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Theme: Palestine

Palestine: articles and notes where the country is a central actor.

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An Israeli air strike and gunfire killed two Palestinians and injured several others in Gaza on Tuesday, according to the Wafa news agency, cited by Middle East Eye. The victims’ bodies and several casualties, including children, were brought to Al-Shifa Hospital after the strike on an apartment in the al-Nasr neighbourhood, in Gaza City, according to medical sources cited by Middle East Eye. In the occupied West Bank, more than 100 Israeli settlers attacked the village of Jalud, preventing a Palestinian family from returning home and clashing with troops, witnesses said, in a Reuters text republished by The Hindu. The Israeli military said the settlers set the Tubasi family’s homes on fire, blocked access roads and hurled rocks at Israeli officers, three of whom were injured, and that it arrested two settlers and launched an investigation, Reuters reported.

An Israeli drone targeted a residential apartment in the al-Nasr neighbourhood, west of Gaza City, according to Middle East Eye, which cites Al Jazeera and medical sources at al-Shifa Hospital. Footage showed medics treating children with severe wounds after the attack, and the total number of casualties remained uncertain at that time. Anadolu Agency reported that two Palestinians were killed and several others, including children, were injured in an Israeli airstrike and gunfire in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, amid daily violations of a ceasefire in effect since October 10, 2025.

Around 100 settlers raided Jalud, south of Nablus, shortly after midnight, targeting the homes of the Toubasi family, according to Middle East Eye. The family had returned to the house hours before the attack, after an Israeli court ordered the army to secure their return, the same outlet reported. More than 100 Israelis blocked roads, burned tires and threw rocks at security personnel, and set fire to Palestinian-owned structures, vehicles and other property in the area, according to Israel National News.

Israel’s army killed Izz al-Din al-Beik, head of the Hamas armed wing in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Al Jazeera, citing Palestinian sources and Israeli officials. Al-Beik was killed in a strike on an apartment building in Gaza City’s Nassr neighbourhood early on Tuesday, according to medics and Hamas sources. Local sources identified the two Palestinians killed in the strike as al-Beik and Muhannad Abu Foul, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed al-Beik was a commander, according to Anadolu (AA).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing a potential case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seeking to use it as leverage in their escalating dispute, according to i24NEWS, cited by RT. According to RT, Netanyahu reportedly instructed an Israeli interministerial team and the head of Israel’s International Law Department to prepare a dossier focused primarily on alleged attacks against Kurdish minorities, along with accusations that Erdogan’s government finances Hamas. The move would follow Türkiye’s request last month for an Interpol Red Notice for Netanyahu, after a Turkish court issued an arrest warrant on charges including genocide over Israel’s interception of the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla earlier this year.

Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously annulled the government’s ban on Red Cross visits to Palestinian security prisoners, according to the Times of Israel. The court said that the state failed to present a legal foundation for its blanket policy, in place since October 7, 2023, according to the Times of Israel. The government’s central justification for the ban was that Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were being denied Red Cross visits, a justification that no longer applies, according to the Times of Israel.

Israel revoked the credentials of Dutch diplomats in Ramallah in response to the Netherlands’ ban on goods from Israeli settlements, according to the Middle East Eye. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the diplomats must return their Israeli-issued diplomatic documentation within seven days. The Netherlands began enforcing a national ban on 22 September on the import, purchase and sale of goods from Israeli settlements, according to the Middle East Eye. Israel’s foreign ministry said it revoked the diplomatic status of the Dutch at the Netherlands’ Representative Office in Ramallah, in response to the Dutch government’s ban on imports of products originating from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to the Khaleej Times.

The United States-led Board of Peace (BoP) said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will have no role in Gaza. According to the board, “we will only work with trusted partners who will deliver for the people of Gaza and contribute to a deradicalised Strip. UNRWA fails on those litmus tests”. On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the BoP unveiled a 66-project reconstruction blueprint, with $2.4bn proposed to begin Gaza’s recovery.

According to the Wafa agency, Israeli authorities decided to impose a comprehensive closure on the West Bank and close crossings into the territory until Saturday for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Israeli forces closed roads and entrances to towns around Ramallah, including Turmus Ayya, Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh, and set up checkpoints at Yabroud and Ein Sinyah, according to local sources cited by the agency, while residents reported harassment at the entrance to Turmus Ayya.

