Palestine weekly wrap: Israel’s ‘quiet annexation’ grows louder
Key takeaways
- An Al Jazeera cameraman is killed in Gaza and West Bank mosques are torched, as Israeli officials describe a deliberate policy of expanding control – by stealth in Gaza, and by decree in the occupied West Bank.
- And in central Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, an Israeli strike killed Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah, the 12th member of the network’s staff killed in Gaza since October 2023.
- The loudest move came in Hebron.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
An Al Jazeera cameraman is killed in Gaza and West Bank mosques are torched, as Israeli officials describe a deliberate policy of expanding control – by stealth in Gaza, and by decree in the occupied West Bank.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Palestinians inspect damaged vehicles following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Monday, June 22, 2026 [Jehad Alshrafi/AP]By Al Jazeera Staff Published On 23 Jun 202623 Jun 2026This week, the campaign of land seizure that Israeli officials have largely pursued unofficially was, in places, declared aloud. In Hebron, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had “cancelled” the 1997 Hebron Agreement, stripping the Palestinian municipality of planning authority over the Old City and Ibrahimi Mosque.
In Gaza, Israeli television reported that Israel, blocked by the United States from a new ground offensive, had indeed chosen what its own officials called “creeping” or “quiet” annexation – pushing its lines of control westward without announcement.