There was a time when various developments of the past week – such as the Israeli government spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote an ultra-nationalist march, an approved settler leading a livestock raid with the army on a Palestinian village, and Israel’s finance minister calling for the full military occupation and settlement of Gaza while speaking while demolishing settlements in the occupied West Bank – were met with outrage or debate in few corners of Israeli society.
However, this week, they have become routine, as UN experts describe Israeli policy as “ethnically cleansing the West Bank through daily attacks, resulting in the killing, injury and mutilation of women and children, and the widespread destruction of Palestinian homes, agricultural land and livelihoods”.
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Against that backdrop, this past week brought intensified and coordinated settler attacks on villages near Ramallah, continued Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza, new evictions and demolitions in occupied East Jerusalem, and US-Hamas diplomatic talks in Cairo that showed some semblance of progress – while falling well short of what both sides demanded.
Gaza: attacks, starvation, and partial offer on weapons
Israeli airstrikes, shelling and drone attacks continued throughout the week across the Gaza Strip as the humanitarian crisis deepened.
On 14 April, an attack on a police vehicle on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City killed four people, including three-year-old Yahya al-Malahi, whose father said his family was leaving for a relative’s wedding. At least five more people were killed in an attack on the Shati refugee camp later the same day.
On 16 April, brothers Abdelmalek and Abdel Sattar al-Attar were killed in Beit Lahiya in an area that witnesses said was outside Israeli military control along the so-called “Yellow Line”. On 17 April, brothers Mahmoud and Eid Abu Warda were shot by a drone while trying to fetch water in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City; A drone separately attacked a water desalination facility in the same area, killing another person. The following day, two civilian contractors delivering water on behalf of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) were shot by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza.
Since the October ceasefire, as of April 20, 777 Palestinians have been killed and at least 2,193 wounded in Gaza. The cumulative death toll since October 7, 2023, is 72,553 – a figure revised this week after the Gaza Health Ministry certified an additional 196 deaths.
Meanwhile, aid access into Gaza remains severely constrained. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN and partner aid flows declined by 37 percent between the first and second three-month periods following the ceasefire. Bakeries have reduced production due to shortages in flour and fuel, with Palestinians reporting hours-long queues for bread.
Peace board envoy Nikolay Mladenov told an Egyptian news channel this week that Israeli cross-border restrictions remain the “primary obstacle” to adequate aid reaching Gaza.
On the diplomatic front, direct US-Hamas talks in Cairo this week focused on implementing phase-one commitments before any discussion of disarmament. No official agreement has been reached.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the army to “immediately prepare for the full occupation of the Gaza Strip” and establish Israeli settlements there if Hamas refuses to completely disarm. Smotrich made the announcement while attending a ceremony to commemorate the re-establishment of the illegal settlement of Sa-Nour, which was previously destroyed by Israel in 2005 along with several other settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank.
Coordinated attacks and killings in the West Bank
The week’s most sustained violence in the West Bank occurred in a cluster of villages northeast of Ramallah – Khirbet Abu Falah, al-Mughayir and Turmus Aya – where three new illegal Jewish outposts have been established in the past two months, all on privately owned Palestinian land in Area B, which is considered to be under the limited administrative control of the Palestinian Authority. One such outpost was built on land from which the Abu Najjeh community – already forcibly displaced from Ain Samia in the summer of 2023 – had recently been violently expelled.
According to local activists, on 18 April, settlers launched simultaneous coordinated attacks on all three villages. In Turmus Aya, residents who arrived in more than a dozen vehicles burned a house and a car, according to local activists, after a military force near a checkpoint refused to intervene. In Khirbet Abu Falah, dozens of residents gathered at a newly established checkpoint before descending on Palestinian homes; According to local people, the soldiers themselves later raided the village. In al-Mughayir, soldiers stopped two small children playing in the street and pushed them to the ground. They left before settlers on government-supplied quad bikes attacked a Palestinian driver on a nearby road.
The next morning, settlers raided a sheep pen in al-Mughayyir and stole 70 sheep. Activists said that when residents chased them, residents opened fire with live ammunition. Israeli military and police then escorted the founder of the Or Nachman outpost, Amishav Malat, back to the village, where he led a raid he claimed was to recover stolen sheep – a tactic that local activists say is regularly used to justify further theft. According to local activists, a Palestinian resident was beaten unconscious by police. Soldiers then enabled Neria Ben Pazzi – the founder of another local illegal outpost, which is internationally sanctioned by Australia, Belgium, France and Britain – to steal sheep from a banned Palestinian resident. At least 20 military vehicles later cordoned off the entrance to the village.
Beyond these villages, settler attacks on herders, farmers, and residents were documented in several communities, including the cutting down of olive trees in Yattama near Nablus, and the theft of livestock and crops in Jifna and several communities in Masafar Yatta. The settlers erected a barbed wire fence along the path that Umm al-Khair’s children use to reach their school, blocking their safe access.
On 16 April, Israeli forces raided Beit Dukku, northwest of Jerusalem, during which they shot and killed 17-year-old Mohammed Rayan. Soldiers prevented ambulances from treating him, instead removing his body – depriving his family of proper Muslim burial rites. Four others were shot alive. On 18 April, Israeli forces killed Mohammed Suwaiti, 25, in Khirbet Salama, southwest of Hebron, claiming he was heading towards the illegal settlement of Negahhot.
According to the latest OCHA humanitarian situation report, in 2026, more than 2,500 Palestinians are expected to be displaced by demolitions, settler attacks and evictions – including more than 1,100 children. Settler attacks now account for 75 percent of all displacement recorded this year, with the monthly number of settler injuries recorded in March since documentation began in 2006.
Al Jazeera has contacted the Israeli military for comment on the incidents reported this week, but has not yet received a response.
East Jerusalem expulsion
Demolition and evictions continued at a rapid pace in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities demolished the home of 80-year-old cancer patient Abu Kamel Dweik in the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, at least the eighth demolition in the area this month.
According to OCHA, since January 2026, at least 86 Palestinian-owned structures have been demolished in East Jerusalem, displacing more than 250 people, about half of which have been demolished by their owners to avoid additional fines.
In addition to more home demolitions expected in al-Bustan soon, the extended Basha family – six households consisting of 12 people, most of whom are over 60, who have been living in the city’s Muslim quarter for nearly a century – now face court-ordered eviction by April 26.
This week also saw Israeli media reports that the Netanyahu government is allocating about 1.2 million shekels ($400,000) to expand ultra-nationalist Jerusalem Day marches across the country next month – an annual event marked by obscene, racist slogans and violent attacks on Palestinian neighborhoods.
With such funding, the march is being expanded to several mixed Jewish-Arab cities, including Lid (Lod), where clashes on Jerusalem Day in 2021 turned into days of violence. The state is now directly subsidizing such events, reflecting the widespread influence of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose reach over police operations has itself become the subject of a rare legal challenge.
Israel’s High Court this week ordered Ben-Gvir to reach an agreement with the attorney general to stop his political interference in police work, after alleged violations of a prior agreement not to do so. Critics say his tenure has radicalized police attitudes toward Palestinians – a charge bolstered by documented incidents of police facilitating settler attacks and, in some cases, directly participating in violence against Palestinian residents.
