Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 441

Hamas and two other Palestinian groups have said that a Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel is “closer than ever”, provided Israel does not impose new conditions, AFP reports.

“The possibility of reaching an agreement (for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal) is closer than ever, provided the enemy stops imposing new conditions,” Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a rare joint statement issued after talks in Cairo.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has reported that the army will dispose of “unexploded ordinance left behind by the Israeli aggression” this afternoon.

The detonations will take place in the areas of Sultan Yacoub in the western Bekaa Valley, Ghandourieh in Bint Jbeil and Qleileh in Tyre, both in southern Lebanon.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins has said Gaza has “now become a crucible of suffering for children and their families — 45,000 dead, 17,000 of whom are children, and perhaps 11,000 under the rubble”, Al Jazeera reports.

Higgins, whose term will expire in 2025, made special mention of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and other war zones around the world in his final Christmas address yesterday evening.

He condemned global silence on the killing of civilians, saying: “The silence of many influential figures in the face of gross human rights violations against civilians grants impunity to those who blatantly impose collective punishments on civilians, including starvation, which, as I speak, particularly affects women and children.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has issued an urgent appeal for medical and food supplies to be delivered to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahiya area, Al Jazeera reports.

The ministry said in a statement that there was continuous gunfire and Israeli shelling near the hospital. “Shells have struck the third floor and the hospital’s entrances, creating a state of panic,” the ministry said.

The ministry also said Israel “is violating the most basic rules of international law and international humanitarian law by targeting medical and health centres and by not allowing rescue and relief for those inside them”.

Israeli forces have opened fire on a group of Palestinians in the West Bank, killing one of them, Al Jazeera reports.

The killing took place as 20 Palestinians were trying to cross the separation wall north of the West Bank, according to a report from Israeli media outlet Ynet.

The incident is being investigated by the Israeli military, the report added.

The Israeli military has reportedly used civilian contractors to demolish Palestinian homes and establish military engineering infrastructure in southern Gaza’s Rafah, Al Jazeera reports.

Civilian contractors were used in the Shaboura neighbourhood of the besieged city bordering Egypt, according to the Walla news website, which had its reporter embedded with the Israeli military in a tour of the area.

“The entire area can be described in one word: destruction. Destruction of infrastructure, roads, and the destruction of buildings,” the Israeli outlet said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says it has learned of the “forced entry and presence of Palestinian armed actors in its Health Centre in Jenin Camp” in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports.

The organisation said this happened on December 17, adding it has been unable to access the centre and does not presently have control over the facility and its use.

“This forced entry and presence of Palestinian armed actors is a new blatant disregard of UN premises. It has occurred while the Palestinian Security Forces are conducting an operation in and around the camp, ongoing since 14 December,” it added.

Pope Francis has condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty”, a day after the territory’s rescue agency said an Israeli air strike killed seven children from one family, AFP reports.

“Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised. Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told members of the government of the Holy See.

“I want to say it because it touches my heart.”

Israel has killed at least 21 Palestinians and injured 61 in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry, AFP reports.

The total death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 45,227, the ministry said.

It added that 107,573 people have also been injured in Israel’s war on Gaza.

There have been a string of new Israeli attacks across the occupied territories, Al Jazeera reports citing the Wafa news agency.

Israeli forces shot bullets and tear gas bombs after attacking the southeastern side of Qusra south of Nablus, leaving several people with suffocation injuries, the report adds.

Israeli soldiers also stormed the villages and towns of Beit Rima, Deir Ghassaneh, Aboud, and Kafr Ein, all north of Ramallah, without any arrests or clashes reported.

They also raided the town of Allar, north of Tulkarm, arresting at least one person after raiding his home.

Israel’s offensive on Gaza and the Palestinian people has been carried out alongside an “extraordinary assault” on those defending “human rights, international law and the victims of the barbaric” conflict, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, Al Jazeera reports.

In an opinion piece published by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Lazzarini said that in the current environment, aid workers with decades of experience working with war-affected people “are suddenly labelled as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers”.

Critics of Israel are being intimidated and harassed, while Israel’s Foreign Ministry pays to splash “inflammatory” propaganda on billboards in the US and Europe, and takes out Google ads to spread disinformation online, Lazzarini said.

“These are well funded efforts to distract from the brutality of an unlawful occupation and the international crimes being committed with total impunity under our watch,” the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said.

“We still have a window of opportunity to avert a cataclysmic future where firepower and propaganda construct the global order, determining where and when human rights and the rule of law apply, if at all,” he said.

A projectile fired from Yemen struck Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, wounding 16 people, the military and emergency service providers said, according to AFP.

Israel’s military said it had failed to intercept the projectile, which struck a district of Tel Aviv municipality, forcing many residents to leave their homes.

Yemen’s Houthi later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it used a ballistic missile and was directed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy”.

Israeli forces have blown up several residential buildings east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.

Witnesses said Israeli forces blew up residential buildings in the al-Janina neighbourhood as they were supported by gunfire from military helicopters, according to the Wafa news agency.

The head of the Palestinian village council in the occupied West Bank’s village of Madra has said that the Israeli settlers who tried to burn down the local mosque on Friday were fully supported by the Israeli government, Al Jazeera reports citing the Associated Press.

Nasfat al-Khafash, the head of the council, said the settlers arrived early in the morning, setting the mosque on fire and spray-painted stars of David and the words in Hebrew, “the mosque will burn, the temple will be built” and “death to Arabs”.

“These slogans reflect their upbringing and hatred towards Palestinians and Arabs,” al-Khafash told the AP, adding that the settlers received “full support” from the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli military has said it failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, and the ambulance service said 14 people received mild injuries, Reuters reports.

Paramedics were treating 14 people with minor shrapnel injuries and some were taken to hospital, the ambulance service said in a statement.

The Israeli police reported receiving reports of a fallen missile in a town in the Tel Aviv area.

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 25 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip yesterday, medics said, including at least eight in an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp and at least 10, including seven children, in the town of Jabalia, according to Reuters.

Mediators have yet to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after more than a year of conflict.

The Palestinian Civil Defence Agency has said that at least 10 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli attack on Jabalia, adding that the majority of those killed are children, Al Jazeera reports.

The strike targeted a house in Jabalia in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli airstrike has killed at least eight Palestinians in an apartment in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza strip, medics said.

Palestinian health officials told Reuters that Israeli military strikes across the enclave have killed a total of 15 people.

An Israeli airstrike has killed seven Palestinians in an apartment in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza strip, medics have told Reuters.

The head of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians says Sweden’s move “comes at the worst time” for the refugees, Al Jazeera reports.

Philippe Lazzarini said on X: “Defunding UNRWA now will undermine decades of Sweden’s investment in human development including by denying access to education for hundreds of thousands of girls and boys across the region.”

“For the people of Gaza, this decision will double their suffering endured over the past 14 months since the horrendous Hamas attack on 7 October and the ongoing war,” he added.

More than 14 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 45,206 Palestinians and among them are at least 644 athletes, including 359 football players, according to the Palestinian Football Association, Al Jazeera reports.

At least 91 of them were children, the federation said.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that an Israeli drone was fired at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

Separately, the Palestinian Information Center reported that the Israeli artillery targeted the hospital’s gate.

Senior Israeli military officers have presented army chief Herzi Halevi with the initial findings of an internal investigation into the buildup to the Hamas attack on October 7 last year, Al Jazeera reports according to Israeli media.

The Times of Israel newspaper said the probe looked into the functioning of the army’s top echelons on the night between October 6-7. Each senior officer presented their findings that will be cross-examined.