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The Israeli army, which launched large-scale attacks, continues its raids for a second day in the city of Tubas in the northern part of the West Bank on November 27, 2025. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been displaced by an ongoing Israeli offensive in refugee camps in the northern West Bank, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Thursday, Anadolu reports.
The Israeli army launched a large-scale military offensive in the Jenin refugee camp on Jan. 21, which later spread to the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps and other areas in the northern West Bank.
Rolan Friedrich, Director of UNRWA Affairs for the West Bank, said the Israeli assault emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps, displacing some 32,000 residents.
“And yet, even in these ghost towns that were once vibrant camps, Israeli forces still see the need to order demolitions for the sake of so-called ‘military purposes,” Friedrich added in a statement.
He noted that the Israeli authorities issued two mass demolition orders for over 190 buildings in the Jenin refugee camp, while 12 more buildings will be demolished in the upcoming days, which marks “the newest episode in continued efforts to re-engineer the topography of refugee camps in the northern West Bank.”
The UNRWA official said Israel’s systematic destruction violates the basic principles of international law and expands the army’s control over the refugee camps in the long term.
Friedrich called for the rebuilding of the refugee camps and the return of the displaced residents.
“They must not be trapped in interminable displacement,” he added.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army began another military campaign in the Tubas governorate in the northern West Bank, arresting over 60 Palestinians and injuring 10 others.
Alongside the two-year war in Gaza, where nearly 70,000 people have been killed, assaults by the army and illegal settlers in the West Bank have killed at least 1,083 Palestinians and injured about 11,000, while more than 20,500 have been detained, according to official Palestinian figures.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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Illegal settlers, covering their faces with masks, attack Palestinian farmers, journalists and foreign activists with sticks and stones in Beita town of Nablus, West Bank on November 08, 2025. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
The West Bank has witnessed an unprecedented increase in violent attacks carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, amid what observers describe as widespread leniency from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its security agencies. Several Israeli sources have referred to these incidents as expanding “nationalist crimes”, fuelled by settler impunity and political protection from government ministers.
Official figures show that 2025 has recorded a sharp rise in settler assaults, with dozens of attacks reported in recent weeks alone. Data from Israel’s Ministry of Defence indicate a significant escalation in settler violence over the past three weeks, coinciding with the start of the olive harvest season, during which more than 68 terrorist attacks were documented.
According to official statistics, 2025 has so far been marked by a continued rise in such “nationalist crimes” against Palestinians across the West Bank. Since mid-October, around 50 assaults have been carried out by extremist settlers. Meanwhile, United Nations data, which cover a wider range of incidents, show that the total number of attacks in October alone reached 264 — the highest monthly figure recorded in a year.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
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The Israeli army demolishes two Palestinian homes in the town of Shuqba, west of Ramallah in the central West Bank on October 28, 2025. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing has issued two tenders to build 356 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli anti-settlement group said Wednesday, Anadolu reports.
The Peace Now movement, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, said in a statement that two tenders were published for the construction of a new settlement neighborhood in the Geva Binyamin settlement, southeast of Ramallah.
The first tender covers 342 housing units across five residential complexes, while the second includes 14 homes designated for reserve soldiers, the movement said.
It noted that an additional tender was published for a residential complex in the Giv’on HaHadasha settlement, south of Ramallah, on Nov. 2.
“Since the beginning of 2025, tenders for building 5,667 housing units in settlements have been published – a record-breaking figure, roughly 50% higher than the previous peak year of 2018, when tenders were issued for 3,808 units,” it said.
“If the tenders published this year are implemented, the new homes will add nearly 25,000 settlers to the West Bank,” it added.
Peace Now accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of “exploiting every moment in power to destroy Israel’s chances for a future of peace and prosperity,” warning that the expansion of settlements “only deepens the pit Israel must eventually climb out of.”
“While US President Donald Trump declared that there will be no annexation (of the West Bank), the Israeli government is doing everything to realize annexation on the ground and turn Israel into an apartheid state.”
On Oct. 24, Trump told reporters not to worry, saying Israel is “not going to do anything with the West Bank.”
