Palestine weekly wrap: Israel’s ‘quiet annexation’ grows louder
An Al Jazeera cameraman is killed in Gaza and West Bank mosques are torched, as Israeli officials describe a deliberate policy of expanding control
An Al Jazeera cameraman is killed in Gaza and West Bank mosques are torched, as Israeli officials describe a deliberate policy of expanding control – by stealth in Gaza, and by decree in the occupied West Bank. This week, the campaign of land seizure that Israeli officials have largely pursued unofficially was, in places, declared aloud. In Hebron, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had “cancelled” the 1997 Hebron Agreement, stripping the Palestinian municipality of planning authority over the Old City and Ibrahimi Mosque. In Gaza, Israeli television reported that Israel, blocked by the United States from a new ground offensive, had indeed chosen what its own officials called “creeping” or “quiet” annexation – pushing its lines of control westward without announcement. And in central Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, an Israeli strike killed Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah, the 12th member of the network’s staff killed in Gaza since October 2023. The week intensified the early summer’s trends so far: international censure mounting on the one hand, and on the other, a state extending its hold over Palestinian land in Gaza and in the West Bank, in apparent contravention of international law and agreements. Annexation – both quiet, and loud The loudest move came in Hebron. Speaking at the inauguration of the new illegal settlement of Doran, Smotrich said that Israel had annulled the Hebron Accords and now held planning authority in the H2 zone of the occupied West Bank city containing Israeli settlements and the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Israeli Foreign Ministry partially walked the claim back, saying the agreement itself had not been cancelled but that a cabinet decision months earlier had transferred planning powers over the Jewish community and holy sites. The Palestinian Authority called the move illegal, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation warned it undermined the city’s status, and even the US State Department stated it “does not support Israel annexing the West Bank”. In Gaza, the parallel process of annexation was quieter but – by Israel’s own account – deliberate. Israel’s Channel 13 reported that after the administration of US President Donald Trump blocked a larger ground operation, Israel had opted for “creeping” annexation – expanding the so-called Yellow Line westward and conducting periodic incursions without formal announcement.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights estimated Israeli forces now control roughly 64 percent of Gaza, up from the 53 percent stipulated under the October 10 ceasefire that was supposed to stop Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian enclave. The West Bank’s louder track ran through both the illegal settlement system and a brazen expansion of Israel’s security apparatus. After the Israeli army said last week that it was building its first permanent post since the Oslo Accords were signed in the 1990s inside Area A – the area of the occupied West Bank that is supposed to be under complete Palestinian administrative control – bulldozers worked through the week to establish the military base. In the northern Jordan Valley, local Palestinian activists described work advancing on the “Crimson Thread” barrier – designed to sever the area from Nablus and Tubas – after the Israeli Supreme Court lifted an order blocking it the week before. In a rare operation, hundreds of Israeli border police demolished homes at four settler outposts. But according to Wafa, the Israeli Civil Administration – led by Smotrich – also approved 576 new settlement housing units. Post-ceasefire death toll hits 1,000; Al Jazeera journalist killed More than eight months into a nominal ceasefire in Gaza, the killing persists. The Gaza Health Ministry’s post-ceasefire death toll passed 1,000 on June 17 and reached 1,024 by June 22, with the cumulative toll of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 surpassing 73,000. Briefing the United Nations Security Council on June 18, UN relief chief Tom Fletcher said more than 250 of those killed since the ceasefire were children. Amid the interminable crisis, on June 20, a strike on the Safadi family’s apartment on al-Thalathini Street in Gaza City killed a father, Hussein al-Safadi, and his daughters Lana, 14, and Zina, four, with the mother dying later of her wounds; Al Jazeera correspondents reported the area had received no warning ahead of time. The same day, in al-Bureij, a strike on the Abu Hasna family home killed three, among them Ahmad Wishah, a cameraman for Al Jazeera Mubasher and the brother of a colleague killed in April.
The BriefWire