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03-04-2026
GAZA STRIP/ WEST BANK: Israeli violence against Palestinians in the last week has killed at least 18 people in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
The majority of those killed were victims of Israeli air strikes in Gaza, even as the head of the US President Donald Trump-appointed Board of Peace pushes for a framework to disarm Hamas.
A combination of settler and army shootings killed three people in the West Bank. Settler attacks carried out in the Palestinian territory have ramped up in the past few weeks as the joint US and Israeli war on Iran escalates, with evidence that the Israeli army has facilitated the violence.
The violence comes as Israel continues to restrict worship at Palestinian holy sites, ostensibly because of the threat of Iranian attacks.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound had already been closed to Muslim worshippers since late February, with authorities extending the state of emergency until mid-April but on Sunday, Israeli forces prevented Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied East Jerusalem to perform Palm Sunday mass. It was the first time in centuries, the Latin patriarchate said, that the head of the church had been barred from doing so.
A global backlash, including soft criticism from United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, led to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising “a plan to enable church leaders to worship at the holy site in the coming days”.
Gaza peace plan falters
In Gaza, the week brought a surge in Israeli air strikes and artillery fire, often targeting police forces, a campaign Israeli officials describe as aimed at degrading Hamas’s control over the territory, but which aid workers and United Nations officials warn risks creating dangerous vacuums in public order and civilian services in the devastated Strip.
Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, detailed a framework for disarming Hamas, establishing, he said, “the principle of one authority, one law and one weapon”. According to a document seen by media, the disarmament would take place over an eight-month timeline. However, the prospect of reaching the plan’s promised second stage when reconstruction can begin appears remote.
Instead, the months-long status quo of repeated Israeli strikes on Palestinians in Gaza continues. Deadly attacks this week included a March 25 drone strike in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp that killed two Palestinians; March 28 strikes on police checkpoints that killed six people; another on the same day that killed three Palestinians; and a March 30 attack in Gaza City that killed two people. At least 705 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the October “ceasefire”, according to the Palestinian state news agency Wafa.
Amid heavily restricted aid and stormy weather flooding the tents of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, humanitarian conditions also continue to deteriorate in Gaza. The Ministry of Health warned on Sunday that fuel and parts shortages for hospital generators threatened to halt medical services entirely. An infant, Alma Abu Rida, died of acute pneumonia last week while awaiting medical evacuation out of Gaza.
West Bank killings
Violent attacks in the occupied West Bank against Palestinians have not stopped, with several reported in the last week.
The attacks led to at least five deaths. On March 25, Yusri Abu Qbeita, a 31-year-old, was killed after the vehicle he was travelling in was shot at by Israeli forces and settlers in Masafer Yatta, near Hebron, according to Wafa. (Int’l News Desk)
