Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza, the West Bank/East Jerusalem, and Lebanon - October 10, 2026
Action Alerts
· Block the bombs! Has your Congressperson signed on to stop the $2.8 billion sale of bombs to Israel? 82 have signed on. Urge them to sign, or thank them if they already have, here: Jewish Voice for Peace
· From the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
· Join our next phonebank on Wed, Oct 14, 7 PM EDT/ 4PM PDT, and call friendly supporters to help move more representatives to cosponsor the Block the Bombs Act.
· Support the fight to break Israel bonds in Palm Beach County, Florida, which has put about $1 billion of public money into Israel bonds, more than any other investor. USCPR youth fellows have led this campaign with the Internationalist Law Center.14
Professional organizations
· 3rd Annual Doctors Against Genocide Conference: “Genocide Prevention, Intervention & Response,” 11/13–15/2026 at Georgetown, Washington, DC. Register here.
· As the World Medical Association meets in Rotterdam (7–10 October), the Hind Rajab Foundation has filed an ICC complaint against Israeli officials, medical professionals, and the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. Read more here: hindrajabfoundation
· Moving tribute to the graduating class of young Gazan doctors. MAP
Webinars
· Next JVP Health Advisory Council webinar: Amy Hagopian and Mary Bassett discuss their struggles with and censorship by academic institutions, on 11/22, 11 am pacific/ 2 pm eastern. Stay tuned for details and registration.
· Catch up on the JVP Health Advisory Council webinars you have missed:
De-Healthification: Israel’s Engineered Collapse of Palestinian Life, with Layth Malhis, Institute for Palestine Studies, 9/27, recording here.
Palantir in Our Hospitals: How the company powering Gaza genocide and ICE surveillance is expanding into healthcare, with AFSC, No Palantir in the NHS Campaign, and National Nurses United, 7/12, recording here.
Reports
· The Gaza Genocide Center’s Gaza Index keeps a running record of the genocide in numbers, including deaths, destruction, displacement, and aid, with every figure tied to its original source. Gaza index https://www.gazaindex.org/?emci=2cd5e230-c1c4-f111-bf5b-000d3a4fbe83&emdi=2fd5e230-c1c4-f111-bf5b-000d3a4fbe83&ceid=8255274
· A new report from UNCTAD, the UN trade and development agency, supplies a sober measure of reality behind the fanfare: Gaza has experienced “the world’s most severe economic crisis on record.” Annual economic output per person stood at just $212 in 2025, equivalent to 58 cents a day and 83 percent below its already depressed 2022 level. For context, the World Bank’s international extreme poverty line is $3 per person per day. (Electronic Intifada 9/29)
· The Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian Racism (IUAPR) released Anti-Palestinian Racism in America: A Nationwide Study of its Prevalence, Institutional Impact and Human Cost, a survey of 1,311 adults across the US to estimate how common Anti-Palestinian Racism is and how it affects people’s health. The findings show exposure to Anti-Palestinian Racism is associated with adverse mental and physical indicators. Key findings were: (1) Nearly half of US adults (49.1%) have experienced or witnessed Anti-Palestinian Racism, and about 1 in 4 experienced it directly; (2) About half of employed US adults who spoke up about Anti-Palestinian Racism at work were treated unfavorably afterward; and (3) One in 10 employed US adults missed work in the past 2 years due to fear of Anti-Palestinian Racism. Anti-Palestinian racism
· B’TSelem, the Israeli human rights group, has released a report and short video entitled “The Elimination Project: Israel’s Systematic Dismantling of Palestinian Collective Life in the West Bank.” Btselem
United Nations
· 9/28, Acting Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov briefed the Security Council on the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. Dr. Alakbarov reported that Israeli authorities continue to withhold US$6 billion in revenues from Palestinian authorities, making “The Palestinian Authority unable to deliver basic services, sustain social protection, or pay full salaries to civil servants and security personnel.”
