“Torturous Sanitation Disaster Is Unfolding in Gaza” – This is ceasefire? Day 18

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

(It is difficult to characterize the current situation in Gaza a “ceasefire,” when Israel has killed nearly 100 Palestinians. If Americans Knew considers Sunday to be Day 751 of Israel’s war on Gaza)

Eight dead and 13 injured have arrived at Gaza Strip hospitals over the past 48 hours.

Since the “ceasefire” went into effect on October 11, Israel has reportedly killed at least 94 Palestinians and injured 324 others, and violated the truce agreement at least 80 times.

Additional statistics below. 

GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:

(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.) 

Update on twins injured when they picked up an unexploded bomb

Seven-year-old Yahya and his sister Nabila were playing outside in Gaza when they found what looked like a toy, their mother Latifa al-Sharabasi says. “Suddenly, we heard the sound of an explosion. It went off in their hands.”

Yahya’s right arm was amputated. Nabila remains in intensive care.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basel said about 70,000 tonnes of Israeli explosives remain scattered across Gaza, threatening Palestinian families returning home.

Luke David Irving, who heads the UN’s Mine Action Service in the occupied Palestinian territory, said 328 people have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance in Gaza since October 2023.

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A Torturous Sanitation Disaster* Is Unfolding in Gaza’s Displacement Camps

In tent life, there is an unlivable war — a war that doesn’t begin with bombs, but with the absence of everything that makes life human. It is a war whose weapons are the denial of clean water, the lack of hygiene, the absence of toilets, dignity, and safety. I am not writing this as a distant witness. No — I am writing this from within it. From the ground. From inside the tent. These are not stories I’ve heard; these are the sensations I experience.

A lack of sufficient toilets, access to clean water, and the presence of open sewage are catastrophic consequences faced by displaced Palestinians — conditions that have persisted since the early months of Gaza’s displacement crisis.

This is something that touches our dignity. I know what she meant because I am experiencing the same thing. Here where I am in az-Zawayda, in central Gaza, men spend a whole week building a bathroom — a toilet. It takes so long because there is no sewage system anywhere anymore. Israel has destroyed the vast majority of sewage facilities in every part of Gaza (continue reading here).

*NOTE: As a de facto occupier of Gaza, the law of armed conflict obligates Israel to provide accommodations for people temporarily evacuated from their homes, including “satisfactory conditions of hygiene.”

Israel is shirking other specified responsibilities as well: It is the duty of the occupying power to ensure that the population is provided with supplies essential to the survival of the civilian population in the occupied territory to the fullest extent that it can, including basic food and medical supplies as well as clothing, bedding and means of shelter. Also included are objects necessary for religious worship. In cold climates, fuel for heating may take priority.

OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)

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In a Serious Escalation, Occupation Forces Kill 1, Injure 9

Occupation soldiers on Sunday shot and killed a Palestinian young man, Muhammad Bassam Tayaha Sha’our, 20, near the town of Ath-Thahiriya, southwest of Hebron, in the southern West Bank.

Others were shot and injured, some seriously, in assaults across the West Bank. Among the injured was a child.

Since October 7th, 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 1,059 killed in the West Bank (~212 of them children), and injured more than 10,000.

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Israel Issues Five New Orders to Seize* 73 Dunams in Central West Bank

The Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission has disclosed that Israeli occupation authorities have issued five new military orders to seize a total of 73 dunams of privately owned Palestinian land in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate, located in the central part of the occupied West Bank.

Issued under the pretext of “security and military needs,” the orders are part of a broader strategy to impose new facts on the ground and entrench illegal annexation.

*NOTE: Annexation of land – that is, the proclamation of sovereignty over the territory of another State – is a violation of international law.

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UN says 40 children killed in West Bank in 2025

• A UN humanitarian update says Israeli forces have killed at least 40 children in the occupied West Bank this year, a number that represents 20 percent of all Palestinian fatalities.

Israeli settlers unleash dogs on Palestinian farmers harvesting olives

• Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian farmers in southern Nablus as Israeli forces blocked access to nearby olive groves.

