Israel/Palästina

The head of Israel’s elections commission has said the results of the country’s general election would still stand even if claims of foreign interference were substantiated. … Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party had questioned the results after saying, without providing evidence, that Arab-led parties, which made significant gains in Tuesday’s elections, “stole” the vote and accepted funding from Qatar to do it.

Israeli forces withdrew from a neighbourhood in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, ending a military operation launched after two Israeli soldiers were killed in late October. 

Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into ever-smaller areas of the Gaza Strip while destroying civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, warned on Friday amid concerns of ethnic cleansing. OHCHR said that Israel has stated that it aims to increase the area of military deployment to 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory. 

After a deadly attack which killed two Israeli soldiers on Friday, the Israeli military has said all land border points between Israel and the occupied West Bank will be closed during Tuesday's election.

One of the main suppliers of food aid to the Gaza Strip, the World Food Programme (WFP), says that it is being forced to "drastically reduce lifesaving assistance" to the Palestinian territory due to funding shortages. Overall, the number of people helped by the UN agency will drop by about a third - from 1.6 million to 1.1 million. 

Israel is refusing to allow a key military outpost project for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to proceed in Gaza … In early August, the Board of Peace, the international organization authorized in 2025 by the UN and chaired by the US president, issued its first construction contract for Gaza: Louisiana-based Arkel International would construct a military outpost for 150 international troops that would be the vanguard of an international stabilization force.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas previously committed to holding legislative elections in November 2026. He said that due to "obstacles ⁠posed by Israeli measures" the vote would be pushed back until late next year.

Three years after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, residents of the Palestinian territory continue to live among rubble. The plan brokered under the auspices of the American president on October 10, 2025 has stalled, and despite the ceasefire it provides for, Israel's campaign of destruction has continued.

On 29 September 2026, the Council appointed Col. Vittorio Stingo as the new Head of the EU Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah). He will take up his duties on 1 November 2026 for an initial mandate of eight months, until 30 June 2027. He succeeds Ms. Nataliya Apostolova, who has headed the mission since 2023.

[…] Following the coordinated strategic review conducted by the European External Action Service and approved by the Political and Security Committee and on the basis of the letters provided by the Palestinian Authority and Israel, the Council decided to renew the mandates of the EU Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah) and of the EU Police Mission in the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) for nine months until 30 June 2027.