Palestine weekly: Gaza marks year of ‘ceasefire’ with more Israeli killing

Notably, the Gaza "ceasefire" marked its first anniversary on October 10, but more than 100 humanitarian and human rights organisations remarked it exists "in name only".

Key points

• The Israeli rights group Yesh Din had already documented 109 harvest-related settler incidents throughout 75 Palestinian communities in a 10-day period between September 27 and October 6.
• The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission recorded 19 settler attacks on Friday alone, another 12 on Saturday and 18 more on Sunday, according to Wafa.
• More than 18, 500 patients need medical evacuation and more than 1, 000 have died waiting, according to the joint NGO statement.
• The Israeli military remarked two men killed near the Jordanian Field Hospital were Islamic Jihad operatives; Wafa identified one as a lately published former prisoner.
• A Physicians for Human Rights Israel report discovered that a year into the ceasefire, not one of Gaza's 36 hospitals is operating at full capacity.

According to Islamic Relief, israeli forces have killed or wounded a Palestinian in Gaza on average every 90 minutes since the ceasefire took effect.

Gaza's Health Ministry put the toll since the truce at 1, 493 killed and 5, 299 wounded as of October 12, up from 1, 460 a week earlier; the cumulative death toll since October 2023 stood at 74, 382. Among the Palestinians killed in Gaza over the past week.

Four Palestinians were killed in a drone strike near Panda Mall in western Gaza City on Saturday. It israel remarked targeted members of Hamas's Nukhba force.

Additionally on Saturday, eight-year-old Shahd al-Najjar was killed by Israeli fire that struck her inside her tent in western Gaza City.

Seven-year-old Jihad al-Ghandour died of wounds from a separate shooting near Jabalia camp north of Gaza City on Sunday.

Meanwhile, a child and his mother were killed Thursday when Israeli warplanes struck a home in Gaza City's al-Sabra neighbourhood after an evacuation warning.

In practice, a drone strike on a charging point west of Khan Younis killed four individuals on Sunday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa noted.

Two more men were killed in a strike near a mosque in al-Mawasi in the south on Monday.

In statements describing attacks, Israel's military asserted a number of of those killed this week were Palestinian fighters.

Notably, the Israeli military remarked two men killed near the Jordanian Field Hospital were Islamic Jihad operatives; Wafa identified one as a lately published former prisoner.

It separately remarked a civil defence worker killed while responding to the wounded near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza had been a Hamas sniper; Hamas rejected the claim, and it has not been independently verified. Gaza's health system continued its collapse.

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, 44 percent of essential medicines are completely out of stock.

Notably, a Physicians for Human Rights Israel report discovered that a year into the ceasefire, not one of Gaza's 36 hospitals is operating at full capacity.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry remarked this week that no patient had been permitted to leave through Rafah crossing in the last week.

Israeli forces have additionally continued pushing the so-called Yellow Line demarcating Israeli control further into residential Gaza City neighbourhoods this week, triggering fresh displacement.

One year into the ceasefire, the Board of Peace – Gaza's transitional oversight body – has failed to meet most of its central commitments: no international stabilisation force has deployed, aid trucks are entering at roughly a third of the agreed rate, and Israel now controls almost two thirds of the Strip – well above the roughly 50 percent it was supposed to retain before further withdrawal and a future handover of control to Palestinians. Olive harvest under coordinated assault.

For context, the Palestinian olive harvest – traditionally a time of family and celebration – gathered pace as Israeli settlers and soldiers intensified efforts to disrupt it. While isolated families faced dayslong settler sieges, harvesters were killed, attacked and blocked.

On October 7, Ali Hassan Yasser al-Bazzari, 44, was shot dead when settlers and soldiers opened fire on olive pickers on farmland between Burqa and Ramin, northwest of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. At least 16 others were wounded during the pogrom, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

In practice, the Palestine Red Crescent Society remarked Israeli forces assaulted ambulance crews trying to reach the wounded olive pickers and briefly detained three paramedics. While the settlers who carried out the attack marched past unimpeded, soldiers afterwards raided the nearby village and produced arrests.

In practice, the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission recorded 19 settler attacks on Friday alone, another 12 on Saturday and 18 more on Sunday, according to Wafa.

Meanwhile, the Israeli rights group Yesh Din had already documented 109 harvest-related settler incidents throughout 75 Palestinian communities in a 10-day period between September 27 and October 6.

In practice, the commission notes settlers and soldiers have destroyed roughly 50, 000 trees so far this year.

In practice, the attacks followed a familiar shape village to village, according to Wafa and field reports from local residents and activists.

Settlers in Qusra stole a farmer's olives before bulldozing more than 50 of his trees.

In Birin, settlers from the lately established Adorim outpost set a dog on a 79-year-old woman harvesting nearby, hospitalizing her.

Settlers from the same outpost cut power to roughly 20 homes repeatedly over the week.

In al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, soldiers followed settlers into the village's residential streets on Sunday, kicked an elderly woman trying to reach her home, and fired live rounds and tear gas into houses "without apparent reason, " according to Israeli field monitor Jonathan Pollack. The daily incursions are part of a monthslong campaign by settlers against villagers there.

At Deir Abu Mash'al, a solidarity harvest organised by the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission drew an attack by settlers in Area B that left eight individuals wounded, including a photojournalist shot in the thigh, Wafa noted.

Israeli forces frequently blocked the harvest, too. Soldiers applied drone-mounted loudspeakers to drive farmers out of Wadi Abwein and turned pickers away in a number of locations elsewhere.

Israeli settlers' own chat groups reveal how they frame such attacks in reverse – through a messianic lens, casting Palestinian harvesters reaching their own land in Deir Abu Mash'al as attempting to "seize" the land, and the olive harvest itself as cover for Palestinians gathering "intelligence" rather than picking olives that families have harvested there for generations. Settlers have been documented repeatedly stealing olives from Palestinians' lands since harvesting unofficially began late last month. Political jockeying ahead of elections.

Once again, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas postponed Palestinian legislative elections – this time to September, citing Israeli restrictions on election materials and observers entering Gaza and East Jerusalem, and ongoing settler violence. Mustafa Barghouti, of the Palestinian National Initiative, remarked the decision reflects that "everything is concentrated in the hands of the executive authority", with no parliament or independent judiciary to check it.

In Israel, with high-stakes parliamentary elections scheduled for October 27, Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen remarked his alliance – produced up predominantly of Palestinian citizens of Israel – was prepared to backing a coalition against current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from outside administration.

For context, the backing would be given in exchange for policy commitments, including a pathway to Palestinian statehood, The Times of Israel noted – a potential route to a majority that polls suggest neither bloc can reach without Arab party backing.

After a district court rejected a request to freeze the orders; roughly 60 homes face demolition, israeli authorities additionally began demolishing homes this week in al-Dahiya, an unrecognised Bedouin village in the Naqab.

In diplomatic news, the UK's consulate in occupied East Jerusalem formally became a reduced "mission" after Israel's deadline for its closure passed; it has long handled the UK's relations with Palestinians.

In short, palestine weekly: Gaza marks year of 'ceasefire' with more Israeli killing is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.