suwandi-tan
With Israelis scheduled to cast ballots on October 27, the country's political class is entering the final phase of a campaign in which demonstrative toughness has become the dominant currency. Recent days have offered a vivid illustration of that dynamic, as senior ministers combined official state business with what amounted to campaign events, unveiling illegal settlement projects in the occupied West Bank and issuing belligerent statements about Gaza and the Palestinian prison population.
The most striking example came on September 23, when ministers and members of parliament gathered for the founding ceremony of Metzoke Eretz, a new illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. According to Haaretz, the event functioned as much as a stump speech as a ceremonial launch, with participants arguing that only a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would maintain the current pace of settlement construction.
The site itself had previously been known as the Netzah Harel outpost, established in 2023 on private Palestinian land near the Bedouin community of al-Muarrajat al-Wasat, which activists say has already been ethnically cleansed. Metzoke Eretz is one of 104 settlements that the current Israeli government has legalised under domestic law during its term, even though all such outposts remain illegal under international law.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a driving force behind settlement expansion, used the occasion to call for the army to "go to war" in the occupied West Bank. His remarks fit a broader pattern in which hardline ministers compete to project the most uncompromising stance on security ahead of the vote.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir contributed his own provocation, releasing another video filmed from inside an Israeli prison in which he threatened to kill jailed Hamas figure Hassan Salameh. The footage was circulated widely, adding to an already charged atmosphere during the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
Parallel to the settlement expansion, Israeli demolitions continued apace. In Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian community in the southern occupied West Bank, large-scale razing has been documented repeatedly in recent weeks. On September 23, Israeli forces destroyed 24 homes in the village of Jinba, displacing roughly 180 people, more than 80 of them children, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem.
Movement restrictions compounded the pressure on Palestinian communities. After days of road closures across the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities announced on Sunday a weeklong closure of the territory and its crossings for the Jewish holidays. Roads and village entrances around Ramallah were shut, including those serving Turmus Aya, Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh, while checkpoints were erected at Yabrud, Ein Siniya and Jaba.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa described the congestion that day as "severe and unprecedented," with hundreds of vehicles left stranded at checkpoints. On Monday, soldiers at Atara blocked ambulances from crossing, forcing residents to move patients through in private cars and hand them over at the checkpoint, according to field activists Ayed Jafry and Fidaa Barghouthi. Jafry also reported that soldiers sealed the gate at Sinjil, the town's only entrance.
In occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian movement was curtailed further to accommodate settler worship. On September 24, the far-right rabbi Yehuda Glick led a group in religious rituals inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which has since seen thousands of settlers enter during the Jewish holidays. The visits have long been a flashpoint, and their timing during Sukkot deepened tensions.
Those tensions were already elevated after a Palestinian allegedly drove into a group of Israelis at a checkpoint west of Ramallah on September 23. The attack critically wounded Neria Leiter, the son of Israel's ambassador to the United States, before the assailant was shot dead. The incident intensified Israeli demands for a harsh response and framed the political messaging that followed.
In the West Bank countryside, settlers and Israeli forces moved against Palestinian agriculture. Settlers uprooted olive trees in Beit Ur al-Fauqa, while Israeli bulldozers razed groves in Nabi Saleh and Beit Rima, destroying hundreds of trees, many of them centuries old, according to local activists. Israeli authorities described the Nabi Saleh operation as a security measure linked to the killing of a settler near the illegal settlement of Halamish on September 20, but activists pointed out that the grove lies near neither the spring where the shooting occurred nor any settlement.
With the olive harvest approaching, settlers were documented stealing olives in Sinjil, Turmus Aya and Umm Safa on Monday, according to Wafa. Violent attacks also persisted. In Farkha, dozens of settlers, some carrying military-issue rifles, beat two men on September 24. On Sunday, settlers beat two men in Burqa and attacked the Kaabneh community near Taybeh, cutting off its water and electricity, Wafa reported.
In the Gaza Strip, daily killings continued despite the ceasefire framework, with drone strikes hitting people's homes and displacement camps. Among the week's dead was Jabr Muqbil, 34, an exchange-office owner killed in Deir el-Balah on September 24; relatives who rushed to the scene were wounded in a follow-up strike. Israel claimed Muqbil was a Hamas member, an assertion that could not be independently verified.
Taken together, the developments underscore how the election campaign is shaping Israeli policy in real time. Settlement launches, demolition orders and public threats are being staged as demonstrations of resolve for a domestic audience, while Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza absorb the immediate consequences. With less than a month before voting, the incentive to appear toughest shows no sign of easing.
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