Days before Israel’s legislative elections, scheduled for October 27, Israeli forces escalated military activities across the West Bank. Observers speculate that the Israeli government may carry through with its threat to escalate its assaults on Palestinians in the occupied territory.

These speculations are apparently based on the results of the early polls, which showed the bloc of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a tight race with its competitors and facing a likely political deadlock.

On Tuesday, October 20, the Israeli military announced a 24-hour military drill across the West Bank that involved gunfire, explosions, and increased movements of soldiers, aircraft, and military vehicles.

Concurrently, security measures against Palestinians and their supporters have been further tightened. On Tuesday, October 21, the Israeli forces briefly detained 80 US, British, and Israeli volunteers assisting Palestinians harvesting olives west of the southern West Bank governorate of Bethlehem.

The detainees included the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, a group of rabbis, and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.

Commenting on the incident, Lander wrote in a post on X:

“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank.”

“The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know,” the congressional candidate continued, although he calls himself a “liberal Zionist.”

The Israeli military stated that the mass detention of activists was carried out because they did not submit requests to the relevant authorities in advance for necessary coordination “to ensure the security of the area and maintain public order.”

Settler violence

The incident occurred amid an unprecedented escalation of settler violence in the West Bank, particularly during the olive harvest season.

The last couple of weeks saw horrific settler attacks carried out under the protection of the Israeli forces. Those attacks caused injuries not only to Palestinians, but also international activists, journalists, and diplomats from other countries.

Damage to Palestinian agricultural lands and the looting of crops has also been reported over the same period.

On Friday, October 16, veteran Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine (63) was beaten by a crowd of masked Israeli settlers, while covering the olive harvest in Abu Falah village northeast of Ramallah, although she was wearing a helmet and a protective vest clearly labeled “PRESS” on both sides.

One day later, a delegation of European diplomats was attacked by a group of masked colonists in the village of Taybeh, east of Ramallah, during a visit to the area to support Palestinian farmers harvesting olives.

The Israeli forces also intensified military raids in different parts of the West Bank in recent days, detaining Palestinian traffic police for hours. 

Many believe the incident aimed to break the morale of the Palestinian people by exposing the helplessness of the Palestinian security apparatus in the face of Israel as an occupying power. 

Meanwhile, others viewed it as a provocation of the Palestinian Authority and its security forces, in a bid to push them for an armed confrontation with the Israeli forces. A scenario that the Israeli government has already laid the groundwork for as per recent statements from Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Palestine’s long-awaited legislative elections have once again been postponed. The polls that were scheduled for November 28, have been pushed for one year, according to reports, through an agreement between Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas.

According to the report, the postponement aims to give time to rebuild the Palestinian political system in a way that allows all components to take part.

Read more: Will a new political alliance unseat the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority?

Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Friday, October 9 that Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh informed France that the elections will be delayed possibly until September 2027, citing the deteriorating conditions throughout the occupied ‌Palestinian territories as a reason.

On Saturday, October 10, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree, setting September 11, 2027 for simultaneous presidential and legislative elections.

The reactions of Palestinian factions varied. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad welcomed the decision due to immense infrastructural, logistical, and political hurdles in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, which make the voting process impossible.

However, the Democratic Reform Current led by Mohammed Dahlan criticized it as “a crime against democracy”, accusing the PA’s leadership of monopolizing national institutions.

The move came amid the continuation of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza, and its refusal to proceed to phase two of the US-brokered ceasefire deal.

In tandem, the Israeli forces and illegal settlers have escalated their attacks on Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, mainly focusing on the central governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh in the last couple of weeks.

Read more: Three years of genocide in Gaza, the Palestinian people remain steadfast

Ramallah is becoming a flashpoint for Israeli violence 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has designated Ramallah and Al-Bireh as a de facto administrative capital since its establishment in 1994, following the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Therefore, many believe that destabilizing the governorate reveals Israel’s plans to further sideline the PA and undermine its power in a bid to ultimately dismantle it.