Gaza's Health Ministry said, in a report cited by TASS, that seven people were killed and another 38 wounded over the past 48 hours in Israeli army strikes on the Gaza Strip. An Israeli air strike on a tent in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of northern Gaza City injured several displaced people, according to the Palestinian Information Centre. Israeli Air Force fighter jets resumed on Saturday attacks on mountainous areas near the Lebanese towns of Jezzine and Nabatieh, north of the Litani River. The targets were said to be underground shelters, command posts and Hezbollah depots on the heights of Jebel al-Rafi, Rayhan and Sajoud, according to the Janoubia portal.

Hamas condemned the Board of Peace’s decision not to work with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and its statement that the agency will have no role in Gaza. In a post on X, the Board said it will only work with trusted partners who will deliver for the people of Gaza and contribute to a deradicalized Strip, and that UNRWA fails on those litmus tests. The Associated Press reported on Friday that Board members had been more willing to work with UNRWA behind the scenes than their public stance suggested.

The Republic of Ireland will play Sunday’s Nations League match against Israel in Debrecen, Hungary, after the squad voted by a significant majority to go ahead with the fixture, Football Association of Ireland (FAI) CEO David Courell said Saturday, according to Middle East Eye. The vote followed reports that some players, including custodian Gavin Bazunu, had considered refusing to play in protest at Israel’s actions in Gaza, the Telegraph reported. The Ireland team’s press conference and training session the day before the first of its Nations League games against Israel were delayed Saturday as pressure to boycott the matches grew, according to the Associated Press, in a text republished by Local10.

Families in Gaza are still sheltering in war-damaged buildings at risk of collapse, with few safe alternatives, according to Al Jazeera. A joint assessment by the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union found that 371,888 housing units had been destroyed or damaged as of October 2025, 76.6 percent of the housing stock. On 16 September, a six-storey, already war-damaged residential building in Gaza City collapsed, killing 21 people, including 12 children, according to the UN and Gaza Civil Defence.

Delegates left the hall of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on Friday, September 25, 2026, before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium, in a walkout coordinated at the request of the Palestinian Mission to the 193 member states, according to India Today. Netanyahu rejected the genocide allegations over Gaza, calling them “the biggest lie of the century”, defended Israel’s actions against Iran and called those who had not left the hall “moral cowards”, asking them to leave.

The United Nations (UN) human rights office expanded on Friday, 25 September 2026, its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories: there are now 214 firms from 11 countries, with 61 additions and five removals since the previous update, Le Monde reports. Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and TripAdvisor remain on the list, and the UN human rights office said the update is a reminder to companies of their human rights responsibilities, according to Le Monde.

Israel’s official government mapping site, govmap, published 2025 aerial imagery of the northern Gaza Strip without the blurring it used to apply there, revealing at least 11 Israeli military positions inside the buffer zone and massive destruction to Palestinian towns in the area, The Times of Israel reported. The change, first spotted on Monday, 21 September 2026, by an open-source intelligence (OSINT) account, has no official explanation: the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was looking into the imagery.

The U.S.-created Board of Peace, which leads the reconstruction of Gaza, says there is no place for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the territory, but board members have met multiple times with agency officials, The Associated Press reports. Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s outgoing commissioner-general, told AP that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee want to work with UNRWA, and a Board of Peace official confirmed the meetings.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the U.N. General Assembly tribune on Thursday, September 24, 2026, to attack Iran, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, critics and allies such as the United Kingdom and France, and rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported. Dozens of delegations walked out as the speech began, some jeering and booing, while Netanyahu’s own team stood and applauded; SBS News put the number of delegations that walked out at 77.

