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Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Two vehicles were hit and reduced to twisted wreckage in Gaza City. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)
In short:
Officials in Gaza say Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City have killed at least three Palestinians, including two children.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says a senior Hamas militant was arrested.
A third child was killed in a separate incident in central Gaza.
At
least three Palestinians have been killed by gunfire and airstrikes in
Gaza City during an Israeli-backed raid, according to Gaza officials.
An
Israeli special force had tried to carry out an operation in Gaza City
before being detected by Hamas and launched heavy airstrikes to cover
their withdrawal, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media
office, Ismail Al-Thawabta said.
Israeli
Defence Minister Israel Katz said a senior Hamas militant had been
arrested with an Israeli security official saying the man was the head
of Hamas' internal security service.
Some
Israeli media reports said the raid may have been carried out by
members of an Israeli-backed militia that operates from
Israeli-controlled areas inside Gaza.
Witnesses
said Israeli warplanes fired at least 12 missiles near the Katiba area
in the west of Gaza City, an area crowded with displaced families.
Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes and gunfire in Gaza City. (Reuters: Ebrahim Hajjaj)
At least three people — two children and a woman — were killed and several others wounded in the bombardment, medics said.
Two vehicles were hit and reduced to twisted wreckage. Another child was killed in Israeli fire in central Gaza, medics said.
In
a statement on Tuesday, local time, the Israeli military said it struck
several targets in the Gaza Strip in order to remove threats to Israeli
security forces.
Mr Katz did not provide details about the arrest operation or identify the Hamas militant.
"This
is our policy: we do not wait for threats, but rather pursue Hamas
terrorists, thwart them, and destroy their terror infrastructure," he
said, speaking from the Netiv HaAsara community near the northern Gaza
border.
In a separate incident,
medics said a girl was killed and two other people were wounded when
Israeli forces operating east of Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza opened
fire on the area.
Ceasefire has not stopped strikes
A US-backed ceasefire that took effect in October 2025 halted the large-scale fighting that had devastated the enclave, but it has not ended Israeli strikes.
The military says such operations are intended to prevent attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.
Hamas
accuses Israel of repeatedly violating the ceasefire and undermining
efforts to advance a broader plan by US President Donald Trump to end
the war.
The plan includes further Israeli troop withdrawals from Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.
More
than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire
came into force last October, according to Gaza health officials.
The Israeli military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed in militant attacks during the same period.
An IDF strike killed seven aid workers, including Australian Zomi Frankcom in 2024. (Supplied)
In short:
World
Central Kitchen's chief José Andrés has hit back at an Israeli
commander who defended the decision to strike a convoy that killed
Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom.
He
released the video after an ABC interview with Israeli colonel Nochi
Mendel, who ordered the 2024 drone strike that killed Ms Frankcom and
six of her colleagues in Gaza.
What's next?
The WCK chief has also renewed calls for an independent investigation into the April 2024 attack.
World
Central Kitchen has hit back at an Israeli commander who defended the
decision to strike a convoy that killed seven aid workers, including
Australian Zomi Frankcom, saying "we will never accept the death of
humanitarian workers".
In a video on X, the organisation's chief José Andrés said there was "never an excuse for killing" humanitarians.
He released the video in response to an ABC interview with Israeli colonel Nochi Mendel,
who ordered the deadly drone strike on an aid convoy in Gaza that
killed Ms Frankcom, along with six of her colleagues, in April 2024.
Colonel Mendel told the ABC he did not intend to harm aid workers but said, "I'm not sorry for what I did."
He
said he later became aware of what he claims were links between World
Central Kitchen (WCK) and Hamas, describing the organisation as not
"really a neutral organisation" — allegations the WCK calls "false and
outrageous".
A spokesperson for the WCK told the ABC that "this is the latest attempt to shift blame away from the IDF's own actions".
Responding
to Colonel Mendel's interview, which was published last week after
being conducted in October 2025, Mr Andrés refuted the commander's
claims.
