ICSPR Escalating Aggression against Gaza and the West Bank, Judaization in Jerusalem, and Denial of a Palestinian State Are Systematic Israeli Policies Aimed at Eliminating Palestinian Rights

Date: 1 September 2026

Press Release

ICSPR: Escalating Aggression against Gaza and the West Bank, Judaization in Jerusalem, and Denial of a Palestinian State Are Systematic Israeli Policies Aimed at Eliminating Palestinian Rights

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) is following with deep concern the escalation of crimes and violations committed by Israeli occupation forces and settlers against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and occupied Jerusalem. This scene confirms that what is taking place is not a series of isolated incidents or temporary violations, but rather a systematic Israeli policy targeting the Palestinian people, their land, their holy sites, and the foundations of their survival. The war of killing, destruction, and displacement in the Gaza Strip coincides with settlement expansion, annexation, land seizure, settler terrorism, the Judaization of Jerusalem, and attempts to deny the Palestinian people’s right to establish their state. This reveals an integrated strategy aimed at eliminating Palestinian national rights and imposing a permanent colonial reality. It threatens what remains of the ceasefire arrangements and undermines any possibility of a just and sustainable peace based on ending the occupation and enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.

ICSPR: The Gaza Strip witnessed a dangerous Israeli escalation today, Tuesday, 1 September 2026, particularly in Gaza City. The Al-Katiba area, the vicinity of the American Hospital, the Telecommunications Junction, and areas west of the city were subjected to a series of airstrikes and intensive bombardment, alongside the extensive use of drones and quadcopter aircraft, gunfire, and shelling. This resulted in martyrs and injuries, including among children and women, while ambulance and civil defense crews were unable to reach a number of targeted areas due to the continuing bombardment and gunfire.

ICSPR: According to medical and field information, the bombardment that struck Gaza City this afternoon killed four civilians, identified as Abdullah Ahmed Hamouda, Samah Mohammed al-Arbeed, Lama Mohammed Habib, and Abdullah Mahmoud al-Hayya. A number of other civilians were injured, including children and women. The casualty toll is expected to rise in light of the continued bombardment and the difficulty rescue and ambulance teams face in reaching the targeted areas.

ICSPR: In another attack, occupation forces directly targeted a civil defense crew in the Jabalia area in the northern Gaza Strip while it was performing its humanitarian duty. The attack seriously injured firefighter officer Yousef Hatem Salem and resulted in the amputation of some of his limbs. ICSPR affirms that targeting civil defense personnel and rescue workers while they perform their duties constitutes an extremely grave violation of the rules of international humanitarian law. It deliberately undermines the capacity of the civil protection system to save the lives of the wounded and recover victims, particularly amid the collapse of Gaza’s health-care and humanitarian systems.

ICSPR: Information announced by the Government Media Office in Gaza indicates that an Israeli special force attempted to carry out a mission inside Gaza City before being exposed. This was followed by intensive Israeli air intervention involving more than ten fighter jets and widespread bombardment of an area densely populated by civilians and displaced persons, resulting in martyrs and injuries and causing panic and terror among civilians.

ICSPR: ICSPR affirms that no Israeli claim concerning a military or security operation can constitute a justification for targeting civilians, using excessive force, or exposing densely populated residential areas to the risk of mass killing. Military operations must not be turned into a means of mass killing or of obstructing ambulances and civil defense crews from reaching victims.

The Commission also documented the targeting of two vehicles west of Gaza City and the killing and injury of civilians in other areas, while airstrikes and gunfire continued in various parts of the Strip. This confirms that the escalation is not limited to a single incident, but forms part of an ongoing pattern of using military force against populated areas.

This escalation follows events in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Monday, 31 August, when an Israeli drone targeted a civilian vehicle in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood southwest of Gaza City, killing five civilians, including two police officers, according to medical and field information. The remains of several of them arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital dismembered and burned. Occupation forces also targeted a gathering of civilians near the Gaza Municipality Park, fired heavily toward tents sheltering displaced persons in various areas, and continued pursuing and targeting Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Gaza. This took place alongside the demolition and destruction of homes and civilian facilities in areas south of the Strip and east of Deir al-Balah.

ICSPR: According to the statistical report issued by the Gaza Ministry of Health on 1 September, the number of martyrs who arrived at hospitals in the Strip during the preceding twenty-four hours was six, including five newly killed persons and one person who died of wounds, in addition to thirteen injuries. A number of victims remain under the rubble and on the roads, while ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them. Since the ceasefire of 11 October, the number of martyrs has reached 1,326, with 4,398 injuries, while 815 bodies have been recovered. The cumulative toll since the beginning of the aggression on 7 October 2023 has reached 73,462 martyrs and 174,509 injuries. These figures are expected to rise in light of continued bombardment, difficulties in reaching targeted areas, and the recovery of victims.

Israeli occupation crimes are not limited to direct killing. They are integrated into a systematic policy of destroying the foundations of life in the Gaza Strip, including homes, mosques, water stations, economic and service facilities, and the targeting of displaced persons, fishermen, farmers, and civil defense personnel. During the period from 24 to 30 August 2026, ICSPR documented 19 Israeli attacks that resulted in the killing of 27 civilians and the injury of dozens of others, in addition to the destruction of homes, mosques, prayer halls, economic and service facilities, and water stations. This confirms the continuation of a pattern of attacks affecting civilians and civilian objects, repeatedly displacing residents and rendering large parts of the Gaza Strip uninhabitable.

