The election night highs for Palestinian citizens of Israel – Arab-led parties won a record ۱۹ seats – turned into a week of delegitimising rhetoric from Israeli politicians.
Nearly ۸۴۰,۰۰۰ people voted for Ra’am and the Joint List, a ۶۴ percent increase on ۲۰۲۲, and adding them to opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc would give an anti-Netanyahu coalition ۶۷ seats; without them, only a unity deal between the main Zionist blocs or another election is possible.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud alleged the election had been “stolen” by Palestinian parties with unproven claims of Qatari financing. Qatar denied such accusations, as police sources told The Times of Israel that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. By Sunday, election committee chairman Noam Sohlberg declared the election “conducted properly”.
However, the rhetoric delegitimising the Palestinian vote is now being reflected in the coalition negotiations under way. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party, has ruled out Palestinian partners, and Eisenkot has presented four conditions for anyone joining his coalition that would be anathema to the Palestinian parties, including recognising Israel as “a Jewish, democratic, liberal, and egalitarian state”, and mandatory national service for all citizens, including Palestinians.
However, Palestinian politicians continue to express a willingness to back an Eisenkot government from outside – if only to enable the departure of Netanyahu and the far right. Meanwhile, thousands rallied in Tel Aviv for a coalition that includes the parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.
۱۰ days of siege in Hebron
While the Israeli electorate was consumed by the election’s unclear results, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank continued enduring a variety of sieges, most prominently in Hebron. By October ۲۹, Al Jazeera’s data unit counted ۱۰ entrances sealed and about ۵,۰۰۰ people displaced. The city saw at least ۱۲۰ arrests and ۱۳ businesses demolished by Friday, when the army also blew up the homes of two men it blamed for an attack. Palestinian officials accused the government of using the operation to win settler votes; no Israeli official has said so outright.
On November ۲, Governor Khaled Dudin announced the army had withdrawn from Hebron, and that displaced families could return. The Jerusalem Post reported that the army’s chief of staff recommended leaving Hebron before the election, but that Netanyahu refused.
But even with the operation over, the damage remains following more than ۱۲۰ arrests and daily economic losses the governor put at ۱۰ million to ۱۲ million shekels ($۳.۲m to $۳.۸m) in a city responsible for about ۴۰ percent of Palestinian industrial output.
Sieges in homes, expulsions from land
But Hebron was only the largest of many closures that continue to plague the West Bank. In Masafer Yatta, at least ۱۲ villages were cut off, and the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that forces detained ۱۰ teachers from the Jinba school on Sunday.
Yousef Shanaran – who has been besieged in his home with his family in Wadi Rakhim for four weeks now – told Al Jazeera on Monday that settlers have now poisoned the well outside his family home, which the family already was unable to access for days at a time due to the siege. “No water, no food, nothing at all I’ve got,” he said. “Nobody is allowed to bring anything to us.”
These sieges continue as settlers, and increasingly Israeli forces, disrupt the olive harvest across the West Bank. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented ۳۹۷ settler attacks causing casualties or damage in the first ۲۶ days of October – a monthly high since OCHA began tracking such incidents in ۲۰۰۶.
Across villages, a familiar pattern has emerged: settlers attack pickers, the army declares a closed military zone and orders the farmers out, and the harvest is lost.
Amid reports of detentions and deportations of solidarity activists who came to the West Bank to assist in the olive harvest in recent days, activists accused settlers of assaulting three activist journalists at Umm al-Khair, and Israel revoked Brad Lander’s travel authorisation after he was detained while harvesting olives two weeks ago.
Gaza: Deadly ‘ceasefire’ continues
In Gaza, attacks continued on a daily basis as the UN human rights office warned on October ۳۰ that Palestinians are being pushed into an ever smaller area, calling the “Yellow Line” a “kill zone” that is moving westward.
By November ۲, the Ministry of Health put the death toll since last year’s ceasefire at ۱,۵۹۳. Sunday was the deadliest day of the week, with at least eight killed. Among those reported killed over the past week:
- Government and police personnel were among those killed. On October ۲۸, a drone strike on a Ministry of Economy facility in al-Mawasi, Rafah, where staff and security personnel had gathered, killed five people, including Ministry of Agriculture official Wajdi Abu Bakr, who died on Sunday from injuries sustained in the attack.
- On November ۱, a drone strike in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, killed five men whom Gaza’s Interior Ministry said were police officers.
- Israeli attacks also killed children. Six-year-old Tahani Shalalfeh died of a gunshot wound in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, on October ۲۷, and Yamen Saqr, eight, died on October ۳۰ of wounds from Israeli fire in Khan Younis, according to Wafa and local activists. The young child Zain Owais was reported killed on November ۱ with his father, Mohammed Ali Owais, and a third man in a strike near Taj Mall in Gaza City.
- On October ۲۷, a young man was killed in an air strike in west Rafah, and a member of the Bseiso family died of earlier wounds in Gaza City, Gaza Now reported. Mohammad al-Bayouk was killed in Khan Younis on October ۲۸, and Mohammed al-Najjar was killed near Jabalia on Thursday.
- On Friday, the body of a ۴۷-year-old man killed in an air strike at al-Waha, north of Gaza City, was recovered, Wafa reported.
- Ibrahim Saeed died on Sunday of wounds from tank fire in al-Musaddar, and Yusuf Abu Younis died Monday of wounds from a drone strike in Khan Younis the day before, according to local activist Hamza al-Masri.
- On Monday, Mahmoud Qaffa and Asaad Qeshta were killed in separate air strikes in Khan Younis and Ibrahim al-Saayida, ۴۰, in al-Musaddar, according to Wafa and Haaretz.
Israeli authorities claimed many of those killed this week were Hamas fighters, though no evidence was provided. Among those were Diaa Abu al-Rous, killed north of Nuseirat on Saturday, and Mohammed Qudeih, killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis the same day, who the military claimed were members of Hamas’s Nukhba Forces; Palestinian reports describe Abu al-Rous as a teacher.
Such killings take place with winter closing in and humanitarian conditions struggling to improve: two infant girls died of burns in a tent fire in al-Mawasi on Friday, and the shelter picture is dire, with Gaza’s Social Development Ministry saying about ۲۰۰,۰۰۰ tents are needed, yet only dozens have arrived due to Israeli entry restrictions.
With no hospitals in Gaza fully functioning, the Red Crescent warned on Monday that the health system is at risk of collapse after ۲۶ hospitals went out of service – with fuel shortages threatening the remaining facilities.
