https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-my-daughters-help-my-small-family

A winter memory from our old home ❤️

With winter getting closer, my wife Samah and I started remembering how winter used to feel before everything changed.

She looked at me and said:

“Do you remember when winter was coming, and we used to make spinach pastries in the oven inside the kitchen? The whole kitchen would become warm. The smell of the food would fill the house, and we would just enjoy being together.”

She was right.

Back then, winter meant something completely different to us. We would stay inside our warm home, sit near the oven, enjoy the smell of freshly baked food, and feel safe from the cold outside.

Now, when winter comes, our memories feel heavier.

Sometimes we talk about those days and imagine what it would be like to have that simple life again.

We dream about rebuilding our home from the beginning. Not a big or fancy house. Just a small, safe place where our daughters can grow up, where Samah can cook again, where the oven can warm the kitchen, and where winter can once again feel like winter—not something we have to fear.

Maybe it sounds like a simple dream.

But after everything we've been through, having a home and starting our life again from the beginning feels like the biggest dream in the world. ❤️

— Mahmoud & Samah

The justices questioned why soldiers were filmed playing soccer with settlers who seized the homes, and why police failed to arrest suspects identified in attack footage. 'There are questions in abundance; satisfactory answers – fewer' the court said

Israel's High Court of Justice ordered the state on Sunday to allow three Palestinian families who were expelled from their homes by settlers in the West Bank to return and to provide security for them.

In its decision on a petition filed by three residents of Jalud, the court sharply criticized the Israeli military and police for failing to prevent the settler attacks and the families' expulsion, as well as for failing to take sufficient action to bring those responsible to justice.

The petition was filed by three residents of Jalud, which lies in Area B of the West Bank, after violent settlers forced three families from their homes and entered and occupied one of the houses. Jalud, near Qusra, is one of several Palestinian villages in the Nablus area that have become a flashpoint for settler attacks over recent weeks.

Last week, an NBC News international correspondent and members of his press crew who were interviewing a Palestinian woman were attacked and injured by masked Israeli settlers in the village.

One of the families involved in the petition, the Tubasis, had been besieged for almost a month between two outposts that settlers had established on both sides of their plot of land in the village of Jalud, on the edge of Area B, which is under Israeli security control but Palestinian civil control.

After repeated settler attacks and an outpost established in their yard, the Tubasi family was finally expelled from their home in front of a Haaretz team and in the presence of Border Police officers on July 22.

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Justices Yechiel Kasher and Alex Stein wrote in their decision that "the bottom line, based on the material before us at the time of writing, is that the petitioners have still been unable to return to their homes. This fact speaks for itself and cannot be accepted."

The justices instructed the state to coordinate a date for the families' return, when security forces are to protect them and allow them to bring in equipment and supplies needed to repair their homes and restore their water and electricity infrastructure.

The court also issued a conditional order requiring the state to detail by September 22 what measures it is taking to arrest the settlers responsible for the attacks, prevent them from returning and harming the Palestinian residents, and pursue their prosecution.

The court noted that the state did not dispute the sequence of events described by the petitioners, according to which the harassment began in April, when settlers erected a tent on the residents' privately owned land. The Palestinians were subsequently subjected to months of incursions, threats, roadblocks, stone-throwing and damage to property and infrastructure.

According to the decision, settlers repeatedly threw stones at the petitioners' homes to intimidate the families, cut off their water line, broke and uprooted trees, grazed livestock on their private land, set fire to a vehicle belonging to one of the families and blocked the road connecting the homes to Jalud with large rocks.

The attacks effectively cut off and placed the homes under de facto siege, the court said. The families were forced to leave in July and have not returned since.

The justices also sharply criticized what they described as the failure of the IDF and police to effectively confront the settler attacks. They questioned why soldiers had been filmed playing soccer with settlers who had taken over the homes, why police had not seized vehicles documented as being used in the attacks and why people clearly identified in footage had not been arrested.

"The picture that emerges is extremely bleak," the justices wrote. "There are questions in abundance; satisfactory answers – fewer."

