Gaza

Israeli air strike hits Gaza apartment

An Israeli air strike hit a residential building in Gaza City’s al-Sabra neighborhood, killing several people, including children, as they slept.

Israeli forces attack tent for displaced people in Gaza Strip

Casualties have been reported in an Israeli drone attack on a tent for displaced people in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medical sources tell our colleagues on the ground.

In a separate incident, Israeli fire wounded at least one person east of Khan Younis city, sources said.

Jerusalem Daily: US charity to use AI to monitor Gaza classrooms

A US charity announced it will use an AI-software to monitor Gaza classrooms for ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘hate speech’, while Israel airstrikes kill Palestinians across the strip.

The full article is here.

Navi Pillay, who called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza, wins Nobel Peace Prize

South African jurist Navi Pillay, who fought apartheid and called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

⁠Pillay was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) from 2008 to 2014. It welcomed ⁠⁠the achievement, acknowledging her longstanding advocacy for human rights.

“It is amazing news, ⁠we need more ⁠⁠dedication and commitment to human rights,” ⁠⁠Shabia Mantoo, ⁠⁠spokesperson for ⁠⁠the UNHCR, told reporters ‌‌in Geneva.

In 2021, Pillay led the UN’s open-ended inquiry into “systematic” abuses in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. In 2024, Pillay told Al Jazeera that her team at the UN Commission of Inquiry submitted 7,000 pieces of evidence to the International Criminal Court related to crimes committed by Israel and Hamas.

“We have never seen anything like this,” she said.

UN chief condemns US sanctions on the International Criminal Court

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned sanctions imposed by the United States on the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an institution.

Guterres’s spokesman said the sanctions were “serious blow to our collective pursuit of international criminal justice”.

He said the sanctions would affect the ability of the court “to perform its important mandate, including in relation to situations referred to it by the Security Council and by the state parties to the Rome Statute” and “deliver justice for victims”.

The UN secretary-general’s comments came as the Netherlands, the host country of the ICC and European Union countries said they would take measures to keep the court functioning.

Dutch Prime Minister said it was “crucial” to continue talks with the US during the six-month period before sanctions take effect.

UN ambassador to Israel praises ‘moral clarity’ of US sanctions on the ICC

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has praised Washington’s “courage and moral clarity to sanction” the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a post on X, Huckabee said “a fake court of unelected foreign bureaucrats” undermined the sovereignty of the United States and its allies.

Human Rights groups including Amnesty International said President Trump’s sanctions were designed to isolate and ultimately destroy the ICC after it issued arrest warrants for multiple heads of state.

Among them, a warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for Israeli military actions against Palestinians in Gaza, which a UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry concluded constituted a genocide.

In a show of support for Washington’s action, Netanyahu said on X, “The ICC is not a court,” adding, “it is a political body that poses a mortal threat to law-abiding democracies worldwide”.

United States and Israel are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty that founded the ICC.

Israel violated armed conflict, humanitarian laws in Gaza, US senator says

Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff has said that Israeli forces in Gaza violated the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.

Ossoff, running for re-election in the state of Georgia, said in a debate on Thursday that the question of whether Israel committed a genocide in Gaza is “a question for the International Criminal Court”.

The Georgia senator followed his statement by attacking his Republican opponent, Representative Mike Collins, for supporting the sanctioning and defunding of the ICC.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, which has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians.

So-called ceasefire

US envoy says ‘still work ahead’ for so-called ceasefire in Gaza

US envoy, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner marked the anniversary of the so-called ceasefire deal in Gaza, saying “there is still hard work ahead. Disarmament must be implemented, security established, essential services restored, and communities rebuilt.

“None of this will be easy. But we have a thoughtful plan, committed partners, and a path forward that did not exist a year ago”, Kushner remarked.

Jerusalem

West Bank

Israeli forces raid cities in the occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have continued their increasing raids and attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

This morning, they raided Salfit in the central occupied West Bank, storming the homes of several Palestinians and deploying troops across the city, Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

Israeli colonists set fire to olive trees in the Wadi al-Sha’ir area, located between the town of Salfit and al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, where a number of colonist pogroms take place.

Israeli forces also arrested two former prisoners this morning from the town of Beita, south of Nablus, Wafa added. Sources reported that the forces stormed the town at dawn, raided and searched several homes, and arrested Khaled Barham Daoud and Khaled Hamdan Abu Hamdan.

Yesterday, Israeli forces and colonists killed eight people in Gaza and arrested at least 45 people in the occupied West Bank, while colonists injured at least 26 others, Wafa reports. Colonists attacked olive harvesters and besieged a house in Masafer Yatta, while soldiers demolished a house and issued demolition notices for several agricultural facilities.

This comes amid an escalation in colonist pogroms against Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank in recent months.

Nineteen colonist attacks recorded in occupied West Bank this morning alone

The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission has recorded 19 attacks by colonists since this morning, including attacks on olive pickers, the burning of trees, the theft of harvests and livestock, and assaults on citizens and their vehicles, according to preliminary monitoring and documentation based on reports from the field.

The committee, a Palestinian governmental body operating under the PLO, said in a statement carried by the Wafa news agency that the attacks included the burning of a vehicle during an assault on farmers in Tal; the uprooting of more than 50 olive trees in Qusra; attacks on olive pickers in Jorish, Beita, Naqoura, Birzeit, Deir Bzeih and Far’ata; gunfire in Deir Ballut; and the injury of a farmer in Kafr ad-Dik.

It added that an elderly woman was injured in Berin, east of Hebron, after colonists set their dogs on farmers while sheep were stolen in Ein Qinya, and a man and his child were assaulted and had their vehicle stolen in Yabrud. Attacks on vehicles were also reported in the towns of Sarda and al-Rihan.

Israeli colonists carry out multiple raids during olive harvest in the occupied West Bank

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been facing multiple pogroms by Israeli colonists while harvesting olives.

Villagers and international activists offer protection, as violence and intimidation turn the annual harvest into a dangerous struggle for Palestinian families.

Israeli colonists raid Palestinian orchards during their olive harvest

Israeli colonists raided Palestinian lands near Ramallah while families were harvesting their olives.

They were accompanied by the military.

Colonists and the military have been preventing people from accessing their lands for harvest in the latest pogrom against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Senator accuses ambassador to Israel of ‘covering up’ information on Americans killed in occupied West Bank

US Senator Chris Van Hollen has accused the US ambassador in Israel of “covering up” information relating to the killing of American citizens in the occupied West Bank.

The Democratic senator said in a social media post on Friday that Ambassador Mike Huckabee and his adviser David Milstein “have been covering up this information to protect the Netanyahu government”.

His comments followed a New York Times report that Milstein suppressed and altered embassy reports on the killings of nine Americans by Israeli colonists in the occupied West Bank.

Van Hollen called on the Senate to hold a hearing to investigate the suspected cover-up.

The Senate had blocked a resolution, proposed by Van Hollen, in September that would have required President Donald Trump’s administration to report on the killing of nine Americans in the occupied West Bank and on Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children in military detention.