"He said we are not a neutral organisation. Really? Let me be very clear to him and to the whole world," he said.
"We are humanitarians."
The organisation also renewed calls for an independent investigation into the April 2024 attack.
José Andrés also renewed calls for an independent investigation into the April 2024 attack. (AP Photo: Efrem Lukatsky, File)
Colonel
Mendel, the commander who ordered the attack, was sacked from his role
as chief of staff for the Israeli military's Nahal infantry brigade.
However,
as part of a wider release of military findings on August 19, the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would not pursue a criminal
investigation or take additional measures against anyone involved in the
incident.
The Frankcom family was "deeply disappointed" by the decision and called for an independent investigation.
"We
want an independent investigation, with all the video on audio released
in public, so the world can know the truth," Mr Andrés said, echoing Ms
Frankcom's family.
"Because we continue to grieve for our friends. We will never forget them or stop fighting for them."
On
April 1, 2024, the group was travelling in three armoured cars branded
with the WCK logo and driving through part of the Gaza Strip that had
been declared a "humanitarian fire control zone" while coordinating
movements with the IDF.
An
Israeli drone fired three missiles at the convoy — one at each of the
cars in succession — as survivors of the initial strike attempted to
move from one vehicle to another.
In
findings released on August 19 this year, the IDF said it identified a
gunman on a truck in the humanitarian aid convoy and believed the
situation "corresponded to a scenario in which the Hamas terrorist
organisation had taken control of the convoy" and claimed the convoy
deviated from the approved route.
In
response to the findings, WCK said the IDF had full knowledge that the
team was unarmed and was aware of its movement, identities and
activities in advance.
Palestinians look at a vehicle where WCF employees were killed. (Reuters: Ahmed Zakot)
"They knew there was no excuse," Mr Andrés reiterated in the video.
"They knew everything about our operations in Gaza in real time. In fact, there were clear orders not to fire on our people."
At
the time, the IDF said the attack was a grave mistake, arising from
misidentification of the occupants of the convoy as Hamas members.
An
Australian investigation into the Israeli government's response to the
incident, led by retired defence chief Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin
and published August 2, 2024, found the deaths had been the result of
the first vehicle being misidentified due to a number of factors.
They
included the presence of armed security in the vicinity, confirmation
bias and a "failure within the IDF to fully disseminate and/or read the
detailed movement plan approved by the convoy".
As part of the recent release on various IDF investigations into civilian deaths since October 7, the military said it did conclude there were serious failures.
It
said the IDF "mistakenly believed that the vehicles contained Hamas
military operatives and therefore struck the vehicles", but had stopped
short of launching a criminal investigation.
Two IDF commanders — including Colonel Mendel — have already been stripped of their ranks as colonel and major.
A colonel, a major general and a brigadier general have also been reprimanded over the incident.
The ABC's Unravel podcast is investigating the incident, with a report due later this year.
It prompted another round of condemnation from senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself.
He
labelled them a "handful of rioters who are violating the law, causing a
grave injustice to the law-abiding Jewish community, interfering with
the [Israel Defense Forces (IDF)] in carrying out its missions, and
harming Israel's standing in the world".
The
rhetoric is familiar. These are a few bad eggs who are using violence
to enforce their belief the West Bank is their God-given land, and,
officials say, do not represent the wider settler community who share
that creed.
Add to that the argument that this is bad publicity.
If
the issue is indeed what officials call a small number of offenders,
and quite separate from the issue that all Israeli settlement in the
occupied Palestinian territories is considered illegal under
international law, the situation poses an obvious question that no
Israeli official seems able or willing to answer.
Why can't one of the most powerful militaries in the world stop it from happening?
The answer, as it often does, comes down to politics.
Settlers,
many of whom appeared to be young men or teenagers, had besieged homes
on the edge of town, cutting power and water supplies as they tried to
force the residents to leave.