The outgoing commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said in Geneva in his last press conference before leaving office that the agency must be part of a political solution for the population it serves, and warned that UNRWA is near collapse, with funding for water, health and education services expected to last only until September, according to Geneva Solutions. On 1 July 2026, the Board of Peace (BoP), the body created by Donald Trump’s peace plan with a central role in Gaza’s reconstruction, had already said UNRWA “has no place” in the territory’s future, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, condemned Israel’s declared rejection of the roadmap to complete the implementation of the plan to end the war in Gaza, at a closed meeting of heads of state and government convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, according to Mehr News, citing Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the ministry, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman urged the international community to press Israel to meet its obligations under the Gaza ceasefire agreement and to halt violations of Palestinian rights, and reaffirmed Qatar’s support for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel rejected the 15-point plan put forward by the mediators in August and conditions any withdrawal from Gaza on Hamas disarming, according to Mehr News.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, in his debut at the United Nations General Assembly, that violence in Gaza and Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank were pushing the two-state solution towards a “point of no return”, according to Middle East Eye. Burnham cited the E1 settlement project, which he said would sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank, and urged action to match the international support states declare for a Palestinian state. The speech came two weeks after Britain, France and Canada announced, on September 8, 2026, sanctions on goods from Israeli settlements, to which Israel responded by ordering the closure of the British consulate in East Jerusalem within 30 days, according to France 24.

Israeli restrictions have held up more than 900 wheelchairs donated by two Australian charities for children injured in Gaza, according to Australian public broadcaster ABC News, as reported by Middle East Eye. Two shipments from New South Wales-based Kids on Wheels Alliance reached Jordan in February 2025 and a third, from Western Australia’s Wheelchairs for Kids, arrived in October 2025; all three remain in warehouses run by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO). The JHCO says the block comes from the Israeli agency coordinating aid into Gaza, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), while an Israeli government source denied that an application for the Australian wheelchairs had been rejected. COGAT did not answer ABC’s specific questions about the Australian donations and said in a general response that it had let thousands of wheelchairs into the strip during the war.

According to the UN’s official record of the debate and Middle East Eye, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the general debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) saying that “generations of Palestinians will carry the pain and trauma left by the genocide of women and children perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Gaza.” In the same speech, on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, Lula said that “Israeli civilians paid the price for the radicalism and intolerance of Hamas’ terrorist acts” and that illegal settlements in the West Bank are making a two-state solution increasingly unviable, according to The New Republic. He criticised the persecution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its members and said that the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, must not be “silenced for telling the truth,” according to Al Jazeera, The New Republic and Israel Hayom.

Colombia’s government withdrew the declaration of intervention it had filed on 5 April 2024 in the case over genocide in the Gaza Strip brought by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court made public on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, the decision Colombia notified on 18 September, according to the court’s official case page and Anadolu Agency. The intervention rested on Article 63 of the court’s statute, which allows a state that is not party to a dispute to make submissions when the case concerns the interpretation of a convention it has also signed. Colombia was never a party to the main proceedings, and the withdrawal does not affect them. The decision reverses the policy of Gustavo Petro, who severed relations with Israel in May 2024 and halted Colombian coal exports to the country. Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office on 7 August 2026, restored diplomatic and economic ties, according to Middle East Eye and Anadolu Agency: the government plans to reopen its embassy in Jerusalem, set up a bilateral economic commission and send a delegation to Israel in October. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanked Colombia for the withdrawal, according to ColombiaOne.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, that Gaza City will be evacuated and destroyed if a single Israeli is abducted, and that the military will not make partial withdrawals from the 63% of the territory it holds until Hamas is disarmed. He spoke at the Yom Kippur War memorial in Jerusalem, according to Agence France-Presse, The Jerusalem Post and i24NEWS. “If a single Israeli soldier or civilian is kidnapped, the entire city of Gaza, with its houses and terror towers, will be evacuated southward with its million residents,” Katz said, addressing the warning to Hamas and, explicitly, to the governments of Iran and Turkey. Gaza City’s municipality puts its population at about 1.1 million.

Hundreds of thousands of children returned to in-person classes in Gaza on Saturday, for the first time in nearly three years, in damaged buildings and tents, according to Reuters. Gaza education officials say about 660,000 students were deprived of in-person, regular schooling during the war, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 98 percent of schools in the territory were destroyed or damaged. According to Ibrahim Ramadan, director of education for East Khan Younis, the conflict killed about 22,000 students and more than 770 education workers, including 532 teachers — figures from a local authority, with no independent verification.

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