{"id":665409,"date":"2026-11-03T08:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/665409\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T08:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:12:09","slug":"palestine-weekly-election-deadlock-meets-west-bank-sieges-gaza-killings-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/665409\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine weekly: Election deadlock meets West Bank sieges, Gaza killings | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The election night highs for Palestinian citizens of Israel \u2013 Arab-led parties won a record 19 seats<\/a> \u2013 turned into a week of delegitimising rhetoric from Israeli politicians.<\/p>\n

Nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra\u2019am and the Joint List, a 64 percent increase on 2022<\/a>, and adding them to opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot\u2019s bloc would give an anti-Netanyahu coalition 67 seats; without them, only a unity deal between the main Zionist blocs or another election is possible.<\/p>\n

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s Likud alleged the election had been \u201cstolen\u201d by Palestinian parties with unproven claims of Qatari financing. Qatar denied such accusations<\/a>, as police sources told The Times of Israel that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. By Sunday, election committee chairman Noam Sohlberg declared the election \u201cconducted properly\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, the rhetoric delegitimising the Palestinian vote is now being reflected in the coalition negotiations under way. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party, has ruled out Palestinian partners, and Eisenkot has presented four conditions for anyone joining his coalition that would be anathema to the Palestinian parties, including recognising Israel as \u201ca Jewish, democratic, liberal, and egalitarian state\u201d, and mandatory national service for all citizens, including Palestinians.<\/p>\n

However, Palestinian politicians continue to express a willingness to back an Eisenkot government from outside \u2013 if only to enable the departure of Netanyahu and the far right. Meanwhile, thousands rallied in Tel Aviv<\/a> for a coalition that includes the parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.<\/p>\n

10 days of siege in Hebron<\/p>\n

While the Israeli electorate was consumed by the election\u2019s unclear results, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank continued enduring a variety of sieges, most prominently in Hebron. By October 29, Al Jazeera\u2019s data unit counted 10 entrances sealed<\/a> and about 5,000 people displaced. The city saw at least 120 arrests and 13 businesses demolished<\/a> by Friday, when the army also blew up the homes of two men it blamed for an attack. Palestinian officials accused the government of using the operation to win settler votes<\/a>; no Israeli official has said so outright.<\/p>\n

On November 2, Governor Khaled Dudin announced<\/a> the army had withdrawn from Hebron, and that displaced families could return. The Jerusalem Post reported that the army\u2019s chief of staff recommended leaving Hebron before the election, but that Netanyahu refused.<\/p>\n

But even with the operation over, the damage remains following more than 120 arrests and daily economic losses the governor put at 10 million to 12 million shekels ($3.2m to $3.8m) in a city responsible for about 40 percent of Palestinian industrial output.<\/p>\n

Sieges in homes, expulsions from land<\/p>\n

But Hebron was only the largest of many closures that continue to plague the West Bank. In Masafer Yatta, at least 12 villages were cut off<\/a>, and the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that forces detained 10 teachers from the Jinba school on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Yousef Shanaran \u2013 who has been besieged in his home<\/a> with his family in Wadi Rakhim for four weeks now \u2013 told Al Jazeera on Monday that settlers have now poisoned the well outside his family home, which the family already was unable to access for days at a time due to the siege. \u201cNo water, no food, nothing at all I\u2019ve got,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody is allowed to bring anything to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

These sieges continue as settlers, and increasingly Israeli forces, disrupt the olive harvest across the West Bank. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 397 settler attacks causing casualties or damage in the first 26 days of October \u2013 a monthly high since OCHA began tracking such incidents in 2006.<\/p>\n

Across villages, a familiar pattern has emerged: settlers attack pickers, the army declares a closed military zone and orders the farmers out, and the harvest is lost.<\/p>\n

Amid reports of detentions and deportations of solidarity activists who came to the West Bank to assist in the olive harvest in recent days, activists accused settlers of assaulting three activist journalists at Umm al-Khair<\/a>, and Israel revoked Brad Lander\u2019s travel authorisation<\/a> after he was detained while harvesting olives two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Gaza: Deadly \u2018ceasefire\u2019 continues<\/p>\n

In Gaza, attacks continued on a daily basis as the UN human rights office warned<\/a> on October 30 that Palestinians are being pushed into an ever smaller area, calling the \u201cYellow Line<\/a>\u201d a \u201ckill zone\u201d that is moving westward.<\/p>\n

By November 2, the Ministry of Health put the death toll since last year\u2019s ceasefire at 1,593. Sunday was the deadliest day of the week, with at least eight killed<\/a>. Among those reported killed over the past week:<\/p>\n

Government and police personnel were among those killed. On October 28, a drone strike on a Ministry of Economy facility in al-Mawasi, Rafah, where staff and security personnel had gathered, killed five people, including Ministry of Agriculture official Wajdi Abu Bakr, who died on Sunday from injuries sustained in the attack.
\nOn November 1, a drone strike in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, killed five men whom Gaza\u2019s Interior Ministry said were police officers.
\nIsraeli attacks also killed children. Six-year-old Tahani Shalalfeh died of a gunshot wound in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, on October 27, and Yamen Saqr, eight, died on October 30 of wounds from Israeli fire in Khan Younis, according to Wafa and local activists. The young child Zain Owais was reported killed on November 1 with his father, Mohammed Ali Owais, and a third man in a strike near Taj Mall in Gaza City.
\nOn October 27, a young man was killed in an air strike in west Rafah, and a member of the Bseiso family died of earlier wounds in Gaza City, Gaza Now reported. Mohammad al-Bayouk was killed in Khan Younis on October 28, and Mohammed al-Najjar was killed near Jabalia on Thursday.
\nOn Friday, the body of a 47-year-old man killed in an air strike at al-Waha, north of Gaza City, was recovered, Wafa reported.
\nIbrahim Saeed died on Sunday of wounds from tank fire in al-Musaddar, and Yusuf Abu Younis died Monday of wounds from a drone strike in Khan Younis the day before, according to local activist Hamza al-Masri.
\nOn Monday, Mahmoud Qaffa and Asaad Qeshta were killed in separate air strikes in Khan Younis and Ibrahim al-Saayida, 40, in al-Musaddar, according to Wafa and Haaretz.<\/p>\n

Israeli authorities claimed many of those killed this week were Hamas fighters, though no evidence was provided. Among those were Diaa Abu al-Rous, killed north of Nuseirat on Saturday, and Mohammed Qudeih, killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis the same day, who the military claimed were members\u00a0of Hamas\u2019s Nukhba Forces; Palestinian reports describe Abu al-Rous as a teacher.<\/p>\n

Such killings take place with winter closing in and humanitarian conditions struggling to improve: two infant girls died<\/a> of burns in a tent fire in al-Mawasi on Friday, and the shelter picture is dire<\/a>, with Gaza\u2019s Social Development Ministry saying about 200,000 tents are needed, yet only dozens have arrived due to Israeli entry restrictions.<\/p>\n

With no hospitals in Gaza fully functioning, the Red Crescent warned on Monday that the health system is at risk of collapse after 26 hospitals went out of service \u2013 with fuel shortages threatening the remaining facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The election night highs for Palestinian citizens of Israel \u2013 Arab-led parties won a record 19 seats \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2664,85,46,44,47,43,48],"class_list":["post-665409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-features","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}