The Cradle | September 27, 2026

Israeli Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich has called on Israel to “go to war” in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and “do there what we did in Gaza,” Israeli media reported on 27 September.

“I certainly have solutions” to the situation in the West Bank, he said. “I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority.”

The Religious Zionism Party leader also called on Israel to annex the areas of southern Lebanon and Gaza occupied by Israeli troops.

“I would very much like to annex at least up to the Yellow Line in Gaza and up to the Litani [River] in Lebanon,” he says.

As part of its genocide of Palestinians since 2023, Israel has occupied an estimated 70 percent of Gaza, which is divided by a yellow line demarcating areas under direct Israeli occupation from those remaining under Hamas control.

Israel has also occupied territory in Lebanon amounting to 7 percent of the entire country.

Israel carries out demolition campaigns in both, seeking to wipe out any trace of Palestinian and Lebanese villages and cities already largely destroyed by Israeli bombing.

Smotrich made the comments after he was asked on a podcast how to advance Israel’s project in the West Bank amid Palestinian resistance.

Israel has accelerated its construction of illegal Jewish settlements and outposts in the West Bank this year, including in the E1 settlement.

E1 is designed to cut the West Bank in half and separate it from occupied East Jerusalem, making the establishment of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

At the same time, Jewish settlers enjoying protection of the army regularly carry out violent pogrom-style attacks on Palestinian villages in hopes of forcing Palestinians to abandon their homes and agricultural lands.

In response, Palestinians have carried out several car ramming and shooting operations targeting Jewish settlers in recent weeks.

Smotrich also repeated his call to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA), which provides civil administration to parts of the West Bank, including the Palestinian cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Bethlehem.

The PA was established following the Oslo Accords in 1993 to serve as an interim government until the establishment of a Palestinian state.

However, the PA has in practice served as an arm of the Israeli occupation, assisting the Israeli military in suppressing Palestinian resistance.

Smotrich has previously called on Israel to annex more than 80 percent of the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967.

Since then, Israel has established some 160 Jewish settlements and 360 outposts, housing more than 700,000 Jewish settlers as part of a long-term campaign to colonize and Judaize the Palestinian territories.

In his campaign for next month’s Knesset election, Smotrich has touted the expansion of Israeli settlements under the current coalition government, which includes Smotrich, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

As head of the Likud Party, Netanyahu is seeking his seventh term as prime minister. Ben Gvir leads a religious nationalist party, Jewish Power, known for its extremism and calls for violence against Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities decided to impose a week-long “comprehensive closure” on the occupied West Bank, closing crossings to the territory until Saturday for the Jewish religious holiday of Sukkot.

The order will prevent Palestinians with work permits from entering Israel and Jewish settlements to go to their jobs.

Local sources told the Wafa News Agency that the entrance gate to Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, was closed and residents were “harassed.”

Wafa also reported that entrances to Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh were closed, while military checkpoints were set up at the entrances to Yabroud and Ein Sinyah.

The Cradle | September 25, 2026

Israeli settler gangs are using drones to terrorize Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, harassing families and guiding armed raids that have killed Palestinians, The New Arab (TNA) reported on 25 September.

“When herders left their homes in the morning, the drones would pursue and shadow them; if they approached certain areas, settlers would gather to attack and drive them away. Eventually, the drones began monitoring residents inside their homes around the clock, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them,” Rabie Abu Naim, a displaced resident of Al-Khalayel, east of Ramallah, told TNA.

Settlers later rigged the drones with speakers blaring abuse and orders to leave, and drones were also used to drop tear gas on targeted communities, as violent assaults wounded many until terrified families fled, the report said.

Abu Naim also pointed to the killing of a boy and a young man in Al-Mughayyir days ago, saying drones “played a major role” in a raid that began with a drone tracking a flock of sheep, after which settlers moved in to steal the animals while shielded by the Israeli army, which “killed the two victims in cold blood during the incident.”

In Mikhmas, shepherd Mohammed Abu Siyam told TNA that settlers sent a drone after his 19-year-old son, Nasrallah, and other young men searching for livestock stolen from the village in February.

With the drone watching their every move, armed illegal settlers lay in wait for the young men, then opened fire, killing Nasrallah and wounding others.

Another Palestinian living in Hajjah, near Qalqilya, told TNA that settler drones fly so close to village homes that families fear the machines will crash through their windows, leaving residents under constant watch and feeling that “privacy is non-existent, and everyone feels constantly threatened.”

Illegal Israeli settlement councils have recently begun arming settlers with drones to film, scout, and watch the areas around outposts, building on earlier Israeli funding that equipped outposts with drones as part of a so-called security package.

Palestinians, meanwhile, are barred from owning drones even for their work, and the Israeli army has arrested numerous Palestinian photojournalists over the past three years for having them, citing a military order that has banned Palestinians from possessing the devices since 2017.

Israeli occupation forces have also raided toy shops across West Bank cities dozens of times, confiscating every drone on the shelves, including those made for children, and threatening shop owners with arrest if they sell them.

In May, OCHA documented settlers using drones to chase residents of Arab al-Mleihat, a community since emptied.

Salah al-Khawaja of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission told TNA that the constant surveillance of Palestinian homes can become “an additional factor driving families to leave the areas where they live.”