Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 457

David Mencer, a spokesman for the Israeli government, has rejected Hamas’ call for a week of calm to determine which of the captives held in Gaza are still alive.

“They know precisely who is alive and who is dead. They know precisely where the hostages are,” Mencer told journalists in an online briefing, according to the AFP.

“Gaza is a very small place. Hamas know exactly where they are.”

The Times of Israel cited an official from Netanyahu’s office as saying that the Hamas decision was “meaningless”.

“They haven’t said who is alive and who is not; they haven’t sent any list,” the newspaper quoted the official as saying. “So, as far as we stand, there isn’t any progress.”

Australia’s ice hockey federation has said it had cancelled a planned international qualifying tournament due to safety concerns, with local media reporting the decision was linked to the participation of the Israeli national team, according to Reuters.

Multiple local media outlets cited an internal email from Ice Hockey Australia (IHA) to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) saying it could not hold the tournament due to safety and security concerns over Israel’s attendance.

The statement did not mention Israel, with the body saying it could not comment on “global issues outside the sport”.

“The decision was primarily made to ensure the safety and security of athletes, volunteers, spectators, and other participants,” the statement said.

The Israeli military has told residents in more than 60 villages in southern Lebanon they’re still prohibited from returning to their homes, Al Jazeera reports.

“A new reminder to the residents of south Lebanon that until further notice, you are prohibited from moving south to the village line and its surroundings,” Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X.

“The [Israeli military] does not intend to target you and, therefore, at this stage you are prohibited from returning to your homes from this line south until further notice. Anyone who moves south of this line — exposes himself to danger.”

The UN’s World Food Programme accused Israel of firing on one of its aid convoys in the Gaza Strip, saying at least 16 bullets hit the clearly marked vehicles but no staff were injured, AFP reports.

Condemning the “horrifying” and “unacceptable” incident, the WFP called again for “all parties to respect international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives, and allow safe passage for humanitarian aid.”

The “clearly marked WFP convoy was shot at by Israeli forces near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, putting the lives of our staff at tremendous risk and leaving the vehicles immobilized,” the agency said in a statement.

“The convoy, consisting of three vehicles carrying eight staff members, came under hostile fire despite having received all of the necessary clearances from Israeli authorities. At least 16 bullets struck the vehicles,” it added.

“Thankfully, no staff members were injured in this terrifying encounter.”

The Israeli military is refusing to allow lawyers to meet Dr Hussam Abu Safia, who was arrested during a raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital on December 27, Al Jazeera reports citing an Israeli rights group.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said in a post on X that it has sent “urgent requests to send an attorney” to meet the detained doctor to “evaluate his state and detention conditions”.

But “the military says he’s barred from lawyer visits until 10.01.2025”, the group said.

Guy Shalev, the executive director of PHRI, told CNN that the Israeli military has refused to reveal where Abu Safia is being held.

“It is important to think about that for a second, because we are getting this response for hundreds of other detainees. They don’t have Abu Safiya’s high profile. We are requesting their location in order to visit them with our lawyers. Sometimes, it takes months until we locate someone. Sometimes people are dying in custody without us knowing,” he told the broadcaster.

The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) noted that the infant was the eighth baby to die of hypothermia in Gaza in less than three weeks, Al Jazeera reports.

“These deaths were preventable had the items required to protect these children been accessible to their families,” it said in a statement.

Thorgerour Katrin Gunnarsdottir, the Icelandic foreign minister, says her country will disburse its contribution to the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) ahead of schedule, “in light of the extreme humanitarian need”, Al Jazeera reports.

In a post on X, Gunnarsdottir said Iceland values the work that UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini and his staff are doing “under very challenging circumstances”. In a separate post, Gunnarsdottir reiterated her call for a ceasefire in Gaza and said “access to humanitarian aid must be improved”.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has accused Israel of firing on one of its aid convoys in the Gaza Strip, saying at least 16 bullets hit the clearly marked vehicles but no staff were injured, AFP reports.