· The US, historically UNRWA’s largest donor, has withheld funding since 2024. In 2026, Israeli authorities demolished UNRWA’s historic East Jerusalem headquarters, carried out an operation at its Kalandia vocational training center, and forced the closure of its Old City health clinic. Israel has moved to dismantle the agency’s operations in occupied East Jerusalem and restrict its work across the occupied Palestinian territory. Nearly 400 UNRWA personnel have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 2023. Now UNRWA is facing a $100 million cashflow deficit, forcing it to cut service hours by 20% and reduce salaries for local staff. (Drop Site 9/25)
· Over 100 protesters were arrested near the United Nations in New York on 9/24 ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the General Assembly. The sit-in, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, denounced Netanyahu for perpetrating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, building more illegal settlements in the West Bank, occupying parts of Lebanon, and bombing Iran alongside the United States. (Democracy Now 9/28)
GAZA & THE WEST BANK
The genocide in Gaza and the accelerating dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank are not identical in form or scale. They are, however, unfolding within the same Israeli project of removing Palestinians from their land and preventing the realization of their national rights. While Gaza endured mass killing, starvation, and widespread destruction, the occupied West Bank experienced an unprecedented expansion of military violence, mass arrests, settlement construction, land seizure, demolition, and illegal settler attacks. East Jerusalem has remained under Israeli occupation since 1967. Israel later annexed the city in a move that has never been recognized internationally. Palestinians there live under a restrictive residency system while facing checkpoints, the separation wall, and policies that can strip them of their right to remain in their native city. Samer Daoudi, director of the Jerusalem Human Rights Consortium, said restrictions once regarded as temporary had increasingly become normalized. “Dehumanizing and demonizing” Palestinians had become the norm, he said. (Palestine Chronicle 10/7)
GAZA
After 3 years of genocidal attacks, the situation remains dire: Israeli airstrikes, drone attacks, artillery and targeted gunfire on Gaza’s heavily populated areas worsen an already hellish number of deaths and injuries, destruction of 82% of the housing, and the displacement of almost the entire population. Over 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and 175,000 injured in these 3 years. Conscious Israeli engineering of shortages of food and medical supplies, and the methodical destruction of access to water, sanitation and housing, make this a 360° genocide. This horror, combined with the stubborn resistance of the Palestinian people, have finally turned world opinion, including in the US, against Israel. The first restrictions on collaboration with the genocidal Israeli government are finally beginning to be imposed. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the former member of the International Criminal Court, South African lawyer Navi Pillay, for calling out and opposing genocide in Gaza is a symbol of this change in world opinion. It is possible that the US mid-term elections could create a situation where declining US support to Israel could force an end to this genocide. Please do what you can at local and state levels to make that a reality.
· As of 9/30, Palestinian deaths since 10/7/23: 74,032 killed (approx.21,588 children) and 175,142 injured. That includes over 1700 health workers, 145 civil defense workers, and 263 journalists and media workers. More than 8,000 bodies are still beneath the rubble.
· In Gaza City, the remains of 105 Palestinians recovered from beneath 16 residential buildings in the Yarmouk area bombed on 10/25/23 were buried in a mass funeral on 10/1. The recovered bodies included 37 children and 38 women. (Drop Site 10/1)
· Palestinian deaths since the “ceasefire” almost 1 year ago: 1,431 killed, 5,026 wounded.
· The mortality rate for children under five in Gaza more than doubled to 33.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2025, up from 13.6 in 2022, according to the Health Ministry’s first official mortality report since 2022. The ministry estimates the rate would be 15.8 without deaths caused by the war. (Drop Site 9/30)
· For more information, see: OCHAOPT
Israeli Attacks
· An update to Google Maps has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants. The images were taken in June this year and show further destruction of homes, businesses, places of worship, and infrastructure since a fragile ceasefire came into effect almost 12 months ago. (Guardian 10/1) The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/01/new-google-maps-images-
· The bombardment of Gaza and the house-by-house, greenhouse-by-greenhouse demolitions that followed have created 61 million tons of debris, almost 10 million of which are at high risk of asbestos and heavy metal contamination. In many cases it is difficult to even assess the scale of water pollution, toxic substances in the soil, or cancer-causing chemicals blowing in the breeze, because virtually all of Gaza’s capacity to measure these things – the labs, the equipment and the people who know how to use them – has been destroyed. UNEP
· 10/1, an Israeli strike near Khan Younis killed journalist Md. Al-Najjar, making him 263rd media worker killed since 2023. (OCHAOPT, Drop Site 10/1)
· 10/2, Israeli soldiers shot an elderly woman and another person in Khan Younis, while a child was shot as Israeli forces fired toward tents east of Hamad City.
· 10/3-5, Israeli attacks killed 15 and wounded others. Israeli sailors shot a woman in the head near Gaza City, and another was wounded by a quadcopter.