In late September, media reports surfaced indicating the Israeli government’s intention to reopen a route in the governorate for settler traffic, dividing its northern and southern halves.

The two weeks that followed saw a spiral in settler violence and raids carried out by the Israeli forces across Ramallah and Al-Bireh.

Friday, October 9, saw a notable increase in Israeli assaults across different parts of the governorate, coinciding with the onset of the olive harvest season.

A video circulated from Yabrud village east of Ramallah, showing a group of Israeli colonists attacking a Palestinian man and his son in their car. The settlers stole the vehicle after the man and his son ran away to survive.

Simultaneously, dozens of settlers stormed the northern town of Surda, wandering in its streets in an attempt to terrorize its people. They also destroyed the memorial of Muhannad Al-Halabi, one of the town’s martyrs.

Escorted by Israeli soldiers, settlers attacked international activists, who were protecting Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest in the town of Deir Ibzi, west of Ramallah. They also verbally abused journalists on site and tried to prevent them from covering the offensive.

On Friday evening, the Israeli army stormed Al-Bireh city, firing live ammunition and stun grenades, according to local media outlets.

Over the weekend and through Monday, October 12, settler attacks as well as military raids carried out by Israeli forces continued to take place in different parts of the governorate. The colonists also released a new video encouraging each other to continue storming Ramallah, and even the neighborhood where the Palestinian President resides in Al-Bireh city:

“You too can reach a point close to the house of Mahmoud Abbas and Ramallah,” the caption on the video noted.

In late September, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu’s government intends to adjust access to key routes in the central West Bank. It plans to reopen Route 463 to settler-only traffic in the governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.

Yisrael Gantz, the leader of the Yesha Council (an umbrella organization representing Israeli municipal councils across Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley) confirmed that plans to reopen the road received preliminary approval and funding.

Preparations are also underway by the Israeli military to complete “the security, legal, and logistical” steps required to reopen the route (also known as Wallerstein Road).

History of the road

The road was paved in 1994 under the directions of Pinchas Wallerstein, a founder of the settlement movement, to connect the illegal settlements of Beit El (north-east of Ramallah and Al-Bireh) and Dolev (north-west of Jerusalem).

However, following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, the Israeli army barred Israeli people from using the road for security reasons. They also placed a locked iron gate on its end near Ein Qiniya village, northwest of Ramallah.

Why has the reopening of the route raised concerns among Palestinians in the West Bank?

Experts argue that Israel’s move will impact not only the governorate itself, but the entire occupied West Bank because of its central location, major metropolitan status, and role as a commercial hub.

To understand the repercussions of the route reopening, BreakThrough News spoke with Jamal Jumaa, a Palestinian activist, expert on Israeli settlement and apartheid-related issues, and coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall).

Aside from dividing the governorate’s northern and southern halves, Jumaa noted that reopening the road is dangerous because it will block the center of Ramallah and Al-Bireh from two-thirds of its villages, which are situated to the west.

The prominent Palestinian activist added that when Israel builds such roads for settler traffic, it fences them off on both sides and prohibits the use of adjacent lands. The Israeli authorities consider those lands a buffer zone, citing the security of the settlers as their reason. 

“This entails setting up military towers and checkpoints. The road will cut off continuously inhabited Palestinian villages north-west and south-west of Ramallah. Therefore, we are talking about the establishment of roughly four military checkpoints along the road,” he continued.

Jumaa pointed out that the road will complicate the life of Palestinians by restricting their access to vital healthcare and education facilities, including the Istishari Arab Hospital, Birzeit University, and the Arab American University.

He also noted that the intended reopening of the road “is part of dividing and dividing more Palestinians from each other.”

On the political level, Jumaa suggested that the road “hits the heart of the West Bank, which gives a clear signal to the Palestinian Authority that it has no sovereignty over anything.”

