Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
(While a “ceasefire” is ostensibly in place, Israel has continued its assault on Gaza without interruption. If Americans Knew considers the war to be ongoing, and in its 854th day.)
Israeli occupation forces on Monday killed one Palestinian and wounded others, in continued violations of the “ceasefire” that formally took effect on October 11, 2025.
Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 601 Palestinians. Over 1,607 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative.
Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 1,620 times (as of Feb. 1, 2026). More 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.
29% compliance in Rafah crossing reopening amid Israeli restrictions: Gaza media office
In a statement, the Gaza media office said that between Feb. 2 and Feb. 15, only 811 travelers were able to cross the Rafah crossing in both directions out of a total of 2,800 people Israel had agreed to allow through.
Palestinian figures show that over 100,000 want or need to go through the only Gaza crossing that is not on a border with Israel: around 22,000 wounded and sick people require medical treatment abroad, and about 80,000 Palestinians have registered to return to Gaza.
RELATED: UN says Israel denies, impedes nearly half of coordinated Gaza aid missions despite ceasefire
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Israel ‘Will Not Move One Millimeter’ – Defense Minister Katz Freezes Withdrawal from Gaza
Contrary to the ceasefire agreement, Israel blocks Gaza withdrawal and escalates attacks and restrictions despite the ceasefire, deepening the humanitarian crisis and undermining negotiations.
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Israel’s War on Gaza Wipes Out Sporting Generation as 1,007 Athletes Killed, Fields Turn to Rubble
Israel’s genocide devastated Gaza’s sports sector, killing athletes, destroying facilities, yet survivors continue playing amid rubble and global solidarity.
RELATED: Legal Complaint Accuses FIFA, UEFA Leaders of Complicity in Settlement Football
![Palestinian amputees have come together to form Gaza's first football squad of people with disabilities. [Mohammad Asad/Middle East Monitor]](https://israelpalestinenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2018_7-3-Gazas-squad-kicks-in-to-action6.webp)
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Opinion: For Palestinians, disarmament would mean national suicide
As Israel demands demilitarization in Gaza as the price of reconstruction, Palestinians are being forced to choose between biological survival and the survival of their national cause.
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Indonesia prepares to deploy 1,000 troops to Gaza for Trump’s ‘stabilization force’
Other nations have refused to participate in the force, fearing they would be required to ‘disarm Hamas’ and carry out operations against Palestinians on Israel’s behalf.
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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.)
Israeli Forces Kill a Palestinian Young Man in Qalqilia
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian young man on Monday while he was near a military roadblock north of Qalqilia, in the northwestern part of the occupied West Bank.
Media sources reported that occupation forces killed 18-year-old Mohammad Kamal Shreim after shooting him in the chest with live ammunition under unknown circumstances.
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Palestinian Authority* security forces express ‘deep regret’ after killing two Palestinian children in Tubas
The deaths of Samer Samara’s three-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son bring the number of Palestinians killed by PA forces up to 10 since the start of last year.
The children’s father was reportedly wanted by Israeli forces, and ambushed by Palestinian forces.
*NOTE: The Palestinian Authority (PA) is a governing body that has overseen parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the mid-’90s. Its creation was supposed to pave the way to an independent Palestinian state, but today it is considered to have little real power and is operating as a collaborator with, or subcontractor for the Israeli occupation.
In appearance, the PA has all the trappings of a state, with ministries and a civil service, but Israel wields the real power, turning the tap on tax revenue, and controlling access to the shrinking territories – a status quo often compared with the Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa (continue reading here).
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Israeli police arrest Al-Aqsa Mosque imam Mohammed al-Abbasi
According to Palestinian news site WAFA, the arrest “comes amid escalating Israeli measures against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, including restrictions on imams, preachers and worshippers stationed there, limitations on the entry of worshippers, and intensifying incursions carried out by settlers under heavy protection from Israeli police.”
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Israeli authorities issue demolition*, stop-work notices for 60 West Bank and Jerusalem structures
*NOTE: Most home demolitions undertaken by Israel are due to Palestinians’ “building without a permit.” Israel admits that its construction permit system is highly discriminatory. Between 2016 and 2020, 99.1 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits were rejected, according to data provided by the IDF’s Civil Administration. According to UN data, at least 13,800 homes have been demolished, displacing over 22,000 Palestinians, since 2009.