His remarks came a day after the Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed in a preliminary reading two bills to annex the occupied West Bank and the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, a move that would isolate East Jerusalem and divide the West Bank into two separate areas.
The UN has repeatedly affirmed that Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law, warning that they undermine prospects for a two-state solution.
Palestinians insist on East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, based on international resolutions that do not recognize Israel’s 1967 occupation or its 1980 annexation of the city.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Jonathan Glazer accepts the Best International Feature Film award for “The Zone of Interest” at the 96th Annual Oscars held at Dolby Theatre on March 10, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Glazer is among several prominent Jewish people who signed an open letter demanding international sanctions on Israel. (Photo by Rich Polk/Variety via Getty Images)
The United Nations and member states must “use relevant leverage, including targeted sanctions on governmental bodies and individuals responsible for violations of international law,” reads a new letter.
With the Palestinian news agency in Gazareporting that Israel has violated the 12-day-old ceasefire agreement with Hamas at least 80 times and killed at least 80 people in the exclave, more than 460 prominent Jewish artists, writers, rights advocates, and policymakers on Wednesday called on world leaders—including at the United Nations—to intensify the international pressure that helped push Israel to sign the fragile truce deal.
“It was international pressure that helped to secure this ceasefire, and it must be sustained to guarantee that it endures,” reads a letter organized by Jews Demand Action. “The ceasefire must be the beginning, not the end. The risk of reverting to a political reality of indifference to occupation and permanent conflict is too great. This same pressure must be continued to deliver a new era of peace and justice for all—Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
The letter was initiated by former Israeli Knesset Member Avrum Burg, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, Israeli-American activist Libby Lenkinski, Belgian former Member of European Parliament Simone Susskind, US columnist and journalist Peter Beinart, and UK activist Em Hilton.
The signatories said that they “deplore the fact that Israeli leaders have repeatedly taken to the world stage to declare” that their bombardment of Gaza—which has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians and decimated nearly all housing units across the exclave along with hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure—has been “committed in the name of the Jewish people.”
“As Jews and as human beings, we declare: Not in our name,” reads the letter, which was also signed by actor and writer Wallace Shawn, British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, and actor Hannah Einbinder. “Not in the name of our heritage, our faith, or our moral tradition. The monumental scale of the killing and destruction, the forced displacement, the deliberate withholding of life-sustaining necessities, and the ongoing criminal actions in the West Bank must end and never be repeated.”
“It is time to do everything possible to definitively end the Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and to pursue peace for the sake of both peoples.”
Among the letter’s demands is one calling on UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other world leaders to “refute false accusations of antisemitism that abusively deploy our collective history to tarnish those with whom we stand together in the pursuit of peace and justice.”
Calls to destroy Palestinian life “are not Jewish values nor are they guided by the lessons we draw from our peoples’ history,” they wrote. “Instead we see in many of those standing up for Palestinian rights a reflection of the people who stood with Jews in our times of need. Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, then, but a fulfillment of it. When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians.”
The group called on other Jewish people to sign the letter.
The letter notes that the ceasefire signed on October 10 “makes no reference to the West Bank,” where more than 3,200 Palestinians have been injured in attacks, including by Israeli settlers, this year. Israeli leaders have promoted the creation of the E1 settlement, which would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the illegally occupied territory and make it impossible for Palestinians to establish a state with the city as its capital.
Masked settlers in recent days attacked Palestinians civilians who were harvesting olives in the town of Turmus Ayya, with one clubbing a 55-year-old woman named Umm Saleh Abu Alia, who had to be hospitalized.
The letter was addressed to Guterres and other world leaders and representatives of UN member states as the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel must provide for the “basic needs” of Palestinians in Gaza and allow aid into the exclave. In 2024 the ICJ issued a nonbinding opinion saying the occupation was illegal—in keeping with long-established international law—and calling on settlers to leave the West Bank.
The signatories affirmed their “belief in the universality of justice and the fair and equal application of international law,” writing: “We have not forgotten that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust. Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel.”
“Accountability for the Israeli leadership’s grievous violations of international law is necessary,” they wrote. “It is time to do everything possible to definitively end the Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and to pursue peace for the sake of both peoples.”
