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As the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest prepares to crown its winner in Saturday’s grand final in Vienna, the long-running European music spectacle has been plunged into unprecedented controversy, with queer activists leading global calls to boycott the event over what they label deliberate “pinkwashing” of Israeli state violence against Palestinians.

The controversy traces back to December 2024, when the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Eurovision’s governing body, voted to allow Israel to compete in this year’s contest. That decision has sparked sustained protests across Europe, from mass demonstrations on the streets of host city Vienna to the expulsions of pro-Palestine campaigners who disrupted live shows, and loud public booing and chants of “stop the genocide” during Israel’s qualifying performance. Five countries — Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia and the Netherlands — have already withdrawn from the contest entirely in protest, and multiple national public broadcasters have refused to air Saturday’s final.

A flashpoint for queer criticism came in Thursday’s live semi-final broadcast, which included a pre-taped segment celebrating the contest’s long history of inclusivity for the LGBTQ+ community, a demographic that has long formed one of Eurovision’s core global audiences. For activists, the segment laid bare what they call the EBU and Israel’s coordinated campaign of reputation laundering: using the language of queer inclusivity to distract from ongoing military violence against Palestinians.

Omar Khatib, a queer Palestinian writer and organiser based in Jerusalem, framed the moment as a clear moral test for global audiences. “Either you are against genocide and against the mass killing of Palestinians, or you are willing to normalise and coexist with it,” Khatib told Middle East Eye. He argued that the myth of Eurovision’s political neutrality no longer holds up, noting that the event has become a stage where “liberalism, nationalism and colonialism intersect under the language of diversity and inclusion.” For queer Palestinian organizers, Khatib added, Israel’s participation is not just a minor entry in a music contest: it is part of a broader state propaganda push that weaponizes queer identity to legitimize state violence against Palestinian people.

In response to the EBU’s decision, thousands of LGBTQ+ viewers who have watched Eurovision for decades are now breaking that long-held habit and boycotting Saturday’s final. Queers for Palestine, a UK-based activist group that held a pro-Palestine symposium in London last month, is urging queer viewers to skip the broadcast and instead join the queer contingent at London’s annual Nakba Day demonstration, which commemorates the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 creation of the State of Israel. For those who stay home, group member Tara suggests organizing local actions: asking local queer venues to cancel their Eurovision screenings, or distributing educational leaflets to attendees explaining how the event enables what activists call Israeli settler-colonialism and genocide.

“Find those around you who want more from their queerness than annual shows of opulence dripping with blood, and set your sights again on what queerness is really all about: liberation,” Tara said. Addressing claims of hypocrisy from pro-Israel commentators, who often point to anti-LGBTQ+ policies from Palestinian political groups like Hamas, Tara pushed back on the false binary. “As queer activists, we love freedom and dignity for everyone and we want to contribute to the end of this oppression,” she said. “We, of course, also support our queer Palestinian friends and siblings when they struggle against the violence of patriarchy in their own society, as all queer people do everywhere in the world… there is quite obviously nothing hypocritical about this.”

Mainstream reporting has backed up activists’ pinkwashing claims: The New York Times revealed earlier this week that Israel has spent more than $1 million on its Eurovision participation, framing the contest as a key soft power tool to repair the country’s damaged international reputation and rally global support amid widespread condemnation of its military operations in occupied Palestinian territories. Records show Israel launched this formal promotional campaign back in 2018, as criticism of its participation grew alongside its ongoing settlement expansion and military operations.

For decades, Israel has positioned itself as a regional LGBTQ+ haven compared to neighboring countries: same-sex relations and same-sex adoption are legal in the country, and Tel Aviv has cultivated a global reputation as a leading queer travel and culture hub. But that reputation has long been challenged by critics, who note that same-sex marriage remains unlegalized in Israel, that powerful Jewish fundamentalist groups routinely push back against LGBTQ+ rights advances, and that a 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 47 percent of Israelis view homosexuality as morally unacceptable. Most notably, queer Palestinians have documented being targeted by Israeli intelligence, who routinely blackmail queer Palestinians into collaborating with Israeli occupation forces.

