Updates

The Gaza Strip

Devastation, bombing and starvation: Israel is destroying life in Gaza

For two months now, Israel has been blocking the entry of food and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, deliberately starving over two million people, including more than one million children. On 16 April, Defense Minister Katz declared Israel would continue to block the entry of food and aid into Gaza, effectively admitting it is using starvation as a method of warfare. On 25 April, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced that its food warehouses in Gaza were now empty...

5 May 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Desecration of Palestinian bodies by Israeli soldiers: another form of dehumanization

B’Tselem has recently investigated several incidents in which Israeli forces were documented desecrating and mutilating Palestinians' bodies in the West Bank. Ample footage from the ongoing fighting in Gaza shows this practice is pervasive there as well: running over bodies with military vehicles, scooping and burying bodies using bulldozers, and more. The increased prevalence of these actions is another manifestation of the dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli public opinion, a process that has rapidly accelerated since the war began in October 2023.

28 April 2025

The Gaza Strip

From declaration to action: Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza

Since March 18, Israel has killed over 1,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, more than 300 of them children, in indiscriminate bombings. For a month now, it has been starving the population and blocking any entry of supplies and aid. Flour has run out. Since the war began, Israel has killed more than 1,000 members of medical, defense and aid teams in Gaza. Recently Israeli soldiers killed 15 medical and aid personnel and buried them in mass graves. Clinics have been bombed and hundreds of thousands of people displaced...

3 April 2025

East Jerusalem

Israel increases efforts to expel entire village of Nu’man in southeastern Jerusalem

On 26 January 2025, the Jerusalem Municipality distributed stop-work orders, which are essentially the initial stage of issuing demolition orders, for the mosque and all the houses in the Palestinian village of Khallet a-Nu’man. The municipality refers to the village, which lies in southeastern Jerusalem, as “Mazmuriyeh” after a nearby archaeological site.

1 April 2025

Communities Facing Expulsion

Khirbet Susiya, South Hebron Hills: Settlers attacked the village, hitting residents and activists and vandalizing and stealing property. Soldiers and police arrested residents while allowing the settlers to leave

On Monday, 24 March 2025, at around 6:00 P.M., two settlers set a flock of sheep to graze near homes in the village of Khirbet Susiya. Residents who noticed them alerted others in the community, and several residents gathered near the homes and reported the incident to the police.

27 March 2025

The Gaza Strip

Israel resumes its campaign of killing and destruction in Gaza

Last night, the Israeli government violated the ceasefire, resumed the indiscriminate killing and displacement of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and chose to sacrifice the lives of Israeli hostages to advance the all-out war it has declared on the Palestinian people—backed by the US administration and for the sake of Netanyahu’s political survival.

18 March 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Undercover Border Police shot a man with an intellectual disability in a workshop in Beit ‘Awwa and denied him medical care while he bled to death

On Friday, 13 December 2024, around 12:30 P.M., Israeli Border Police officers entered the village of Beit ‘Awwa in a van bearing Palestinian license plates and stopped near the homes of the Masalmeh family in the village center. At the time, some members of the family were sitting in a workshop belonging to Muhammad Suliman Maslameh – his 33-year-old nephew, Muhammad Ahmad Masalmeh, who has special needs, his six-year-old grandson Hussein, and H.M., a friend of the family. The other members of the family were having lunch in their respective homes, which are adjacent to the workshop.

13 March 2025

Deportation

Destruction and displacement in the West Bank

On 19 January 2025, once the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect, the Israeli government declared it was adding the demand for "increased offensive activity" in the West Bank to its official list of "war objectives". The addition was merely a formal affirmation of Israel’s treatment of the West Bank since 7 October 2023 as another front in the all-out war declared on the Palestinians since the Hamas attack. In keeping with this approach, the Israeli regime has ramped up its oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and adopted more extreme measures, including extreme arbitrary violence against innocent civilians, further loosening of the permissive open-fire policy, severe movement restrictions and disruption of daily life, blanket cancellation of permits to enter Israel, and extreme limitations on access to farmland that are critically damaging livelihoods, mass arrests and the transformation of detention facilities into a network of torture camps.