The ABC talks to a villager who is trapped in his West Bank home.
One
of the properties was owned by a Palestinian-American businessman who
demanded intervention from the US embassy. His highly publicised
position likely a factor in the United States ambassador to Israel Mike
Huckabee branding the attackers "Israeli terrorists".
A
fortnight on, and the situation persists. Despite the area being
declared a military zone, settlers continue to harass and attack
Palestinians.
When the
operation began one person had been detained. The ABC asked the IDF and
Israeli police for an update on whether more arrests had been made. The
IDF said it was a police matter, and a police source told the ABC no-one
had been arrested.
On
a Friday in late July, some Israeli settlers were on what they
described as a "hike" from a nearby settlement, without seeking the
approval of the IDF, when they came into contact with a group
Palestinians on the edge of the village.
The Israelis said the Palestinians attacked them, while the Palestinians said the Israelis were the aggressors.
Video
from the scene shows one of the Palestinian men grabbing a settler's
gun and opening fire, then later shows Israeli soldiers opening fire on
the group as the melee continued.
Two settlers and four Palestinians were killed.
What
followed was not only a wave of settler violence, with buildings and
cars firebombed and people attacked, but a massive security crackdown by
Israeli forces.
Between
Friday, when the initial shooting occurred, and Sunday evening, Israeli
police arrested more than 130 people, all Palestinians.
And
that is just one example of the tough approach Israeli forces take
against Palestinians, with arrests happening across the West Bank each
and every day.
'Acts' vs 'terrorism': Politics surrounds violence
The issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is deeply political.
All
settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are considered
illegal under international law, but the Israeli government denies their
illegality, and even supports them.
None
of the major Israeli-led parties vying for votes and attention ahead of
the October 27 election want to show weakness on the issue, insisting
they support communities in "Judea and Samaria", the biblical names for
the region.
Settlers set upon the American network NBC in the town of Jalud. (Supplied: NBC News)
The
language politicians use to describe settler violence is also very
different to what they use to describe Palestinian violence in the West
Bank, which is often quickly labelled as "terrorism".
Take,
for example, the prime minister's international spokesperson Doron
Spielman's description of the weekend settler violence as "acts …
committed by a small group of rioters, many from broken homes".
"They
do not represent the law-abiding Jewish community in Judea and Samaria;
on the contrary, they cause that community a grave injustice," he said.
With Qusra
in the spotlight, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF
would draft a plan to hand over security control for civilian matters in
the West Bank to Israeli police.
Some
in the Israeli media characterised that as an attempt to distance his
ministry, and the military, from the growing mess it was faced with
clearing up.
Concerns were also
raised about the legality of such a move, with reporting suggesting the
military would likely tell Katz that shifting security responsibility
from the military to the police would require formal annexation of
territory.
Commentators also
insisted it played into the hands of Israel's right-wing national
security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has control over the police.
Along with far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, he has frequently called to expand settlements.
Despite
critics of Israel's occupation of the West Bank saying its conduct
amounts to de facto annexation, a formal declaration or change in its
legal status has not occurred.
US President Donald Trump, perhaps the only world leader Netanyahu listens to, has previously said he would not allow it.
This
is why the response to settler violence has, thus far, been muted. The
people holding the levers of power in the government to act are not
interested in dealing with it.
Israeli Knesset member posts video of vandalising Martyr's Memorial in West Bank. (Zvi Sukkot via Facebook)
Analysts
also say that within the IDF there is a lack of will to act against the
settlers, either due to general apathy about the situation they're
causing, a fear that soldiers don't have the political backing to tackle
them, or the reality that more and more settlers are now in the ranks
of the Israeli military itself.
The
United Nations has reported a sharp rise in Palestinians attacked by
Israeli settlers, from an average of one Palestinian injured every three
days in 2020 to more than three per day in 2026.
