The number of Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank has risen to 592, with more than 700,000 Israelis living in them, according to the Palestinian government’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission. The figures were reported on August 23, 2026, and cover the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem through the end of July.

The commission said 780,000 Israeli settlers were living across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem by late July. Of that total, 336,000 lived in East Jerusalem. It also said Israel currently controls 42 percent of the occupied West Bank.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem after the 1967 war, and settlement construction in the West Bank has remained a longstanding source of dispute. A large part of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law. The commission said settlement expansion continues across the West Bank, while Israeli control over a substantial part of the territory further complicates Palestinian land claims and the prospect of establishing a future state.

More than 73,000 Gaza residents have been killed since Israel’s offensive began on October 7, 2023, according to figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry. Gaza’s population was about 2.3 million before the offensive, meaning roughly one in every 33 residents has been killed. The ministry’s latest tally put the death toll at 73,419 and the number of injured at 174,364.

A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October 10 last year, but the report said Israeli forces have continued regular attacks targeting local Palestinians. Over the previous 48 hours, Israeli attacks killed two people and injured four, the ministry said. During the 10 months of the ceasefire, at least 1,285 Palestinians were killed and 4,252 injured.

The ministry also reported that 813 bodies were recovered from rubble during the ceasefire period. Many more bodies remain buried beneath debris across Gaza, it said, but cannot be recovered because of a lack of necessary equipment. UNICEF said Israeli attacks killed 20,179 children and injured 44,143 between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2025.

The Muslim World League (MWL) has strongly condemned Israel’s planned expansion of settlements in the E-1 area of the occupied West Bank, warning that it threatens the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The statement followed Israel’s recent call for tenders to build 1,234 housing units in E-1, according to the report published on August 22, 2026.

Israel’s broader plan seeks to create a continuous Israeli settlement corridor between occupied East Jerusalem and Maale Adumim. The MWL described the E-1 project as a dangerous plan and condemned what it called Israel’s illegal settlement policies across the occupied Palestinian territory.

In its statement, the organization said such actions violate international law and United Nations resolutions while obstructing all peace efforts. It urged the international community to immediately halt Israel’s settlement expansion policy and other measures intended to alter the geographic and demographic character of occupied Palestinian territory. The MWL reaffirmed support for Palestinians’ right to an independent, sovereign state, saying a two-state solution is the only path to just and lasting regional peace.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese condemned the latest killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and described the Israeli army as “the most immoral” military. In a post on X published in the context of recent incidents, she said the military was continuing genocide and accused those in power of refusing to see victims or recognize their rights to life and self-determination.

Albanese attached an image of another post commenting on the killing of a Palestinian man in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the man was Fathi Khazem, who was killed by Israeli forces at his home in Jenin on Friday.

WAFA reported that Israeli forces had sought to arrest Khazem and shot him after he resisted. It said an ambulance attempted to reach him after he was wounded, but Israeli soldiers prevented it from reaching the site, leaving him to bleed to death. WAFA also reported that Israeli forces later took away his body. Albanese presented the incidents as a serious assault on Palestinians’ lives and right to self-determination.

An analysis published on August 22, 2026 argues that Hamas has suffered severe military, organisational and governing losses in Gaza but cannot be considered dissolved. The article says Hamas lost public administrative control after a ceasefire agreement with Israel mediated by US President Donald Trump, and dissolved government committees while discussions over disarmament continue.

The report says senior leaders, military commanders and hundreds of fighters have been killed since Israel’s military campaign following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. Gaza has been devastated, and Hamas’s capacity to govern has declined. However, geopolitical analysts cited in the article argue that partial military defeat or loss of administrative authority does not end a political movement or erase its influence.

Hamas remains relevant to discussions on prisoner exchanges, ceasefire negotiations, internal security and postwar arrangements, the article says. It describes the group as a social, religious, political, military and security network, while noting public anger in Gaza and criticism of Hamas. Analysts say Hamas may be transforming rather than disappearing and would not surrender arms while Israeli troops remain in Gaza.

