Statistics for Friday 16 October to Thursday 22 October / Other developments Updated 26 October

Intense Escalation and Military Crackdown after Hebron Attack

On Friday 23 October, two Palestinian gunmen attacked Israel’s soldiers at a checkpoint near Hebron, killing two soldiers before both gunmen were shot dead. Prime Minister Netanyahu responded by ordering Hebron closed and telling the army to “prepare for a full lockdown across all of Judea and Samaria”. By Saturday, the military had announced what it calls a “counterterrorism” operation in the Hebron area, expected to last “several days”, alongside raids in dozens of other West Bank areas,

Premier Netanyahu said forces would go house to house in the neighbourhood the attackers came from, with demolitions and displacement: “We will act to destroy this place, to change it completely.” According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, hundreds of homes have been raided and dozens turned into interrogation centres, bulldozers have demolished a three-storey building, and hundreds of families in Ein Deir Bahha and al-Jalda have been ordered to leave. By 25 October, about 2,500 people had been forced out and at least 47 detained in Hebron, with nearly 500 families uprooted in Ein Deir Bahha alone, according to Hebron municipality data. The activist Issa Amro says nearly 800,000 people in Hebron governorate are under siege, with all entrances and exits closed.

The crackdown comes on the eve of Israel’s election and amid a surge in settler violence during the olive harvest. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the offensive to proceed “exactly like in Gaza”, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for Israel to take full control of the West Bank and dismantle the Palestinian Authority. B’Tselem warns the measures amount to “collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes”. Details are in the West Bank developments below.

Overview of this week’s developments

• West Bank: Israel has locked down Hebron and ordered preparations for a full West Bank lockdown after two soldiers were killed at a checkpoint on 23 October. Forces have raided hundreds of homes, demolished buildings and forced out about 2,500 people from Hebron, with raids in at least 15 towns in the north. Settler violence continues, and nine of the ten settlers arrested over attacks on a US journalist and European diplomats have been released to house arrest.
• Casualties: Gaza’s cumulative death toll rose by 106 this week, but only 37 of these were new deaths since the ceasefire (1,538 in total). The rest are adjustments to the total: 3 bodies recovered from rubble and roughly 66 retroactive additions (derived). No new Israeli fatalities in Gaza were reported. The two soldiers killed in Hebron fall outside this week’s reporting period.
• Aid: 832 trucks entered Gaza, down 13% on the previous week, with commercial trucks down 37% and aid trucks up 3% (Gaza Crossings Authority, via an NCF exclusive). Israel’s military halted commercial goods on 14 October over a claimed Hamas fee on trucks, which Hamas disputes, and announced a gradual resumption on 19 October. Rafah was open for only two days. The World Food Programme has cut the number of people it supports from 1.6 million to 1.1 million and halved food rations, citing funding shortages.
• Gaza: Killings continue under the ceasefire, with eight Palestinians reported killed on 25 October alone, and Israel’s forces now controlling or restricting access to nearly two-thirds of the territory.
• Elections: Israel votes on 27 October. The final polls show Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar narrowly ahead of Likud, but neither bloc reaches a 61-seat majority, leaving the Arab parties and small lists that clear the threshold as potential kingmakers. The Palestinian legislative and presidential elections remain postponed to 11 September 2027.

In This Update

• • Deaths as a Consequence of War
  • Humanitarian Aid and other civilian crossings
  • Key Gaza related Developments
  • West Bank Key Developments
  • Upcoming Elections

Gaza related Deaths as a consequence of war

A note on this week’s reporting window: This week covers Friday 16 October to Thursday 22 October 2026 inclusive.

Since 7th October 2023

Since the ceasefire on October 10 2025

This week (16–22 October): new deaths and injuries only

Adjustments to Gaza’s cumulative total this week (not new deaths): +69 (derived)

• Bodies recovered from the rubble: +3 (838 to 841 recovered since the ceasefire)
• Deaths added retroactively after identification details were verified: about +66 (derived)

Sources: Gaza Ministry of Health figures of Thursday 22 October 2026 as carried by Palestine Information Center (topline and since-ceasefire rows from the same report), with the Ministry’s 21 October report as carried by the Egyptian Gazette confirming the recovered-bodies figure; previous week’s baseline from NCF Gaza Information Index, 17 October 2026. Israel: no new fatalities or injuries found in reporting on Gaza for this period; figures carried over from last week (Times of Israel/Al Arabiya-sourced totals).