In addition to ordering the state to facilitate the families' return, the court demanded an update on the confiscation of vehicles, investigative measures and possible prosecutions of suspects involved in the attacks.

Attorney Ghiyath Nasser, who filed the petition on behalf of the residents, called the ruling "a courageous and important decision by the High Court" and "a significant milestone in confronting the phenomenon of settlers taking over Palestinian homes and land in the West Bank."

"The court made clear that general statements about enforcement are not enough, and that the real test is the result: whether homeowners can return to their homes safely and whether the intruders are actually removed," Nasser added.

Shortly after the High Court issued its decision, police announced that two suspects had been arrested in connection with a violent attack in the nearby village of Qusra.

Police said a search of the vehicle of one suspect, a 19-year-old resident of the West Bank, uncovered an air pistol, a knife, a pocketknife and tear gas. A second suspect, an 18-year-old resident of the Jordan Valley who was serving as an active-duty IDF soldier, was also arrested as part of the investigation.

More than 500 Australian doctors and medical students, including a Nobel laureate, have signed an open letter calling on the federal government to “move from statements of concern to action” regarding Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The signatories – 86 per cent of whom are verified doctors spanning physicians, surgeons and psychiatrists – say they are “legally and morally compelled to protect any child suspected to be at risk of harm or neglect”.

“We cannot remain silent while Palestinian children are being starved, maimed and killed by the actions of Israeli authorities and military forces,”

al-Bazzaz’s Al Sharqiya ("The Eastern One") (Arabic: الشرقية) is Iraq’s first privately owned satellite channel.

The Israeli army is considering establishing a new “security zone” extending 2 to 4 kilometers (1.2 to 2.5 miles) inside Lebanese territory as part of a plan to reduce its troop presence and redeploy forces in southern Lebanon, Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported Saturday.

Israel continues to occupy areas in southern Lebanon, some of which it has held for decades, while it seized others during the 2023-2024 war.

During its current offensive, Israel has expanded its incursion to more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) inside Lebanese territory, marking its deepest advance since withdrawing from southern Lebanon in 2000.

KAN cited unnamed security sources as saying that the army is considering establishing the proposed zone from the border and preparing to reduce its forces after destroying tunnels in the Ali al-Taher heights in the southern Nabatieh province.

The sources said the Israeli army’s redeployment plan in southern Lebanon is called the “gray line” and includes establishing positions that would be used to launch operations inside Lebanese territory.

The plan has not yet been approved by Israel’s political leadership and will be discussed before a decision is made, the broadcaster said.

The report came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that the army had consolidated its control over what he called a “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

His statement followed an Israeli army claim Thursday that it had achieved “operational control” over the Ali al-Taher heights.

The area has witnessed escalating tensions in recent weeks amid continuing Israeli airstrikes and military operations.

Israel describes the “gray line” as a new framework for redeploying its forces, similar to what it calls the “yellow line,” which currently defines the area of its military deployment, operations and security control inside Lebanese territory.

The Israeli plan came amid continued Israeli escalation across southern Lebanon despite an agreement between Beirut and Tel Aviv providing for a gradual Israeli withdrawal as part of a US-mediated negotiating process.

​​​​​​​Since March, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 4,000 people and injured over 12,000 others, while forcing more than 1 million people from their homes, according to Lebanese authorities.

Seven aid workers killed in an airstrike in Gaza were marked as targets under an Israeli military practice of establishing guilt by association, a Guardian investigation shows.

A top Israeli military prosecutor announced last month that he would not pursue criminal proceedings for the April 2024 incident in which drones fired missiles at three clearly marked World Central Kitchen (WCK) cars soon after they had escorted a food aid delivery to Gaza. Three British humanitarian workers along with an Australian, a Palestinian, a Pole and a dual US-Canadian national were killed.

The official Israel Defense Forces (IDF) version of events pointed to specific mistakes made by a handful of officers. The victims of the strike were also blamed for hiring armed guards to protect a food aid convoy and for allegedly “deviating” from their agreed route.