It is worth noting that since its establishment, the Palestinian Authority has designated Ramallah and Al-Bireh as a de facto administrative capital. Yet, this has not prevented the Israeli authorities from fragmenting and isolating the governorate by establishing illegal settlements, military outposts, checkpoints, and gates.

Read more: IOF storms Ramallah city center, wounding 58 civilians, including a child

On Sunday, September 27, the Israeli occupation authorities announced a multi-day comprehensive closure of all crossings into and out of the West Bank, coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

The closure will continue until at least Saturday, October 3, further exacerbating already stifling restrictions on movement across the occupied territories.

The move came days after the Israeli forces blocked the main entrances and exits to the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, which constitutes a major commercial hub and connects the territory’s northern governorates with those to the south.

In recent days, thousands of Palestinians were stranded at Israeli military checkpoints due to these restrictions that eventually culminated with the holiday-related closure. This includes vulnerable people such as patients, elderly people, pregnant women, and even preschoolers unaccompanied by their parents.

On Friday, September 25, media outlets reported that kindergarten students waited at the Atarah military checkpoint in northern Ramallah for nine hours the previous night, with their bus finally managing to bring them home after 10:30 PM. 

Meanwhile, BreakThrough News documented the delay an ambulance of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) faced at the same checkpoint on Monday, September 28.

On Sunday, Israel announced a comprehensive closure of all crossings into and out of the West Bank for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. This has left Palestinians – workers, students, and even ambulances transporting patients – stranded at checkpoints for hours.

BT's Aseel Saleh… pic.twitter.com/XbI2o928QM

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) September 29, 2026

BreakThrough News also spoke to some Palestinian citizens at the checkpoint, who affirmed that they had to wait for many hours at each checkpoint inside the governorate on a daily basis.

A cargo driver from the southern governorate of Hebron, who travels to Ramallah every day, said that he sometimes has no other choice but to sleep in his car when facing extended delays.

Another Palestinian, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Israeli measures in place aim to make the Palestinian people in the West Bank feel frustrated about their daily life, pushing them to leave their homeland permanently.

Illegal Israeli settlers storm different parts of Ramallah during the holiday

The provocative acts related to the current holiday were not limited to the comprehensive closure. On Tuesday, September 29, over 100 illegal Israeli colonists stormed the town of Beitunia and the nearby Ein Jaryout area, west of Ramallah, under protection of the Israeli forces.

Palestinian movement was heavily restricted and the entrances to the targeted areas were blocked by the Israeli military to clear the way for a large convoy of settler vehicles. 

Moreover, the event involved the assault and detention of Palestinian residents and damage to property, alongside a religious march and prayers by settlers.

Journalists were also reportedly prevented from covering the events, under the direct threat of firearms. 

On that same day, a group of settlers entered the Al-Tireh neighborhood and the adjacent town of Surda, situated just a short distance from Beitunia. During the incident, they raised Israeli flags at Al-Awda Square, obstructed traffic intersections, and hurled stones damaging vehicles.

The incursions in Ramallah were carried out one day after Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led hundreds of Israelis in a raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

During the assault, they performed dances inside the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Sanctuary.

Referring to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as the Temple Mount (a biblical name), Ben-Gvir declared from there:

“October 7 was massive and enormous pain, great pain. But today, three years later, on the holiday of Sukkot. We can rejoice in many things.We are the masters of the Temple Mount. We are the masters of the prisons. We turned the lives of terrorists into hell.”

The statement of Ben-Gvir is seen by analysts as nothing but a blatant affirmation that Israel is an apartheid colonial state, which systematically seeks to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.

Read more: Ben-Gvir provokes Palestinians with threat to prominent Palestinian leader and prisoner Marwan Barghouti

For the last several days, Israeli forces have blocked the main entrances and exits to the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, further restricting Palestinian movement.

The punitive measure was taken after a Palestinian man carried out a shooting attack near the illegal settlement of Halamish, located to the northwest of Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, on Sunday, September 20.