The boycott campaign has drawn widespread support from artists across the globe, with more than 2,000 musicians signing the “No Music For Genocide” petition calling for a full boycott of the 2026 contest. UK feminist punk band Big Joanie, which centers the experiences of Black and queer women in its work, was one of those signatories. Lead singer Stephanie Phillips said the desire to enjoy a beloved cultural event cannot override the reality of violence facing Palestinians. “I think there is definitely merit for an accusation of pinkwashing,” she said. “While I fully understand that Eurovision means a lot to the LGBTQ+ community, I also think it does not cancel out the reality that many Palestinians are living right now – there are LGBTQ+ Palestinians as well and I doubt they feel represented or seen by the choices of Eurovision.” Phillips noted that the band’s audience has been overwhelmingly supportive of their pro-Palestine stance, with only one negative incident after a show in Cologne, Germany, where an attendee aggressively confronted her for dedicating a song to the Palestinian people.

The controversy has already had a measurable impact on the contest’s global reach. Typically, Eurovision’s 25-country grand final draws more than 150 million viewers worldwide, but this year’s final is on track to be the least-watched in the event’s history. Alongside the five withdrawing countries, Spanish public television has already confirmed it will not air the final, and Slovenian and Irish public broadcasters have also pulled their broadcasts. Semi-final viewership in countries still airing the contest has already slumped sharply from previous years. As final rehearsals wrapped up in Vienna on Friday, a parallel pro-Palestine event featuring speeches and a concert was held in the city center, drawing hundreds of attendees.

Even former contest winners have sounded the alarm over the long-term damage the controversy has done to Eurovision’s reputation as a unifying cultural event. Emmelie de Forest, the Danish singer who won the 2013 contest, told Middle East Eye that the EBU’s decision has left her heartbroken. “I think it has already done a lot of damage to Eurovision, and that makes me genuinely sad to say because the contest has been such a meaningful part of my life,” she said. “I sadly think the contest is creating more division than unity. The controversy surrounding Israel’s participation, the backlash from fans and artists, the countries withdrawing and the growing distrust toward the EBU have all fundamentally changed the atmosphere around Eurovision.”

Ahead of Saturday’s 78th anniversary commemoration of the Nakba in central London, a coalition of prominent British Palestinian and Arab public figures has issued an open letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer pushing for equal safety protections for their communities, pushing back against widespread false claims that their peaceful marches are hubs of hatred.

The scheduled Nakba 78 march for Palestinian justice is set to take place the same day as a far-right “Unite the Kingdom” rally organized by controversial far-right figure Tommy Robinson, a scheduling overlap that has stoked heightened security fears across Palestinian and Arab communities in the capital. London’s Metropolitan Police Service has already announced it has deployed over 4,000 officers to the events, confirming it is preparing for potential violent confrontations.

In their letter, signed by doctors, activists, academics, lawyers and other London-based community leaders from Palestinian and broader Arab backgrounds, the group stresses that pro-Palestine demonstrations are not spaces of extremism, but gatherings rooted in shared humanity and demands for justice. The signatories note that Jewish activists regularly join their marches in full safety, and no pro-Palestine processions have ever targeted Jewish houses of worship — directly contradicting repeated false accusations from senior officials and media figures.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley claimed earlier this month that many pro-Palestine marches intentionally route near synagogues, a statement solidarity leaders have called deliberately dishonest and dangerous. “Our marches for Palestine are about showing solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against apartheid and genocide, and to protest against British government complicity in Israel’s crimes against them,” explained Ryvka Barnard, deputy director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. “Our upcoming march on 16 May will be no different.”

The core grievance laid out in the letter is the stark inequality in how the British government and law enforcement address security fears for different communities. Signatories say that while other communities have received explicit public reassurance and visible security commitments from the government, Palestinian and Arab concerns about potential violence from the overlapping far-right rally have been met with silence and neglect. “It is painful to feel that our fears are treated as secondary, or worse, that our peaceful commemoration is viewed only as a policing problem,” the letter reads.

For British Palestinians, the 78th anniversary of the Nakba is not an abstract historical event: it is an ongoing, intergenerational trauma. The Nakba — meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic — refers to the 1948 forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral lands by Zionist militias to clear space for the creation of the state of Israel. This year’s march will include elderly 1948 Nakba survivors marching alongside their great-grandchildren, a visible reminder of the displacement that continues to shape Palestinian life today. As the former colonial power in Palestine, the British government played a foundational role in enabling the Nakba through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, colonial-era repression of Palestinian self-determination, and state support for the early Zionist movement.