Since
the start of the year, 23 Palestinians have been killed and more than
1,040 injured in settler attacks in the West Bank, the organisation's
latest figures said.
In a
24-hour period from Friday morning to Saturday morning, activists
recorded at least 13 different incidents of settler attacks ranging from
using live fire against Palestinians, stealing livestock, cutting down
fruit trees and setting fire to farmland.
Warnings about settler violence go unheeded
One
Israeli politician, Gilad Kariv of the Democrats, labelled the prime
minister's latest condemnation as "meaningless" and "nothing more than a
fraudulent exercise".
"These rioters are his direct emissaries, Katz's, Smotrich's and Ben-Gvir's," Kariv said.
"This
is why there have been no arrests and no indictments in recent weeks
against the invaders. This is why they are granted de facto immunity by
the IDF and the police.
"Netanyahu's
goal is to cause an explosion in the territories ahead of the
elections. Once again, a bunch of lunatics are betting on the lives of
Israelis and Palestinians for the sake of political survival."
In
late April, the former chief of Israeli spy agency Mossad, Tamir Pardo,
toured some of the West Bank villages and towns being targeted by
settlers. He told the country's Channel 13 what he saw made him "ashamed
to be a Jew".
He warned it was
fuelling such anger among Palestinians that it was "planting the seeds
of the next October 7" attack against Israel.
Both
the IDF and the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, Israeli media
has reported, have warned the situation in the West Bank is getting out
of control.
For a country that
prides itself on being able to target what it claims are threats against
Israel in places like Gaza and Lebanon, cleaning up what it describes
as its own backyard seems much more difficult; or, more specifically, of
much less interest.
Four Corners journalist Jim Downes described early versions of the computer as "metal boxes". (ABC: Four Corners)
In
March 1968, in a rich, British accent typical of Australian news
reporters of the time, Four Corners journalist Jim Downes asked the
country: "When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?"
By
"circuit", Mr Downes was referring to the computer — a technological
innovation at once revered and feared by a 1960s Australian society
already living through massive social, political and cultural change.
Mr
Downes, a brilliant wordsmith, described computers as "metal boxes of
salmon-pink, beige or deep blue, trimmed in stainless steel or
aluminium", which "promise or threaten the mind with what the industrial
revolution did to the muscles".
"Computers
fracture time into billions of a second — nanoseconds — the time taken
for a calculation," he explained, over slightly grainy black-and-white
video of men dressed in white lab coats working in rooms filled with
bulky machinery and flashing buttons.
"The human operator is one bottle-neck, another is translation of the machine's work into language we can understand.
"To a computer, a man is a number, a pattern of holes in a punch card, a recorded symbol on magnetic tape or disk."
In 1968, there were fewer than 600 computers in Australia. (ABC: Four Corners)
The
Four Corners report, unearthed from the ABC's vast digitised archive,
aired at a tipping point in the computer's rapid evolution in Australia.
There
were fewer than 600 computers in the country at the time, but already
the machines had advanced from huge contraptions built in universities,
to, as Mr Downes put it, "new models, many times smaller, many times
cheaper, and a thousand times more efficient".
"The
disciples of the computer can see the prospect that a man's rise to the
top may depend on his ability to commune with a machine, to turn
computer power to personal power, and not the meek, but the systems
analyst shall inherit the earth," he stated.
"With
near religious fervour, some promote their machines as the cure for the
world's ills, economic liberator of the impoverished, even bringer of
international peace.
"But they don't say how."
In 1968, then University of Adelaide professor John Ovenstone said the rise of the computer would ultimately benefit humanity. (ABC: Four Corners)
Almost six decades later, a similar conversation is being had about the computer's protégé, artificial intelligence.
Inquiries
— at both a state and federal level — are underway, new laws have been
introduced, and unions keep a watchful gaze, as the AI horse bolts
through Australian workplaces and homes, influencing the way people
think, learn and go about their everyday lives.