The attack resulted in the killing of an Israeli settler. The assailant was also injured and later identified as Qadri Samara (37). Samara was shot at by Israeli soldiers stationed at an army post near the site of the attack.

Although Samara managed to withdraw from the scene, later in the day Israeli forces carried out a raid at the HClinic Hospital in Ramallah and arrested him.

Following his arrest, the Israeli army also stormed Samara’s town of Biddu, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sunday evening, raiding his home and surrounding worshippers inside a mosque.

Ben-Gvir calls for implementation of death penalty law for the first time on Samara

In a security meeting held on Monday, September 21, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the controversial death penalty law, mandated in March, to be used against Qadri Samara.

The law has faced widespread condemnation from international human rights groups for multiple reasons, mainly because it applies exclusively to Palestinians, while exempting Israelis convicted of the same offenses from the same penalty.

Both Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers have enjoyed total impunity despite murdering thousands of Palestinians over the past two decades in the occupied West Bank, a territory regarded under Palestinian jurisdiction in accordance with international law.

Iranian news outlet Press TV called the detention of its West Bank correspondent Naqaa Hamed by the Israeli forces an “aggressive terrorist operation” aimed at silencing the truth about its occupation and genocide of Palestinians. It demanded the immediate intervention of the international community for her release.

“The desperate attempt by the Zionist war and security machine to block the flow of free news and boycott structured crimes in the West Bank is clear evidence of the occupier’s fear of independent” reporters “who expose widespread human right violations,” the Press TV statement, published on Thursday, September 17, said.

Naqaa Hamed was abducted by the Israeli armed forces from a checkpoint at Tuqu, near Bethlehem, in the occupied Palestinian territory on September 15. 

She, along with her cameraman, were returning after reporting about rising Israeli settler violence on Palestinians in Masafer Yatta.

One eyewitness, a TRT journalist accompanying Hamed in her car, claimed that they were detained at the checkpoint and made to sit on the ground for 45 minutes while Hamed was taken alone for interrogation.

After the interrogation, cameraman and TRT journalists were let go but Hamed was arrested and sent to an unknown location.

Later it was reported that her detention has been extended until September 23 by an Israeli court.

Though no official confirmation has come forward about the charges against Hamed, Israeli media quoted unidentified military sources claiming her arrest was linked to her alleged cooperation with “the enemy entity,” presumably Iran, and espionage.

Hamed (38), a Palestinian-American and mother of three children, has been subjected to repeated physical attacks by Israeli forces in the last few months. She has also been subjected to a smear campaign on social media. 

According to Press TV, rubber bullets were fired at her when she was reporting near Qalandia camp in December 2025. She was injured again in August this year by an Israeli stun grenade and tear gas fire.

The intimidation and smear campaigns on social media, started by pages affiliated with the Israeli occupation regime, targeted Hamed by questioning her credibility and calling her a part of the “Iranian propaganda machine.” 

Israel is the worst place to be a journalist

Israel has one of the worst records when it comes to killing and arresting journalists. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have been either killed or arrested by the Israeli occupation forces since the beginning of the war and genocide in Gaza. 

According to various sources Israel has killed over 250 journalists and media workers in the West Bank and Gaza since October 2023. 

According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, currently nearly 40 Palestinian journalists are in Israeli detention, including five women. Almost half of these journalists are kept in prison under the draconian provision of Administrative Detention, which allows the authorities to keep them in jail for an indefinite period without any formal charges or trial.

The Iranian media channel Press TV underlined that Hamed’s arrest by Israeli forces violates international laws about immunity to journalists in war zones. It demanded the UN, its High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other international human rights groups to come out of their “shell of inaction and meaningful silence” and take measures to end Israel’s impunity.

“As long as responsible institutions remain in the shell of silence and inaction, Naqaa Hamed will not be the first, nor the last journalist to be targeted by the illegal actions of the Zionist regime,” the Press TV statement said.