· 10/6, 2 Palestinians were killed, one by a drone strike on a Gaza City park, and 35 were injured.
· 10/7, 11 Palestinians were injured and 4 were killed: a civil defense member evacuating wounded in Jabalia; and in Khan Younis, a young boy was shot to death, a man was killed in a drone strike, and another in an airstrike on a refugee camp. (OCHAOPT, (Democracy Now 10/7)
· 10/8-9, 9 Palestinians were killed and 28+ injured in Gaza. 2 were killed in a drone strike on a vehicle near the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza City.
· 10/4, Saqr al-Qaisi, director of a Turkish relief organization, was killed in an Israeli strike on a vehicle south of Deir al-Balah. Israeli forces continued strikes, shelling, demolitions, and gunfire across Gaza, including fire directed at displaced people’s tents in Khan Yunis. The Prisoners’ Media Office said Israel continues to hold 43 Gaza prisoners whose sentences have expired, documenting severe weight loss and prolonged loss of family. (Palestine Chronicle 10/4)
Health & Hospitals
· For the week of 9/26, communicable diseases were 19% of the 280,000 health consults made: acute respiratory infections were 54%, skin infections (including parasitic infestations, impetigo and chickenpox) 26%, and acute watery diarrhea 20%.
· There are critical shortages of essential medicines and medical supplies, particularly for trauma and wound care, infection prevention and control and treatment of non-communicable diseases, and antibiotics. Several health facilities lack functional chlorination systems, with lack of WASH supplies and spare parts delaying repairs and prolonging disruptions. Generator shutdowns associated due to oil shortages also limit healthcare delivery.
· Severe restrictions on medicine, fuel, and humanitarian goods have left Gaza’s health sector on the brink of collapse. Democracy Now interviewed Sharif Matar, head of pediatrics at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, which is operating at minimum capacity with some departments forced to shut down to conserve electricity. Democracy Now
· WHO said medical supplies await entry approval for an average of 74 days, while no Gaza hospital operates at full capacity. (Palestine Chronicle 10/3)
· What is left of a person, of a people, of a doctor after genocide, Dr. Ali Tahrawi asks in his haunting memoir, Do Genocides Have an Ending?From an emergency room doctor’s experiences on the frontline of healthcare during Israel’s assault on Gaza, Dr. Tahrawi documents his daily life at work and, as a human surviving genocide, in snatched moments between long shifts at Israeli-bombarded Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. (Electronic Intifada 10/3)
· Nasser Hospital in Gaza sent out a distress signal in response to the hospital completely running out of syringes. Within hours Doctors Against Genocide bought 7,000 disposable syringes on the commercial market in Gaza (Israel is blocking medical supplies intended for free distribution to hospitals and clinics but allowing identicle supplies to be imported items to be sold on the black market. This further demonstrates the need to force Israel to stop the blockade of supplies to Gaza. This shipment will soon be depleted. IGM
Water & Sanitation
· Funding and Israeli restrictions on the entry of engine oil, spare parts and electro-mechanical equipment and supplies have grounded solid waste collection and transfer vehicles and machinery, forcing reliance on donkey carts and the occasional UN trucks. Despite negotiations, Israeli authorities still refuse access to Gaza’s sanitary landfills near the “Green Line.”
· The Israeli refusal to allow entry to spare parts and equipment have limited production of the 2 seawater desalination plants in southern Gaza to their lowest outputs ever. 74% of the population is forced to rely on water trucking, with 68 agencies delivering 25,000 cubic meters of drinking water daily to 3,199 collection points.
Aid & Supplies
· The offloading rates at the Kerem Shalom crossing, and the Egyptian, Jordan, and Ashdod corridors have rebounded after the all-time lows recorded in September. Also, 788 commercial truckloads were allowed into Gaza between 9/21-27, a 10% reduction compared to the previous month. In any case, Israel is forcing these numbers way below the minimum of 600 trucks daily stipulated in the cease-fire agreement.
· Since the May closure of the Zikim Crossing in northern Gaza, Kerem Shalom remains the only operational crossing point for cargo. For breakdowns of the entry of supplies, see the online UN 2720 Mechanism Dashboard.
Food & Nutrition
· September food assistance reached 220,000 households (840,000 people) through 35 distribution points. Each family received 1 parcel and one 25-kilo flour bag, covering about 50% of minimum caloric needs.
