Latest news on Palestine, covering the Israeli occupation and Gaza genocide, West Bank developments and international responses.

Over five million Palestinian people live in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the majority under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted in the rise of Zionism and Britain’s control of Palestine after the First World War, during which it facilitated large-scale Jewish immigration that was met with growing Arab resistance, escalating into open war with the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The 1948 ‘Nakba’ displaced over 700,000 Palestinian people, a historical trauma that continues to shape the political, social, and economic realities of Palestinians in the occupied territories and diaspora, where millions remain refugees without the right of return. Since 1967, Israel has maintained military occupation over the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, with Gaza under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007 after Hamas’s takeover.

The conflict escalated dramatically on 7 October 2023, when Hamas militants attacked targets in Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Israel launched a massive military attack in Gaza, killing more than 65,000 people, the vast majority civilians, causing near-total devastation of homes, public services and essential infrastructure, while displacing nearly the entire population. A significant proportion of casualties have been children. Israel has denied foreign journalists access to Gaza and killed Palestinian journalists in exceptional numbers.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels. International aid organisations and UN agencies report severe shortages of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies, alongside disease outbreaks, acute malnutrition and famine. Doctors and humanitarian groups describe the conditions as unprecedented.

Multiple international institutions and leading genocide scholars have concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, citing the 1948 Genocide Convention, which defines acts committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. They point to mass civilian casualties, systematic destruction of hospitals, schools, and civilian infrastructure, forced displacement, severe restrictions on humanitarian aid, and statements of intent by Israeli officials.

Institutions and experts reaching this conclusion include the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and Israeli organisations such as B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel; leading genocide scholars have likewise affirmed this, including Raz Segal, Barry Trachtenberg, John Cox and Omer Bartov.

Legal proceedings are ongoing. The International Court of Justice issued provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel, finding a plausible risk of genocide and ordering steps to prevent genocidal acts. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The crisis has also exacerbated tensions in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, with record-high Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence have reached record levels. The Israeli army has deployed tanks, carried out air strikes, destroyed buildings, roads and infrastructure and evacuated a number of major Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, displacing an estimated 40,000 people. Members of the current Israeli government have openly called for the formal annexation of the West Bank.

Regionally, the conflict has fuelled clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon and with the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked Israel and Red Sea shipping. Israel also carried out strikes in Iran, with US backing, and in Qatar, targeting Hamas negotiators. The United States has also struck targets in Iran during the conflict.

The unresolved core issues of the conflict remain: sovereignty, the status of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements in occupied territories, and fundamental questions of access to land and self-determination. Equally central is the sustaining role of Western financial, economic, military, and diplomatic support for Israel, particularly from the United States. This external backing provides Israel with overwhelming military superiority and consistent political protection, including the use of vetoes at the United Nations, enabling policies of occupation, settlement expansion and now genocide.

For more info, see: Wikipedia: Gaza Genocide

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