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 859th day.)
Israeli air strikes killed at least two Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday in the latest breach of the truce deal signed with Hamas more than four months ago.
Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 614 Palestinians. Over 1,640 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.
Farmers in Gaza risk Israeli bullets to bring their fields back to life
Gaza farmers face risks as Israeli buffer zones expand into their agricultural lands under heavy military control.
“BOARD OF PEACE” NEWS AND HEADLINES:
Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ aims to turn Gaza into a playground for investors
The plan to reconstruct Gaza, framed as the transformation of the Strip into a beachfront economic hub, would see the Strip become “an investment center,” while Palestinian political aspirations are left unaddressed. It includes the gradual ethnic cleansing of Gaza under the guise of building temporary “humanitarian cities” for Palestinians in Rafah. The Board has been described by most Palestinian factions as a colonial instrument reminiscent of the British Mandate.
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 Youth, Injure Another Near Nablus
17-year-old Mohamad Wahbi Abdul Aziz Hanani succumbed to critical injuries he sustained during a military incursion into Beit Furik town.
Ahmad added that a young man was critically injured after soldiers shot him in the head with live ammunition, while another child (16) sustained a live gunshot wound to the leg.
Since the beginning of the Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, occupation forces have killed 1117 Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank, including 232 children and 24 women.
Eleven Palestinian families on Saturday began dismantling their homes in a Bedouin community east of the city of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank due to continued attacks by illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli army.
*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.
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Israel Is Expanding Control in West Bank Under Guise of “Heritage Preservation”
While still awaiting final approval by the Knesset, the policy changes, according to a statement released by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, “will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
“Everywhere here has heritage. It’s just an excuse to expand settlements and take Palestinian land,” said Ubai Aboudi, the director of BISAN, a human rights organization based in Ramallah.
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ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: MORE ISRAELI OCCUPATION ACTIONS ON SATURDAY:
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 wants to execute Palestinians* and the world will allow it
The Israeli Knesset is pushing through a bill that, if passed, would allow the occupation authorities to legally execute Palestinians. This development has attracted hardly any international attention, but for Palestinians, it is yet another looming horror.
Execution would be carried out within 90 days of sentencing, no appeals, and death by hanging. Palestinians charged with planning attacks or killing Israelis would face the death penalty.
*NOTE: This is just one of many examples of Israel’s apartheid framework, which extends in various forms across Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and inside Israel (where 21% of residents are Palestinian). Multiple human rights organizations have documented and reported that Israel is indeed practicing apartheid, including: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem, and Yesh Din , the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, the International Court of Justice, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic.
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Israel will not fund Gaza reconstruction, Cabinet minister says*
Ze’ev Elkin, who serves as a second minister in the Finance Ministry, said, “We will not fund the Board of Peace; there is no reason to. “We were attacked. There is no reason for us to pay for the reconstruction.”
*NOTE: “It’s not our fault – we were attacked/we were defending ourselves” is a typical pro-Israel response to the October 7th attack: Israel supporters ignore the background, and imply that history began on October 7th, as though the Hamas fighters attacked Israel for no reason. In fact, Israel has been oppressing Palestinians since its creation in 1948, and even before that.
Hamas fighters attacked Israel after years of oppression and many nonviolent attempts to call attention to the issue. The UN has passed hundreds of resolutions demanding justice – to no avail.
The people of Palestine have many legitimate grievances for which resistance is an appropriate response. Israel is, according to the International Court of Justice, plausibly committing genocide, illegal occupation, apartheid, extermination, and a targeted campaign of starvation – to name a few.
International law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, even to the point of armed resistance.
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Combative Carlson-Huckabee interview reveals US right’s chasm over Israel
Parts of the MAGA right may be souring on Israel – but a hardline form of Christian Zionism* seems to remain unofficial Trump administration policy, if a heated debate between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is any indication.
During their more than two-hour dialogue, Carlson, the rightwing commentator, repeatedly insinuated that Huckabee was more invested in defending the interests of Israel than those of the US. For his part, Huckabee – a prominent Christian Zionist – sharply disputed Carlson’s suggestions that Israel does not deserve the military and monetary aid it receives from the US (for a quick summary of Tucker Carlson’s 2 1/2 hour interview of Mike Huckabee, go here; to watch the full interview, go here).
*NOTE: Christian Zionism is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. Much has been written in opposition to Christian Zionism – for example, read this and this and this. For a deep dive into the topic, go here.