The UN Human Rights Office said recent Israeli attacks that killed Palestinians in Gaza could amount to war crimes and other atrocity crimes. In a Friday statement, its office in the occupied Palestinian territory also expressed concern over a continuing pattern of attacks on Gaza police personnel and facilities. It said civilians in the enclave remain exposed to regular, unpredictable and lethal attacks, even when the number of Israeli strikes occasionally falls.

The office reported that at least 22 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed in Gaza between August 13 and 19. It cited a Wednesday Israeli attack on Gaza City’s municipal police headquarters that killed eight police officers and a 13-year-old girl.

Since January, the UN office has documented 18 Israeli attacks targeting police officers across Gaza, killing 77 Palestinians, including six children and four women. It said police are protected as civilians under international humanitarian law unless they directly and actively participate in hostilities. Office head Ajit Sunghay said it was difficult to see military necessity in Israel’s continuing attacks amid Gaza’s destruction.

Israeli soldiers were accused of throwing belongings from a house in Qusra in the occupied West Bank, according to Reuters-verified video cited by Amar Desh. The footage showed several soldiers tossing items from a balcony and throwing some belongings into a well outside the home. The report was published on August 21, 2026.

Palestinian-American Louis Ridi said one of the homes was owned by his brother, Raed Ridi. He said he returned from the United States because his family home had been surrounded by Israeli settlers for more than a week. Residents have alleged that settlers’ presence around several Palestinian homes has disrupted movement and daily life.

Reuters reported that the situation involving settlers around homes in Qusra has drawn concern from the United States and other parties. Israeli troops were deployed to control the situation, but tensions remained. The Israeli military said it was examining the incidents shown in the video. Louis Ridi had previously raised a US flag on his roof, hoping it would deter attempts to take over the property, but he later had a heated argument with a settler who entered his land.

Israel has invited tenders for more than 1,200 settlement homes in the strategically important E-1 area of the occupied West Bank. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Canada expressed strong concern and called the decision “unacceptable” in a joint statement, urging its immediate withdrawal. Israel’s Housing Ministry published tenders on Wednesday for 1,234 homes within 3,401 approved housing units.

The E-1 area covers about 12 square kilometres between East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. The deadline for submitting bids is October 19, only days before Israel’s general election. The UN secretary-general said the E-1 project poses an “existential threat” to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Palestinians fear the construction would effectively divide the West Bank into northern and southern sections while isolating East Jerusalem, undermining prospects for a two-state solution. Palestinian and project opponents say it would obstruct direct links between the West Bank’s north and south and make it harder to create a contiguous Palestinian territory connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Since the 1967 war, about 700,000 Jewish people have lived in roughly 160 Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Armed Israeli settlers were accused of setting fire to a Palestinian family’s home in the South Hebron area of the occupied West Bank before dawn on August 20, 2026. Palestinian media said family members were asleep during the attack. Homeowner Mohammad al-Nawaja told the Wafa news agency that five armed, masked settlers targeted the house.

According to al-Nawaja, one attacker broke a window and threw flammable material inside, causing the home to catch fire. Palestinian media reports said settlers from the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Otniel may have been involved in the attack.

Separately, a settler blockade around several Palestinian homes in Qusra village, south of Nablus in the West Bank, entered its 12th day. Three homes remained blockaded, with residents unable to enter or leave, according to village council chairman Abdul Azim Wadi. He alleged that Israeli forces were protecting settlers and using one house as a military base. Wafa reported that the affected families faced shortages of food and medicine and worsening humanitarian conditions.

Human Rights Watch said 107 Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank have been fully or partly displaced by Israeli settler attacks since January 2023. The international rights group released the findings in a report published Thursday, as Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank has also increased at an unprecedented pace.

The organization accused the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of supporting settler violence. It said settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians receive financial, military and legal support from the Israeli state. According to the report, armed settlers sometimes carry out attacks alongside Israeli soldiers, while troops in other cases are present but do not take effective action to stop them.

Human Rights Watch called for swift international action to halt settler attacks on Palestinians. It recommended sanctions against individuals linked to serious human rights violations, an end to arms supplies to Israel, and a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements. The group also urged consideration of suspending existing special trade agreements with Israel.