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What ‘state property’ means in Israel’s expansion of West Bank control*
‘What is happening is the stripping of land ownership from Palestinians and registering it in the name of the state (Israel), and then transferring it to Israeli settlers,’ Palestinian legal expert tells Anadolu.
*NOTE: ‘Shrinking Palestine’ describes the military, legal and financial tools that the Zionist movement/state of Israel has utilized over the past century to acquire Palestinian land, and maps the gradual and ongoing fragmentation of historic Palestine and the exclusion of Palestinians from living in most of their homeland. The most dramatic example was 1948, when Israel usurped 78% of Palestinian land and exiled 750,000 of its people; Israel’s ongoing project has been to take over the remaining 22%.
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One year on, No Other Land co-director says Israeli attacks intensifying
Nearly a year since the Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won an Academy Award, its co-director, Hamdan Ballal, says Israeli settler attacks on the cluster of occupied West Bank villages known as Masafer Yatta have only gotten worse, and those involved in the documentary bear the brunt of Israeli reprisals.
On Sunday, Israeli settlers stormed Ballal’s hometown of Susya, despite an Israeli court ruling designating the area around his home as closed to non-residents. Israeli army officers called by the family to enforce the ruling, sided with the attackers (continue reading here).
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New Israeli settlement* housing plan near Jerusalem slammed as ‘disguised annexation’
Israel plans to build thousands of settlement homes near Jerusalem, in effect expanding city’s borders and taking Palestinian land in West Bank, activists say.
*NOTE: Israel has built around 280 settlements and 256 settlement outposts, home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers, on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Some settler groups have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces – a phenomenon that has grown significantly worse since October 7th, 2023.
In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Learn more about Israeli settler violence here and here.
RELATED: Jerusalem Governorate Warns of De‑Facto Annexation
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: MORE ISRAELI OCCUPATION ACTIONS ON MONDAY:
New Israeli Orders and Demolition in the West Bank
ISRAEL NEWS & HEADLINES:
(Israel is a tiny country, about the size of New Jersey, with a population smaller than the US state of Georgia – about 10 million (of which about 20 percent are Palestinians), yet it is in the news constantly. As has been demonstrated again and again, however, mainstream media rarely covers Israel accurately. IAK passes along only factual reporting.)
Israel’s Ben-Gvir stomped on Palestinian prisoners’* heads during Ofer jail raid
Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir “stepped on prisoners’ heads” at Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank last Friday, a Palestinian rights group said Monday. Video footage that Ben Gvir insisted on publishing supports the claim.
The operation lasted about 15 minutes and involved police dogs and stun grenades, with extensive media presence. Ben-Gvir delivered remarks that included what the group described as provocative and degrading language toward Palestinian prisoners.
*NOTE: To learn about the horrific situation in Israel’s prisons for Palestinians, read this and this.
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1,200 Israelis oppose proposed death penalty law for Palestinian prisoners: Report
Nobel Prize laureates, former senior military officials, former Supreme Court justices among signatories in a statement opposing the death penalty for Palestinians (read about the proposed death penalty here).
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Netanyahu doubles down on ‘conditions’ for Iran–US deal*
Trump and the Israeli prime minister are said to have agreed on targeting Iranian oil sales to China in an effort to further besiege the Islamic Republic.
*NOTE: Benjamin Netanyahu’s propaganda war against the Islamic Republic of Iran overlooks a few basic facts: Iran has never attacked any of its neighbors, while Israel never stops attacking its neighbors; Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Israel has not; Iran has submitted to inspection of its facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Israel has not; Iran has no nuclear weapons and has repeatedly disavowed the intention to produce them, while Israel has nuclear weapons.
It follows that Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel as Netanyahu keeps insisting; Israel, by virtue of its nuclear monopoly, poses an existential threat to Iran.
Israel has been demonizing and prodding the US toward war with Iran for years, with help from well-placed Washington insiders (both Democrats and Republicans) and mainstream media. Read more about the Iran-Israel connection here and here.
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2 civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon despite ceasefire
*NOTE: Although Israel signed a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon in November 2024, Israel has attacked Lebanon almost every day since, committing over 10,000 air and ground violations – the most violated ceasefire deal in recorded history – and killing over 300. Additionally, Israel continues to occupy five Lebanese hilltops seized during the latest war, and other Lebanese areas it has held for decades.
(Read about UNIFIL, the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, here.)
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:
(You can learn a lot about a country from its headlines. Get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions that receives $63 million a day from America.)
