OIC Media Observatory Documents Fourth Winter Rains Hit Gaza And West Bank

The OIC Media Observatory on Israeli Crimes against Palestinians reported 873 separate incidents between 6 and 12 January 2026, including killings, injuries, arrests and property destruction across Gaza and the West Bank, as Israeli forces also expanded settlement projects and continued to violate the declared ceasefire.

During the same week, satellite assessments indicated that more than 2,500 homes in the Gaza Strip were destroyed after the ceasefire was agreed, while United Nations agencies warned that over one million Palestinians there now need shelter as winter storms worsen already harsh living conditions.

The OIC Media Observatory documented 32 Palestinians killed in that period, including 21 who were recently killed, nine whose bodies were recovered, and one prisoner who died while in Israeli custody, while another 70 Palestinians were reported injured in Gaza and the West Bank.

According to the same report, Israeli forces injured 47 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 23 in the West Bank, while the World Health Organization stated that 18,000 patients in Gaza require medical evacuation, amid shortages of medicine, equipment and secure routes for transport outside the enclave.

International organisations, among them UNRWA and the German Red Cross, appealed for Israel to remove restrictions on aid deliveries into Gaza, stressing that food and medical supplies are critically low, as Gaza residents face intensified rain, cold weather and the destruction of homes and public infrastructure.

In the West Bank, the OIC Media Observatory counted 293 Israeli military raids on cities and villages over seven days, during which forces arrested 160 Palestinians, including 13 children, injured one other person, and detained five fishermen off the coast near Gaza City.

Israeli occupation forces demolished four homes, an iron factory, a farm and several livestock pens in the West Bank, while also seizing a truck, a bulldozer, an excavator and a vehicle, and occupying two houses in Nablus to convert them into military outposts.

The report added that Israeli forces bulldozed agricultural land in several West Bank areas, while settlers paved a road to an outpost near the town of Atara, placed mobile homes between the villages of Fandaqumiya and Burqa, set up a tent in Mikhmas, and cleared land southeast of Al-Dhahiriya for a planned settlement road.

Settlement activities reached ten distinct actions during the week, including an Israeli order to confiscate 694 dunams from lands of Kafr Thulth in Qalqilya, Deir Istiya and Bidya in Salfit, along with 140 dunams from the village of Fandaqumiya, for use in settlement-related projects.

Israeli authorities also moved to take 46,973 dunams belonging to Silat ad-Dhahr, Fandaqumiya and Burqa to construct a road linking the former settlements of "Homesh" and "Sanur", issued a tender for 3,401 settlement units east of Jerusalem, and the "Ateret Cohanim" association seized a two-apartment building in the Batn al-Hawa area of Silwan.

The OIC Media Observatory on Israeli Crimes against Palestinians concluded that these actions across Gaza and the West Bank, ranging from killings and arrests to large-scale land confiscation and settlement expansion, formed a continuous pattern of Israeli violations during 6–12 January 2026.

With inputs from SPA