The group’s formal demands to Starmer include parity of safety protection for Palestinian and Arab demonstrators, proactive measures to prevent far-right violence, and official recognition of the intergenerational trauma of the Nakba for British Palestinian communities.

The current Labour government led by Starmer has imposed a harsh crackdown on Palestinian solidarity activism since taking office in summer 2024. The direct action group Palestine Action has been officially banned, with its members prosecuted under terrorism legislation. Protesters speaking out against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date, have repeatedly been labeled antisemites by politicians and mainstream media outlets — a claim that holds no evidential weight, given the consistent participation of large numbers of Jewish anti-war activists in pro-Palestine marches.

Facing escalating US naval pressure that has crippled its maritime access to the Arabian Gulf and Persian Gulf, Iran has pivoted eastward, breathing new life into a decades-dormant overland trade corridor project with Pakistan that offers a critical alternative to blockaded sea routes. Now in its fifth week, the US blockade has thrown Iran’s regional trade into disarray: thousands of containers bound for the Islamic Republic have been stranded at Pakistan’s Karachi Port, war-risk insurance premiums for shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz have skyrocketed, and most major carriers have suspended Iran-bound voyages entirely.

In late April, just days after a second round of US-Iran negotiations collapsed, Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce issued a little-noticed regulatory order, SRO 691, formally designating six new transit corridors that allow third-party cargo bound for Iran to travel overland across Pakistani territory from Pakistani ports. The move revives a bilateral road transport agreement first signed by the two nations in 2005 that sat idle for nearly 20 years, connecting Pakistan’s three major deep-water ports – Karachi, Port Qasim, and the China-backed Gwadar Port – to two Iranian border crossings in Balochistan: Gabd and Taftan. The shortest route, linking Gwadar to Gabd, cuts travel time to the border to just two to three hours, down from 18 hours over the route from Karachi.

For years, Tehran refused to move forward with the project out of concern that expanding activity at Gwadar would draw trade away from Chabahar, Iran’s own Indian-funded deep-water port on the Gulf of Oman. But that strategic calculation shifted dramatically after the outbreak of regional conflict and the imposition of the US naval blockade, which left Chabahar exposed to growing instability. The urgency of the project was underscored by the timing of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s high-profile visit to Islamabad, where he met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir just as the corridor order was announced.

Beyond providing immediate relief for Iran’s import crunch, the corridors open a new long-term pathway for regional trade extending all the way to Central Asia. Trial shipments, including a refrigerated cargo of meat bound for Uzbekistan, have already traversed the route, with cargo moving north from the Iranian border through Iran’s domestic road network to Central Asian markets. Analysts note that the corridor exposes a key limitation of the US maritime blockade: goods shipped from China and other major trade partners to Pakistan can be unloaded outside Iranian jurisdiction and transported overland, bypassing blockaded Iranian waters and the Strait of Hormuz entirely. Currently, Tehran is increasingly relying on a network of alternate overland and maritime routes through Pakistan, Turkey, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea to keep import flows moving.

The arrangement operates in a legally ambiguous space: Pakistan does not formally enforce US sanctions on Iran, and existing US sanctions frameworks allow for limited non-US trade with Iran as long as transactions avoid explicitly sanctioned entities. To date, the White House has not issued any formal public objection to the corridor; when asked about the project, US President Donald Trump only stated he “knows everything about it” without further elaboration.

Analysts emphasize that the new corridors are an adaptive response to wartime pressure, not a fundamental fix for Iran’s deep-seated economic challenges under sanctions. “These land routes are less a major economic transformation for Iran than a form of economic breathing space under pressure,” explained Mostafa Modabber, a South Asia-based analyst. Fatemeh Aman, an independent specialist on Iran-South Asia relations, echoed that assessment, noting that “land routes cannot match the scale, speed or profitability of maritime trade. They may reduce vulnerability at the margins, but they are unlikely to fundamentally change Iran’s broader economic challenges under sanctions and conflict conditions.”

The project also faces significant practical and political obstacles. Pakistan grapples with underdeveloped transport infrastructure in Balochistan, pervasive corruption within customs agencies, persistent insecurity in border regions, and widespread influence from informal smuggling networks. Islamabad also walks a delicate diplomatic tightrope, balancing its economic interests with Iran against its ties to Washington, Riyadh, and other Gulf states, and remains hesitant to openly confront the US should Washington choose to intensify pressure on Iran-related trade. Even after the corridor’s formal launch, many stranded containers in Karachi continue to move slowly, as Pakistani banks and logistics firms remain wary of potential US secondary sanctions.