Inside Netanyahu’s Distorted Protocols: Debunking His October 7 Narrative*
Minutes reviewed by Haaretz prove that Netanyahu lied, distorted and omitted facts in his version of the events of October 7 and the decision-making that led to the intelligence failure, which he published in a 55-page declassified document.
*NOTE: Anyone who has been following the news on Palestine and Israel will be unsurprised by this headline: Netanyahu’s lies are a matter of record; he is the prime minister of a country whose leaders have perpetrated countless lies to cover for war crimes and aggression (and consistently pass along these lies to Western mainstream media).
Israel has been fighting a war against the truth for decades, especially since October 7th. What Netanyahu calls a “concerted effort to spread vilification and demonization against Israel” is simply the truth (and lies) about Israel’s genocide finally beginning to see the light of day.
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Big Plans, Little Money: Trump’s Board of Peace Rebuild of Gaza a Distant Dream
Funding for Gaza’s reconstruction depends on assurances that the war is over, yet Hamas shows no sign of disarming – and any deal would likely require militias that sided with Israel to do the same.
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Opinion: Netanyahu Is Banking on Trump Losing Interest in Gaza
The Trump administration’s 20-point plan, which ended the war in Gaza, states in the 16th clause that Israel “will not occupy or annex Gaza” and will hand the territory over to an international stabilization force – Netanyahu wants to keep the land.
OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:
Palestinian Christians are persecuted by Israel: Marjorie Taylor Greene
In another sign of growing concern over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land, former US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has revealed that she held a meeting with Bethlehem’s mayor, Maher N Canawati, to discuss the persecution of Christians in the birthplace of Jesus, Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank.
RELATED: Israel is not as Christian-friendly as you think
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Power & Pushback: Brooklyn Navy Yard evicts drone maker amid pressure campaign
Amid ongoing protests, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has dumped a drone maker tied to the Gaza genocide.
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Organizers fight back as Missouri moves to crack down on Israel-related speech in schools
Rights groups warn HB 2061 will be used to silence criticisms of Israel and attack Missouri teachers.
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French foreign minister faces criminal complaint over misquoting Francesca Albanese
Lawyers group accuses Jean-Noel Barrot of spreading false information and exposing UN expert to risk of attacks after citing comments she did not make.
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African Union backs full UN membership for Palestine
The UN’s largest regional bloc said Palestinian statehood is ‘a legitimate right of the Palestinian people.’
ICYMI, A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
‘Rats run over our faces’: Gaza’s displaced forced to live on infested land
Netanyahu: Iran ‘lies and cheats’
PM Netanyahu said pushing to soften wording of bill mandating death penalty for terrorists
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – FEBRUARY 16, 2026*:
- At least 73,175 Palestinians killed, 182,715 injured – including:
- At least 72,061 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
- At least 1,114 killed in the West Bank (~230 children)
- At least 171,715 injured in Gaza
- About 11,000 injured in the West Bank
*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 8,000 more are still buried under rubble; 3,000 more are reportedly missing, with no information about their fate.
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.
At least 25 Palestinians in Gaza have died due to the extreme cold, including 21 children, since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023. At least 11 Palestinian children have died of extreme cold this winter.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – February 16, 2026: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 471 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians (by one count, there have been 59 victims) in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 281 Palestinian journalists and media workers (as of Jan. 21, 2026); Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 215 and 333 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.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- Noor’s short life of unimaginable suffering
- Israel Destroyed Gaza’s Hospitals. Now It’s Banning Doctors Without Borders.
- Is Spite of What Zionists Say, It’s a Good Thing to Criticize Governments
- Palestinian mother, daughter recount strip searches, harsh conditions in Israeli detention
- Israel used weapons in Gaza that made thousands of Palestinians evaporate
- ADL’s Stats Twist Israel’s Critics Into Antisemites
- Why Is the World Silent When the Gaza Genocide Is Not Over?
- AZAPAC, the new PAC opposing Israeli domination of U.S policies
- Haim Saban: Billionaire for Israel
- Rafah e-wallet plan highlights Israel’s deepening financial occupation
- Viral post claims Netanyahu sought legal approval, igniting speculation about Israel’s organ harvesting
- AIPAC Has a New Opponent: PAL PAC
- Right-Wing Catholic Off Trump Religion Panel After Israel-Gaza Remarks at Antisemitism Event
- Why Israel persecutes children like my son Shadi
