Two assessments released within days of each other this week detail a sharp intensification of Israeli military operations in Gaza and an unprecedented acceleration of settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. According to a situation report issued by the Palestinian Government Communication Centre covering 29 June to 6 July, Israeli forces have destroyed more than 90 percent of the Gaza Strip and now control roughly 80 percent of the territory. The same report, cited by regional media, records intensified shelling and demolitions in Khan Younis, Rafah and Gaza City that killed at least eight Palestinians and displaced additional families. Across the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority documented widespread military raids, home invasions, movement restrictions and road closures in cities including Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron and Jenin, alongside attacks by Israeli settler militias that burned a cafeteria, assaulted shepherds and blocked village entrances. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture separately recorded the uprooting, burning or damaging of 2,559 olive trees, mainly in the Salfit, Jenin and Nablus governorates, with direct losses estimated at $11.78 million and at least 125 farmers affected.

A parallel study published on 7 July by the Israeli human rights organisations Peace Now and Kerem Navot argues that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has carried out a de facto annexation of the West Bank at a speed without precedent since the 1993 Oslo Accords. The groups document 185 new settler outposts established between 2023 and 2025, 130 of them classified as agricultural farms that now control 18 percent of the West Bank. Over the same period, more than 40,000 new housing units were approved on land the United Nations considers Palestinian, 223 kilometres of roads were built for exclusive Israeli use, and 118 Palestinian communities were displaced. The report, as analysed by Italian and Israeli media, notes a further surge after Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025: 42 of those communities lost their land in 2025 alone, and housing approvals more than doubled year on year to 27,941 units. The NGOs describe a systematic transformation of the control regime, including retroactive legalisation of outposts, legislative changes and increased Israeli jurisdiction over areas previously under Palestinian Authority responsibility.

Viewed from Jerusalem, the government has not publicly addressed the two reports, but a concurrent domestic security operation underscores competing pressures. Israel Police, coordinating with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Tax Authority and the Shin Bet, this week seized over 30 vehicles and dozens of weapons in Arab Israeli towns such as Sakhnin and Arrabe, targeting organised crime networks. The crackdown follows a surge in violence that has claimed 150 lives in the Arab sector so far in 2026, including a 17-year-old shot dead in Haifa, making it one of the deadliest years on record. Israeli officials describe the operation as an effort to cut off the economic oxygen of criminal groups, but the parallel crises highlight a security establishment stretched between external military campaigns and internal law-enforcement emergencies.

Diplomats in European capitals note that the two reports are likely to sharpen debates at the UN Security Council, where several members have already signalled they will raise the settlement expansion and the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority has called for an emergency session, while Israeli envoys are expected to argue that the data misrepresents temporary security measures. No date has been set for a formal discussion, but the dossier is expected to be taken up before the end of the month.