ICSPR: The same strategy continues in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem through the expansion of settlement crimes, land seizure, home demolitions, arrests, settler terrorism, attempts to impose faits accomplis, and the annexation of Palestinian land. Settlers, protected by occupation forces, attacked the village of Burqa east of Ramallah, assaulted residents inside their homes, and attempted to set their property on fire. Occupation soldiers fired live ammunition at Palestinians in the village of al-Mughayyir while they confronted settler attacks, injuring four civilians. Attacks on land and property also continued, while occupation forces raided the Aqabat Jabr, Qalandiya, and Balata refugee camps and conducted raids, arrests, and acts of vandalism against homes.

ICSPR: Statistics from the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reveal the escalating gravity of this context. During August alone, settlers carried out 2,030 attacks against Palestinian citizens and their property in the West Bank, causing direct harm to 164 Palestinians. ICSPR considers that these attacks cannot be separated from the system of occupation and settlement, particularly given the military and political protection provided to settlers by occupation authorities. This turns settler violence into an organized instrument for seizing land and forcibly displacing Palestinian residents.

ICSPR: ICSPR strongly condemns the burning by Israeli settlers of parts of a mosque in the town of Bazariya northwest of Nablus and the writing of racist slogans on its walls, constituting a new attack on the sanctity of places of worship. Attacks on Islamic holy sites and shrines in the West Bank and Jerusalem also continue. At the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, provocative settler incursions have continued, with the participation of the Israeli terrorist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. These incursions have been accompanied by Talmudic rituals and political rhetoric calling for the imposition of new facts at the mosque, including the establishment of the alleged “Temple.” This constitutes a direct threat to the existing legal and historical status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites.

The danger of these policies increases with the continued measures aimed at erasing Palestinian identity in Jerusalem, including attempts to impose the Israeli curriculum on Palestinian students in Jerusalem, land seizure, settlement expansion, and changing the demographic and geographic reality of the city. The conversion of Palestinian land into so-called “state land” and its allocation for settlement expansion, together with daily settler attacks and repeated incursions into holy sites, constitute interconnected elements of a policy of de facto annexation and the entrenchment of colonial control over Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territory.

ICSPR: The simultaneous continuation of killing, destruction, and displacement in Gaza with settlement expansion, land annexation, settler terrorism, and the Judaization of Jerusalem, alongside Israeli statements and policies rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, clearly reveals that what is taking place goes beyond conflict management or ceasefire violations. It is an integrated project aimed at eliminating the national rights of the Palestinian people and imposing a permanent colonial reality. While the foundations of life in Gaza are being destroyed, land is being seized in the West Bank and Jerusalem, their features are being altered, and new demographic and legal realities are being imposed. This targets the Palestinian people’s right to remain on their land, exercise self-determination, and establish their independent state.

ICSPR: ICSPR warns that the continuation of these crimes amid international inability to stop them and hold their perpetrators accountable represents systematic impunity. It undermines the international legal system and empties international obligations concerning the protection of civilians and the prevention of genocide, forcible displacement, settlements, and annexation of their practical substance. The continuation of violations despite the ceasefire agreement also threatens to turn the truce into a cover for reshaping realities on the ground through force, rather than making it a step toward a permanent cessation of aggression, protection of the population, and the creation of conditions for a just political resolution of the Palestinian question.

ICSPR calls on the international community, foremost the United Nations, the Security Council, and States Parties to the Geneva Conventions, to assume their legal, political, and moral responsibilities and take urgent and concrete measures, foremost among them:

1. Impose an effective and sustainable halt to Israeli aggression; ensure the protection of civilians and civilian objects in the Gaza Strip; stop killing, targeting, destruction, and forcible displacement; guarantee unhindered access for ambulances, civil defense, humanitarian missions, and aid; and protect humanitarian, medical, and civil defense personnel.

2. Compel the occupying power to stop settlement expansion, annexation, land seizure, home demolitions, settler terrorism, and attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque and all other holy sites; protect the existing legal and historical status quo in Jerusalem; and reject any measures intended to alter the city’s identity, demographic composition, or legal system.

3. Halt all measures aimed at imposing a permanent colonial reality or undermining the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and affirm that denying the Palestinian state or obstructing the establishment of the Palestinian state cannot serve as a substitute for a political solution based on ending the occupation and respecting the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

4. Activate international accountability mechanisms, including investigations and criminal prosecutions of perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide; ensure that political and military officials responsible for these crimes do not enjoy impunity; and impose practical and effective measures that ensure respect for international law.

ICSPR affirms that protecting the Palestinian people cannot tolerate further statements of concern and condemnation. It requires binding international measures that stop the aggression, protect civilians, and put an end to occupation, settlement expansion, annexation, and impunity. ICSPR further affirms that genuine peace cannot be based on the continuation of occupation, the entrenchment of fragmentation and displacement, or the administration of the Palestinian population through force. Rather, it requires ending the occupation, enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and establish their independent, fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital, and guaranteeing the rights of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international law and United Nations resolutions.