The Gaza Strip has marked 1,000 days since the start of Israel's genocidal war. According to the Gaza Government Media Office, more than 90 percent of the Strip has been destroyed.
As of July 6, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported 1,072 killed since the October "ceasefire," with the cumulative figure since October 2023 reaching 73,098.
The killing did not pause for the anniversary. Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in a drone strike near al-Hilu station on July 1 and at least seven more over the following 48 hours, including a child killed by a quadcopter-dropped bomb at the Shujayea junction and 10-year-old Tareq Sabah near Khan Younis. Strikes on tents sheltering the displaced in the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone recurred throughout the week.
The sick and wounded protested outside Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital to demand that Israel lift travel restrictions on medical evacuations, with Gaza health authorities saying more than 20,000 people are awaiting exit through the throttled Rafah crossing.
Separately, Elyas Abu Safiya, son of the director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said his father's health was deteriorating sharply after more than 555 days in Israeli prison. He reported that his father's face was disfigured from torture and he had difficulty breathing and speaking.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for Dr. Abu Safiya's immediate release, stating that his ongoing detention violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Meanwhile, signals of a formal transfer of authority began in Gaza. In the Cypriot resort of Ayia Napa, representatives of the US-led Board of Peace, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, met to advance the "temporary reconstruction" of Gaza zones designated free of Hamas control.
On Monday, Gaza's Hamas-run government announced its resignation and the transfer of its authority to a Board of Peace-appointed technocratic committee, though power is yet to be handed over in practice. Ali Shath, head of the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, said his committee stood fully ready to assume its responsibilities.
The Board of Peace declared that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, "has no place in the new Gaza" – a statement the Palestinian leadership rejected as erasing the refugee question altogether.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid the foundation stone for a new Israeli "heritage centre" on the site of the former Qalandia Airport, as part of the broader Atarot settlement project.
On July 3, Israel's Security Cabinet approved the establishment of 13 new settlements in the Binyamin bloc of the occupied West Bank. The Jerusalem Governorate said the scheme was designed to sever East Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings and break territorial contiguity.
The decision came amid an unprecedented surge in outpost construction. Data from the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies shows that after averaging about eight annually between 2012 and 2022, new outposts rose sharply to 32 in 2023, 62 in 2024, and 86 in 2025.
Israel's consolidation of control extended beyond land grabs. The Israeli government approved a 27-million-shekel ($9m) plan to expand its hotel industry in the occupied West Bank.
In Hebron, the Palestinian Authority's head of the Tourism and Antiquities Directorate, Jabr al-Rajoub, said Israeli authorities were moving to transfer control of 142 archaeological sites from military to civilian Israeli administration.
On Sunday evening, four-month-old Ahmad Marouf Zeid died of cardiac arrest after Israeli soldiers blocked his family from reaching an ambulance waiting on the far side of a military gate at the entrance to Deir Ammar refugee camp. Laila Ghannam, the governor of Ramallah and el-Bireh, called the infant's death "a stain on the conscience of humanity."
Settler violence this week was often organized and under the protection of armed Israeli forces. Activist Jonathan Pollack reported masked settlers storming Jalud, chasing residents, occupying homes, and besieging families indoors under an armoured military escort that did not intervene.
Demolitions ran in parallel. Over the week, Israeli forces bulldozed the 60-year-old sports field of a Battir boys' school, an inhabited home in Tuqu, and an agricultural structure in Duma.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that more than 2,300 Palestinians, over 1,000 of them children, have been displaced in the West Bank in 2026 alone; 121 communities have experienced full or partial displacement since 2023.
Source: www.aljazeera.com