By Middle East Correspondent
LONDON, (The Muslim News): A Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces in northern Gaza on Sunday, despite a US-backed ceasefire in place since October 10, 2025, bringing the death toll since the truce began to 617, with 1,643 others injured. The victim, Basma Aram Banat, 27, was killed in Beit Lahia and later died of her wounds at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, local medical sources reported, in what Gaza’s Health Ministry described as another breach of the truce.
Witnesses said the gunfire struck an area outside the Israeli army’s designated deployment zone.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli warplanes struck eastern Rafah, while military vehicles opened fire on eastern Khan Younis and naval vessels shelled the coastline. Fighter jets carried out airstrikes on Gaza City’s eastern districts, accompanied by sporadic artillery fire, witnesses added.
The ceasefire, brokered with US backing, halted a two-year Israeli offensive that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 72,000 people – most of them women and children – and wounded over 171,000 since October 2023.
Israeli attacks in West Bank intensifies
The events in Gaza coincided with intensified Israeli operations across the occupied West Bank. Late on Sunday, Israeli forces raided the Iktaba suburb east of Tulkarm. Military vehicles and infantry units patrolled residential streets, set up flying checkpoints, and conducted searches near schools and an olive press, disrupting movement but making no arrests. Residents described the city and its refugee camps – Tulkarm and Nur Shams – as under siege, with frequent live fire and stun grenades, particularly at night, as Israeli operations enter their 392nd consecutive day.
Further south, activists released footage showing an illegal Jewish settler entering a Palestinian home in Masafer Yatta accompanied by a donkey, part of mounting intimidation of rural communities. Osama Makhameh, an activist documenting violations south of Hebron, said such incidents are routine. “This happens daily, sometimes several times a day,” he told Anadolu Agency.
Makhameh added that the settler moved freely between homes in the Khirbet al-Rakeez community, owned by Mohammed al-Najjar, whose property has faced repeated harassment including livestock being released nearby and farmland damaged. Nearby fencing was also cut and stolen. He accused Israeli forces of failing to respond to complaints, with some Palestinians risking detention if settlers claimed they were threatened.
In a separate incident, settlers reportedly smashed solar panels in Khirbet al-Halawa and attempted to assault an elderly woman.
According to the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, settlers carried out 468 attacks across the West Bank in January, including physical assaults, uprooting trees, arson, and blocking access to farmland.
The Israeli army has detained over 100 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of Ramadan on 18 February, including women and children in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said.
The group described arrests as marked by “severe beating, organized acts of terrorism against detainees and their families, along with widespread sabotage, destruction of homes, and confiscation of vehicles, money, and gold jewelry.”
More than 9,300 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children, with Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations alleging torture, starvation, and medical neglect leading to deaths.
Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that between 2009 and 2020, Israeli authorities granted just 66 building permits to Palestinians in the West Bank, compared with 22,000 permits issued to Israeli settlers. “As most of the West Bank is off-limits to Palestinian development, residents are forced to build without permits,” the paper said, citing demolitions in the Taawun neighbourhood south of Nablus in Area C. In January alone, 24 Palestinian structures were demolished on the grounds of lacking permits.
Israeli operations in the West Bank have intensified since the launch of the Gaza campaign in October 2023. According to Palestinian figures, at least 1,117 Palestinians have been killed and around 11,500 injured in the West Bank during that period in incidents involving both Israeli forces and settlers.
[Photo: Damage at the entrance of the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque following an attempted arson attack in the village of Tel near Nablus, West Bank, on February 23, 2026. The Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf said assailants tried to set the mosque on fire, burning the entrance area and writing racist graffiti on the walls before the attempt failed. Photojournalist: Issam Rimawi/AA]
