As Israel prepares for October election the government is accelerating its land grab in the West Bank and Gaza

As Israel heads toward an election on October twenty-seventh, The Conversation reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is accelerating efforts to expand Israeli control over Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza. With Netanyahu's Likud party trailing in the polls, the analysis points to new measures, including defence minister Israel Katz's plan for three military outposts in northern Gaza and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich's announcement of one point three billion shekels for dozens of new West Bank settlements. Israel already controls around sixty-five percent of the Gaza Strip, the piece says, with Netanyahu aiming for seventy percent despite the ceasefire brokered in twenty twenty-five. The Conversation notes that a growing number of legal scholars, UN experts, and human rights organisations argue these policies warrant assessment under the framework of the Genocide Convention, even as the humanitarian toll on Palestinians deepens ahead of the vote.

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