The European Union’s foreign ministers pausedsanctions against Israel in response to the ceasefire agreement, a decision that was criticized by rights advocates this week.
“That is the last thing that we should be doing, because this is exactly the moment when you need to keep the pressure on. Because we all know that it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that this plan will be implemented,” Nathalie Tocci, a former adviser to two EU foreign policy officials, toldThe Guardian. “I fear that… European governments and institutions will be… reverting back to the sort of old, familiar patterns.”
The letter sent on Wednesday called on the UN and member states to:
Respect and abide by the decisions of the International Court of Justice, apply arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, and resist efforts to unduly pressure and influence and prevent the workings of both courts;
To refuse any complicity in continued crimes and violations of international law against Palestinians by Israel, including by ending the provision of arms and other relevant goods and services, and to use relevant leverage, including targeted sanctions on governmental bodies and individuals responsible for violations of international law; and
To ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches all Palestinians in Gaza at the scale that is commensurate to their vital need, that the blockade is lifted and materials for reconstruction enter, and that there is a full Israeli military withdrawal.
Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that Palestinians in Gaza “are still going hungry” despite the ceasefire. In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declaredfamine in parts of the exclave, and more than 450 people have starved to death as a result of the near-total blockade Israel began imposing in October 2023.
There is now only one entry point open for aid trucks at the Karem Abu Salem crossing, reported Al Jazeera.
“When it comes to the northern part of Gaza, none of the crossings have been opened. For more than 50 days now, the Israeli military has imposed a complete blockade on these crossings, and none of the trucks are coming to this area,” wrote Hani Mahmoud, a correspondent in Gaza City. “It continues to be very difficult for people here, particularly those returning to their homes in Gaza City and the northern areas. Apart from the fact that they are lacking access to water, there’s no access to proper food.
”Whatever is available is from business owners, the traders, who have been given permits from the Israeli military to get commercial items into the Gaza Strip,“ Mahmoud reported. ”Despite the illusion that aid is ‘pouring’ into Gaza, the reality on the ground is different, and people are still going hungry, unable to access food and water.“
Levy said that ”Israel’s actions against Palestinians are antithetical to the Jewish heritage we hold dear.“
”We must end this shame and reclaim a better future for Jews and Palestinians alike,“ he said. ”We are calling on world leaders to reject complicity in the status quo of occupation, apartheid, and Israel’s genocidal doom-loop towards the Palestinians, and ensure respect for international law and an end to impunity. That is the only path towards hope and sustainable peace.“
The signatories added that despite the ceasefire, they ”shall not rest“ until the agreement ”carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid.“
”We write in the hope that this initiative further emboldens a moment of renewed Jewish commitment to act with conscience and compassion,“ they wrote. ”We vow to work urgently to achieve equality, justice, and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis.“
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Vote Labour for Genocide.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 26, 2025 in New York City, United States. [Mostafa Bassim – Anadolu Agency]
It takes a lot to make UN delegates walk out from an address to the General Assembly. But this was precisely what Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, managed to achieve in his September 26 speech. His address began by attempting to show his country as a guardian of law and civilisation, fighting a lonely, unsupported war against fiendish barbarians. “Last year I stood at this podium and I showed this map. It shows the curse of Iran’s terror axis.” Such an axis threatened “the peace of the entire world. It threatened the stability of our region and the very existence of my country, Israel. They were meant also to threaten the United States and blackmail nations everywhere.”
The speech then moved into a triumphant register. Hezbollah had been cowed. The Houthis had been “hammered”. The “bulk of Hamas’s terror machine” had been “crushed”. The armaments of Bashir al-Assad had been destroyed, Iran’s Shiite militias in Iraq deterred. “And most importantly, and above everything else that I could say to you or that we did in this past year, in this past decade, we devastated Iran’s atomic weapons and ballistic missile programs.” Israel’s assassination program – the slaying of Iranian nuclear scientists, the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, the slaughter of half of the Houthi leadership – were also points of celebration. Regarding Hamas, Netanyahu offered the following: “The final remnants of Hamas are holed up in Gaza City. They vow to repeat the atrocities of 7 October again and again. That is why Israeli must finish the job.”