However, interviews with senior Israeli officers involved in the incident or familiar with the official Israel investigation suggest it glossed over the role played in the killings by a common IDF practice used to designate targets, which endangers aid workers and civilians in general, especially when combined with the army’s open-ended mission to end Hamas’s civil control in Gaza.

More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in the three years of the Gaza war. The army’s own internal data suggests more than three-quarters of the dead have been civilians.

The reserve colonel who ordered the strikes, Nochi Mendel, said the WCK workers became potential targets after they had a brief encounter, lasting just minutes, with armed guards assumed to be from Hamas (an assumption later shown to be groundless).

He deemed them to have “mixed together” with alleged Hamas militants, where mixing together was defined as being “near them, talking, playing, hanging out and so on”. Asked whether the presence of armed men made the entire convoy a target, Mendel replied: “Certainly.”

He concluded: “They were not innocent because they were connected to Hamas.”

Mendel was referring to a general policy of haflala, “incrimination”, which gives commanders in the field wide discretion on designating someone as a “terrorist”, including those “incriminated” by association. The manner in which haflala is to be applied in a given sector is often conveyed in a commander’s mission brief delivered verbally to other officers.

He said his unit had been commended by the army hierarchy for its involvement in several strikes on what were deemed to be Hamas attempted commandeering of aid. “They applauded us and were pleased with our action,” he said. The difference in the WCK incident was that foreign nationals were killed, he said. “That’s the whole difference. Not a substantive difference.”

When the WCK convoy was destroyed, it was nowhere near Israeli troops. Several Israeli officers familiar with the incident said the strikes were not ordered on the basis of an imminent threat to Israeli lives, but to fulfil the mission to thwart Hamas attempts to control aid deliveries.

The IDF was approached for comment on the issues raised by the airstrikes and subsequent investigations but had not responded three days after the request.

The WCK said the Israeli decision not to pursue criminal proceedings was “inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive”.

“At the time of the lethal attacks, our team in Gaza was unarmed and posing a threat to nobody,” the WCK said. “The IDF had full visual clarity on our clearly marked humanitarian vehicles during the extended, multiple airstrikes. It knew our team’s movements, identities and activities in advance.”

Britain, Australia and Canada denounced the prosecutor’s decision as “shameful”, saying they would “continue to seek answers” on behalf of the slain aid workers. The UK opened an inquest in 2024 into the deaths of the three British team members: James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman.

Saifeddin Abutaha, a Palestinian, Australian Zomi Frankcom, Damian Sobol, a Pole, and a dual Canadian-US citizen, Jacob Flickinger, were the other victims. The UK inquest was adjourned pending the outcome of the Israeli investigation.

armed men in proximity to the WCK vehicle in April 2024 fitted a “pattern of activity” that helped incriminate the whole convoy in the eyes of Mendel and his unit.

The IDF officer familiar with the incident said it was common practice to designate any armed man in Gaza as Hamas or a “terrorist”, as Mendel did. The officer added: “How you define that it’s Hamas – he’s in proximity to weapons, and because he touches the trucks, and because he does all sorts of things that look as if he’s going to take over the trucks.”

The role of the incrimination principle in the WCK killings shows how it has become a factor in the historically high proportion of civilians killed in the Gaza war. This sits alongside the routine acceptance of high “collateral damage” in the targeting of Hamas militants, the designation of large and shifting areas as free-fire zones, and the deliberate levelling of neighbourhoods to prevent the return of Palestinian communities.

The common factor is that constraints on targeting were minimised in the interests of an open-ended mission. Since the start of the war in 2023, no Israeli soldier has been convicted of wrongful death or war crimes in Gaza operations.

“I came to defeat Hamas,” Mendel said. “If such an event came before me again, I would do exactly the same thing.”

He also dismissed the significance of the killings. “I think it’s an idiotic side event,” Mendel said. “It really isn’t a serious event.”

On the evening of 1 April 2024, a team of aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) stood on Gaza’s Mediterranean shore overseeing the unloading of a barge full of desperately needed food on a makeshift jetty made of sand and rubble.

