Against a backdrop of unrelenting Israeli military operations across Gaza and the occupied West Bank — violations of a ceasefire deal reached last October — Israel’s far-right Finance Minister and head of the country’s Settlements Administration Bezalel Smotrich announced a provocative push on Sunday for three new Israeli settlements to be built along Gaza’s northern border fence.
In a public post on the social platform X, Smotrich openly called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately greenlight the proposal. “The Settlements Administration under my leadership is prepared to establish 3 settlements in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, and I call on the Prime Minister to give the green light to the move,” Smotrich wrote.
The far-right leader framed the plan as part of a broader push to “return” Israelis to communities evacuated in 2005, when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon implemented a unilateral disengagement plan that withdrew all Israeli military forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip, dismantling every Israeli settlement in the enclave alongside four additional settlements in the occupied West Bank. Smotrich added that the expansion would extend far beyond Gaza, with a wave of new settlement construction planned for the occupied West Bank’s northern Samaria region. “Alongside the four settlements to which we are returning, we will establish a long line of new settlements in northern Samaria. On Mount Ebal, in the Dothan Valley, and in more than 10 additional points, we will strengthen and fortify the settlement,” he said.
Smotrich’s announcement comes as the death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks continues to climb, even after the October 2024 ceasefire entered into force. Data from Gaza’s Palestinian Ministry of Health, released over the weekend, recorded six Palestinian deaths and 23 injuries from Israeli strikes in the 24-hour period ending Sunday morning. Cumulatively, the ministry reports that at least 73,356 Palestinians have been killed and 174,185 wounded since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023. Since the ceasefire took effect, an additional 1,230 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded, the ministry confirmed.
Local on-the-ground reports have revised death tolls even higher. Al Jazeera Arabic reported that nine Palestinians, including three children, were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza from dawn Sunday alone. Later updates from local media raised the death toll to 11 after an Israeli airstrike targeted a civilian vehicle in Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza.
The Israeli military has confirmed a number of targeted strikes over the past two days. On Saturday, it announced it had killed Salem Jamal Abdelrahman Abu Labad, a man it identified as a commander in Hamas’s Nukhba special forces unit, in an airstrike in southern Gaza. Israeli officials claim Abu Labad took part in the October 2023 attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz. A separate strike in central Gaza on Friday killed Muhammad Abdelnasser Muhammad Khatib, who the military identified as a commander with Hamas’s Maghazi Battalion.
Parallel to ongoing military operations, diplomatic efforts to reach a lasting truce remain mired in deadlock. Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that a U.S.-led “Board of Peace” had secured an agreement for the full disarmament of all Palestinian armed factions in Gaza, Hamas clarified Friday that any deal to disarm Palestinian groups would be conditional on both Washington and Tel Aviv fully honoring existing commitments under the 2024 ceasefire agreement.
Israeli officials have publicly pushed back against Trump’s announcement, making clear that the Israeli government rejects the framework. Former Israeli Ambassador Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera that Israel was “absolutely not” satisfied with the arrangement. “Israel is presented with a situation where the U.S. president says there’s an agreement, but there isn’t really an agreement, and so I am extraordinarily skeptical that this is going to work out,” Pinkas said. He added that Netanyahu views the proposed deal as a “colossal failure,” and noted that Israel has refused to implement core obligations outlined in the framework, including withdrawing Israeli forces to the pre-agreed “Yellow Line” buffer zone, allowing unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and halting all offensive military operations.
Amid rising tensions, reports have emerged of expanding U.S. military support for Israel. Israeli outlet Ynet, citing unnamed Israeli security officials, reported that the U.S. plans to deploy an additional 10 aerial refueling aircraft to Israel in the coming days. The aircraft will join more than 30 U.S. refueling planes already stationed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, according to the report.
Conflict has also escalated in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces carried out new raids over the weekend. Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli troops detained five Palestinians during operations in Bethlehem and Nablus. During the raids, forces raided multiple private homes and posted threatening notices on the exterior walls of Bethlehem’s Salah al-Din Mosque. The latest raids come one week after a sharp escalation of violence that saw armed Israeli settlers launch attacks on Palestinian villages near Nablus, leaving four Palestinians and two Israelis dead.
In diplomatic developments over the weekend, a Hamas delegation led by Zaher Jabarin met with leaders from Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Cairo on Saturday to discuss coordinated efforts to end Israeli attacks on Gaza and address recent developments in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Following the meeting, both factions released a joint statement stressing the need to force a full Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza and calling for deeper unity and coordination between all Palestinian political and armed groups.