"It
is also true that, unchecked, artificial intelligence does represent a
material risk to the way our society operates and a risk to the future
of work if not thought through carefully."
Disrupting the workforce
Months before Four Corners aired its report, South Australian high school students started to learn how to use computers.
The
lessons were an experiment orchestrated by University of Adelaide
professor John Ovenstone, a leading computer scientist of his time.
Asked
by Mr Downes why he felt it necessary to teach teenagers computing, Mr
Ovenstone replied: "If we don't educate our people so that they can use
computers properly, our standards of living will have to drop".
"We're faced with a situation and there's no way out of it."
South Australian school students started to learn how to use computers in the late 1960s. (ABC: Four Corners)
While
Mr Ovenstone considered the rise of the computer as an inevitability
that would ultimately benefit humanity, others interviewed by Four
Corners in 1968 were more cautious.
Computing lecturer Frank Linton-Simpkins predicted computers could wipe out entire professions.
"Most clerk officers are practically unskilled labourers who can read and write and this is about it," he (rather bluntly) said.
"Their jobs are in danger and they have about five years to run at the most."
Council
of Salaried and Professional Associations Victorian secretary John
Sanders was equally concerned about workforce disruption.
"In
certain overseas countries and the United States for instance, it's
been formulated that possibly by the year 1980, only 10 per cent of the
present workforce would be required to maintain the output of goods and
services for the community," he said.
"But, in a developing country like Australia, this is much further ahead I would say."
Leading computer scientist Trevor Pearcey offered (arguably) the most accurate prediction.
"Although
some people will become redundant, I feel pretty certain that there
will always be new things they can do, even if it means a certain amount
of re-training," he said.
"I
think the real future lies not so much in the application of computers
to automation of industry, but of computers being applied to what are
currently semi-intelligent functions of the human brain."
Professor Toby Walsh says the impact AI might take longer than predicted. (ABC News: Greg Bigelow)
'The conversation seems to be repeating itself'
Watching
the Four Corners report in the present day, University of New South
Wales AI Institute chief scientist Toby Walsh was struck by how similar
the debate was to today's discussion on artificial intelligence.
"Strangely
enough, what they [the people interviewed by Four Corners] were saying
seems very topical for today as much as it was back then," Professor
Walsh said.
"The conversation seems to be repeating itself."
Public anxiety about AI and employment has reached a crescendo in recent times.
Asked
what Australians could learn from past debates on how new technologies
could impact the workforce, Professor Walsh replied: "I think the
heartening news is that it often takes longer for a technology to have
the impact it can because it has to deal with human institutions".
"Many
of the changes that they were talking about in that Four Corners piece
back in 1968 took a bit longer to happen than I think the experts were
predicting back then," he said.
"I
suspect the same will be true this time, in that we might have
technologies like artificial intelligence that could be quickly used and
quickly replacing people, but it will actually take longer than we
expect."
Professor Justin Zobel says a really sudden change could be tremendously disruptive. (ABC News: Nathan O’Brien )
University
of Melbourne computer science Justin Zobel said there was "no doubt"
that the way in which people work would change with the rise of AI, but
there was also "no line of sight of what the new possibilities are".
"There
were very serious reports three years ago now, characterising how a
whole range of professions were going to be washed away or diminished by
use of AI and how quickly that was going to happen," Professor Zobel
said.
"That report has largely
has not borne out, but this sense, I think for the first time, that
difficult knowledge work could be done by a machine, has really set out
the kinds of things that might change."
Professor
Zobel said the "big lesson" to be taken from earlier debates was an
understanding of the speed at which technology could result in workplace
changes.
"The internet really
took a long time to arrive — we connected in 1989 and broadband didn't
become widespread until the late-2000s, nearly 20 years later," he said.
"But a really sudden change could be tremendously disruptive."
In
2026, the time could be overdue for Australia to consider, as a
national question, when AI learns your job, what are you going to do?
