Children have been repeatedly killed in Israel’s attacks in Gaza over the past week, as the death toll since the October ceasefire reached at least 1,108.
Attacks include July 8 Israeli strikes that killed at least eight people, including a 10-year-old killed in a strike on a tent in the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” and a six-year-old shot in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood. A day later, a World Central Kitchen driver, Ahmad Nasser Saleem, was shot dead with his hands raised while transporting coordinated aid from the Karem Abu Salem crossing.
On July 12, nine-year-old Tala Jumaa Abu Matar was killed by Israeli fire near the Nuseirat refugee camp. Strikes on tents sheltering the displaced in al-Mawasi took place throughout the week.
On July 10, an Israeli drone struck the courtyard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, wounding staff. Gaza’s Ministry of Health called it part of Israel’s “systematic targeting of health facilities”.
The cumulative figure killed since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza started in October 2023 has now reached 73,231, with 173,686 wounded.
COGAT, the Israeli military body coordinating aid, released a report claiming humanitarian supplies had entered Gaza in quantities that “significantly exceeded” the needs identified by the UN. Its chief, Major-General Yoram Halevy, said anyone disputing the figures was “amplifying Hamas propaganda”.
By contrast, the UN’s own data described the scarcity of basic necessities in Gaza. Food parcels covered just 75 percent of minimum caloric needs. Only 56 percent of aid cargo through the Egypt corridor was successfully offloaded at Karem Abu Salem. The number of families receiving shelter assistance fell 37 percent.
Essential services for an estimated 350,000 people with chronic disease remain severely disrupted. Over 18,000 new cases of chickenpox, skin infection, and parasitic infestation were recorded in a single week.
Medical facilities were plunged into darkness by fuel shortages, with 38 hospitals destroyed or rendered inoperable. The Ministry of Health warned of complete shutdown of labs and blood banks.
Days after Gaza’s Hamas-run government resigned, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree setting Palestinian legislative elections for November 28 – the first such vote in 20 years. The announcement faces considerable obstacles: Israel has yet to permit voting in occupied East Jerusalem, Gaza’s infrastructure lies in ruins, and its population registry is out of date.
A report by Peace Now and Kerem Navot documented de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank at an unprecedented pace: between 2023 and 2025, 185 new outposts were established, 118 herding communities expelled, 102 new settlements created, and illegal farm outposts came to control more than 1.1 million dunams (1.1 billion sq metres) of land.
In the northern Jordan Valley, Israeli bulldozers uprooted more than 300 olive and grape trees near Atuf and cut water lines serving some 45,000 dunams of farmland as part of the “Crimson Thread” military road project. Near Jenin, more than 1,500 olive trees were destroyed.
Over the week, Israeli forces razed homes, agricultural structures and a four-apartment building across Shuqba, Jit, Nablus, Sur Baher, Khirbet al-Miyah and Bruqin. Settlers demolished the Yanun Elementary School. Israeli authorities forced the Abu Tir family to self-demolish their home in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Israeli authorities had issued 49 military land-seizure orders in the first half of 2026 – already exceeding the 47 issued in all of 2025 – covering 2,093 dunams.
Violence in the West Bank followed a familiar script: settlers attacking under Israeli military protection. For five consecutive days, settlers attacked the family of elderly Ibrahim Ismail al-Jabour in the Huwara area; soldiers arrived to protect the attackers and detained al-Jabour. No settler was arrested.
About 150 settlers attacked Deir Jarir while Israeli forces blocked ambulances. In al-Mughayyir, raids left residents wounded, including a 10-year-old boy struck in the head. Near Jenin, settlers and soldiers together expelled four families from Khirbet Asaeed who had lived there more than 70 years.
OCHA recorded at least 35 settler incidents causing casualties or property damage in a single week, bringing the 2026 total to more than 1,200 – about six a day.
US Congressman Ro Khanna said he and his group were detained for more than an hour by settlers, before soldiers prevented him from leaving, while touring the emptied village of Khirbet Zanuta in the West Bank. The Israeli military said its soldiers “dispersed” the settlers; “the [Israeli military] is lying,” Khanna told NBC News.
The Israel Prison Service imposed sweeping new restrictions on Red Cross visits to Palestinian detainees, despite a unanimous High Court ruling. Oded Feller of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said the purpose was “to continue concealing the abuses taking place in IPS facilities”.
Israel barred the Arab League’s secretary-general from entering the West Bank to meet President Abbas. These moves, alongside the outposts, demolitions and defied court orders, underscore a trajectory of brazen defiance.
Source: www.aljazeera.com