The Gaza war had been raging for six months and Israel’s closure of land crossings had left the whole territory facing the threat of famine. WCK and local Palestinian contractors had constructed the jetty out of everything they could lay their hands on, including debris from the bombed house of one of the contractors, so that the pallets of humanitarian assistance could be delivered by boat from Cyprus.

A consignment of 200 tonnes of rice, flour and other proteins had arrived two weeks earlier, the first sea shipment to dock in Gaza since 2007. This was the second shipment and it was even bigger, with enough food to prepare more than 1m meals, as well as a Ramadan gift of dates from the United Arab Emirates.

The choreography of the delivery had been coordinated over several days with the Israeli army, and an officer was on the jetty to observe the proceedings. In the midst of a devastating bombing campaign after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, this humanitarian effort was supposed to be carried out under internationally agreed military protection.

The shipment had been unloaded by 8.30pm but despite the lengthy planning, there was a delay in receiving final Israeli security clearance for the eight hired trucks and two WCK escort vehicles to leave the jetty. By the time the green light came from local Israeli commanders and the convoy began to move south, night had fallen.

There was no initial overhead surveillance but two drones joined somewhere along the route to the first stop, a WCK welcome centre 6 miles to the south. Those drones were assigned to the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Nahal brigade, which had not been fully briefed on the aid convoy’s itinerary.

A special adviser assigned by the Australian government to assess the case (in the interests of justice for the Australian victim Lalzawmi Frankcom), found that “specific details about the pre-coordinated WCK aid mission had not been passed down from higher levels of Southern Command to the brigade and UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] operator”.

Local guards

At the WCK welcome centre, a few local men hired as guards were waiting, at least one of them armed. At a time of widespread hunger, many food convoys had been mobbed by desperate crowds as well as organised gangs, some of whom may have had been linked to Hamas, though Hamas never had the grip on food deliveries alleged by the Israeli authorities.

Using local security for aid deliveries was not unknown in Gaza, but it was directly against WCK policy to use armed escorts. The WCK says it is unclear why the local team on that night agreed to accept armed guards. The official Israeli version of events suggests it was “due to the convoy’s delayed departure, during night-time hours,” and noted it “was not coordinated with IDF authorities”.

The official Israeli version does not say how many armed men were waiting for the convoy (unofficial versions vary between two and four), but drone footage reportedly showed one of them climb on top of the cabin of one of the trucks and fire a shot in the air shortly afterwards, for reasons that remain unknown.

The Nahal brigade officers and the drone operators assigned to them concluded it was a Hamas hijack, based in part on the false assumption that such hijackings were commonplace.

“The troops also identified vehicles surrounding the trucks in a manner that, in their assessment and based on accumulated operational experience, corresponded to a scenario in which the Hamas terrorist organisation had taken control of the convoy,” the official account says.

The Israeli military prosecutor’s version of events, published last month to justify his decision not to pursue criminal proceedings, does not mention the breakdown in communication between the army’s coordination and liaison administration, which handles humanitarian needs in the territory, and the Nahal brigade controlling that sector of the Gaza Strip.

Furthermore, the prosecutor’s version says efforts by IDF personnel to contact WCK were unsuccessful. But according to WCK sources and the Australian report on events, contact was established that night with WCK headquarters in the US, which in turn got in touch with an employee in Gaza.

According to the Australian report, the WCK worker on the ground told headquarters staff the guards only had “fake guns”. It remains unclear what the basis for that claim was, but the WCK assured the IDF that it had not lost contact with the convoy and it had not been hijacked.

Arrival at destination

It is unclear whether this exchange with WCK was relayed to the Nahal brigade before the strikes. But even if it was not, the fact that the convoy of eight food trucks continued on its journey and arrived at its intended destination, the WCK warehouse in Deir al-Balah, should have been ample proof that the aid had not been seized by Hamas.

The military prosecutor’s summary acknowledges that the “convoy arrived at the designated warehouse and unloaded the aid” but does not address the seemingly straightforward conclusion that it had therefore not been diverted. The IDF has yet to release audio recordings of military communications that night.