Notes on this week’s figures

A change to how we present “this week”: the “this week” row now counts only new deaths, using the Ministry’s since-ceasefire counter. Until now the row has been the change in the cumulative total, which also includes historic deaths added to the record later: bodies recovered from the rubble and deaths added retroactively once identification details are approved. Those belong in the adjustments to the total, not in this week’s dead. On the same basis the “this week” figures in earlier editions would have been about 30 for 9–15 October and 32 for 2–8 October, not the 138 and 214 we printed.

Gaza: the “since 7 October 2023” total rose by 106 (74,392 to 74,498), while the “since ceasefire” counter rose by 37 (1,501 to 1,538). The Ministry reports recovered bodies on a separate line, and that figure rose by 3 (838 to 841). The remaining 66 is derived by subtraction (106 minus 37 minus 3) and not independently itemised; it is consistent with the Ministry’s recurring retroactive additions, and one outlet reported 67 such additions in the week to 18 October. The 37 includes people who died of injuries sustained in earlier attacks. Injuries rose by 176 on the total (175,440 to 175,616) and by 175 since the ceasefire (5,323 to 5,498), which are consistent with each other.

Israel: no new Israeli fatalities or injuries connected to Gaza were found for 16–22 October, so all four Israeli figures (since 7 October 2023: 1,806 fatalities, 3,004 injuries; since the ceasefire: 7 fatalities, 20 injuries) are carried over unchanged. The two Israeli soldiers killed at a checkpoint near Hebron on Friday 23 October fall outside this window and are in the West Bank rather than Gaza, so they are not included in these figures.

Humanitarian Aid for the week of 16–22 October

NCF Exclusive: Gaza Crossings Authority Weekly Report

This section is built entirely from the Gaza Crossings and Borders Authority’s own official weekly bulletin, obtained directly by NCF’s Head for Gaza, Adel Al Zanoon, through his personal contact with the Director of the Authority. NCF is grateful to both for this access.

Crossing operational status, 16–22 October (7-day period):

Passenger movement, 16–22 October: 195 people left Gaza (149 to Egypt and 46 to Jordan), made up of 82 patients and 113 companions, with no evacuation or special-coordination cases. 146 people returned, all via Egypt. The bulletin also records 3 detainees, without saying whether they were released or taken into custody, so we have not interpreted the figure. Last week, by comparison, only 10 people left Gaza (all to Jordan) and none returned, and two weeks ago none were recorded at all.

Truck movement, 16–22 October (all via Kerem Shalom):

Fuel breakdown (66 tankers): Diesel 41, Cooking gas 25, Petrol 0.

Truck contents by category: Food/provisions 346, Consumer goods/household items 293, Shelter/relief supplies 95, Medical/health supplies 26, Fuel 66, Fodder/seeds 6 (total 832).

Source: Crossings and Borders Authority – Gaza, weekly bulletin for 16–22 October 2026, via Adel Al Zanoon and the Director of the Authority.

Week-on-week context: total truck volume fell 13%, from last week’s 955 to 832. Aid trucks held steady (530 to 544, up 3%), while commercial trucks fell by 37% (351 to 222) and fuel tankers from 74 to 66. Food and provisions fell sharply, from 641 to 346 (down 46%), while consumer and household goods roughly doubled (145 to 293) and shelter and relief supplies rose from 57 to 95. Passenger movement recovered strongly: Rafah was open for two days, after being closed for all of the previous two weeks, and 195 people left compared with 10 the week before. Kerem Shalom was open for goods all seven days, but Zikim and Kissufim remained closed.

The commercial goods halt: on 14 October Israel’s military body COGAT announced that commercial goods would no longer be allowed into Gaza, blaming a 10,000 shekel fee per truck imposed by authorities in Gaza, which Hamas disputes. A separate report from Adel Al Zanoon covering 1–19 October shows the effect. Only 22 commercial trucks at most entered Gaza over the four days from 14 to 17 October, an average of 5.5 a day and about 96% below the September average of 134.8 a day. Over 1–19 October a total of 2,377 trucks entered (1,117 commercial, 1,104 aid and 156 fuel), with the crossing officially closed on 5 and 7 October, and commercial trucks averaged 65.7 a day, about 51% below September. According to the same report, prices rose sharply from 14 October: a tray of eggs from 35 to 60–70 shekels, onions from 5–6 to 8–10 shekels a kilo, and avocados from 7–8 to about 15 shekels a kilo. On 19 October COGAT announced that commercial shipments would resume gradually, with priority for essential goods, after merchants said Hamas had dropped the fee. This week’s total of 222 commercial trucks, with no more than 22 of them in 14–17 October, implies that at least about 200 entered between 18 and 22 October (this is derived by subtraction, and the bulletin gives no daily split).

