groups could be blacklisted for serious violations against children. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar severed ties with the European Union’s diplomatic chief after he compared Israeli policies to apartheid.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian squeeze has been growing. The UN said that the amount of fuel arriving in Gaza in the week of June 16 fell far short of what was needed, forcing partners to ration it to life-saving services. The report added that more than 520 surgical and endoscopic procedures are at risk of being suspended due to a lack of disinfectant. The entire humanitarian mission currently has 24 percent of the resources it needs.
UN aid chief Fletcher warned that no hospital in Gaza is operating at full capacity, while Gaza is „held together by humanitarian bypasses and Palestinian resilience”.
„Night of Mosques” and the War on Water
Between the agricultural villages of the central highlands and the Bedouin shepherds of the region, settlers have repeatedly targeted two pillars of Palestinian society in the West Bank: mosques and water.
In the early morning of June 17, settlers in the villages of Jiljiliya and Mazraa al-Nubani set mosques on fire, scrawling Hebrew graffiti, including the phrase „Night of Mosques” – a Hebrew reference to Kristallnacht, the „Night of Broken Glass,” during which the Nazis systematically attacked and burned Jewish synagogues in Germany in 1938, Wafa, AFP and Palestinian media reported.
The Israeli military confirmed the mosque attacks to AFP but did not name any suspects; eight Arab and Muslim states condemned the attacks. The outpost from which the Jiljiliya attack was launched is located within Area A of the West Bank, which Israeli citizens are officially prohibited from entering.
However, the settlers' own channels turned the picture around: they launched a fundraising campaign to equip the outpost with firefighting equipment, accusing the Palestinians of "hundreds of arson attacks" that they described as organized "terrorism" against Jewish control of open areas.
In addition to the increase in mosque attacks, settlers have continued their systematic attacks on Palestinian water systems as the summer heat sets in. For the third consecutive week, settlers attacked the Bedouin family of Nayef Khalaife in the Arab al-Kaabneh community east of Ramallah, this time cutting off both water and electricity lines. According to the village mayor, Marwan Sabah, settlers used heavy machinery to damage the main water line in the Umm Safa community. Activists in the West Bank also reported that settlers cut pipelines around the Bedouin communities of Atouf and Khan al-Ahmar, while hijacking a tanker truck carrying water to a family in the Atouf Plain.
Similar to the trend of mosque arson, an Israeli newspaper report circulated in settler networks branded 440 Palestinian wells as unlicensed „water terrorism” before a Knesset committee—a distortion, Palestinian activists noted, of the reality that Israel controls shared aquifers under the Oslo Accords. In terms of water supply and use, Israeli settlers have long been far ahead of what Palestinians under Israeli control receive.
In addition to the settler attacks, early on the morning of June 22, Palestinian activist Hamza al-Masri reported that Issa Awad (19) and Rida Awad (15) from Beit Ummar were shot and their bodies were being held near the settlement of Karmei Tzur; the Israeli army said the two youths had thrown Molotov cocktails.