After the trucks entered the warehouse, the WCK workers and the local guards stayed outside by their own vehicles for about 10 minutes. That short period, observed by operators of Israeli drones, appears to have helped seal the aid workers’ fate. As far as the Nahal brigade’s chief of staff, reserve Col Nochi Mendel, was concerned, they were “mingling” with Hamas.

Under the very loose procedures of “incrimination” that delegate much to the discretion of field commanders like Mendel, the WCK workers became unwitting targets as they celebrated the completion of a successful delivery of aid, because they were in the proximity to armed men.

“There was incrimination. The incrimination was according to the rules,” Mendel said. “There were armed men there with certainty. With certainty, they [the aid workers] had mingled with armed Hamas men.”

Other IDF officers have confirmed to the Guardian that such a process of guilt by association is used widely to determine targets, though different field commanders use different standards in making decisions. The Israel military prosecutor, in making his assessment on criminal responsibility, did not address the practice of incrimination in targeting.

Parting of ways

After the brief pause outside the WCK warehouse in Deir al-Balah, the guards and the WCK workers went in separate directions. “The WCK vehicles departed together west towards the coast. Concurrently, the vehicle containing the locally contracted security personnel, including the previously identified gunmen, drove north,” the Australian report says. It also makes clear that the IDF was aware of this parting of the two groups.

“One UAV tracked the locally contracted security vehicle heading north for approximately three minutes until it arrived at another warehouse where up to four gunmen were identified exiting the vehicle and entering the building,” the report says. “A decision was made to discontinue targeting them due to the time available before they entered the northern warehouse.”

The military prosecutor’s version makes no mention of this drone or the fact that the suspected gunmen were seen driving off in a different direction and entering a separate building. It claims instead that “several individuals mistakenly … identified as armed persons” were observed getting into WCK vehicles.

That is at odds with the Australian report and the accounts of Israeli officers familiar with the investigation. They said a bag was spotted by a drone operator being put in a WCK car, and that the operator mistook it for a gun, though sources briefed on the drone video said that later analysis showed no sign of a suspicious bag.

Whether or not it was a gun was irrelevant as far as Mendel was concerned. He saw his task as carrying out the government policy of crushing Hamas governance in Gaza, which included stopping its seizure of aid deliveries.

“If a Hamas operative takes over a truck and after that he sells it and that’s how he recruits more people, then what does it matter if he’s armed or not?” Mendel said.

In its economical, dry prose, the Australian report describes what happened next as the WCK workers left the warehouse at about 11pm. The WCK vehicles proceeded west to the coast. Due to the time delays encountered, rather than return to the WCK welcome centre as planned, a decision was made to return directly to the accommodation in Rafah,” the report says.

“After turning south on to the coast road, the three WCK vehicles were struck in relatively quick succession, each strike being approximately two minutes apart. There were two survivors from the strike on the first (up-armoured) vehicle who quickly moved to the second vehicle, then two survivors from the second (up-armoured) vehicle who moved to the third vehicle. There were no survivors from the third (soft-skinned) vehicle. Over the four-minute period 23:09 – 23:13, the seven WCK workers were killed – likely one in the first vehicle, two in the second and four in the last.”

The seven victims of the IDF drone strikes were from the UK, Australia, Poland, Palestine and the US. The Britons John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson were working as security consultants. Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, a Palestinian driver and translator, was the youngest killed, at 25. Frankcom, Damian Soból, a Pole, and Jacob Flickinger, a US-Canadian dual citizen, were humanitarian workers for WCK.

The military prosecutor claimed that in turning south towards Rafah, the WCK workers were “deviating from the route that the organisation had coordinated in advance with the IDF”, giving weight to the Nahal brigade’s mistaken impression that “Hamas operatives had taken control of the convoy”.

Mendel also mentioned this “deviation” as a mitigating factor. However, the Australian report found that the fact that the WCK workers had changed their route only became known after they were killed, and “as such it did not play a factor” in the decision to open fire.

The official Israeli version of events says Mendel and his brigade fire support commander ignored an order on the night of the airstrike from a superior officer to cease any attacks on humanitarian convoys, but Mendel has said the order is a fabrication.

