Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

(While a “ceasefire” is ostensibly in place, Israel has continued its assault on Gaza without interruption. If Americans Knew considers the war to be ongoing, and in its 852nd day.)

Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 591 Palestinians. Over 1,583 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative.

Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 1,620 times (as of Feb. 1, 2026). More statistics below.


GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:

(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim thisthis, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.

Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is the victim of genocide enabled by global inaction

After two years of genocide, Gaza has been almost entirely reframed by the world as a humanitarian emergency. Images of starving children, tents flapping in the wind, queues for water, and aid trucks stalled at crossings dominate coverage. These images are real. The suffering is real. But the framing is profoundly misleading.

Gaza is not a natural disaster zone. It is not a drought-stricken land awaiting rain, nor a city flattened by an earthquake that struck without warning or responsibility. What is unfolding in Gaza is the deliberate outcome of political decisions, military strategies, and a long-standing system of domination. Treating it primarily as a humanitarian crisis is not only inaccurate, but a form of erasure (continue reading here).

+++

Compliant aid: Who are the Israel-approved NGOs* scaling up in Gaza?

At the end of February, 37 aid organizations in the Gaza Strip – including nearly all established non-UN aid groups there – face a ban for refusing to comply with Israel’s new registration law. In their place, Israel has approved two dozen groups that have agreed to the requirements, which critics say aim to muzzle advocacy and manipulate the aid response to serve Israel’s political and military goals.

*NOTE: As a de facto occupier of Gaza, Israel is obligated under the law of armed conflict to ensure that the occupied civilian population is provided with supplies essential to the survival to the fullest extent that it can, including basic food and medical supplies as well as clothing, bedding and means of shelter.

Instead of fulfilling these obligations, Israel does the opposite: displaces Palestinians from their homes, and blocks the entrance of food, medicine, and shelter supplies available at no cost to Israel. 

Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly stated that they have large quantities of sheltering materials, food, and medical supplies waiting just outside the border, but Israel has not only not allowed them into the Strip, but “fired” the established organizations and replaced them with people who do not have experience or social capital to do the work.

+++

Money, threats, abuse: Israeli efforts to block return to Gaza via Rafah

Some returnees said they were asked whether they would accept money to go back to Egypt with their families and never return to Gaza. Others said they were offered money to act as informants for the Israeli army.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3jFWVf-I1ew


OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and thisFor information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club said the figure of 22,000 covers all cases of arrest during this period in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including those who remain in detention and those who were later released. It described the number as an unprecedented record for arrests over just two and a half years. The Prisoner’s Club stressed that the total does not include arrests in the Gaza Strip, which it said amount to thousands, nor arrest campaigns in the territories occupied in 1948 (Israel).

Israeli forces detain Palestinians following an explosion in Tulkarm, West Bank, on September 11, 2025.
Israeli forces detain Palestinians following an explosion in Tulkarm, West Bank, on September 11, 2025.

+++

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank usually travel to occupied East Jerusalem during Ramadan to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque; however, since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have tightened restrictions at military checkpoints, limiting West Bank residents’ access to Jerusalem. Local Israeli police have unilaterally allowed Israeli extremists to forcibly enter the mosque compound since 2003, despite repeated demands by the Islamic Waqf Department to stop the incursions.

+++

Israeli settlers injure at least 54 Palestinians in West Bank attacks

Israeli settlers carried out a wave of attacks across the occupied West Bank, destroying olive trees and vandalizing property.These latest attacks come amid a widely condemned Israeli push to cement control over the occupied Palestinian territory.

RELATED: Israeli forces open fire on Al Jazeera crew during coverage of illegal settler attack in West Bank

+++

‘Israeli Troops Have Nothing Else to Do, So They Shoot Our Children. They Come Here to Hunt’

Everyone in the West Bank knows now how easy it is for soldiers to shoot at anyone with live ammunition, with or without a reason. It’s never been so easy. A few days earlier, troops shot two teenagers in the nearby town of al-Dhahiriya, killing one and wounding the other, though according to eyewitnesses they had done nothing to endanger the soldiers.

+++

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: MORE ISRAELI OCCUPATION ACTIONS ON THURSDAY:

Young Man Injured During Israeli Invasion of Tuqu’


ISRAEL NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Israel is a tiny country, about the size of New Jersey, with a population smaller than the US state of Georgia – about 10 million (of which about 20 percent are Palestinians), yet it is in the news constantly. As has been demonstrated again and again, however, mainstream media rarely covers Israel accurately. IAK passes along only factual reporting.)

Extremist Israeli minister storms Ofer Prison, oversees abuse of Palestinian inmates

Itamar Ben-Gvir visits West Bank prison ahead of Ramadan as reports say stun grenades were set off near detainees and harsher measures were touted. Palestinian and Israeli rights groups say former prisoners released in recent months have reported systematic torture, sexual violence, starvation and medical neglect, with some showing signs of severe psychological trauma.

