GENEVA, August 10, 2026 (WAFA) - UN experts today condemned the sharp escalation of attacks against Palestinian civilians across the occupied Palestinian territory in July, registering a sharp deterioration of an already catastrophic human rights situation.

“Despite a ceasefire nominally in force since October 2025, Israeli forces have killed about 160 Palestinians in Gaza in July alone, bringing the death toll in the ravaged enclave since the so-called ceasefire to more than 1,200. This includes women, children, older persons and others who had taken shelter in tents and areas to which they had been directed for their own safety,” the experts said. “Most killings occurred in densely populated displacement zones such as Al-Mawasi, far from the so-called yellow line. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.”

The experts reported with alarm that entire residential blocks receive evacuation orders just before fighter jets destroy them, deepening the already severe shelter crisis. “The continuous westward advancement of the so-called yellow line, the construction of a 23-kilometre barrier along it and the systematic detonation of residential buildings are re-engineering the geography of illegally occupied Gaza through force and displacement,” the experts said.

They also condemned strikes on hospitals and shelters, the killing of police officers and UN-contracted staff, attacks on fishers, and abductions and abuses by armed groups reportedly collaborating with the Israeli military, as well as the killing of humanitarian workers, who, through their work protecting and promoting fundamental human rights, are human rights defenders. “The genocide is continuing unabated,” the experts said.

They warned that food aid is still not entering Gaza freely, while products brought in through commercial channels are ultra-processed and neither nutritionally nor culturally adequate.

“With farmland and clean water inaccessible and agricultural inputs blocked, Palestinians are unable to feed themselves,” said the experts, adding that the burden is falling heaviest on children, older persons and those with disabilities. They also warned that food insecurity is fueling a rise in gender-based violence and child marriage, as well as endangering women in their daily searches for food.

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the experts deplored the killing of at least 14 Palestinians in July, most of them in the final 10 days, as well as deaths resulting from movement restrictions, among them the death of a four-month-old baby and a pregnant woman's miscarriage after ambulances were blocked at military gates. “When checkpoints and gates threaten the lives of infants, pregnant women and their unborn children, movement restrictions become lethal instruments,” they said.

The experts were particularly shocked by the surge in settler terror, culminating on 24 July in Tell, southwest of Nablus, where four Palestinian men from one family were shot and killed during clashes involving armed settlers and soldiers. In the days that followed, some 80 Tell residents were detained, and more than 20 pogroms were recorded across the West Bank in a single weekend - mosques, homes and rural farms burned, water infrastructure destroyed, entire communities forcibly displaced. "Settler terror is not spontaneous; it operates with the protection, and often the participation, of the Israeli occupation forces, in tandem with record settlement expansion, mass demolitions, land seizures and the prolonged sealing of refugee camps - all sustained and encouraged by members of the Israeli cabinet," they said.

The experts recalled that in its Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful, and called for it to be brought to an end as rapidly as possible. The Court also found Israel’s settlement policy to be in violation of international law. "Two years on, rather than being compelled to comply, Israel has been allowed to accelerate the very policies the Court found unlawful," they said.

"States that aid or assist Israel - politically, militarily or financially - in maintaining this unlawful situation are themselves in breach of international law. This strikes at the heart of the multilateral legal order, all the more so amid a genocide and an openly declared campaign of ethnic cleansing."

The experts called for immediate compliance with the ICJ Advisory Opinion and provisional measures orders, namely cessation of attacks against civilians, respect for the ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, accountability, and concrete steps by third States to ensure respect for international humanitarian and human rights law.

T.R.