The
Israeli prime minister blames a ‘handful of rioters’ for the West Bank
pogroms, but analysts say his statements mask a state-sponsored campaign
of massive settlement expansion.
Atop
a disputed building where about a hundred hardline Jewish settlers have
hunkered down, one settler adjusts a banner with Hebrew writing that
reads: 'Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, populate the Patriarchs House
immediately', in the West Bank city of Hebron, July 26, 2017 [Amir
Cohen/Reuters]
A wave of coordinated Israeli settler attacks swept across the occupied West Bank over the weekend, leaving dozens of Palestinians injured and properties torched.
The pogroms have seen little or no response from Israeli police and soldiers.
Dozens
of settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the village of Qusra, south
of Nablus, with tear gas and stones, injuring seven people. A
Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance that attempted to reach the
besieged families was also attacked.
Simultaneously, Israeli
forces fired tear gas during incursions into the Far’a refugee camp,
el-Bireh, and al-Mughayyir. Soldiers also attacked journalists in
Hebron’s Old City.
A Palestinian family and an American NBC news
crew were assaulted in the village of Jalud. In Arrabeh, two
Palestinians were also beaten near the Mevo Dotan settlement, in a
weekend of violence against locals by Israeli settlers.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned
the escalation, particularly the 20-day siege on al-Mughayyir,
describing it as a systematic policy of forced displacement and colonial
expansion.
Surgical isolation
Israeli politicians have launched a coordinated campaign to minimise the public relations damage after the pogroms.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement strongly condemning the
“criminal acts of violence” in Qusra and Jalud, blaming it on a “handful
of rioters” who violated the law, interfered with the military, and
harmed Israel’s standing in the world.
He publicly stated that he expected law enforcement authorities to “arrest the rioters and bring them to justice”.
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However, this public outrage contrasted sharply with the reality on the ground.
Documented
footage captured masked settlers storming the villages of Qusra and
Jalud in open pickup trucks, according to Israeli media reports. Despite
this visual evidence and Netanyahu’s stated demands, the Israeli
police’s West Bank district, under the command of Moshe Pinchi, made zero arrests.
Former
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee praised Herzog’s statement and
claimed that the half-million Israelis living in the West Bank are “most
disgusted by a small group of thugs”.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that the violence carried out by “extremists” stands in complete contradiction to the values of Israel.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid described
another weekend of violent rampages as a “moral stain” and said the
government’s failure to tackle Israeli violence in the West Bank is a
“national disgrace”.
Experts told Al Jazeera that this chorus of
condemnation from the Israeli establishment represents a calculated
political manoeuvre by the government, which is actively engineering the
annexation of the West Bank.
Ehab Jabareen, a writer, analyst,
and Palestinian citizen of Israel, said that Netanyahu is pursuing a
“political surgical isolation process” to shield the broader settlement
project from international scrutiny.
“He puts forward a political
equation stating that there are 500,000 legitimate settlers, alongside a
few dozen deviants or anomalies,” Jabareen said.
“He wants to punish, or give the illusion of punishing, the most blatant link in order to protect the wider system.”
By
defining the latest pogroms as a criminal anomaly, Netanyahu aims to
isolate this from the wider settler enterprise, Jabareen added.
Security fears
Few
see the prime minister’s statement as anything more than a practical
response to fears among the military that unchecked settler pogroms
could ignite a massive Palestinian uprising in the occupied West Bank.
Recent
closed-door security assessments by Major General Avi Bluth, head of
the Israeli military’s Central Command, warned that “nationalistic
crime”, such as the pogroms, could spark a massive response from
Palestinians.
“The army speaks to Netanyahu in the language of cost-benefit analysis,” Jabareen noted.
“Dozens
of settlers create an open front that requires the mobilisation of
thousands of soldiers. Netanyahu did not say this is unacceptable
because it targets Palestinians, but rather said it obstructs the army.”