· 695,000 meals were prepared daily in 103 kitchens and delivered to 1,145 locations. 90,000 2-kilo bread bundles were produced daily by 22 bakeries. About 70% were sold by 159 retailers at a subsidized price, while 30% was distributed free of charge to 300+ shelters and community sites. 18 private bakeries received free fuel to produce and sell 65 metric tons of bread daily.
· During the first half of September, of 31,443 children <5 screened, 899 (3%) were diagnosed with acute malnutrition, including 99 (0.31%) with severe malnutrition. 18,154 pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBWs) were screened for acute malnutrition, with 6,852 (38%) admitted for supplementary feeding. The number of operational nutrition sites remains 281.
· For many fathers, parenthood has become an unending attempt to keep their children alive. Mothers cook over open fires and devise ways to keep rodents out of tents while trying to maintain some measure of cleanliness in conditions that make it nearly impossible. Children, among those most profoundly affected by the war, have been forced into roles that once belonged to adults. “Some days, I leave in the morning to try to make some money or find some work for the day,” Abu al-Ezz said. “By the time I return with whatever I have earned and some food for my children, my eldest sons will have taken care of other things.” He describes how his 13- and 11-year-old sons have been forced to carry responsibility for the family itself and for finding the things needed to survive, like finding drinking water and searching the streets and rubble for pieces of wood to burn for cooking. (Mondoweiss 10/8)
Unexploded ordnance
· Last April, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) reported that 1,000 people had been killed due to “indirect conflict from the remnants of war [in Gaza] since the start of the attack,” attributed to the loss of explosive ordnance engineers and lack of equipment needed to identify and safely dispose of unexploded ordnance (UXO) contaminated in debris. About 90 percent of those engineers have been killed, either at home or while carrying out humanitarian work, leaving the city without experts capable of conducting full UXO operations from detection and surveying to safe disposal. Exact locations of UXO remain largely unknown and are mainly identified only when civilians report suspected objects. They were likely to be concentrated in heavily affected areas, including Gaza City and northern Gaza, posing risks to residents living in or near damaged homes and neighborhoods, as well as civil defense crews clearing the rubble, with an estimated 50 to 60 million tons of rubble that are reportedly contaminated with UXOs. The Humanity and Inclusion organization estimated that clearing UXO in Gaza could take 20 and 30 years. (Mondoweiss 10/4)
Child marriage
· Before 10/2023, child marriage in Gaza had been declining. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the rate of girls married under age 18 had fallen from 22.2% in 2015 to 17.9% in 2022. The war reversed that progress entirely. A 2024 UNFPA survey found that 71% of respondents reported growing pressure for girls under 18 to marry, driven by displacement, poverty, and the collapse of protective systems. “Girls in Gaza are not choosing marriage. They are being driven into it by hunger, fear, and displacement,” UNFPA Country Representative Nestor Owomuhangi said. (Mondoweiss 10/1)
WEST BANK, including EAST JERUSALEM
· 9/22-29, 45 Palestinians (3 children) were injured: 22 by Israeli forces and 23 by settlers. Israeli authorities demolished or sealed 70 Palestinian-owned structures, displacing 93 (55 children). Over 50 settler attacks caused injuries and/or damaged homes, agricultural assets, and infrastructure.
· During September, Israeli forces and settlers carried out over 2,000 attacks against West Bank Palestinians: 1,404 by the military and 647 by settlers. Settlers killed 3 Palestinians, bringing the total to 29 so far this year. Attacks also damaged 14,600 trees, including 9,334 olive trees. As the olive harvest gets underway, these attacks will only increase. (OCHAOPT, Drop Site 10/2)
· For more information: OCHAOPT
· This map shows the Impact of West Bank Settler Attacks 1/2023-8/2026: OCHAOPT
Israeli attacks
· 9/24, Israeli forces detained 6 men in An Nabi Salih (Ramallah) and assaulted them for 2 hours. Upon release, they were taken for medical care.
· 9/27, an Israeli operation in Nablus injured 13, mostly students, with tear gas, as well as assaulting a 17-year-old.
· 9/27, settlers injured 5 Palestinian men in Khirbet Abu Falah (Ramallah). The attack also burned 3 vehicles and a tractor.
· 9/28, Israeli forces fired tear gas injuring 5 residents who had gathered after a settler raid in Wadi Qaboun, Halhul (Hebron).