Despite these challenges, the corridor carries broader strategic significance for regional trade architecture. It links Iran directly to two major integrated trade networks: the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that connects Iran to Russia and India. For China, Iran’s largest remaining major trading partner, the route offers a way to sustain critical supply chains without full dependence on maritime lanes vulnerable to US naval interdiction. For Pakistan, the project advances its long-held goal of positioning itself as a key transit hub connecting South Asia to Central Asia and the Middle East, while also boosting the commercial viability of Gwadar Port, the centerpiece of CPEC.

The reactivation of the Iran-Pakistan corridors reflects a larger ongoing shift in regional trade patterns as traditional maritime lifelines through the Strait of Hormuz become increasingly contested. What began as a emergency workaround for a five-week blockade has emerged as a visible signal of how quickly regional powers are reworking trade routes to adapt to rising geopolitical tension.

A bitter legal clash is brewing between the state of Israel and one of the world’s most prominent newspapers, after The New York Times stood by a high-profile opinion column that documented allegations of systemic sexual assault and rape against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli custody.

The confrontation moved forward this week after the paper reaffirmed its support for the reporting of veteran columnist Nicholas Kristof, prompting Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to announce it would move forward with a defamation lawsuit against the outlet, the agency confirmed in a post on the social platform X Thursday.

Kristof’s deeply researched investigative opinion piece opens with a unifying call for readers: regardless of where they stand on the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all people should be able to join in condemning sexual violence as a human rights abuse. The column centers on harrowing, first-hand testimonies from Palestinian survivors of assault by Israeli security personnel, including accounts of assault using military dogs, vegetables, and batons that left serious internal injury.

One detailed account comes from 46-year-old Palestinian journalist Sami al-Sai, who told Kristof he was sexually assaulted by both male and female Israeli soldiers while they filmed the attack, describing being violently grabbed in his genitals until he begged for the assault to stop.

In a statement defending the column, a New York Times spokesperson emphasized that Kristof’s work was the product of rigorous, in-depth reporting. But Israeli officials and public figures have pushed back fiercely, dismissing the allegations as a modern iteration of the medieval ‘blood libel’ – a centuries-old antisemitic falsehood that was used to justify mass violence against Jewish communities across Europe for hundreds of years.

Following the paper’s decision to uphold the reporting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have formally ordered the MFA to launch the defamation proceeding against The New York Times. In an official statement, the MFA called Kristof’s piece one of the most ‘hideous and distorted lies’ ever published against the Israeli state by a major modern media outlet.

This is not the first time such allegations have come to light: independent outlet Middle East Eye published a similar report last month, based on investigation from the West Bank Protection Consortium. The coalition of human rights groups documented a minimum of 16 separate cases of sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, in a report focused on how gender-based violence is used to force Palestinian displacement from the region.

Kristof’s reporting draws on corroborating evidence from multiple independent human rights organizations that have documented sexual violence by Israeli personnel, including Euro-Med Monitor, Save the Children, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The columnist also interviewed Israeli legal professionals who confirmed that the sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees is a widespread, underreported problem.

In his column, Kristof argued that decades of systemic dehumanization of Palestinians by Israeli institutions has created conditions that enable these abuses to continue with impunity. He added that the true scale of violence is almost certainly far higher than documented, because sexual assault is deeply stigmatized in conservative Palestinian society, leaving most survivors unwilling to come forward publicly. Very few of the survivors he interviewed agreed to be named, but Kristof noted overlapping patterns in their testimonies that point to a systemic, institutional problem rather than isolated incidents.

Kristof also drew direct connection to United States policy, noting that American taxpayer funding subsidizes the Israeli security establishment, making the U.S. complicit in the sexual violence documented in the piece.

In a dramatic development that has thrown the already fragile normalization alliance between Israel and the United Arab Emirates into the global spotlight, conflicting official claims over an alleged secret summit between the two nations’ leaders emerged on May 13, 2026, deep amid Israel’s ongoing war against Iran. The stark disagreement between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi has also drawn sharp condemnation from Tehran, which has directly accused the Gulf state of complicity in the military campaign against it.

