Sharon Zhang
Truthout / August 10, 2026
They also condemned Israel’s escalation in the occupied West Bank, where settler attacks have reached a record high.
A group of UN experts has warned against Israel’s recent escalations in Gaza after Israeli forces killed 160 Palestinians in the strip last month, bringing the death toll during the supposed “ceasefire” to over 1,200.
“Despite a ceasefire nominally in force since October 2025, Israeli forces have killed about 160 Palestinians in Gaza in July alone,” the group of 19 human rights experts wrote in a statement released Monday.
This makes July the deadliest month since the beginning of this year in Gaza. The UN also noted last week that Israel had killed 300 children thus far in 300 days of the “ceasefire,” amounting to one child per day.
“Most killings occurred in densely populated displacement zones such as Al-Mawasi, far from the so-called yellow line. Nowhere in Gaza is safe,” the experts wrote.
Indeed, Palestinians in Gaza say that they are still facing constant bombardment as Israel continues attacking hospitals, schools, markets, homes, and more civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
The experts note Israel’s continued collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza, noting that Israeli forces are issuing evacuation orders to entire city blocks as they continue to advance the “yellow line” that demarcates their occupation of the territory.
Israel, in blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement put into place in October 2025, has steadily been pushing the line further and further into the Palestinian zone of the Strip. As of June, the area deemed off limits to Palestinians covered 65 percent of Gaza, up from 53 percent last year.
The advancements of the yellow line “are re-engineering the geography of illegally occupied Gaza through force and displacement,” wrote the experts, who were led by the UN’s U.S.-sanctioned expert on Palestine, Francesca Albanese.
“The genocide is continuing unabated,” the UN human rights experts warned.
Last week, mourners held a mass funeral for 112 Palestinians, including 40 children, whose bodies were finally recovered after they were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential block in November 2023.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, which would include the disarmament of Hamas and Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. The plan has been backed by Hamas. Netanyahu is reportedly demanding that the plan incorporate an immediate disarmament instead of it being done in phases.
The UN experts also condemned escalating Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank in recent days. Israeli settlers and forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in the West Bank in July, including an incident in the village of Tell when Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinians during a settler raid of the town. At the direction of the government, Israeli forces then detained dozens of residents of the village and carried out over 20 pogroms in a single weekend following the incident.
Settler violence has reached a record high. Israeli outlets reported this week that settler attacks are up 63 percent in the first six months of 2026 compared to the same period last year, with 660 recorded settler attacks in the first half of this year. This figure doesn’t include July, during which over 100 settler attacks were recorded, according to Israeli media.
Just on Sunday, the Israeli military closed off the Christian West Bank village of Taybeh, citing recent settler attacks in the area — attacks that have long been explicitly or implicitly backed by the Israeli government.
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering international affairs, politics, and labour
