On the Agenda

On Saturday evening, 25 January 2025, Israeli soldiers entered the village of Muthallath a-Shuhada in Jenin District in three civilian vehicles with Palestinian license plates, and took over the home of the a-Sukar family on the main street.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.  

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.  

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. Read more...

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...

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.

For us, Iyad embodied professional integrity, a commitment to seeking the truth, and an unwavering, principled fight to uphold justice and morality.

His unique contribution, over decades, to the struggle for human rights will remain with us.

May his memory be blessed

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.

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...