· 10/5, Israeli occupation forces entered Birzeit University with a military bulldozer at dawn, demolishing and seizing its Martyrs’ Memorial. According to university information, soldiers had entered the campus approximately a week earlier to take measurements of the monument. A university security worker was temporarily detained during the raid, while approximately 120 Birzeit students remain in Israeli prisons. (Palestine Chronicle 10/5)
· 10/7-10/8, As settler attacks continued across the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces detained or subjected at least 95 Palestinians to field interrogations overnight and in the morning of 10/8. Nine former prisoners were arrested in Qalqilya and five in Jenin, while the mayor of Tuqu, Saqr Suleiman, was arrested after Israeli forces raided his home southeast of Bethlehem. (Drop Site 10/8)
Settler violence
· Settler attacks displaced a Palestinian family from Jalud (Nablus) in July. Despite a 9/6 Israeli Supreme Court order requiring authorities to facilitate the family’s return within 14 days, the deadline passed without implementation. During a return attempt on 9/28–29, more than 100 settlers attacked Palestinian properties, prompting the family’s evacuation and preventing its return. Settlers destroyed 2 homes and a vehicle, and damaged 4 other homes and a livestock structure. While attacking nearby Qaryut, they injured an elderly Palestinian woman.
· 9/25, a settler removed 150 meters of waterline in Khirbet ar Ras al Ahmar (Tubas), cutting water supply to 47 households. Access restrictions forced a family to temporarily move their 3 children to Khirbet Atuf to attend school; 7 children lost access to in-person education.
· 9/26–27, 6 settlers from newly established outposts attacked Palestinians across Ramallah governorate (Khirbet Abu Falah, Yabrud, Deir Abu Mash’al, Ras Karkar and East Taybeh Bedouin community), injuring 6 and damaging 5 homes, 6 vehicles, 2 tractors, a bus and a solar system.
· 9/22-28, settlers uprooted or damaged at least 150 olive trees and 17 date palms in Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah governorates. In Um al ‘Obor (northern Jordan Valley), settlers damaged irrigation lines and fenced off about 80 dunums of land containing 200 palm trees, restricting farmers’ access to their land and crops.
· 10/1, settlers stole olives from Palestinian owned trees in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Al Bireh. In Salfit, a 50-year-old was shot in the abdomen and another person was wounded by a bullet fragment in the waist. Israeli forces, present during the attack, detained several Palestinians and obstructed an ambulance by taking its key and throwing it away.
· 10/2, settlers backed by Israeli forces, attacked olive harvesters in Nablus and Salfit, firing tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinian farmers and foreign solidarity activists, and destroying trees in Bethlehem. Israeli forces raided Zababdeh (Jenin), detaining dozens of workers in Barta’a. In Ramallah, settlers protected by Israeli military attacked homes near Al-Mughayyir and stole a vehicle.
· 10/5, settlers stole olives and injured harvesters in Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, and Ramallah.
· 10/5, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joined Israeli forces during the demolition of a five-story residential building in Al-Tur containing apartments housing about 70 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to WAFA. In Nablus, Israeli bulldozers razed agricultural land and uprooted olive trees in Iraq Burin, while blocking several village roads with earth mounds. In Aqraba, settlers torched four Palestinian vehicles and spray-painted racist slogans. (Drop Site 10/5)
· 10/7, Israeli forces and settlers continued to attack olive harvesters in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem, killing a farmer in Burqa and wounding 16 there and in Nablus. Curfews were imposed on Nablus and Ramallah, and journalists attacked in both cities.
· 10/8, almost 100 people were detained. Many were beaten before being released, including the municipal director of Al-Eizariya (Jerusalem). Settlers raided and closed the Freedom Center for Culture and Folk Arts in Ramadin (Hebron). Olive harvesters were attacked in Ramallah and Salfit.
· 10/9, settlers carried out a least 19 attacks on olive harvesters – assaulting them, burning vehicles, destroying trees, stealing livestock and forcing farmers off their land. Israeli forces supported the attacks with live ammunition, tear gas, raids and arrests in Nablus, Ramallah, Salfit, Hebron and Jenin.