Anyone familiar with Netanyahu’s streaky command of Disney cartography or predictive assessments on the military power of other states already knows the strained performance here. Vital to his argument is delegitimising the cause of Palestinian statehood, treating it as an annex of a foreign power and a foreign movement. He goes on to link with little effort Iran’s “massive nuclear weapons program and massive ballistic program” to the late Yahya Sinwar’s “dispatched” terrorists of Hamas as they made their way into Israel on 7 October 2023, to Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets in Lebanon, to Syria’s now deposed Assad regime, which “hosted Iran’s forces, tightening the noose of death around our throats.” For good measure, the Houthis in Yemen were also thrown in.
This shoddy reasoning shares the strain of paranoia US strategists demonstrated with feverish intensity during the Cold War. There was a stubborn refusal, at least till the Nixon administration, to see Communist insurgencies as the product of indigenous conditions rather than directed movements from Moscow and Peking. Assistance and aid to North Vietnam, for instance, was misconstrued as command and control.
Similarly, Netanyahu sees radical Islam as a monolithic bloc of obscurantism that has absorbed the Palestinian cause. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis all shout “Death to America”. All had “murdered Americans and Europeans in cold blood.” Israel’s enemies were enemies of the West. “They want to drag the modern world back to the past… to a dark age of violence, fanaticism, and terror.” With demagogic purpose, he also pointed to “the radical Islamist surge” in the societies of Israel’s allies. Thank Israel, he declared, for having the capacity to supply the intelligence of five Central Intelligence Agencies, for doing, to quote German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, “the dirty work for all of us.”
The Israeli PM represents a country whose magistrates and representatives sneer and mock international law, treasuring an exceptionalism that have given it an increasingly roguish character. He is contemptuous of accusations that the IDF is not minimising harm to civilians, claiming that the ratio of non-combatant to combatant casualties is “less than two to one”, one much “lower than NATO’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”. This is an astonishing view, given that Israel’s own military data, as revealed by The Guardian, +972 magazine and Local Call, shows that 83 per cent of those killed in Gaza have been civilians.
Besides, even where civilians were killed, they only did so under coercion from Hamas. The oft repeated claim was made that the organisation “implants itself in mosques, schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and tries to force these civilians not to leave, to stay in harm’s way”. This is a convenient spread, justifying the destruction of critical infrastructure and the essential features of a functioning society. Unfortunately, evidence from the IDF on many of these claims has been skimpy.
The allegations of genocide, firmed up by the findings of an independent UN commission of inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and numerous human rights groups including Israel’s own B’Tselem, were also swatted away as blood libels. Those wishing to commit genocide would never “plead with the civilian population it is supposedly targeting to get out of harm’s way.” The Nazis were never good enough to tell Jews to “kindly leave”.
As for the starvation policy, this was yet another lie. “There’s one ton of aid for every man, woman and child in Gaza” with each person receiving 3,000 calories per day. “Some starvation policy!” It takes some gumption to embrace such mendacity and self-imposed delusion, denying the militarisation of the aid model in the Strip, with necessaries drip-fed through a limited number of delivery points defended by private contractors and trigger-happy IDF personnel.
Regarding the latest round of countries recognising Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu could only hector. “Murdering Jews pays off.” The forces of antisemitism had been rewarded by France, Britain, Australia and Canada, along with other states. “Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere.”
On the issue of the two-state solution, the argument was slyly inverted. Israel did believe in the formula. It was those nasty, ungrateful Palestinians who never did. They were “given territory” only to then attack Israel in “totally unprovoked” circumstances. Absurdly, Netanyahu even called Gaza a proto-Palestinian state, a gift from the Jewish state. Never mind that it became the world’s largest open-air prison, its residents the convenient lab rats of Israeli surveillance, technology and military experimentation.
As long as Palestinians exist in Gaza and the West Bank, they are unsettling reminders of the colonial project, the thefts, the dispossessions, the habitual violence. As long as they have political representatives of any stripe, or any voice uttered through any form – literature, media, the podium, and even the gun – they are exercising the very same rights to self-determination that saw the creation of Israel. It is those rights that Netanyahu showed such withering contempt for in this indignant address.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