The chain of events began when Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office made an unprecedented public announcement confirming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had traveled secretly to the UAE for a closed-door meeting with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, held weeks into Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion, the official codename for its military offensive against Iran. The Israeli statement framed the unpublicized meeting as a historic breakthrough in bilateral relations between the two signatories of the 2020 Abraham Accords, the first normalization deal between Israel and a Gulf Arab state.

Within hours, however, the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a categorical rebuttal of the Israeli claim. In an official statement posted to social media, the Emirati foreign ministry denied all reports of a Netanyahu visit, as well as claims of any Israeli military delegation being hosted on UAE territory. The statement emphasized that all formal relations between the UAE and Israel are conducted openly under the framework of the officially declared Abraham Accords, with no place for non-transparent or off-the-books arrangements. It added that any claims of unannounced visits or undisclosed agreements are completely baseless unless confirmed via an official statement from Emirati authorities, and called on international media outlets to uphold professional standards of accuracy and avoid spreading unvetted information or misleading political narratives.

Despite the UAE’s full denial, multiple independent sources and evidence have backed the core of the Israeli claim. Unnamed Israeli and Arab sources cited by Middle East Eye place the meeting on March 26, held in the oasis city of Al-Ain, located near the UAE-Oman border. Independent open-source intelligence checks corroborate this timeline: on March 27, one day after the alleged meeting, Haaretz national security and open-source editor Avi Scharf posted to social media noting that two Israeli business jets, regularly used for very important person (VVIP) special travel, had landed in Al-Ain on March 26 and returned to Israel just four hours later that same evening. Subsequent independent flight tracking data confirmed that two jets departed Tel Aviv for Al-Ain on the afternoon of March 26 and returned to Israel overnight. Risk advisory firm Basha Report further identified the two aircraft as a Bombardier Global Express XRS registered in the Isle of Man and a Bombardier Global 6000 business jet. Additional unconfirmed reporting even claims that Mohammed bin Zayed personally drove Netanyahu from the airport to the meeting palace in his own private vehicle.

This is not the first reported high-level Israeli-Emirati contact during the war: The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Mossad Director David Barnea has made at least two trips to the UAE since the outbreak of hostilities for war coordination purposes. Middle East Eye attempted to request additional clarification from the UAE foreign ministry on its denial but received no response by the time of publication.

The disagreement over the meeting comes against a decades-long backdrop of quiet cooperation between the UAE and Israel that predates their 2020 formal normalization. As the first Gulf state to normalize ties with Israel, the UAE has developed extensive joint military and intelligence partnerships with Israel and the United States, including a shared intelligence-sharing platform codenamed Crystal Ball designed to boost regional intelligence capabilities. Even before formal diplomatic relations were established, Israeli military and intelligence officials helped the UAE construct a network of security outposts across islands in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, operating under the radar for years.

Alon Pinkas, a veteran Israeli diplomat who served as an advisor to four Israeli foreign ministers, noted that the long-running quiet cooperation predating formal normalization means the current public disagreement over the meeting is unlikely to cause permanent, irreversible damage to bilateral ties — particularly given widespread expectations that Netanyahu will leave office before the end of 2026. That said, Pinkas acknowledged that the ongoing war on Iran has already strained the relationship, as the UAE and much of the region now view Israel as an aggressive force driving regional destabilization.

The economic and security costs of the war have fallen disproportionately heavily on the UAE, a reality acknowledged even by senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Iran has targeted Gulf states it views as sympathetic to Israel and the U.S. in retaliation for the offensive, and the UAE has absorbed more missile attack damage than Israel itself since the war began in late February. While Israel deployed Iron Dome air defense batteries and operating personnel to the UAE to help defend against Iranian strikes — deepening practical security cooperation — the war has still hit the UAE’s core economic interests hard: its vital tourism sector has suffered sharp declines, and capital flight has hit the major financial hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, even as the country maintains an alternative oil export route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

On Thursday, the diplomatic fallout expanded when Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi used a BRICS summit meeting in New Delhi to directly accuse the UAE of being complicit in the war against Iran. Araghchi noted that he had previously avoided naming the UAE publicly to preserve regional unity, but confirmed that the UAE was directly involved in the aggression against Tehran, and failed to issue any condemnation of the offensive when it first launched.

Despite the public dispute and war-related strains, regional analysts expect the bilateral relationship between Israel and the UAE to continue deepening in the long term. Jalel Harchaoui, a leading expert on regional political economy, told Middle East Eye that the UAE remains committed to the core strategic logic of the Abraham Accords it adopted in 2020, even amid the heavy costs it has incurred since the outbreak of the war. Harchaoui argues that the damage the UAE has sustained will not shift its overall strategic course, and that the country will likely double down on its normalization partnership with Israel moving forward.

