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Israeli authorities construct a new settlement road north of East Jerusalem, a Jerusalem governorate official reportedly said on February 5, 2026. [ Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
Palestinian residents and three Israeli rights groups have filed an urgent petition with an Israeli court seeking to freeze a tender for the construction of 1,234 illegal settlement units under the controversial E1 plan in occupied East Jerusalem, Anadolu reports.
The petition was filed Thursday with the Jerusalem District Court by rights groups Ir Amim, Bimkom and Peace Now, together with Palestinian community members, according to a statement issued by Ir Amim.
Petitioners asked the court to issue an interim order suspending the first tender under the E1 plan — which was published this week – for the construction of 1,234 housing units east of Jerusalem.
They also requested the court to halt publication of additional tenders, or any other steps toward the plan’s implementation, until a court ruling is issued on their petition.
The tender has drawn international criticism, including calls for the Israeli government to withdraw it.
Nevertheless, no date has yet been set for the court to hear the petition.
Covering more than 2,960 acres of land, the E1 plan is one of the largest illegal settlement projects in the occupied Palestinian territories.
It is intended to link the illegal Maale Adumim settlement, located east of Jerusalem, with West Jerusalem by building thousands of new settlement units and hotels.
Critics say that the settlement plan will divide the occupied West Bank and further cut East Jerusalem off from its Palestinian surroundings.
The EU has repeatedly stated that implementation of the E1 plan will undermine prospects for a two-state solution and the emergence of a viable Palestinian state.
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Elements of the Israeli military camp with armored vehicles along the strategic connecting road between the villages of Jamla and Saysoun in the western countryside of the Daraa Governorate in southern Syria on June 28, 2026. [Enver Asfur – Anadolu Agency]
Germany on Thursday criticised an Israeli airstrike in northwestern Syria, stressing that Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected, Anadolu reports.
“The German government has noted with concern reports of an airstrike on the Abu al-Duhur airfield in northwestern Syria,” a senior official at the Foreign Ministry told Anadolu, when asked about Berlin’s stance on Tuesday’s attack and the Israeli government’s recent escalatory moves.
“Any foreign military intervention is not conducive to the stabilisation of Syria or to peace in the region,” the diplomat stressed, referring to the Israeli airstrikes. “A stable Syria contributes to the stability of the Middle East as a whole. Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected by all countries,” he added.
In recent months, Germany has repeatedly cautioned against further escalation and has sought to encourage Israel to pursue diplomacy with Syria and other regional actors to establish viable security arrangements.
With tensions rising, such arrangements are more important than ever, said diplomatic sources, adding that Berlin remains in close contact with international and regional partners.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Wednesday that Israel had warned Syria before the attack against allowing a Turkish presence at the airbase. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani rejected the justification, stating that Damascus had informed Israel there were no plans for a Turkish base or permanent military presence at the site.
Türkiye’s National Defence Ministry said no Turkish military delegation was present at the airbase before or during the strike and described the attack as an unacceptable violation of Syrian sovereignty. Ankara reiterated its support for Syria’s efforts to rebuild its infrastructure and military capacity.
Türkiye’s Communications Director Burhanettin Duran sharply criticised Netanyahu on Thursday, saying the Israeli leader’s recent escalatory moves were driven by domestic political calculations and the upcoming elections. Duran said international criticism of Israeli policies was mounting and that Netanyahu was becoming increasingly isolated, adding that he appeared to view hostility toward Türkiye as a political lifeline amid competition with other hardline parties.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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Israeli settlers have surrounded homes belonging to three Palestinian families for nine days in the Ras al-Ayn area of Qusra town, near Nablus, West Bank, Palestine on August 17, 2026. [Issam H.s. Alasmar – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli occupiers on Thursday continued besieging three Palestinian homes in the town of Qusra in the occupied West Bank — for the 12th consecutive day — with Israeli forces preventing local residents from leaving or entering their residences, Anadolu reports.
Israeli military forces and occupiers have imposed the siege in the town’s Ras al-Ain district, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported, citing Qusra Mayor Abdul Azim al-Wadi.
According to al-Wadi, besieged families are facing food and medicine shortages, with Israeli forces blocking access to basic supplies and daily necessities.
Israeli forces have declared the area a “closed military zone” and turned one of the Palestinian homes into a “military barracks,” al-Wadi said.
In recent days, Qusra’s Ras al-Ain district has seen escalating attacks by Israeli occupiers.
Increasing numbers of Israeli soldiers have also been deployed to the area, raising fears among local residents that the siege will continue and that Israel plans to impose a “new reality” on the area.
Roughly 750,000 Israeli occupiers are currently present in 156 settlements and 360 outposts across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
According to both Palestinian and Israeli data, Israeli occupiers frequently attack Palestinians and their property in an effort to drive them from the area.
Earlier this month, the UN warned that anti-Palestinian violence by Israeli occupiers in the occupied West Bank — including land seizures — had reached “unprecedented” levels.
It also said it had documented over 1,430 separate attacks by occupiers this year alone, adding that the attacks had served to displace some 3,800 Palestinian residents, nearly half of them children.