HEADLINES ABOUT ISRAEL:

This 16-Year-Old American Is Among Hundreds of Palestinian Children Jailed* in Israel

• Mohammed Ibrahim is one of more than 300 Palestinian children being held indefinitely in Israeli custody.

*NOTE: The vast majority of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons are political prisoners; thousands are administrative detainees, being kept behind bars without charge, trial, or access to a lawyer. A growing number are children. Israeli prisons regularly use torture (and have done so for over 50 years). It is not a stretch to call them hostages.

Each year, hundreds of Palestinians (many of them minors) are imprisoned for throwing stones, which can carry a sentence of up to 20 years (for Palestinians, not Israeli Jews).

 Administrative detention is intended to be used only in “exceptional” circumstances, but Israel uses it widely. (Read more here.) Approximately 1 million Palestinians have been detained since the Israeli occupation began in 1967.

NEWS & HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:

(Get a glimpse inside Israel and the turmoil and contradictions within the country, as well as myths and lies that are published there as facts. These news items are taken from Israeli media.)

IDF Disposes of Huge Piles of Construction Waste and Rubble From Israel Inside Gaza

The Israeli army has been dumping large amounts of waste, rubble and especially construction debris into Gaza from the Israeli side of the border, according to information and footage obtained by Haaretz.

In several recently recorded videos, trucks can be seen leaving Israel near the border and entering Gaza loaded with construction waste – vast quantities of construction debris and garbage left behind by the IDF during the war, following the establishment of dozens of bases and command posts that served as staging points for forces near the border.

Commanders reportedly said that since foreign countries would soon enter Gaza to begin reconstruction, they could also deal with the waste the IDF had left behind.

Netanyahu’s Government Resumed Its Campaign to Destroy Israel’s Judicial System

• Netanyahu and his partners are doing everything they can to stop the convening of a state commission of inquiry into October 7th, including attempting to arrange a pardon for himself.

Number of Cases of Academic Boycott Against Israeli Researchers Has Tripled Over Last Year

• More than 1,000 incidents of academic boycotts have been recorded over the last two years.

Abducting a prominent British Muslim journalist and political commentator on a speaking tour in the United States because he dared to criticize the Israeli government’s genocide is a blatant affront to free speech. 

Our attorneys and partners are working to address this injustice. We call on ICE to immediately account for and release Mr. Hamdi, whose only ‘crime’ is criticizing a foreign government that committed genocide.

Our nation must stop abducting critics of the Israeli government at the behest of unhinged Israel First bigots. This is an Israel First policy, not an America First policy, and it must end.

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OTHER HEADLINES:

Gaza Tribunal declares Israel committing genocide in Palestinian enclave, urges action from world powers

• After 4 days of hearings in Istanbul, Jury of Conscience of Gaza People’s Tribunal issue final findings, accusing Israel of systematic exterminatory violence.

Despite ICJ ruling, Rubio says UNRWA cannot be involved in Gaza’s future

• US secretary of state calls UN agency a ‘subsidiary of Hamas’ after International Court of Justice refuted the claims

1 killed in Israeli strike in southern Lebanon despite ceasefire

• Two others were killed on Saturday, and two on Friday

A remote spy base and a ‘criminal’ blockade raise questions about Australia’s complicity in Gaza war

• Ostensibly, the “joint defense facility” established by the CIA in 1966 is controlled by both Australia and the US. But Pine Gap has been described as America’s most valuable intelligence site outside US soil.

ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:

(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – OCTOBER 26, 2025*:

• At least 69,586 Palestinians killed, 180,395 injured – including:
• At least 68,527 killed in Gaza (~20,000 children, 23,000 women) 
• At least 1,059 killed in the West Bank (~212 children)
• At least 170,395 injured in Gaza
• More than 10,000 injured in the West Bank
• At least 463 have died from malnutrition in Gaza, including 157 children
• About 449 bodies have been recovered since the ceasefire began

*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 9,500 more are still buried under rubble. Additionally, the numbers of injured and starved are very conservative estimates. Only the dead who are brought to hospitals are included in the official fatality count.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – October 26, 2025: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 470 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel. 

By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 272 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 206 and 326 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).

**NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.