Palestine weekly wrap: Under cover of ceasefire, Israel increases grip

Settler violence surges deeper into Palestinian-administered areas, and Gaza’s police forces are decimated further.

Israel has officially agreed to ceasefires in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. But that has not meant any de-escalation, as Israeli forces and settlers press further into Palestinian-administered areas of the occupied West Bank, deeper into civilian space in Gaza, and more aggressively into the heart of occupied East Jerusalem.

The pattern, documented across multiple fronts this week – including a surge of strikes in Lebanon despite the announced extension of the ceasefire there – suggests that ceasefires have functioned less as true pauses in hostilities than as cover for accelerated fact-making on the ground. It was against this backdrop that Palestinians in the West Bank and, for the first time since 2006, in part of Gaza, went to the polls on Saturday in municipal elections – despite many Palestinians doubting that these votes would be able to bring about change.

In Gaza, the week brought some of the heaviest strikes on civilian and police infrastructure since the October ceasefire. Forty Palestinians were killed from April 20 to April 27, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

They included three police officers killed in a drone strike in Khan Younis on April 21, five people – including three children – slain in an air strike on the courtyard of a mosque in Beit Lahiya on April 22, and eight people killed in an attack on a police vehicle in Khan Younis on April 24. A separate attack in Gaza City also killed two police officers on the same day.

On Saturday, Islam Karsou, a woman pregnant with twins, and her two young children were killed in artillery shelling near Kamal Adwan Hospital. On Monday, 15-year-old Ayham al-Omari was killed by Israeli forces in Beit Lahiya, according to Telegram reports.

The Popular Committees in Gaza condemned “the repeated targeting of the Palestinian police” as “a direct attack on citizens’ security and safety”. Critics note the campaign risks dismantling the very governance structures the Board of Peace’s framework requires to function before reconstruction can begin.

As of April 27, since the October 11 ceasefire, 817 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and more than 2,200 injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Since October 7, 2023, the cumulative toll stands at 72,593.

Small-scale elections took place in Gaza – specifically in Deir el-Balah – for the first time since 2006, in municipal elections on Saturday. In Deir el-Balah, turnout was 23 percent, with the commission attributing the