Israel was established in 1948 on Palestinian land seized by armed Jewish groups that relied on terrorist tactics, including the massacre of unarmed civilians, to accomplish its military objectives.
As a result, at least 750,000 Palestinians were forced off their ancestral land, which was subsequently occupied by the new state of Israel.
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Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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A Palestinian man and a girl stand inside a home damaged in an attack by Israeli settlers in the Khirbet al-Tuba community in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, West Bank, Palestine on August 6, 2026. [Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli occupiers set fire to a Palestinian home in the Hebron governorate in the occupied West Bank on Thursday while a mother and her daughter were inside, according to local sources.
Aliya al-Nawajaa, the owner of the burned home, told Anadolu Agency that five masked occupiers attacked her house at dawn in the Khirbet al-Fara area of the city of Yatta.
She said one of the occupiers opened the window of the bedroom where she was sleeping with her daughter and threatened her and her family.
The attackers then set fire to the bedroom, causing the flames to spread rapidly before she could put them out, Nawajaa said.
She added that she immediately woke her daughter and they barely managed to flee the house safely.
Nawajaa said local residents and neighbors did not wake up immediately because of the early hour, prompting her to call her husband, who was not at home, to seek help.
Separately, the Israeli army began moving mobile homes to a settlement outpost established on Mount Tarousa, west of the city of Dura, southwest of Hebron, according to local sources.
The sources said Israeli heavy machinery began transporting new mobile homes to the outpost early Thursday as part of a “plan to expand settlements in the area.”
Israeli army vehicles accompanied the machinery during the operation, they added.
Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces and occupiers have intensified attacks against Palestinians and their property across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
The attacks have included the killing and wounding of Palestinians, arrests, the demolition of homes and other structures, the burning of mosques and vehicles, the destruction of agricultural land – preventing farmers from accessing their fields – plus forced displacement, and the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land.
Palestinians warn that the attacks are meant to pave the way for Israel to annex the West Bank, which would undermine the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state as envisaged in relevant UN resolutions.
Israel was established in 1948 on Palestinian lands seized by armed Zionist groups that carried out massacres and displaced at least 750,000 Palestinians, before Israel occupied the remaining Palestinian territories and refused to withdraw from them.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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Palestinians march carrying flags and symbolic keys representing the right of return during a demonstration marking the 78th anniversary of the Nakba in Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine, on May 12, 2026. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
To live in the occupied West Bank today is to exist within a finely tuned apparatus of deliberate friction.
When people outside Palestine think of the Israeli occupation, their minds focus on military incursions, violent raids, and harrowing images of warfare. Those realities are undeniably real and constant. But there is another, quieter layer of control shaping every second of our lives—an insidious policy of administrative and physical strangulation degrading the basic mechanics of human survival.
From gas station queues and dry water pipes to unpaid paychecks, blocked roads, trapped bank deposits, and choked border crossings, life here has been rendered so excruciatingly difficult that the underlying message becomes undeniable: there is no future for you—the Palestinians—here. This message isn’t subtle; it is spelled out on billboards erected by settlers across the West Bank with the army’s approval.
The Fuel Bottleneck: Waiting Hours to Move a Few Miles
Last week, I spent an hour waiting in a line of idling cars stretching nearly a kilometer outside a petrol station. Engines were off to conserve remaining fuel, turning car cabins into ovens. Around me, taxi drivers, ambulances, and parents with children sat in shared, helpless exhaustion.
This is not an accidental shortage; it is a structural squeeze. Under the 1994 Paris Economic Protocol, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is kept completely dependent on Israeli energy suppliers. In recent months, Israel systematically slashed fuel quotas delivered to Palestinian distributors. Standard daily deliveries of gasoline and diesel—normally around 4.5 million liters—have been throttled down to 3.5 million liters or less.
Prevented from maintaining a strategic fuel reserve, local stations hold only a few days of inventory. The moment Israel curtails the quota, the entire West Bank freezes. Transport halts, municipal services grind to a standstill, and filling your tank turns into an ordeal of anxiety.
Financial Siege: The Clearance Revenue Crisis and Unpaid Salaries
The friction is not just physical; it is profoundly financial. For almost three years, the economic foundation of nearly every Palestinian household has buckled under a systematic financial blockade.
Under long-standing agreements, Israel collects custom duties and import taxes—clearance revenues—on behalf of the PA, deducting a 3% fee before transferring the remainder. These revenues constitute 65% to 70% of the PA’s budget, funding healthcare, education, infrastructure, and salaries for over 140,000 public sector workers.
Since October 2023, the Israeli government escalated its withholding of these tax transfers, freezing billions of shekels. Transfers have been halted or subjected to crippling political deductions.
For me and hundreds of thousands of public servants, this is not an abstract macroeconomic headline—it is the reality of unpaid grocery bills and bank accounts in perpetual overdraft. Civil servants—teachers, nurses, doctors—have not received a full salary in nearly three years, surviving on partial payments of 50% or 60% every few months. Small business owners cannot make sales, creating widespread economic paralysis.