Demolitions & Displacement
· 9/23, Israeli authorities demolished 20 residential and agricultural structures in Az Za'ayyem (Jerusalem), displacing 6 households (33 people, 20 children) and affecting 36 others. This was the 3rd displacement for 2 households in less than a year. The demolitions also damaged waterlines serving approximately 300 dunums of the area’s agricultural land. Az Za'ayyem is one of 18 Bedouin and herding communities at risk of forcible transfer by the E1 settlement plan. Since 2009, Israeli has demolished more than 560 structures across these communities, displacing over 1,000 Palestinians (580+ children).
· 9/23, Israeli authorities demolished homes, animal shelters, latrines, storage facilities and solar systems in Jinba, Masafer Yatta (Hebron), displacing 8 families (55 people, 32 children) and affecting another 81. The families took shelter in nearby caves. Jinba is one of 13 Palestinian communities within “Firing Zone 918,” where residents face risk of forcible transfer. The OHCHR called for an immediate halt to the widespread destruction of Palestinian villages and forcible transfer of residents in Masafer Yatta. They reported that 3 other area villages had been almost entirely demolished during September, noting that the forcible transfer of a civilian population from their land by an occupying power constitutes a war crime.
· 9/23, Israeli forces demolished 12 agricultural and livelihood structures in Aba, affecting 11 households (57 people). In Jaba’ (Jerusalem), Israeli authorities demolished 2 livelihood structures, affecting 2 people. 9/24, Israeli forces sealed an apartment in Biddu (Jerusalem) on punitive grounds, displacing a family of 5 (3 children). The apartment belonged to the family of a Palestinian man arrested in connection with a 9/20 attack in which a settler was killed.
· Israeli demolitions displaced 147 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in one week. Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for the urgent protection of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, warning that surging violence, tighter movement restrictions, and accelerating settlement expansion are “making everyday life untenable.” (Drop Site 9/29)
LEBANON
· Despite the “ceasefire,” Israel continues to use planes, artillery, drones and bulldozers to destroy houses and entire villages, local government structures, and burn fields and orchards throughout southern Lebanon.
· Lebanon’s MoH says Israeli attacks have killed over 4,380 and wounded over 12,410 since 3/2.
· A 200-page report by Lebanon’s National Committee for International Humanitarian Law was submitted to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri documenting Israeli attacks since 3/2/26, including war crimes and crimes against humanity involving attacks on civilians, journalists, medical personnel, and infrastructure, as well as widespread destruction and forced displacement. The report was produced despite Lebanon’s agreement under the 6/26 “ceasefire” framework to end “all hostile or harmful actions in international political or legal forums” against Israel. (OCHAOPT, Drop Site 10/1)
· 10/1, Israeli warplanes struck the outskirts of Zawtar Al-Sharqiyah, Nabatieh. Warplanes also struck Zawtar Al-Sharqiyah, while artillery shelled the Ali Al-Taher heights. In Tyre, Israeli forces demolished several homes in Al-Mansouri and Israeli warplanes also struck Al-Mansouri. In Bint Jbeil, Israeli military vehicles moved through the town.
· 10/2, strikes on Tyre and Bint Jbeil continued.
· 10/5, Israeli warplanes struck Kfar Tebnit and Wadi Al-Hujair in southern Lebanon, while Israeli artillery shelled Hadatha, Bra’shit, and Al-Mansouri.
· 10/6, airstrikes continued in Bint Jbeil and Israeli military continued to shell Hadatha and Bra’shit and machine gun the outskirts of Mansouri.
· 10/7, Israeli drones pursued Lebanese residents returning to their homes in Bint Jbeil, and Israeli artillery continued to shell in Tyre.
· 10/8, Israeli artillery continued to target Tyre, Mansouri, Bint Jbeil and Hadatha, while Israeli warplanes struck Nabatieh.
· 10/9, Israeli infantry accompanied by a D9 bulldozer uprooted olive trees as they advanced to within 50 meters of a Lebanese army position. Tank and machine gun fire accompanied the Israeli advance toward the Ibl al-Saqi spring in Marjayoun. Artillery continued to target Tyre and Bint Jbeil.
