By Middle East Correspondent
London, (The Muslim News): A Palestinian was killed Monday evening in an Israeli airstrike on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, as Israeli attacks continued despite a ceasefire agreement and Israel pressed ahead with settlement expansion and policies of displacement in the occupied West Bank.
Medical sources said the body of the Palestinian and several injured people were taken to hospital after an Israeli airstrike near the Khan Younis industrial area, close to Street 5 in the northern part of the city.
The latest attack came as 21 Palestinians, including four children, were injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Monday.
In central Gaza City, 10 Palestinians were injured when an Israeli strike targeted a tent on Al-Wahda Street, according to medical sources cited by Anadolu. Two of the wounded were in critical condition. Witnesses said the strike hit a crowded area sheltering displaced Palestinians near Al-Wafa Hospital.
Earlier, eight Palestinians, including four children, were injured when an Israeli drone fired two missiles at a gathering of civilians near a tent sheltering displaced people in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis. Two of the injured were also in critical condition and were being treated in the intensive care unit at Nasser Hospital.
Separately, a young Palestinian man sustained moderate injuries after Israeli military vehicles opened fire east of Khan Younis, according to a medical source at Al-Amal Hospital. Witnesses said Israeli vehicles fired heavily towards homes and tents sheltering displaced people in areas east and south of Khan Younis.
In central Gaza, two injured Palestinians were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli drone strike targeted a gathering of civilians on Salah al-Din Street, east of Al-Zawaida.
The overall Palestinian death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 73,786, with 174,771 injured.
Since the ceasefire took effect on October 11, the number killed has reached 1,372, with 4,659 injured, while 831 bodies have been recovered.
The continuing attacks have occurred alongside a wider intensification of Israeli measures in the occupied West Bank, including settlement expansion, land seizures and the displacement of Palestinian communities.
New illegal settlement established in Jordan Valley
Twenty Israeli settler families have seized land in the Jordan Valley in the eastern occupied West Bank, moving on Monday into the newly established agricultural settlement of Bitron, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
The settlement was inaugurated ahead of the Jewish New Year on September 12 and is one of 13 settlements that Israel’s Security Cabinet approved separating from neighbouring settlements as a step towards recognising them as independent settlements.
Channel 12 described Bitron as the first agricultural settlement established by Israel in around 20 years.
On March 23, 2025, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the Security Cabinet had approved his proposal to separate 13 West Bank settlements, including Bitron, from neighbouring settlements.
“Another step toward normalizing settlement,” Smotrich said at the time, adding that the 13 settlements would be recognised as independent.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said the decision increased the number of settlements recognised by Israel from 127 to 140, demonstrating that the sites were not merely neighbourhoods of existing settlements.
Channel 12 reported that Bitron forms part of an Israeli project launched after October 7, 2023, aimed at establishing and strengthening settlements along what Israel considers its eastern border.
Figures released by the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission in March 2025 showed that 136 agricultural and pastoral outposts, concentrated mainly in the Jordan Valley and the eastern slopes of the West Bank, control more than 48,000 hectares (118,600 acres) of land.
The commission said the area under their control is around three times the total built-up area of existing Israeli settlements.
The United Nations considers Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories illegal under international law and has repeatedly warned that their expansion undermines prospects for a two-state solution.
B’Tselem accuses Israel of systematic displacement
The settlement expansion comes as Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem accused Israel of seeking to erase the Palestinian presence in the occupied West Bank through a series of interconnected policies aimed at reshaping the territory.
In a statement on Monday, B’Tselem said Israel was simultaneously employing five mutually reinforcing mechanisms to dismantle the collective Palestinian presence and establish a permanent and contiguous Israeli-Jewish presence and sovereignty across the territory.
The organisation said Israeli policy entered a new phase at the end of 2022, characterised by increasingly overt and accelerated policies of control, violence and dispossession.
“What Palestinians in the West Bank are experiencing is part of a single political project that permeates every aspect of life,” B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak said.
She said Palestinian communities were being displaced, the economy was being pushed towards collapse and millions of Palestinians were living in constant fear of violence by Israeli forces or settlers.
B’Tselem described the first mechanism as “violence and terror”, involving Israeli forces and armed settlers intimidating Palestinians and imposing violence and coercion.
The group said Israeli forces killed 1,107 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including 245 children, between October 7, 2023 and August 31, 2026.
The second mechanism, which B’Tselem called “ethnic cleansing and takeover of space,” involves displacing Palestinians from their land while expanding the Israeli-Jewish presence.
The organisation said 75 Palestinian communities have been displaced, while settler outposts and farms have taken control of 1.07 million dunams, or approximately 264,400 acres, equivalent to 18% of the occupied West Bank.
It also said around 33,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from refugee camps in the northern West Bank.
Economic pressure and political repression
B’Tselem identified “economic strangulation” as its third mechanism, accusing Israel of using its control over Palestinian employment opportunities, tax revenues, the financial system and infrastructure to deepen the Palestinian economic crisis and dependence on Israel.
Palestinian Finance Minister Estephan Salameh warned in July that Israel was moving towards completely withholding Palestinian clearance revenues.
The revenues account for around 56% of the Palestinian Authority’s total public revenues. The funds consist of taxes, customs and tariff duties collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
Israel began deducting portions of the revenues in 2019 and stopped transferring them entirely about a year ago. Withheld revenues have exceeded $6 billion, according to Palestinian officials, deepening the Palestinian Authority’s financial crisis and leaving it unable to pay public servants’ full salaries.
The fourth mechanism identified by B’Tselem is “social and political destruction.” The organisation accused Israel of criminalising political affiliation, raiding and closing civil society organisations, suppressing protests and arresting activists, students and journalists.
B’Tselem said at least 60 Palestinian journalists have been detained in the occupied West Bank since October 2023. Palestinian figures put the overall number of Palestinians detained there during the same period at more than 25,000, including journalists, students and activists.
Settlement expansion as political strategy
The fifth mechanism is what B’Tselem described as the “political framework”, which it linked to Smotrich’s 2017 “Decisive Plan”.
According to B’Tselem, the plan seeks to make Israeli-Jewish sovereignty irreversible through settlement expansion, land seizures and Palestinian displacement, leaving Palestinians with three choices: accepting Jewish supremacy, leaving, or facing military repression.
Since Netanyahu’s government took office in late 2022, Israeli authorities have intensified settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, approving 104 new settlements, according to the B’Tselem report.
The organisation said Israeli forces and settlers have also intensified attacks across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the Gaza war, including killings, arrests, displacement, home demolitions and settlement expansion.
The developments in Gaza and the West Bank come amid growing international concern over Israel’s continued military operations, settlement expansion and displacement policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, despite the Gaza ceasefire and repeated international calls for an end to violations and the protection of Palestinian civilians.
[Photo: B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak [centre], B’Tselem Spokesperson Kerim Jibran and B’Tselem board member David Zonsheine hold a press conference after newly published report that the Tel Aviv administration is implementing a project to destroy Palestinians in West Bank through all its activities, including attacks by the Israeli army and Israelis who have seized Palestinian land, checkpoints, land grabs, and property damage, in Jerusalem on September 14, 2026. Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem presented its new and comprehensive report titled “The Elimination Project.”. Photojournalist: Mostafa Alkharouf/AA]