On Thursday, ahead of the annual and highly controversial ‘Flag March’ through Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli security forces enacted sweeping restrictions that barred the vast majority of Palestinian Muslim worshippers from accessing the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while providing heavy armed protection for large-scale incursions by ultranationalist Israeli groups into the holy site.

The entire Old City, located in Israel-occupied East Jerusalem, was placed under a near-complete lockdown to make way for the planned marches and incursions. Palestinian-owned commercial establishments across the area were forced to close their doors, and local Palestinian residents were ordered to remain confined to their homes.

In an anonymous interview with Middle East Eye, a staff member from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf — the Jordanian-administered body that oversees Al-Aqsa Mosque under longstanding regional arrangements — noted that security barriers and entry restrictions were stricter than at any point in recent memory. From the moment of pre-dawn morning prayers, Israeli authorities implemented harsh control measures at every entry gate to the compound, one of the most sacred sites in Islam.

Israeli forces conducted invasive searches of all worshippers attempting to reach the mosque, confiscated identification documents from many, and enforced sweeping age-based bans: all Palestinian men under the age of 60 and all Palestinian women under the age of 50 were barred entry entirely. Local sources confirmed to Middle East Eye that worshippers were physically assaulted, shoved, and beaten by security personnel at multiple mosque gates. By the time pre-dawn prayers concluded, the vast majority of Palestinians had been cleared from the compound, leaving only a small contingent of Waqf staff on site.

Shortly after the clearance, large groups of ultranationalist Israelis entered the compound under full police protection. By mid-morning, at least 800 Israelis had carried out incursions into the site, with additional groups scheduled to enter throughout the day. During the incursions, multiple participants performed openly Jewish religious rituals and prayers, and raised Israeli flags across the mosque’s central courtyard.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound sits on a plateau known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Israelis as the Temple Mount. For Muslims, Al-Aqsa is the third-holiest site in Islam, while Jewish tradition holds the plateau was the location of the ancient First and Second Temples. A centuries-old status quo agreement, formally recognized by the international community, designates the entire compound as an exclusively Muslim place of worship, with full administrative authority over access, prayer, and maintenance granted to the Islamic Waqf.

In recent years, however, the Israeli government has steadily eroded this long-standing arrangement. It has permitted near-daily incursions by ultranationalist settler groups and allowed public Jewish prayer on the compound, while systematically sidelining the Waqf’s governing authority. Thursday’s incursions included several high-profile Israeli political figures: Ariel Kallner, a sitting member of parliament from the ruling Likud party, and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Israel’s current minister for peripheral development from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by Itamar Ben Gvir. Speaking after his entry to the compound, Wasserlauf claimed that ‘Jews no longer walk around the Temple Mount like thieves and no longer need to hide.’

The large-scale incursions come as Israel marks ‘Jerusalem Day,’ a national holiday commemorating Israel’s 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem and its subsequent annexation of the territory. Alongside the raids on Al-Aqsa, the day’s events include the polarizing Flag March, which travels through the Old City, including through Palestinian-majority neighborhoods. The march has a well-documented history of racist, anti-Muslim chants, physical assaults on Palestinian residents, and vandalism of Palestinian property.

This year’s Jerusalem Day celebrations run from sunset Thursday through nightfall Friday, an unusually timed schedule that sees the events overlap with Nakba Day — the Palestinian commemoration of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias during the establishment of the state of Israel. The overlap also falls on a Friday, the holiest day of the week for Muslim prayer, when Israeli authorities have historically suspended incursions into Al-Aqsa to allow for weekly communal prayers.

Despite this long-standing practice, a group of senior ministers and members of parliament from Israel’s ruling coalition have submitted an official appeal to the national police commissioner demanding that Israeli groups be allowed to enter the compound’s yards on Friday. In a joint letter signed by top officials including Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Energy Minister Eli Cohen, the politicians argued that ‘it is unacceptable that on the day marking the liberation of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Jews will be completely denied access to the holiest site for the Jewish people.’