11 March 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Under cover of war: Killing children has become routine in the West Bank

On Monday, 7 October 2024, Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers raided Qalandia Refugee Camp and surrounded it on all sides. Around midday, clashes erupted in the area of the street separating the camp from the neighborhood of Kafr ‘Aqab. Young men and children threw stones at the forces, who fired live shots and tear gas at them. At one point, the forces advanced into an alley where many of the youths had gathered and fatally shot 12-year-old Hatem Gheith. The military issued a statement claiming the troops fired after Palestinians “threw cement blocks and stones at the forces, endangering them,” and that they “confirmed hits.” However, according to a B’Tselem investigation, no blocks were thrown, and in any case, stones and blocks do not pose a real threat to soldiers or police officers inside armored vehicles. Moreover, Gheith was shot as he was running away far from the officers, with his back to them. The military’s statement suggests that, from its perspective, the killing of a 12-year-old child does not warrant special attention or an investigation.

11 March 2025

Deportation

Since the “ceasefire,” Israel has displaced 40,000 in the West Bank

On 21 January 2025, two days after adding the West Bank to its Gaza “war objectives,” the Israeli government launched Operation Iron Wall in the northern West Bank, focusing on the refugee camps in the districts of Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas. The operation began with a massive raid on Jenin Refugee Camp. On its first day, Israeli armed forces killed 10 camp residents, most of whom were not affiliated with armed groups.

11 March 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Airstrikes have become routine in the West Bank

Since 7 October 2023, Israel has been frequently bombing refugee camps and cities in the northern West Bank. B’Tselem documented 69 airstrikes, which killed 261 people, including at least 41 minors, from that day to 8 March 2025. Some were carried out by fighter jets for the first time since the second intifada. In stark contrast, 14 people were killed by airstrikes in the West Bank in the preceding 18 years (from 2005 to 7 October 2023).

11 March 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli forces killed 4 children who posed no threat in less than a month

On Monday, 7 October 2024, Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers raided Qalandia Refugee Camp and surrounded it on all sides. Around midday, clashes erupted in the area of the street separating the camp from the neighborhood of Kafr ‘Aqab. Young men and children threw stones at the forces, who fired live shots and tear gas at them. At one point, the forces advanced into an alley where many of the youths had gathered and fatally shot 12-year-old Hatem Gheith. The military issued a statement claiming the troops fired after Palestinians “threw cement blocks and stones at the forces, endangering them,” and that they “confirmed hits.” However, according to a B’Tselem investigation, no blocks were thrown, and in any case, stones and blocks do not pose a real threat to soldiers or police officers inside armored vehicles. Moreover, Gheith was shot as he was running away far from the officers, with his back to them. The military’s statement suggests that, from its perspective, the killing of a 12-year-old child does not warrant special attention or an investigation.

10 March 2025

Gaza Doctrine: The West Bank is under fire

On 19 January 2025, once the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect, the Israeli government declared it was adding the demand for "increased offensive activity" in the West Bank to its official list of "war objectives". The addition was merely a formal affirmation of Israel’s treatment of the West Bank since 7 October 2023 as another front in the all-out war declared on the Palestinians since the Hamas attack. In keeping with this approach, the Israeli regime has ramped up its oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and adopted more extreme measures...

10 March 2025

Legislation

The Israeli government is trying to destroy human rights organizations

Two bills that recently passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset are part of a calculated assault by the government on Israeli civil society. The aim is clear: eliminate human rights groups, including B'Tselem, silence government critics and stop us from fulfilling our mission to defend human rights. The “ICC law” criminalizes our work by making human rights defense a punishable offense, while the “NGO taxation law” is designed to drain our financial resources...

