Raids on Al-Aqsa and Ibrahimi Mosques, and 82 Settlement Crimes in the West Bank
Photo from the Palestinian News and Information Agency (PNA)
May 20, 2025
The Gaza Strip has entered a new phase of brutal Israeli aggression. Occupation forces began evacuating the northern part of Gaza by targeting hospitals and destroying the remaining buildings. Israel focused its aid distribution plan on the southern part of Gaza after depriving the northern part of the basic necessities of life. This occurred as the murder toll returned to record levels witnessed in the first days after October 7, 2023.
The OIC Media Observatory on Israeli Crimes against Palestinians recorded 621 Palestinians murdered and 1,763 injured between May 13 and 19, 2025. The number of Palestinians murdered from October 7, 2023, to May 19, 2025, reached 54,941 with 129,497 injured. The OIC Observatory also documented the murder of five journalists in the Gaza Strip during the past week.
Israel, the occupying power, announced its intention to deliver aid only to the Southern Gaza Strip. This confirms the Israeli strategy of pushing the population in the northern and central Gaza Strip to the south, with the aim of creating an atmosphere of so-called “voluntary displacement” through intensified bombing, targeting hospitals in the north, or controlling the distribution of aid.
The OIC Observatory documented, between May 13 and 19, 2025, the targeting of hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip by the occupying forces. The Israeli occupying forces bombed and besieged the Indonesian Hospital, targeted the Hamad Hospital for Prosthetic Limbs in Northern Gaza, bombed and evacuated the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, and bombed Nasser Hospital, forcing the evacuation of the Shifa Medical Complex.
The occupation forces imposed a new evacuation plan adjacent to the Al-Rimal neighborhood and the Islamic University, where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering, in addition to areas in the south and west of Gaza, as part of their campaign aimed at exhausting Palestinians and pushing them to leave Gaza. They have already displaced 300,000 Palestinians for the second time from the northern Gaza Strip, after destroying more than 1,000 housing units, as part of a plan to destroy the remaining buildings in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia.
In the West Bank and occupied Al-Quds, the occupation forces murdered two children in Al-Quds and Nablus, injured four others, and arrested nine children, while settlers assaulted and injured a girl in the Old City of Hebron.
The Israeli aggression targeted seven schools, as the occupation forces raided the Bruqin Elementary School for Girls in Salfit, and detained about 100 teachers at the Hamra checkpoint, preventing them from reaching their schools in the Northern Jordan Valley in Tubas. In addition, the occupation forces raided the Al-Munjid Private School in the town of Bruqin in Salfit, the Kafr al-Dik Elementary and Secondary Girls Schools in the town of Kafr al-Dik, the Al-Shaheed Mazen Abu al-Wafa School, and Rawdat al-Salam, transforming it into a military checkpoint during their raid on the same town. They raided the Al-Quds Open University in Tubas and confiscated surveillance camera recordings. Settlers were present near the Nahalin Girls School in Bethlehem to harass students and staff.
Regarding attacks on places of worship, the occupation forces evacuated worshippers from the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, after closing all gates leading to it. The extremist Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich and settlers burned a model of the Palestinian flag in the outer courtyard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, while the occupation forces prevented the worshippers from performing the dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque. In addition, the occupation forces raided and searched the Nafukh Mosque in Salfit and the Grand Mosque in the town of Al-Khudair in Bethlehem, detaining worshippers.
Israeli occupation forces carried out 383 raids across the West Bank cities and towns, arresting 175 Palestinians, demolishing 9 homes, blowing up a café in Tubas, and destroying 6 livestock pens in Al-Quds and Bethlehem. Israeli occupation forces bulldozed farmers’ lands in the town of Bruqin, and uprooted olive trees on a secondary road near the Al-Abara area in Salfit. A military order was issued to bulldoze and uproot trees in an area of 232,503 dunams in the Al-Fakhakhir and Al-Balata areas of Bruqin town in Salfit. They also bulldozed agricultural lands and uprooted dozens of olive trees in the village of Madama in Nablus.
The occupation forces and settlers carried out 8 settlement activities, during which the occupation forces confiscated 13,117 dunams of land in the town of Bruqin in Salfit. Settlers dug up and destroyed an archaeological site in the town of Sebastia in preparation for its confiscation and the establishment of a park in the area. Others erected a number of tents near the junction of the “Vered Yeriho” settlement, south of the city of Jericho, and seized an area between the villages of Deir Nizam and Deir Abu Mash’al in Ramallah. Meanwhile, the occupation forces bulldozed agricultural lands north of the town of Qusra in Nablus with the aim of paving a road and building a fence around it, to annex it to the “Majdoulin” settlement. Settlers erected mobile homes to establish a new settlement outpost between the towns of Taffuh and Dura in Hebron. They placed a barbed wire fence around a piece of land in the Al-Faw area of Tubas. Others seized a sheep pen from the Arab Al-Malihat tribe in Ramallah, set up a tent there, and placed a fence around it, in an attempt to establish a settlement outpost.
The number of crimes committed by the occupation forces in one week reached 3,775 across the Palestinian territories. The number of settler attacks over the course of seven days reached 74, during which settlers destroyed the contents of a Palestinian home near Tubas and set fire to an agricultural farm in the village of Al-Mughayyir in Ramallah. Others grazed their sheep on agricultural land between the areas of Khirbet Iqweis, Shaab Al-Batam, and Masafir in the town of Yatta in Hebron, and the waterfall of the town of Al-Auja in Jericho. Others cut off olive tree branches in the town of Yatta in Hebron. Settlers also set fire to agricultural land near the villages of Duma and Barqa in Nablus, and stole a water tanker from the village of Al-Sakout in Tubas, as well as a number of sheep from the village of Majdal Bani Fadel in Nablus. Others damaged the tires of two water tankers and cut 300 meters of water pipelines in the Al-Mayta area. Another group damaged water pipelines in the northern Jordan Valley in Tubas.