A Palestinian Jerusalem resident, speaking anonymously to Middle East Eye, expressed widespread fear among local communities that the raids will proceed on Friday, further cementing Israeli control over the contested holy site. Ir Amim, an Israeli human rights organization focused on protecting equality and accessibility in Jerusalem, has issued a strong condemnation of what it describes as growing official government backing for the Temple movement, a coalition of ultranationalist groups that organizes daily incursions into Al-Aqsa and openly calls for the destruction of the existing mosque to make way for a Jewish Third Temple.

‘Against the backdrop of the sweeping government support they now enjoy, Temple activists may in the coming days attempt to forcibly enter the complex, damage Muslim holy sites, or carry out attacks against Palestinians in and around the area,’ Ir Amim warned earlier this week. ‘When the police – who are meant to uphold public order – openly declare their support for the Temple movement, there is little left to restrain those groups from acting in such a manner.’

Freshly released official data obtained via a freedom of information request has laid bare a dramatic and unprecedented rise in the use of solitary confinement against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails, with a particularly sharp uptick recorded against child prisoners following the launch of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023.

The data, published this week by the Israeli-based human rights and medical advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights, paints a stark picture of rapidly deteriorating conditions inside Israeli detention facilities. It tracks a surge in solitary placements that has grown exponentially over the past three years: just one minor was placed in isolation in 2022, a figure that climbed to 50 in 2023 before skyrocketing to 290 in the first months of 2024.

The escalation is not limited to child detainees. Official counts show the number of adult Palestinians held in solitary confinement has nearly tripled year-over-year in 2024, hitting a total of 4,493 placements. For female Palestinian detainees, the increase is equally stark: only two were held in isolation in 2022, a figure that has jumped to 25 by 2024.

Israeli prison authorities operate two distinct frameworks for solitary confinement: punitive isolation, capped at 14 days per placement, and deterrent isolation, which can last up to six months and be renewed indefinitely by official order. Rights groups confirm the vast majority of Palestinian detainees held in isolation fall under the short-term punitive category.

Human rights organizations have for decades categorized prolonged or routine solitary confinement as a cruel and inhumane practice, meeting the international definition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Multiple peer-reviewed studies have linked the practice to severe long-term health harms, including chronic mental health conditions, permanent memory impairment, hallucinations, and a range of chronic physical illnesses.

Conditions for all Palestinian detainees have deteriorated sharply across the board since the Gaza campaign began, with multiple detainees and advocacy reports documenting systemic food shortages, uncontrolled spread of infectious diseases inside overcrowded facilities, and frequent incidents of violence carried out by Israeli prison guards against detainees.

“What was once reserved as an exceptional punishment for rare infractions has become a routine practice now, even applied to minors and women,” explained Oneg Ben-Dror, a representative of Physicians for Human Rights. She added that the sudden, dramatic rise in the use of solitary confinement has triggered urgent alarms about widespread violations of Palestinian detainees’ basic human rights, as well as their immediate and long-term physical and mental well-being.

In a response to Israeli outlet Haaretz, the Israel Prison Service defended its practices, arguing that the jurisdiction has seen a “dramatic increase” in the total number of security detainees in recent years, which includes a growing population of minor detainees. The service claimed that comparisons of prison conditions before and after October 2023 “distort reality,” stating that it operates under a policy of “custodial governance” that adheres to legal protocols when responding to breaches of institutional order or discipline.

As of the most recent count from last month, more than 9,600 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli jails. Of that population, at least 3,532 are being held under administrative detention, a controversial Israeli policy that allows military authorities to detain individuals indefinitely without filing formal charges or conducting a public trial, with six-month detention extensions that can be renewed repeatedly. The current prison population includes 342 minor children, 84 adult women, and 119 detainees serving life sentences.

The total number of Palestinian detainees has nearly doubled since the launch of the Gaza campaign; pre-October 2023 counts put the prison population at roughly 5,250 Palestinians held in Israeli custody. The escalating restrictions on detainees come amid a broader shift in Israeli policy toward Palestinian prisoners: in March, Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset, approved a controversial bill permitting the execution of prisoners by a 62-48 vote, despite widespread international condemnation and calls to scrap the legislation.

The text of the new law frames the death penalty as a punishment for anyone who “intentionally causes the death of another person with the intent to harm an Israeli citizen or resident, or to threaten the existence of the State of Israel.” Legal analysts and rights groups have highlighted that the wording of the law disproportionately targets Palestinian detainees, as Jewish Israelis who commit lethal violence against Palestinians face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of execution under the same legislation.