· For the past three years and over two ceasefire agreements, Israel has systematically and violently erased life from southern Lebanon, committing what many, including Lebanon’s environment minister, have deemed an ecocide. Israel has transformed southern Lebanon from small-scale and subsistence farms of tobacco, olives, and goats to a landscape set ablaze by white phosphorus munitions, littered with unexploded ordnance, and poisoned by the pesticide glyphosate. In a region where around 70 percent of families rely on farming, explained Ghassan Makarem, an organizer with the Lebanese food sovereignty organization AgriMovement, Israel has destroyed around a quarter of the country’s cultivated land. Lebanon’s environmental defenders say Israel is deliberately targeting them. (Truthout 9/29)
· Four in five households in Lebanon are struggling to afford basic necessities, with 22% reporting their children had gone to bed hungry in the previous two weeks and 14% reporting at least one child working, according to a new UNICEF report. Since March 2, at least 261 children have been killed and 1,056 injured in Israeli attacks, averaging seven children killed or wounded each day over six months, UNICEF said. Some 436 schools have been damaged or destroyed, putting around 100,000 children at risk of being without a classroom, while an estimated 770,000 children have experienced psychological distress. (Drop Site 9/30, UNICEF)
· Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel was carrying out a “thorough cleansing” in southern Lebanon and “the world isn’t stopping us.” Israel carried on shelling and blasting, ignoring a ceasefire. (Drop Site 10/6)
ISRAEL
· In East Jerusalem, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the Al-Buraq Wall area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on 9/27 as more than 1,100 illegal Israeli settlers stormed the holy site during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The far-right minister performed Talmudic rituals and held up a large Torah scroll during the incursion, which took place under heavy Israeli security. Footage broadcast by the Hebrew-language Kol Barama radio station showed Ben-Gvir accompanied by dozens of illegal settlers as they entered the area. (Palestine Chronicle 9/27)
· Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Sunday for Israel to launch a war in the occupied West Bank modeled on its genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. “We should do there what we did in Gaza,” Smotrich told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.The far-right minister also repeated his call for the Palestinian Authority to be dismantled as Israeli forces intensified military raids and attacks throughout the occupied territory. (Palestine Chronicle 9/28)
· Israeli soldiers beat Raafat Khairi Ahmed Abu Khalil to death at the Anab military checkpoint, Quds News Network reported on social media. Settlers attacked olive harvesters in Osarin, injuring residents and damaging homes and vehicles, while Israeli soldiers fired tear gas. Israeli police facilitated additional religious practices inside Al-Aqsa, with researcher Ziad Abhais warning of a gradual attempt to transform the mosque into a shared religious site. (Palestine Chronicle 10/5)
· The events of 10/7/23 marked the beginning of a rapid crackdown on Palestinian students across Israeli academia. 10/12, the education minister instructed the heads of academic institutions to take a hard line against students who “are expressing support for these horrific acts of terrorism.” Earlier in October, Adalah published “Apartheid in Israeli Academia,” a comprehensive report on the discriminatory disciplinary policies used against Palestinian students at Israeli universities and colleges since 10/2023. The persecution involves “manufactured cases,” in which accusations and disciplinary measures preceded factual investigations, leaving Palestinian students to prove their innocence over opinions expressed beyond campus. +972
UNITED STATES
· Every Senate Democrat (except for Sen. John Fetterman) just voted to investigate Israel's human rights abuses in the West Bank. Senator @ChrisVanHollen forced a vote on this resolution, which invokes Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act to require an official report on Israel's violence in the West Bank, including the killings of U.S. citizens like Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh, Saifullah Kamel Musallet. S.Res. 862 narrowly failed to pass in a very close 47-51 vote. It represents an enormous shift in the Democratic Party, showing how far our movement has pushed the needle on Palestine. IGM, The Intercept
· Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi ruled on 9/30 that Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a prominent Palestinian rights advocate, can be deported on foreign policy grounds, though she rejected the government’s separate claim that he lied on his green card application. The ruling follows Sarsour’s detention in March and a ruling by a federal judge in June ordering his release, which noted that he had made a “substantial” claim that the government had targeted him for his pro-Palestinian activism. Sarsour said he will appeal and that deportation to the occupied West Bank, where he was born and previously imprisoned by Israel, would “mean the end of my life.” Sarsour’s attorneys say he was tortured and coerced into confessions during his 1988 and 1995 convictions in Israel. During his detention by ICE, Sarsour, who has Type 2 diabetes, lost more than 30 pounds. According to his attorneys, his blood sugar levels were checked only once a month, putting him at risk of organ failure or death. (Drop Site 10/1)