Israel has begun building a facility to carry out death sentences for Palestinian prisoners, according to the report published on August 20, 2026. The Arab League strongly condemned the move, warning that any execution would be considered a war crime and would require international accountability.

In a statement, the League described the initiative as a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights. It said the plan breaches international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, its protocols and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which require protections for prisoners in occupied Palestinian territory against inhumane or arbitrary treatment.

The Arab League said a law passed by Israel’s parliament in March expanding use of the death penalty for offences related to “terrorism,” along with preparations for execution infrastructure, forms part of a systematic policy. Human rights groups had warned the law could be applied discriminatorily against Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, with many detained administratively without trial, a practice rights groups have long criticized as arbitrary and unfair.

The family of five-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab has rejected an Israeli military investigation into her killing in Gaza and called for an independent international inquiry. Hind’s grandmother made the demand in comments to Anadolu after the Israeli military acknowledged for the first time that soldiers fired at the vehicle carrying the child. The article was published on August 20, 2026.

Her grandmother said the family has no trust in either the Israeli investigation or Israel’s judicial system. She said they seek justice not only for Hind as a child from Gaza, but also on behalf of all children killed in Gaza. The reported incident also killed six of Hind’s relatives and two Palestinian Red Crescent medical workers who tried to rescue her.

Hind was among seven family members traveling in a car in Gaza City in January 2024 while fleeing an Israeli attack on the devastated city. Her uncle, aunt and three cousins were killed in the vehicle, while Hind was trapped and made a phone call. The report says she was later killed by Israeli fire. Israel had previously said no soldiers were present at the location that day.

Gaza was the world’s deadliest place for humanitarian aid workers in 2025 for the third consecutive year, according to United Nations data cited by the report. A total of 186 aid workers were killed in the Palestinian territory during the year. Sudan ranked as the next deadliest country, where 71 aid workers were killed amid the continuing conflict.

United Nations data and the Aid Worker Security Database recorded 907 aid workers killed, injured or abducted worldwide in 2025, a record combined total compared with 833 in 2024. Of those affected in 2025, 350 were killed, down from 387 deaths in the previous year. A separate UN report said at least 326 humanitarian workers were killed globally in 2025, while more than 1,000 have died over the past three years.

The UN said the growing use of cheap, readily available armed drones in conflict areas was among factors increasing attacks on aid workers. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the level of violence as horrific and called for compliance with international humanitarian law and accountability for attackers. In 2026 so far, 82 aid workers have been killed, 97 injured and 39 abducted worldwide.

Israel has issued eviction orders affecting Palestinian families in Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Lydda, according to a report published on August 17. In Silwan, a Palestinian-populated area of occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities had previously ordered the eviction of three homes owned by the Maragha family.

The Wafa news agency said Israeli forces also conducted operations around the homes in Silwan, where residents face the threat of forced displacement. It reported that occupying forces carried out overnight operations in the towns of Al Shawara and Ja’atra, east of Bethlehem. The Maragha family said it has lived in the homes for decades.

Wafa also reported that more than 70 Palestinian families in Lydda received eviction orders. The families said they had lived in their homes since before the establishment of the State of Israel and alleged that Israel was seeking to take control of their land. They said they were not willing to leave their homes under any circumstances.

Pope Leo called for an end to violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amid increased attacks and violence by extremist Jewish settlers. Speaking after Sunday midday prayers in Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, he renewed his appeal to halt repeated violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

Human rights groups said settlers surrounded Palestinian homes after water and electricity connections were cut, describing this as a planned effort to seize more Palestinian land and expand Jewish settlements. Pope Leo also urged the international community to take urgent action to advance a two-state solution for a just and lasting peace.

The Vatican has long supported the concept of a future Palestinian state, including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government is overseeing extensive settlement construction in the West Bank. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the aim of the construction is to bury the idea of establishing a Palestinian state. The United Nations and most governments consider the settlements illegal under international law, while Israel argues the territory is disputed rather than occupied.