24 February 2025

B'Tselem grieves the passing of our friend and colleague Iyad Hadad

It is with deep sorrow and pain that we announce the passing of our friend and colleague Iyad 'Ali Muhammad Hadad, 61, who passed away last night after battling a serious illness. Iyad Hadad worked as B’Tselem’s field researcher in the Ramallah area for 25 years, and his dedication to human rights began years earlier. He will always be an inseparable part of B’Tselem and of the struggle to defend human rights. May his memory be blessed

12 February 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli troops entered Balata Refugee Camp in a van disguised as an ambulance, killed bystanders and used a resident as a human shield

On Thursday, 19 December 2024, around 10:00 A.M., two vehicles with Palestinian license plates drove into the market street, a central thoroughfare in Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus. One was painted dark, with a siren and features of an ambulance, and the other was a white minibus. Many residents were out on the street shopping, and five or six armed Balata Brigade operatives were also present. One of the operatives signalled the minibus driver to stop, and the person next to the driver opened the door and started shooting indiscriminately in the general direction of the operatives. Immediately afterwards, soldiers emerged from both vehicles and opened fire. They injured at least six people, including two of the armed operatives and an elderly resident, Halimah Abu Leil, 80, who was also hit by the initial shooting and died of her wounds soon after.

9 February 2025

Apartheid

Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap: Nakba, forcible transfer and expulsion

Trump’s announcement this morning constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing through uprooting and forcibly transferring some 2 million people. It is Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap for a second Nakba of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The idea is deranged and abhorrent. Regardless of its feasibility, the mere presentation of such a plan is an indelible moral stain on all involved. Its implementation would constitute a grave violation of international law...

5 February 2025

Open-Fire Policy

In a raid on Tulkarm R.C., Israeli forces shot and killed a young man and woman, prevented evacuation of the man and shot a paramedic trying to evacuate the woman

On Tuesday, 10 September 2024, around 12:30 P.M., Israeli special forces accompanied by a surveillance drone entered Tulkarm Refugee Camp. At least some of them arrived in civilian vehicles with Palestinian license plates. About an hour and a half later, additional military, Border Police, and Shin Bet (ISA) forces entered the camp, equipped with heavy engineering vehicles intended to destroy the streets.

4 February 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli soldiers fired for no reason at a yard where Palestinian mourners were gathered, killing mother of five Zuhour ‘Amur, 34, and injuring two girls and an elderly woman

On Wednesday, 25 September 2024, at around 5:00 P.M., an Israeli military force including undercover operatives from the Duvdevan Unit entered the village of ‘Anzah, south of Jenin, in a car with Palestinian license plates. The forces surrounded the home of 38-year-old Muhammad Barahmeh, a released prisoner, and arrested him. During the operation, some youths from the village threw stones at the forces from a great distance. The soldiers fired at them. No one among the forces or the youths was injured.

28 January 2025

Settler Violence = State Violence

2024 West Bank olive harvest: Israel furthers land grab

Since the war in Gaza began, the Israeli regime has removed all restraints on its violence towards Palestinians in the entire area it controls. The escalation in the severity and scope of violence was visible during the olive harvest, too: B’Tselem’s field researchers documented dozens of cases throughout the West Bank in which harvesters were attacked and driven off their land at gunpoint by soldiers and settlers. Harvesters were ousted not only from lands next to settlements...

22 January 2025

The Gaza Strip

B’Tselem welcomes deal but warns the catastrophe is ongoing

B’Tselem welcomes the deal, but the catastrophe persists. We welcome the ceasefire and hostage release deal signed between Israel and Hamas. However, the catastrophe persists. Millions of people in Gaza remain destitute, starving, and homeless. A ceasefire is only the first step, and one that should have happened long ago. There is a real concern that Israel will resume fighting after the first phase of the deal is complete...

15 January 2025

Open-Fire Policy

Israeli forces shot a father and son posing no threat, killing the 14-year-old son, in Tulkarm RC

On 28 August 2024, Israel launched Operation Summer Camp, a series of multi-day raids by Israeli forces on refugee camps and cities in the northern West Bank. During these raids, dozens of people were arrested, and extensive damage was inflicted on civilian infrastructure. The military presence in the camps and cities led to clashes and exchanges of fire between the forces and Palestinian gunmen. Dozens of Palestinians were killed during the operation...

5 January 2025