“It never happened, never existed,” Mendel said. “No operational directive reached the brigade to cease the strikes … We checked it a thousand times.”

In explaining his own decision-making, Mendel stressed he was carrying out Israeli government policy by stopping Hamas taking control of food deliveries. He had been lauded by his superiors for ordering strikes on several earlier alleged Hamas attempts to hijack aid. In his mind, the events on the night of 1 April 2024 fitted the same pattern.

“I didn’t plan to kill the aid workers,” Mendel said, but added: “They were not innocent because they were connected to Hamas.”

Justifying this conclusion, he said: “They were mixed together with Hamas operatives …near them, talking, playing, hanging out and so on.”

In a written statement, WCK said: “It is extraordinary to learn now that some in the IDF considered our humanitarian work to be enemy activity based on the flimsiest evidence, or no evidence at all.

“This undefined, unjustified and unlawful view is a mortal threat to all humanitarians. The IDF’s shifting excuses and explanations for these unlawful airstrikes are precisely why we continue to demand an independent investigation with the full release of the IDF’s evidence.”

February 1919: while the victors of World War I were busy redrawing the map of the Middle East, a Zionist delegation in Paris presented a completely different vision. During the peace conference that followed World War I, they presented their plan for the borders of the future Jewish state, a plan that went far beyond the borders of Palestine at the time.

Statements by senior Israeli figures 'carry serious legal significance' when assessed alongside conduct on ground, Euro-Med Monitor Chairman Ramy Abdu tells Anadolu

They may be 'important indicators' of Israeli intent against Palestinians, lawyer Waseem al-Shanti tells Anadolu

Palestinians since October 2023 and formed part of “a broader process of dehumanizing the Palestinian people, justifying the targeting of Palestinian civilians and portraying violence against Palestinians as acceptable or legitimate.”

The position of the speaker is also significant, according to al-Shanti.

“The danger of these statements lies in the fact that they do not merely represent individual positions but are issued by senior figures representing state authority, which gives them an official character,” al-Shanti said.

That does not mean every inflammatory or dehumanizing statement automatically constitutes direct and public incitement to genocide. The legal significance also lies in what such rhetoric can reveal about intent when considered alongside other evidence.

"The repeated use of statements that strip Palestinians of their humanity or portray all civilians as legitimate targets, coinciding with large-scale killing, starvation, displacement and the destruction of the conditions necessary for life, may have significant evidentiary value before international courts when assessing intent, context and patterns of conduct," al-Shanti said.

The statements could be relevant in different ways before the two international courts in The Hague.

Al-Shanti said they could be considered by the International Criminal Court (ICC) when examining individual criminal responsibility, provided its jurisdictional requirements and the elements of the alleged crime are established.

They could also form part of evidence before the ICJ when assessing Israel's responsibility as a state under the Genocide Convention, he added.

“The legal value of these statements does not lie solely in their shocking or racist nature, but in their potential use to establish intent, context and the relationship between rhetoric and actions,” al-Shanti said.

Palestinian football returned on Friday with a club competition in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and refugee camps in Lebanon after a nearly three-year suspension due to Israel’s genocidal war.

The Palestinian Football Association organized the competition, “Thousand Martyrs Cup,” with opening matches held simultaneously in the three areas.

Jabal Al-Mukaber faced Shabab Al-Khalil at Faisal Al-Husseini International Stadium in the town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, while Khadamat Rafah played Shabab Rafah at Ittihad Deir Al-Balah Club’s stadium in the central Gaza Strip.

In Lebanon, Al-Ansar faced Al-Nahda at Abu Jihad Al-Wazir Stadium in the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp in the south.

As many as 244 clubs from the West Bank, Gaza and the diaspora are participating.

The group-stage draw was held simultaneously across the association’s various branches on Sept. 1.

The association named the competition in memory of Palestinian athletes killed by Israel during its war on the Gaza Strip.

Return after lengthy suspension

Mustafa Siyam, secretary-general of the Palestinian Sports Media Association, told Anadolu that the competition marks the return of sporting activity after more than three seasons of suspension.