Mamoun Abu Amer, an analyst on Israeli politics, dismissed the idea that the state has lost control over the settlers.
He
emphasised that the military consistently protects the settlers during
these attacks while heavily punishing Palestinians who attempt to defend
themselves.
“The settlers are too cowardly to carry out any
attack without the sponsorship and cover of the government,” Abu Amer
said, pointing to instances where the military demolished Palestinian
homes simply because the residents resisted settler assaults.
Israeli
settlers confront Palestinian and Israeli activists accompanying
Palestinianlandowners on their property, which is threatened with
confiscation by Israeli settlers, in Beit Sahour in the Israeli-occupied
West Bank, August 14, 2026 [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]
Engineered expansion
While
top Israeli officials publicly distance themselves from individual
attacks, the government is still systematically funding, legalising, and
expanding the settlers’ presence.
A report by the Israeli organisation Peace Now detailed how successive governments, heavily influenced by Netanyahu, have thrived on expanding settlements since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Thirty years ago, there were approximately 110,000 settlers in the West Bank and 140,000 in East Jerusalem.
Today, those numbers have skyrocketed to 465,000 in the West Bank and 230,000 in East Jerusalem.
The current far-right Israeli government has accelerated this process to unprecedented levels.2:29
Israeli forces install new roadblocks around besieged homes in Qusra
According to a 2025 European Union report,
the Israeli government officially approved the establishment of 54 new
settlements in the West Bank in a single year, a more than tenfold
increase from the five approved in 2024.
In parallel, 86 new
outposts were erected, and a record-breaking 63,311 units were also
approved across the occupied territories.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who holds sweeping administrative powers over the territory, recently declared a “revolution in settlement” expansion, openly linking the construction to the prevention of Palestinian statehood.
The government recently passed
a record $271bn national budget that bypassed legal frameworks to
allocate 400 million shekels ($134m) to the Ministry of Settlement and
National Missions, which officially authorises illegal outposts.
This massive infrastructure investment includes advancing the strategic E1 settlement project, which could sever the West Bank in two and effectively kill any hope for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The government recently issued
tenders for 1,234 homes as part of a larger plan to build 3,401 units
connecting the Ma’ale Adumim settlement to occupied East Jerusalem, as
part of this plan.
International complicity
The
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) reported that settler violence is on the rise, recording over
1,540 attacks that caused Palestinian casualties or property damage this
year alone.
OCHA noted that the monthly average of these attacks is now higher than in any other year on record.
Despite
this historic surge in state-sponsored pogroms and land theft, Western
responses have largely remained confined to rhetorical outrage.
While European nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned the recent settlement approvals, including the E1 project, analysts note a glaring double standard.
Abu
Amer highlighted that Western countries have failed to impose
meaningful economic sanctions on the Israeli state, opting instead to
issue travel bans against a few individual settlers.
“There are
political positions issued recently by Western countries condemning the
Israeli behaviour in reviving the E1 project, but these positions have
not translated into practical measures,” Abu Amer said.
He
contrasted this hesitation with the immediate actions taken by 28
Western nations to defund the UN agency for Palestinian refugees based
on unproven Israeli allegations.
By decoupling the violent acts of
individual settlers from the state machinery that arms, funds, and
protects them, Israel continues to advance its broader strategic goal:
the permanent, irreversible annexation of Palestinian land.
Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Israeli Knesset, can be seen smashing a monument in Madama in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (Reuters: Yosi Reiner/Tzvi Sukkot's office)
In short:
Right-wing
Israeli politician Zvi Sukkot has posted a video online showing him
taking a sledgehammer to a memorial in the occupied West Bank.
The memorial bears the names of Palestinians killed over decades.
The Israeli military has criticised Mr Sukkot for "misusing" resources on the stunt, but not for the vandalism itself.
A
right wing Israeli politician has recorded himself taking a
sledgehammer to a Palestinian memorial in the occupied West Bank, after
being escorted into the village by Israeli soldiers.