· A new investigative report by researchers with the Palestinian Youth Movement, the People’s Embargo for Palestine, the Democratic Socialists of America and the Movement Research Unit has found that between July 2025 and February 2026, United Airlines was involved in the transport of more than 2,700 shipments that were explicitly carrying military cargo to Israel. The cargo was destined for Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, as well as Lockheed Martin Israel, the Israeli military directly, and to the Nevatim airbase where Israel’s entire F-35 fleet is based. The shipments were suspended when the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February, but resumed in early September. (Electronic Intifada 10/1)
· Far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cabinet have voted to designate the U.S.’s leading Muslim civil rights group as a “domestic terrorist organization,” threatening to shutter and impose severe penalties on the group and its state affiliate simply to serve the GOP’s political crusades, critics said. The 427-page document recommending “terrorist” designations for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Florida chapter was approved over the course of just 30 seconds at DeSantis’s cabinet meeting on 9/29, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. (Truthout 10/1)
· In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi, DAWN and ADC called on the FBI to launch investigations into the attacks on Americans, for the State Department to bar the Israeli units facilitating settler violence from receiving US assistance under the Leahy Law, and for the president to reinstate sanctions on those enabling settler violence. The UN has recorded more than 1,600 settler attacks against Palestinians so far this year, putting it on pace to be the highest number on record—for the third year in a row. This amounts to an average of 6.7 settler attacks a day in 2026, which have affected 275 Palestinian communities. Israeli settlers have killed at least 23 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,000 this year alone. (DAWN 10/8)
· A group of House Democrats has called for Israel to release hundreds of health care workers, including physicians like Hussam Abu Safiya, from detention as Israel’s genocide in Gaza reaches into its fourth year. Six Democrats, led by Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois, released a joint statement on 10/6 condemning Israel for its “systematic persecution” of Palestinian health care workers and demanding their release from arbitrary detention. “Over the last three years, the Israeli government has systematically destroyed the health system in Palestine, murdering at least 1,700 Palestinian doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other healthcare workers and destroying dozens of hospitals. It has arrested and arbitrarily detained hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers, including at least 16 physicians who continue to be held in inhumane conditions,” the lawmakers wrote. Truthout
· US rapper Macklemore, removed from Ed Sheeran’s US stadium tour after voicing support of Palestine, has convened a charity show, Free Palestine, that will visit Dublin, Paris and London, with a North American run to be announced. The list of organizations to benefit from the concerts has been shared: Anera, Glia, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Taawon, Heal Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Jewish Voice for Peace, Medical Aid for Palestinians. Institute for Middle East Understanding, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and UNRWA USA. The Guardian
INTERNATIONAL
· Navi Pillay, South African Jurist, Wins Nobel Peace Prize in “Stinging Rebuke to Donald Trump” 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, the South African jurist who led the United Nations commission of inquiry that concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Pillay’s long career in international human rights law includes work as a defense attorney for anti-apartheid activists, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a former judge at the International Criminal Court and the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights from 2008 to 2014. Democracy Now
· A legal team representing Palestinian victims submitted new documentation and testimonies to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague on 9/25. The evidence concerns alleged violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees, alongside testimony from relatives of Palestinians killed in Gaza. The submission forms part of efforts to advance accountability within the ICC’s continuing investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine. The evidence concerns alleged violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees, alongside testimony from relatives of Palestinians killed in Gaza. (Palestine Chronicle 9/25)
· UN Human Rights Office today issued an update report on the database of businesses involved in activities in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. A total of 214 companies from 11 countries are listed. Mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, the database was first issued in 2020 and then updated in 2023 and 2025. The latest update focuses on businesses engaged in the agriculture, transport, storage, waste management, energy, food, and hospitality providers sectors. Click here to read the full report. (Palestine Chronicle 9/26)
England
· Pro-Palestine campaigners have convinced the Royal College of Pharmacy (RCP) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to drop Teva UK, the British arm of the Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals, as a sponsor of or exhibitor at its conferences and educational events. The RCN represents 500,000 UK nurses; the Royal College of Pharmacy has 34,000 members. (Guardian)
· The UK Green Party adopted a resolution which describes Zionism as “support for "an ethnonationalist Jewish state" and calls instead for a "single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine," with Jerusalem as its capital and equal rights for all. Haaretz
SOURCES
OCHAOPT, Drop Site, Palestine Chronicle, Democracy Now, The Guardian, OHCHR, The Intercept, IGM, Electronic Intifada, Gaza Index, Truthout, Mondoweiss, UNEP, DAWN, Haaretz