Palestine in Review: Al‑Aqsa Tensions, West Bank Violence, and Gaza Infrastructure Collapse

This week’s events provided a snapshot of the intensifying dynamics shaping the Palestinian territories. Israeli ministers and settlers asserted a heightened presence at the Al‑Aqsa Mosque compound, while a pardon was granted to a soldier previously convicted of killing a wounded Palestinian. Simultaneously, a tender for a key settlement project advanced, timed to finalize just days before Israelis go to the polls on October 27. As Israeli political leaders pursue expansionist and messianic agendas during Judaism’s holiest days, attacks, demolitions, and closures have persisted across the occupied territories, with repercussions projected to outlast the seasonal shift.

Occupied East Jerusalem: A holy day consumed by campaigning and closures

On the eve of Yom Kippur, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured excavation tunnels beneath the Al‑Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old City before joining thousands of settlers for prayers at the Western Wall, which is secured behind bulletproof glass. The following morning, National Security Minister Itamar Ben‑Gvir entered the mosque compound under heavy police protection, and roughly 570 settlers performed religious rituals there, breaching the site’s established status quo. More than 450 additional settlers entered the compound the next morning, according to the news agency Wafa. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry, which holds custodianship over the site, condemned the incursions as an attempt “to impose a temporal and spatial division” of the compound.

During the same holiday period, Israeli forces closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to Muslim worshippers from Sunday afternoon until Monday night, while allowing settlers unrestricted access for holiday celebrations. The mosque’s call to prayer has been banned for 90 consecutive days.

West Bank: Killings and Villages Under Siege

On September 20, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man near the illegal Ganim settlement east of Jenin, alleging an attempted vehicular attack. Earlier that day, an Israeli settler was fatally shot near the illegal Halamish settlement; Israeli forces detained a suspect, Qadri Muhammad Samara from Biddu, after a violent raid on a hospital where he had been receiving treatment for injuries. Soldiers subsequently raided Samara’s home village, forcing members of three families into a single house and assaulting four men inside, according to local reports.

Ben‑Gvir promptly called for Samara to face the death penalty, describing the case as “the first that meets the criteria” of a Knesset‑passed law from March that permits military courts to sentence Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis to death, while offering no equivalent provision for Israelis who kill Palestinians. Netanyahu ordered the demolition of Samara’s family home and deployed additional forces across the West Bank. Israeli troops sealed all entrances to Ramallah and el‑Bireh and conducted a sweeping predawn arrest raid in Biddu on Monday, per Wafa.

In a separate development, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog expunged the criminal record of Elor Azaria, the soldier convicted in 2017 of manslaughter for shooting dead a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian, Abdul Fattah al‑Sharif, in Hebron in 2016. Israel’s military chief of staff opposed the pardon, noting Azaria “has refrained from expressing remorse… even a decade after his conviction.” Defense Minister Israel Katz welcomed the move, framing it as sending “an important message… [that] we do not abandon our fighters.”

Additionally, Moataz al‑Atrash, a 21‑year‑old Palestinian from Hebron, died this week in Ofer Prison after more than 11 months of administrative detention without charge. His family reported no prior health issues. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reported that the confirmed number of prisoner deaths since October 2023 now stands at 92.

Settler attacks continued across the West Bank, with security forces standing aside or actively assisting. A notable concentration occurred in Burqa, near Ramallah, where settlers struck on September 19 and returned the following afternoon to occupy an agricultural structure on the village’s eastern edge, apparently preparing it for habitation—a potential new illegal outpost.

As the olive harvest season approaches, settlers cut down Palestinian trees in Yabad, Nilin, and Khirbet Firasin near Jenin this week. They also grazed sheep through Palestinian olive groves in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, according to field reports.

Demolitions and displacement proceeded in parallel. Israeli forces razed a community structure in Deir Ballut, west of Salfit, and a two‑story home in Masafer Yatta housing eight people—most of them children. Settlers then prevented the displaced family from erecting a replacement tent. In Tulkarem, occupation forces posted notices seizing land around the Banat Yacoub shrine and other sites under the pretext of archaeological preservation. The shrine is registered as property of the Islamic Waqf, according to Wafa.

Gaza: Infrastructure Collapse Amid Mounting Shortages

In Gaza, deadly strikes persisted while infrastructure disintegrated on multiple fronts. On September 19, an Israeli drone strike killed the eldest son of Gaza’s Health Ministry director‑general moments after he stepped out of his displacement tent. The same day, a drone strike on a civilian vehicle in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan market killed one person and wounded four; the victim’s body was burned beyond recognition after the vehicle caught fire for half an hour before rescuers could reach it.

Days earlier, a pattern described by Gaza‑based activists as an apparent double‑tap strike claimed the life of a 15‑year‑old boy who rushed to assist a paramedic wounded in an earlier attack. This reflects a broader trend in which Israel has killed roughly one child per day in Gaza since an October 2025 “ceasefire.” By September 21, 2026, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported 1,394 deaths since the “ceasefire” and a cumulative total of 73,914 since October 2023, with thousands of bodies still believed buried under rubble.

Following several recent collapses, a six‑story building in Gaza City’s al‑Sinaa district—already weakened by earlier Israeli strikes—crashed onto residents and nearby displacement tents on September 16, killing 21 people, 12 of them children. Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Al Jazeera that nearly 100 people remained trapped under the rubble as crews worked with severely inadequate equipment. A second building collapsed in al‑Sabra two days later. Gaza’s Ministry of Public Works warned that more than 2,000 damaged structures across Gaza remain at risk of similar failure.

Parallel to physical collapse, Gaza’s health system continued to deteriorate. Seventy percent of hospital generators are now non‑functional due to lack of fuel and spare parts, according to medical sources cited by Wafa, while al‑Ahli Arab Hospital’s main generator has failed for lack of oil and spare parts, taking offline the only functioning CT scanner in northern Gaza.

On September 17, Israeli authorities blocked the exit of part of a medical evacuation convoy, reducing the number of patients and family members allowed to travel to Egypt for treatment from 136 to 61. The Health Ministry accepted only the most critical cases and sent the rest back in protest, warning that the policy constitutes “a flagrant violation of the right to medical treatment” that exposes patients to “the risk of death,” per Wafa.

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