Caveats

• Single-source (Gaza-side authority), not independently cross-verified by an international body. The 1–19 October figures and price rises are also from Adel Al Zanoon’s own report and are unverified.
• Prepared from the Arabic text of the bulletin, with the English version matching it line by line. All totals check internally (222 + 544 + 66 = 832; fuel 41 + 25 + 0 = 66; the category breakdown sums to 832; departures 149 + 46 = 195 and 82 + 113 = 195).
• Groups 1/2/3 (Chamber of Commerce, UN2720, bilateral) remain deprioritized per the standing methodology.
• COGAT (gaza-aid-data.gov.il) remains unusable as a current source.

Key Gaza Related Developments: 17 to 25 October

19 October: Israel’s military body COGAT announces that commercial shipments into Gaza will resume gradually, with priority for essential goods ahead of winter, after a days-long halt that began on 14 October. COGAT says merchants have told it that Hamas authorities dropped their demand for 10,000 shekels per truck, though it has not verified this, and says payments must be made only by documented bank transfer, with any merchant found to have paid Hamas excluded from the system. Hamas describes the payment as a voluntary contribution from better-off Gazans to a national fund for people in need.

21 October: The World Food Programme cuts the number of people it supports in Gaza from 1.6 million in September to 1.1 million in October, halves food rations from two parcels to one plus a smaller bag of flour, and cuts daily hot meals from 250,000 to 150,000, because of funding shortages. WFP says about 1.4 million people, roughly two-thirds of the population, face acute food insecurity. The cuts come as prices rise after the commercial halt, with a tray of eggs now about 60 shekels ($19), and as OCHA reports more than 2,800 child malnutrition admissions in September, including over 360 cases of severe acute malnutrition.

21 October: Dozens of writers, actors and activists, including Arundhati Roy, Tilda Swinton, Paul Mescal, Gary Lineker, Naomi Klein and Zadie Smith, sign an open letter on the cover of the New Statesman condemning the UK’s proscription of Palestine Action as a “repressive absurdity”. They back Sally Rooney, whose books were withdrawn from sale in the UK last week, saying: “Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist. Her books must be available to the public.” The UK Supreme Court is due to hear a case on the ban in about two weeks.

22 October: Four people are reported killed in Gaza in 24 hours: a young girl shot by Israel’s forces near the Jabalia refugee camp, one man in a strike on a vehicle in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, a man on a bicycle in Khan Younis, and a fourth who dies of wounds from an earlier strike. The Gaza Health Ministry’s toll since the ceasefire reaches 1,538 killed and 5,498 injured. Al Jazeera’s maps show Israel’s forces expanding from northern Gaza towards the centre and west, with nearly two-thirds of Gaza under Israeli military control or subject to access restrictions, while Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor warns of a new famine as markets empty and prices soar.

25 October: Local media, citing medical sources, report that Israel’s strikes have killed eight Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, including a child, extending a week of near-daily deaths, among them three killed in strikes on 23 October in Gaza City and al-Mawasi. The Ministry’s count of people killed since the ceasefire is now about 1,550.

West Bank Key Developments: from 17 to 25 October

19 October: Israel’s police arrest 10 suspects, all Israeli citizens according to Army Radio, after a weekend of settler violence during the olive harvest. On 16 October, settlers beat Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine in Abu Falah, breaking ribs and vertebrae and nearly severing a finger. On 17 October, masked settlers attacked diplomats from France, Belgium and Poland visiting the Christian village of Taybeh. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee calls the arrests “a very positive development”. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar blames “Israeli rioters”, while Prime Minister Netanyahu says the diplomats entered a “sensitive area with a history of confrontations” without coordinating with the military, and calls the facts of the attack on Levine “unclear”.

22 October: A Jerusalem court orders nine of the ten settler suspects released to house arrest, according to Honenu, the law firm representing settlers. Police say one remains in custody. Yesh Din notes that in the vast majority of attacks on Palestinians no arrests are made at all. The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission records 409 attacks in October so far (317 by settlers, 92 by Israel’s forces), and UN Secretary-General António Guterres says the situation is “out of control”.

23 October: Two Palestinian gunmen attack Israel’s soldiers at a checkpoint near Hebron in a firefight lasting about 20 minutes. Two Israeli soldiers are killed and at least three more wounded, and both gunmen are shot dead. Netanyahu says forces prevented a “major attack”, orders Hebron closed and tells the army to “prepare for a full lockdown across all of Judea and Samaria”. He also cancels election events. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir call for Israel to take full control of the West Bank and dismantle the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP praise the attack.