The Shekel Trap: Cash Accumulation and Banking Strangulation
In a surreal twist of monetary warfare, our economy suffers simultaneously from a lack of digital liquidity and an unmanageable overload of physical cash. Forced to use the Israeli Shekel (NIS), hundreds of thousands of laborers, merchants, and shops trade in physical banknotes daily, pouring an estimated 30 billion shekels into Palestinian banks yearly.
However, the Bank of Israel places an arbitrary annual cap of 18 billion shekels on physical paper money Palestinian banks can transfer back into the Israeli banking system. Israeli correspondent banks routinely refuse to clear excess cash, citing absurd bureaucratic excuses while political figures champion economic strangulation.
The outcome is agonizing: over 15 billion shekels in physical bills sit trapped in Palestinian bank vaults, unusable for international trade or digital transfers. Local banks have run out of vault space and imposed monthly deposit limits. When a gas station owner or grocer cannot deposit cash earnings to pay for their next shipment, the entire distribution chain collapses.
Inside my home, another clock is constantly ticking: the water tank level. Access to clean, running water is governed by a system of stark discrimination.
Under the 1995 Oslo II agreement—supposed to last five years but enforced three decades later—Israel controls 80% of the Mountain Aquifer’s water. The Israeli national water company, Mekorot, controls pipelines supplying Palestinian towns. During summer months, Mekorot routinely throttles water supplies to Palestinian municipalities—like Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jenin—to ensure uninterrupted supply to nearby illegal settlements.
According to human rights organizations and the Palestinian Hydrology Group, West Bank Palestinians consume an average of 70 liters of water per day—well below the WHO minimum standard of 100 liters. Meanwhile, Israeli domestic consumers receive roughly 300 liters per day, and settlers in illegal outposts consume up to 800 liters.
In my neighborhood, running water comes through pipes once a week for a 24-to-48-hour window. We live around those brief hours: filling rooftop tanks, running laundry, and scrubbing floors. When tanks run dry, we purchase water from private mobile tankers at extortionate prices—water pumped from our aquifers sold back at five times the cost. Looking from my roof, I see a nearby settlement where lawn sprinklers run all afternoon. Looking down at my sink, not a single drop comes out.
The Grid of Control: Checkpoints, Closures, and Settler Violence
Movement in the West Bank has long been restricted, turning the territory into an open-air maze of isolated enclaves. Over 560 permanent obstacles—manned military checkpoints, iron gates, earthen mounds, and concrete blocks—carve up the land.
A trip from Ramallah to Qira, my hometown, historically a 45-minute drive, now consumes four to six hours. At any moment, an Israeli soldier can swing an Iron Gate shut, locking thousands inside a valley or blocking access to healthcare, universities, or jobs.
Compounding this is the relentless rise of settlers terrorism. Protected by armed forces, state-backed settler groups descend upon villages, burning olive groves, attacking homes, smashing vehicles, and closing agricultural lands.
Just recently, settlers arrived in my hometown of Qira. They entered without permission to survey local archaeological sites, later publishing two videos set to Hebrew music showing them inspecting the ancient Roman pool next to my home and an old shrine down the valley. While there were no direct attacks or property damage this time, such incursions rarely remain passive; watching them walk through our spaces leaves a lingering fear that this quiet scouting is only the precursor to something far worse.
For me as a Palestinian farmer, tending family land held for generations has become a high-risk endeavor where I face beatings or live fire simply for harvesting my olives. The message is simple: your space is shrinking, and you are never safe.
The Choked Exit: The Al-Karameh Crossing Bottleneck
For 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, there is no accessible commercial airport. Barred from using Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, our sole window to the world is the Allenby Bridge (Al-Karameh / King Hussein Bridge crossing) connecting the West Bank to Jordan.
Recently, the Israeli Crossings Authority dramatically slashed operating hours at Al-Karameh. The terminal—once operating around the clock during peak travel—has seen its processing window severely restricted, closing early on weekdays and remaining closed on weekends.
Traveling abroad has become a nightmare of bureaucratic cruelty. Thousands gather at dawn in sweltering waiting halls. Digital registration slots sell out weeks in advance. Families are turned back after waiting all day because the border closed at 13:30 sharp. Trapping millions inside a landlocked enclave by choking their only exit is not security; it is a psychological cage.
Coercive Displacement: The Strategy of Making Life Unbearable
When you connect these dots—fuel lines, payless months, the shekel trap, dry water pipes, unpredictable checkpoints, settler violence, and locked borders—a clear, chilling pattern emerges.
None of these pressures operates in isolation. They form a deliberate architecture of friction designed to exhaust the human spirit—a policy of quiet, coercive displacement. The objective is to make daily existence so intolerable, expensive, and hopeless that people—especially the young, educated, and ambitious—eventually leave on their own.
Every queue we stand in, every dry tap we open, and every closed gate sends the same implicit signal: there is no room for you to thrive here.
For decades, our response to oppression has been Sumud—holding onto our land, our heritage, and our dignity. But as the occupation systematically grinds down the mechanics of daily survival, holding on grows harder by the day. We remain here not out of ease, but out of necessity—wondering how much longer steadfastness can endure before we are stripped of everything and displaced by force.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
