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Gaza strikes and casualties
Israeli warplanes struck a residential apartment inside the Al-Mu'taz building in the Al-Rimal neighborhood in western Gaza City while targeting a civilian car in the city center, killing at least seven Palestinians and wounding about 45 others, according to local sources.
The sources said injuries ranged from mild to severe and victims were taken to nearby hospitals amid overcrowding and a shortage of medical resources due to the ongoing war and siege.
In a later development, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said the attack targeted Az-Din Haddad, the commander of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, in Gaza City.
They said in a joint statement that the Israeli army carried out the operation under their directions, noting that the attack targeted Haddad but did not confirm his death or announce the final results of the operation.
The same report said a young man was martyred in Jenin, with the Palestinian Health Ministry announcing the martyrdom of Nour al-Din Fayad (34) after he was shot by occupation forces in the Jenin camp.
West Bank raids and injuries
In the occupied West Bank, Anadolu Ajansı reported that 25 Palestinians were injured on Friday during an attack by illegal settlers, under the protection of Israeli forces, against the village of Talfit south of Nablus.
Anadolu Ajansı quoted Mahmoud Abou Aïcha, head of the village council, saying the settlers launched a coordinated attack against residents and their property while Israeli troops responded with tear gas.
Abou Aïcha said fifteen people were asphyxiated by the tear gas, one person was shot, and nine others were beaten, and he added that the settlers shattered the windows of ten vehicles and damaged four houses.
In a separate report, WAFA said residents of Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya village, south of Nablus, confronted colonists who were attacking settlers in the Wadi ash-Sha'er area east of Salfit on Tuesday.
WAFA reported that the residents reopened the road that the colonists had attempted to block after detaining several vehicles and preventing them from passing between Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya and Salfit.
Settlement expansion and escalation
In the occupied West Bank, Palestine Chronicle said Israel’s cabinet advanced one of its largest settlement expansion plans in decades, and it linked the escalation to the political-security cabinet approving the establishment of 22 new settlements.
Palestine Chronicle reported that around 30 Israeli settlers attacked the home of Palestinian resident Salem al-Hathalin in the village of Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta south of Hebron, injuring six Palestinians, according to local sources.
It also said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the decision as the beginning of a “settlement revolution,” adding that the policy would eventually extend beyond the occupied West Bank to the Naqab and Galilee.
In parallel, Anadolu Ajansı said Palestinians view Israel’s intensified operations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as a step toward the formal annexation of the territory.
Anadolu Ajansı added that in a historic ruling issued in July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
