A 59-year-old man from the town of Madama, south of Nablus, has died after being shot during an Israeli military incursion in the occupied West Bank, a moment that residents describe as another chapter in an expanding genocidal war shaping daily life across the territory. Local medical officials said the man succumbed to his wounds after emergency teams were prevented from reaching him, leaving neighbours to watch as help was blocked at close range. His body remains withheld, deepening the family’s anguish and reinforcing a pattern that communities say has become routine.

That evening, military forces entered areas surrounding Madama and the nearby settlement of Yitzhar, where residents reported the use of live ammunition, stun devices and tear gas against local youths. Ambulance crews were denied access to the injured, while one wounded man was reportedly taken away to an unknown location. Elsewhere, armoured vehicles pushed into the al-Fara refugee camp south of Jenin, firing tear gas before withdrawing, a show of force that residents say serves to entrench fear rather than address security.

Beyond the immediate violence, settlers began erecting a new illegal outpost in Khirbet al-Malih in the northern Jordan Valley, a move rights groups view as part of a coordinated strategy to displace Bedouin communities. Local organisations documented repeated intimidation throughout January, including threats, physical attacks and attempts to seize grazing land, actions they say are carried out with military backing. Over the past week alone, monitors recorded more than a thousand violations across the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, ranging from killings and arrests of prisoners to home raids and damage to property and places of worship.

International law bodies have long deemed the settlement enterprise unlawful, and global institutions have issued rulings declaring the prolonged occupation illegal and calling for the removal of settlements. Yet on the ground, residents see little change. As casualties rise and displacement accelerates, the sense persists that legal pronouncements remain detached from realities shaped by a genocidal war that continues to claim lives with impunity.