+++

Number of Palestinian female detainees in Israeli prisons rises to 66: Organization

Shortly after reporting the number of female detainees as 59, Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said Thursday that Israeli authorities had detained 10 women in recent days, including a minor. Israel’s most common accusation used to detain women is incitement on social media.

+++

Israel bans entry of Italian journalist over critical reporting

The journalist was barred for calling the Israeli occupation of the West Bank ‘apartheid.’

+++

Sir Leonard Blavatnik, listed by the Sunday Times as the UK’s third richest person, is selling a nearly 15% share in Channel 13, a commercial channel that has run critical news coverage of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in recent years, including investigations into the prime minister’s financial dealings.

+++

Israeli artillery, gunfire target several towns in southern Lebanon* despite ceasefire

Israeli drone strike kills 1 in southern Lebanon

*NOTE: Although Israel signed a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon in November 2024, Israel has attacked Lebanon almost every day since, committing over 10,000 air and ground violations – the most violated ceasefire deal in recorded history – and killing over 300. Additionally, Israel continues to occupy five Lebanese hilltops seized during the latest war, and other Lebanese areas it has held for decades.

+++

Israeli forces raid village in southwestern Syria*

*NOTE: Although Israel is not at war with Syria, the Israeli army has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes and 400 cross-border raids on Syria since December 2024, killing approximately 30 Syrians. The situation appears to meet the criteria for occupation (see next article) – and where occupation exists, the occupying power is bound by extensive legal obligations

+++

Why Israel’s expanding occupation in Syria presents a critical legal test

Israeli forces have moved beyond the Golan disengagement lines into southern Syria, exercising effective control over civilians in ways that meet the legal threshold for occupation.
Israeli tanks take position on the border with Syria in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on Dec. 8, 2024.
Israeli tanks take position on the border with Syria in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on Dec. 8, 2024.

NEWS & HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:

(You can learn a lot about a country from its headlines. Get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions that receives $63 million a day from America.)

AOC: Unconditional U.S. Military Aid* to Israel Enabled Genocide in Gaza

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized ‘unconditional’ U.S. aid to Israel, linking it to civilian deaths in Gaza, and called for enforcing the Leahy Laws, which prohibit aid to foreign units committing gross human rights violations.

*NOTE: The Leahy Laws require the US to withhold aid to countries that commit Gross Human Rights Violations – but in spite of overwhelming proof of abuse by Israel, our politicians have thus far declined to cut off military support. The US has made special efforts to create loopholes for Israel, bypassed Congressional oversight on several major weapons transfers since October 7th, and quietly approved and delivered scores of separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began.

US-made bombs
US-made bombs

OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:

The United Arab Emirates and the United States have each committed more than $1 billion to President Trump’s new international initiative, officials said.

+++

On Friday, the EU’s head of foreign policy, Kaja Kallas said the original purpose of the UN resolution and mandate had been to help Gaza through a Board of Peace, but this had been subverted since the board’s charter now made no reference to Gaza or to the UN.

She said it was true that the UN security council resolution “provided for a Board of Peace for Gaza, but it also provided for it to be limited in time until 2027, it provided for the Palestinians to have a say, and it referred to Gaza, whereas the statute of the Board of Peace makes no reference to any of these things”.

+++

‘I felt like an animal’: Palestinian activist says ICE chained her in hospital after seizure

A Palestinian woman held by ICE says she was chained to a hospital bed for three days after suffering a seizure which was due to ill treatment in detention.


ICYMI, A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:

UN Agencies Warn of Collapse of Gaza’s Education System

2026 will be ‘toughest financially’ due to Israel’s withholding of tax revenues*: Palestine

After Israel Killed 265 Journalists in Gaza, Herzog Says Media Barred for ‘Protection’

Compromised peace? Oslo Accords figure deeply linked to Epstein network

(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)

Palestinian civil defense teams carry out search and recovery operations with heavy machinery at the site of a building destroyed during Israeli attacks in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, on February 12, 2026.
Palestinian civil defense teams carry out search and recovery operations with heavy machinery at the site of a building destroyed during Israeli attacks in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, on February 12, 2026.

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – FEBRUARY 13, 2026*:

  • At least 73,161 Palestinians killed, 182,691 injured – including:
  • At least 72,049 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
  • At least 1,112 killed in the West Bank (~230 children)
  • At least 171,691 injured in Gaza
  • About 11,000 injured in the West Bank

*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 8,000 more are still buried under rubble; 3,000 more are reportedly missing, with no information about their fate.

Additionally, the numbers of injured and starved are very conservative estimatesOnly the dead who are brought to hospitals are included in the official fatality count.

At least 25 Palestinians in Gaza have died due to the extreme cold, including 21 children, since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023. At least 11 Palestinian children have died of extreme cold this winter.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – February 13, 2026: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 471 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians (by one count, there have been 59 victims) in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel. 

By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 281 Palestinian journalists and media workers (as of Jan. 21, 2026); Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 215 and 333 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).

**NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org