He said the war also targeted Palestinian athletes and sporting infrastructure, and more than 1,000 athletes, including players, coaches and referees, were killed.

The tournament was named after the martyrs of the sports movement, honoring their loyalty and their sacrifice, said Siyam. Its launch represents “a message that sporting life is returning, even if only in a limited way.”

Sport amid death, destruction

The return of matches to Gaza carries particular significance given the extensive human and material losses inflicted on Palestinian sports since Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023.

In the West Bank, the competition also follows the suspension of domestic tournaments for three seasons amid continuing Israeli escalation, which has restricted the ability of clubs and players to train, travel and hold matches regularly.

In Lebanon, the competition is being organized through the association’s diaspora branch and includes Palestinian clubs operating primarily in refugee camps.

The Palestinian Football Association said the tournament would pave the way for the gradual resumption of domestic competitions.

The head of the Palestinian National Council on Friday condemned calls by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, saying they amount to a “grave violation of international law.”

Rawhi Fattouh said the remarks by Katz and Ben-Gvir “reveal a systematic project of ethnic cleansing,” according to a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Ben-Gvir on Thursday unveiled a plan calling for the displacement of 1.86 million Palestinians from Gaza over seven years through the creation of a dedicated ministry to oversee the process.

A day earlier, Katz acknowledged that pressure from Arab countries on US President Donald Trump, along with investment offers made to him, had frozen a plan to displace Palestinians from the enclave.

“Turning forced displacement into an openly declared policy, and treating the uprooting of Palestinians from their land as a political option, constitutes a grave violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and the UN Charter,” Fattouh said.

He said the remarks showed “the Israeli government’s disregard for international conventions and its attempt to treat them as restrictions it seeks to shed.”

Fattouh also warned that efforts to weaken the International Criminal Court and undermine its mandate would encourage perpetrators of “killing, genocide and ethnic cleansing” to continue violations without accountability.

He urged the international community and the UN Security Council to confront attempts to undermine international justice and protect its independence, while calling for sanctions against the Israeli government and accountability for violations of international law.

Israeli officials have repeatedly floated proposals to remove Palestinians from Gaza since the start of the genocide in October 2023, drawing broad Arab and international rejection and warnings that such plans would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded over 174,000 others, most of them women and children, while about 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been destroyed.

More than 33,000 Palestinian refugees remain displaced since Israel launched Operation Iron Wall.

Israel’s military actions resulting in the displacement of entire Palestinian populations in three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank “appear to amount to collective punishment and raise concerns of ethnic cleansing”, a United Nations Human Rights report has found.

Israel’s Operation Iron Wall in January and February 2025 killed 102 Palestinians and displaced more than 33,000 residents from the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, said the report, titled Destruction of Palestinian refugee camps in northern West Bank.

Displaced Palestinians reported being told by Israeli officers that there would be no more refugee camps and that they should “all go to Jordan”.

Such large-scale, long-term and systematic displacement of the Palestinian population could amount to a crime against humanity of forcible transfer, the report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Friday.

It stressed that the use of air strikes, armoured bulldozers and controlled detonations to render entire areas uninhabitable and prevent the return of residents, in the absence of imperative military necessity, is not permissible under international law.

“The way Operation Iron Wall has been conducted suggests its aim was to expel as many Palestinians as possible and to make way for more illegal Israeli settlements, in further violation of international law,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

The three camps are among a total of 19 in the West Bank that were established to shelter Palestinian refugees after the mass forced expulsion during the Nakba in 1948 and have been administered by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

As of July, about 33,362 displaced Palestinian refugees from these camps remained forcibly displaced, according to UNRWA.

At least 21 children were killed by Israeli forces during the military operation in the period covered by the report. Saddam Hussein Rajab, aged 10, was shot in the stomach in Tulkarem while waiting for his father to go to the mosque. In Jenin, a two-year-old girl was shot in the head by Israeli forces while having dinner with her mother and aunt.

The report stressed that Israel “must end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible” and “halt any efforts to forcibly displace more Palestinians”.