RELATED:
Huckabee’s Israel land remarks condemned as ‘dangerous’ as controversy rumbles on
Arab countries condemn US ambassador’s remarks supporting Israel control over Middle East
VIDEO | “It would be fine if [Israel] took it all.”
During a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee argued that Israel’s so-called ‘right to exist’ stems from a biblical promise to Abraham, citing the Book of Genesis.
Carlson challenged the… pic.twitter.com/iJzfB9DeQ3
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) February 21, 2026
NOTABLE QUOTE: “Scripture cannot be transformed into a political deed of ownership”
The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine, on the recent remarks made by US Ambassador to the occupying state, Mike Huckabee, in which he claimed that Israel possesses a “Biblical right” to control the entire region “from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
Scripture cannot be transformed into a political deed of ownership, nor can it be invoked to legitimize occupation or annexation. Sacred texts must be understood within their historical and theological context and cannot be manipulated to justify the dispossession of peoples or the denial of their national rights.
[Invoking a so‑called “Biblical right” to the land] reflects the influence of politicized theological currents associated with Christian Zionism, which seek to instrumentalize religious belief in service of political agendas at the expense of justice and human dignity. The image of God revealed by Jesus Christ is that of a God of love, justice, and peace—not a deity of war, domination, or exclusion.
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.)
New generation of Israeli voters more traditional, right-wing, poll shows
A new poll reveals that 75% of first-time Israeli voters identify as right-wing, signaling a significant shift in the political landscape.
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Israeli settlers seized five Palestinian-owned buildings Thursday night, declaring a new settlement in the heart of a densely populated Palestinian neighborhood in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The settler group behind the move claims to have purchased the five buildings and described the seizure as a “redemption” operation. Recent measures by the Israeli government are expected to normalize such seizures and turn them into routine practice.
NOTE: Around 35,000 Palestinians live in the West Bank city of Hebron; along with about 800 Jewish settlers, who are protected by 1,500 Israeli soldiers to support them. To read more about Israeli settler violence (backed by Israeli military) in the West Bank city of Hebron, go here, and see the video below.
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OPINION: Is It the End of the Road for Secularism in Israel?
The data published on the Education Ministry’s website leaves no room for doubt. A majority of the Jewish children studying in Israeli elementary schools today are either religious Zionists or ultra-Orthodox. This trend is clear and unequivocal. The secular community’s great days as a majority have passed; it is marching inexorably down the slope of the graph toward a new reality in which it becomes a minority.
OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:
South Carolina Lost Lindsey Graham
Like Ambassador Mike Huckabee, this neoconservative Republican appears to be a greater advocate for Israel than he is for his own constituents in South Carolina.
Former US army veteran opposes Ohio bill targeting Israel criticism as antisemitism*
Josephine Guilbeau, a 17-year US Army veteran and former intelligence officer, strongly opposed the legislation during her testimony before the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee: “Under this bill, anyone, even Jews speaking against Zionist actions, could be criminalized.”
ICYMI, A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
Trump announces $10 billion US [taxpayer] contribution to Board of Peace
‘Al-Aqsa is a detonator’: six-decade agreement on prayer at Jerusalem holy site collapses
How much have Israel and the US spent on the Gaza war?
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – FEBRUARY 21, 2026*:
- At least 73,186 Palestinians killed, 182,71 injured – including:
- At least 72,069 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
- At least 1,117 killed in the West Bank (~230 children)
- At least 171,728 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 21, 2026: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 472 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)
- ‘Christians Out’: Jerusalem Church Tagged With Hate Graffiti, Police Investigating
- Israeli Settlers Kill American Teen
- ‘We returned from hell’: Palestinian journalists recount torture in Israeli prisons
- Tucker Carlson interrogated in Israel, has passport seized after interviewing US ambassador
- 6,000 Amputees in Gaza Face Impossible Recovery amid Israeli War Ultimatum
- Compliant aid: Who are the Israel-approved NGOs scaling up in Gaza?
- Israel’s Favorite American President
- Israel’s “Yellow Line” Is a Death Trap for Palestinians. We Drove Into It.
- Why Israel’s expanding occupation in Syria presents a critical legal test
- Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is the victim of genocide enabled by global inaction
- Netanyahu’s plan to “end” US aid to Israel is to give even more money under a different name
- 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
