Palestine

>> Israeli settlers vandalized a mosque in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early Monday, spray-painting offensive phrases and setting a fire, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Religious Affairs.

>> Worshippers arriving for the day’s first prayers found the damage and a smoldering fire that spewed black smoke across the entrance of the Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Mosque in the town of Tell, near Nablus, and stained the ornate doorway.

>> Security camera footage showed two people walking toward the mosque carrying gasoline and a can of spray paint, and running away a few minutes later …

>> The ministry said settlers vandalized or attacked 45 mosques in the #WestBank last year.

Israeli settlers have defaced and set fire to a mosque in the occupied West Bank during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, marking the latest incident in a wave of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the territory.

The Wafa news agency reported on Monday that settlers graffitied racist slogans on the walls of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq Mosque, located between the towns of Sarra and Tal, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank.

Western allies and US commanders express concern over Trump plan to hire Israeli-armed militias

archive: https://archive.is/Vxm2F

from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Feb.22, 2026

Local Call reporter Oren Ziv reported from the Jordan Valley, where the Israeli army is issuing evacuation orders and seizing land to prepare a massive new separation wall that will sever the region from the rest of the West Bank — part of a wider project to annex the Palestinian “breadbasket.”

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>> The remarks by [Palestinian-Syrian film director] Abdallah Al-Khatib, whose "Chronicles From the Siege" won the Berlinale's Perspectives section for emerging filmmakers, capped a politically charged festival ...

>> "... you are a refugee in Germany, and there are so many red lines. But I don't care. I care about my people, about Palestine," said Al-Khatib, standing on stage with a keffiyeh scarf draped on his shoulder and raising a Palestinian flag at the end of his speech ...

>> "So I will say my final word to the German government. You are partners in the genocide in Gaza by Israel. I believe you are intelligent enough to recognise this truth, but you choose to not care."..

According to Haaretz daily, only 66 building permits were issued to Palestinians between 2009 and 2020, while 22,000 permits were granted to illegal Israeli settlers during the same period.

“As most of the West Bank is off-limits to Palestinian development, residents are forced to build without permits,” the paper commented.

After more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – and despite ongoing Israeli attacks – it was finally safe enough to return, and attempt to rebuild and restore.

Mohammed and his family spent months clearing rubble from the ground and whatever was left of their greenhouses, which were flattened during the fighting, like many of the buildings in Gaza.

With very limited resources, they prepared the soil and planted the first courgette crop, hoping it would be ready to harvest by early spring.

But even this limited attempt to bring the family’s land back to life is not without risk. As Mohammed explains, every time he goes to tend to his field, he is risking his life. A few hundred metres away sit Israeli tanks, and the sound of bullets flying by is common.

By WAFAA SHURAFA
Updated 12:47 PM EST, February 20, 2026

At the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington, President Donald Trump spoke of billions of dollars pledged to rebuild the Gaza Strip and a “new and harmonious” Middle East rising from the ashes of war. Videos aired at the meeting showed a future of gleaming high-rises and new soccer pitches.

There was no sign of such optimism in Gaza, where Palestinians who have spent months or even years in squalid displacement camps or the rubble of their homes hold out little hope for change.

“Since the beginning of the war, we’ve been hearing about conferences and meetings. They say there’s a solution and peace, but it’s all a joke. They’re all liars,” said Faraj Abu Anze, who is among tens of thousands of Palestinians living in a sprawling tent camp on the Mediterranean coast.

“We see nothing of that on the ground. There is no hope. Education and health care are gone. There is no life,” he said.

According to the BBC and press reports in the Gulf, Hamas members in Gaza have already voted. Those in the West Bank, in Israeli prisons and the diaspora are also expected to cast ballots for delegates to the movement’s 50-member general Shura council, which ultimately chooses its politburo and a new interim leader. The process could last weeks.

The two frontrunners in the leadership contest are thought to be Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Meshaal, who both survived the Doha airstrike. Between them, they present a fairly clearcut choice on Hamas’s future direction.

Al-Hayya leads the Gaza wing, though he lives in the Gulf, and is considered Sinwar’s heir – hardline, though not drawn from the military wing, and closest to Iran among Hamas’s foreign sponsors.

Meshaal is a Hamas veteran, one of its founders, who served as overall leader for more than two decades. He now leads the movement abroad and is thought to live in Doha. He is viewed as being at the more flexible end of the Hamas spectrum, with stronger ties to Qatar and Turkey.

"A six-decade agreement governing Muslim and Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site has “collapsed” under pressure from Jewish extremists backed by the Israeli government, experts have warned."

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