24 October: Israel’s military announces what it calls a “counterterrorism” operation in the Hebron area, expected to last “several days”, with raids in dozens of other West Bank areas. Netanyahu says forces will go house to house in the neighbourhood the attackers came from, with demolitions and displacement: “We will act to destroy this place, to change it completely.” The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society says hundreds of homes have been raided and dozens turned into interrogation centres, while bulldozers flatten a three-storey building and hundreds of families in Ein Deir Bahha and al-Jalda are ordered out. Activist Issa Amro says nearly 800,000 people in Hebron governorate are under siege, with all entrances and exits closed. About 70 people are arrested and forces raid at least 15 towns in the north. Smotrich calls for the offensive to proceed “exactly like in Gaza”. B’Tselem warns the measures amount to “collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes”, and the UN Human Rights Office calls them another in a “never-ending stream” of suffocating measures.

25 October: About 2,500 people have been forced out of Hebron, at least 47 detained there, and dozens of buildings targeted for demolition, with nearly 500 families uprooted in Ein Deir Bahha alone, according to Hebron municipality data. Hebron produces about 40% of Palestinian industrial output and 30% of exports, so the closure threatens the wider West Bank economy. Al Jazeera also notes that Smotrich has announced the seizure of planning and construction powers over the Ibrahimi Mosque and the surrounding H2 zone, undermining the 1997 Hebron Protocol.

Upcoming Elections

Israel – Knesset Election

Israel, Tuesday 27 October: Israel votes tomorrow for the 26th Knesset, with all 120 seats elected by closed-list proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency and a 3.25% threshold for entry. A bloc needs 61 seats to govern. The final polls published on 23 October by Channels 12 and 13 and Kan all put former army chief Gadi Eisenkot’s new party, Yashar, narrowly ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud (22 to 23 seats against 19 to 21), with Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad third on 14 to 15. None of the three gives either side a majority. Eisenkot’s “change” bloc is on 52 to 56 seats and the current coalition on 50 in each poll, while the Arab parties are on 14 to 16. A fourth poll, by Maariv, reported by the Jerusalem Post, has the opposition on 54 and the Netanyahu bloc on 48. The Jerusalem Post’s four-poll average gives the opposition 54 and the Netanyahu bloc 49.5.

The kingmakers and the far right: Because neither bloc is close to 61 without help, the result is likely to hinge on the Arab parties, which are projected to rise from 10 seats to 14, and on which small lists clear the threshold. The Reservists list led by Yoaz Hendel passes in only one of the three final polls (Kan, on 4 seats), and Ofer Winter’s People of Israel falls short in all of them. Benny Gantz’s Blue and White has withdrawn from the race because it was polling below the threshold. On the right, Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit is projected at about 8 seats running alone, with a campaign built on social media and pledges against Palestinians that include ethnic cleansing and the death penalty. President Trump has publicly endorsed Netanyahu, though the New Arab reports that this has not visibly shifted the polls. Netanyahu remains subject to an ICC arrest warrant, and Likud faces continuing scrutiny over the security failures of 7 October 2023. The Central Elections Committee voted on 23 September to bar both the Joint List and Ra’am, but the Supreme Court overturned the disqualifications the same day.

What happens next: Polls close tomorrow evening and exit polls follow immediately, with official results due to be confirmed on 4 November. The president then consults the parties and asks one member of the Knesset to try to form a government. Under Israeli law that candidate has 28 days, extendable by up to 14, so a deadlock could mean weeks of coalition bargaining or another election. Netanyahu cancelled campaign events on 23 October after the Hebron attack and has ordered a full lockdown of the West Bank, so the election is being held in the middle of a major military operation in the West Bank.

Palestine – Legislative and Presidential Elections

Palestine: There is no Palestinian vote this season. President Mahmoud Abbas postponed the Palestinian legislative and presidential elections on 10 October to 11 September 2027. Factions were due to meet in Egypt for reconciliation talks after the postponement.

Notes

• Party names vary between sources: The Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post call Bennett’s party B’Yachad, while Wikipedia calls it Together. We have used B’Yachad (the name in the polls). Eisenkot’s list is Yashar in all of them.
• Poll sources: The three-poll ranges come from the Times of Israel table (published 24 October, polls dated 23 October). The Maariv figures and the 54 to 49.5 average come from the Jerusalem Post (25 October).
• Hendel’s threshold: The Jerusalem Post says the Reservists average about 3.10%, which is borderline. We have only said what the three polls show.

Image featured above is from Gaza by hosny salah from Pixabay