Balasan Initiative for Human Rights BIHR

For Palestinian communities across the West Bank, the annual olive harvest stands at the heart of local social, economic, and cultural heritage. For thousands of families, these trees provide essential income and food security, helping them remain self-sufficient. Beyond the financial impact, the harvest is woven into the very fabric of Palestinian identity, bringing families, neighbors, and volunteers together every year to preserve their shared heritage.

Every year, Palestinian farmers face recurring Israeli restrictions and threats during olive harvest season. This season, on 18th September 2026, the Israeli authorities issued a decision and implemented restrictions that officially prevent Palestinian families and farmers from reaching their lands and fields in order to harvest olives in Area C, which constitutes 60% of the occupied West Bank.

To read the full update, https://balasan.org/escalating-restrictions-widespread-destruction-the-2026-olive-harvest-season-in-the-occupied-west-bank/

With the approaching Israeli Knesset elections, scheduled for 27 October 2026, various Israeli parties’ statements, coupled with developments on the ground, indicate that the future of the West Bank, and the nature of Israeli control over it, have become central to political and electoral calculations. While elections in many parts of the world are typically preceded by competing electoral programmes focused on internal economic, social, and institutional reforms, in Israeli elections, the key dimension of political competition is centered on how to deepen Israel’s unlawful control of occupied territory and oppress and displace its people, in a manner that would entrench facts on the ground, effectively making the de facto annexation of, or the exercise of Israeli sovereignty over, parts of the West Bank more firmly established and more difficult to reverse.

In the period leading up to the elections, the current Israeli government has accelerated a series of measures aimed at strengthening Israeli control over the West Bank, including the expansion of settlements and settlement outposts, the transfer of powers from the military administration to Israeli civilian institutions, and the expansion of control over land, alongside an escalation in attacks and the forcible displacement of Palestinian communities. In this sense, the electoral period warrants close legal monitoring and assessment, not only because it will determine the composition of the next government, but also because political and policy developments during this period are unfolding alongside the creation and entrenchment of realities on the ground before voters go to the polls.

To read the full update, https://balasan.org/the-2026-israeli-elections-consolidation-of-annexation-repression-and-forced-displacement-on-the-occupied-west-bank/

Israeli policies that have reshaped the West Bank’s geography are producing a spatial reality that reveals a clear pattern. Palestinians face restrictions on urban expansion, while the spaces and corridors connecting their population centers are subjected to direct and tight control. Direct displacement tools such as mass military evictions or forced deportations are no longer the only means employed. Instead, a deeper strategy known as “structural confinement” has been adopted.

This strategy relies on “archipelago architecture,” defined as a spatial-planning framework that fragments contiguous territory into isolated, self-contained Palestinian urban enclaves “islands” surrounded and separated by a contiguous network of settlement infrastructure, bypass roads, and military zones, which allows for daily physical presence within Areas A and B while preventing any expansion into Area C. In essence, this policy directly imposes the “Area C model,” with its mechanisms and restrictions, on Areas A and B, stripping them of their structural autonomy.

To read the full update, https://balasan.org/israels-expansion-of-the-area-c-annexation-model-into-areas-a-and-b-of-the-occupied-west-bank/

Between September and early October 2026, a successive period of Jewish holidays and religious occasions is being observed, beginning with Rosh Hashanah, followed by Yom Kippur and Sukkot, and culminating in Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in early October. This period is a yearly occurrence accompanied by heightened Israeli measures across the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Every year, Palestinians anticipate Jewish holidays with great concern, one that does not lie in the observance of Jewish holidays or the exercise of religious practices in themselves, but rather in the annual, recurring measures imposed by the Israeli occupying authorities in connection with these occasions, as they restrict the rights of the Palestinian population or limit their access to fundamental rights, essential services, markets, transportation, places of worship, and the ordinary conduct of daily life.

To read the full update, https://balasan.org/the-recurring-calendar-of-closure-israel-intensifies-restrictions-on-the-occupied-west-bank-during-jewish-holidays/

As the West Bank remains under ongoing, relentless Israeli efforts to expand territorial control, minimizing Palestinian demographics is at the heart of this objective. For decades, Israeli settler violence and terror have been central in displacing Palestinian communities. With almost full impunity, settler crimes, including killings, physical violence, damaging property, arson, desecrating holy sites, destruction of agricultural lands and water resources, among many others, take place every day in the West Bank. Yet, recent years have witnessed a significant shift in settler terror. The number of daily attacks has surged nearly 4.5 times, rising from an average of 1.5 incidents per day in 2021 to over 6.7 incidents per day in 2026. This shift is marked by a sharp rise in both the frequency and scope of the crimes committed against Palestinians, with the most recent escalation reflected in “the besiegement trend”.

This on-the-ground violence is integrated with policies of economic strangulation and intensified restrictions on freedom of movement, imposing a new reality that transcends traditional notions of occupation, amounting to de facto annexation and the division of the territories into isolated cantons.

To read the full update, https://balasan.org/besieging-palestinian-communities-escalated-pattern-of-settler-terror-and-ethnic-cleansing-in-the-west-bank/

In what marks the largest land seizure in the Bethlehem Governorate in decades, the “Mishmar Yehuda” settlement project is presented as a settlement “initiative” that would establish the nucleus of a new settlement city in the heart of the occupied West Bank, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, serving as a link between the “E1” and the “E2” projects.

According to the initial plans, the project includes approximately 3,600 housing units, while some plans indicate up to 3,750 units, potentially accommodating between 20,000 and 30,000 settlers. It also covers an area of approximately 3.75 million square meters, or around 3,750 dunums. The plans include the development of commercial and industrial areas, healthcare facilities, higher education institutions, and a network of roads and infrastructure connecting the area to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

To read more, https://balasan.org/mishmar-yehuda-from-an-outpost-to-a-massive-settlement-linking-e1-and-e2-settlement-projects-while-marking-the-largest-land-seizure-in-bethlehem-in-decades/