The
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accused Zvi Sukkot of having "acted
deceptively and manipulatively" in requesting its protection at the
site, confirming it diverted resources to accompany Mr Sukkot only for
him to carry out the vandalism.
The
35-year-old member of the Knesset posted video of his attempt to
destroy the stone memorial in the town of Madama, south of the city of
Nablus, arguing it was a "terror monument".
"Every
child who sees a giant monument every day that glorifies Jewish
murderers, dreams of being a terrorist," he said on social media.
"There is no place for support for terror in the State of Israel!"
Israel's
occupation of the West Bank has been deemed unlawful by the
International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion published in
2024.
Video of the incident from witnesses to the vandalism had already spread on social media by the time Mr Sukkot posted his own.
Those
videos show soldiers watching on as Israeli settlers hit the monument,
which memorialises Palestinians killed over decades, with a military
vehicle parked nearby.
In a
statement, the IDF said it had received an application for protection
from Mr Sukkot earlier in August ahead of a tour of three West Bank
villages.
"Contrary to the
agreed-upon coordination, the participants acted deceptively and
manipulatively, without authorisation, departing entirely from the
approved framework, and began demolishing one of the monuments in
Madama," it said.
"Upon
identifying what was taking place, the soldiers reported the incident to
their commanders, who instructed them to stop the activity, and the
participants were quickly escorted out of the village.
"IDF
soldiers assigned to operational missions in the area were diverted to
this task and placed at unnecessary risk while the IDF is operating
under significant operational strain."
IDF criticises 'misuse' of resources, but not destruction of memorial
The damaged monument in the West Bank village of Madama bears the names of Palestinians killed in the war. (AP: Majdi Mohammed)
The military criticism appeared to focus on the diversion of resources, rather than the vandalism itself.
The
IDF said it viewed the situation with the "utmost severity", and
accused Mr Sukkot of "misuse of the protection provided by security
forces".
"It should be
emphasised that the IDF regularly dismantles symbols of incitement,
subject to all required approvals and in coordination with the Civil
Administration, as has occurred several times in recent months and and
an additional operation is planned for the near future," it said.
"These activities are an important component of the fight against terrorism and incitement to terrorism."
Israel's Prime Minister also condemned the incident — from the perspective of the strain it put on the military.
"The
IDF is the sovereign in Judea and Samaria and is responsible for
implementing the decisions of the political echelon," Benjamin Netanyahu
said in a statement.
"Taking
the law into its own hands, especially by public figures, is wrong and
prevents the IDF from focusing on its missions against terrorism and
incitement."
Sukkot previously sanctioned for inciting violence against Palestinians
Zvi
Sukkot is a member of the Religious Zionist party, led by right-wing
finance minister Bezalel Smotrich — a man who has been sanctioned by the
international community, including Australia, for inciting violence
against Palestinians.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leads the country's Religious Zionist Party. (Reuters: Ammar Awad)
Before entering politics, Mr Sukkot had been arrested on allegations of firebombing a mosque.
In
2024, he was among right-wing politicians who encouraged supporters to
storm the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel
after nine IDF reservists were arrested over the alleged brutal rape of a
Palestinian detainee — an incident caught on CCTV, but later dropped by
military prosecutors after immense political pressure.
Tensions
in the area around Madama have been high in recent weeks, following a
deadly shooting attack in the nearby village of Tell.
Two
Israeli settlers and four Palestinians were killed in the incident —
Israelis accusing the Palestinians of turning on them, while the
Palestinians accused the settlers of being armed and aggressive.
The shooting prompted a large scale Israeli military operation in the area, detaining more than 100 Palestinians.
Israeli settlers in the area launched revenge attacks, destroying property and attacking residents.
Israeli
media has reported the IDF having warned the Netanyahu government that
the surge in settler violence has fuelled tensions in the West Bank, and
it was effectively a tinderbox ready to blow.