Condemning the “horrifying” and “unacceptable” incident, the WFP called again for “all parties to respect international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives and allow safe passage for humanitarian aid”.

The “clearly marked WFP convoy was shot at by Israeli forces near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, putting the lives of our staff at tremendous risk and leaving the vehicles immobilised”, the agency said in a statement.

“The convoy, consisting of three vehicles carrying eight staff members, came under hostile fire despite having received all of the necessary clearances from Israeli authorities. At least 16 bullets struck the vehicles,” it added.

“Thankfully, no staff members were injured in this terrifying encounter.”

The United Nations’ Yemen mediator has arrived in Yemen’s capital as part of a bid to subdue heightened tensions in his first visit in almost two years.

UN mediator Hans Grundberg aims to “improve the environment for resolution of the conflict [and] prepare the ground for concrete actions for advancing the peace process” in a series of national and regional meetings in the coming days, his spokesperson Ismini Palla told Reuters.

Grundberg, a Swedish diplomat, will also push for the release of UN staff and others currently being held there, Palla said.

Israel has said that Hamas has yet to clarify whether 34 hostages it claimed it was ready to free were dead or alive, throwing doubt on the group’s assertion that it needed time to ascertain their fate, AFP reports.

The offer from Hamas came as Israel continued to pound the Gaza Strip, where rescuers said 13 people were killed today.

In recent days, mediators have resumed indirect talks, and a senior Hamas official said late on Sunday that the group was prepared to release an initial batch of captives but would need “a week of calm” to determine whether they were still alive.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer, however, rejected that claim today.

“They know precisely who is alive and who is dead. They know precisely where the hostages are,” Mencer told journalists in an online briefing.

“Gaza is a very small place. Hamas know exactly where they are.”

The Hamas official, requesting anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations, had also said the group came from a list presented by Israel and would include all the women, children, elderly and sick captives still held in Gaza.

“Hamas has agreed to release the 34 prisoners, whether alive or dead,” the official told AFP, but the group needed time “to communicate with the captors and identify those who are alive and those who are dead”.

The Israeli army has warned its personnel travelling abroad that they risk arrest after one of its soldiers fled Brazil while being investigated for possible war crimes in Gaza, Anadolu Agency reports.

It came in response to human rights organisations tracking soldiers and filing legal cases against them for taking part in the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian enclave, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper

The report said the army’s warning was particularly directed at reservists, as active-duty personnel cannot travel abroad without prior approval.

Israeli forces have detained a number of factory workers in the village of Imatin, east of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.

This comes after three people were killed and seven wounded in a shooting attack on vehicles, including a passenger bus, near a village in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian vehicles near the village of Burin, south of Nablus according to the report.

Children are amongst the casualties of the Israeli military bombing of the repeatedly attacked “humanitarian zone” near Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reports.

Videos released by activists and local platforms on social media, which were verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency, showed children made up most of the people who were injured in the attack.

The wounded arrived at Nasser Hospital for treatment, with local sources reporting that the bombing of al-Mawasi led to the killing of a Palestinian woman.

Israeli settlers blocked the convoy of Palestinian local government minister Sami Hijjawi in Masafer Yatta, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Anadolu Agency reports.

A statement by the Local Government Ministry said the minister’s vehicle was stopped by settlers dressed in military uniform. No other details were provided by the ministry.

According to media reports, settlers blocked several roads between the cities of Nablus, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, and Jenin, attacking Palestinian cars with rocks.

The health ministry in Gaza has said that 49 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, AFP reports.

World Health Organisation Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has urged Israel to release Dr Hussam Abu Safia, director of the key hospital in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“Kamal Adwan Hospital in North Gaza remains completely out of function and we have received no updates on the safety and wellbeing of its director Dr Hussam Abu Safia since his detention on 27 December,” he posted on X.

“We continue to urge Israel to release him. We repeat: attacks on hospitals and health professionals must end. People in Gaza need access to health care,” he added, repeating his call for a ceasefire.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that “[the village of] Funduq, Nablus and Jenin should look like Jabalia [in the Gaza strip], so that Kfar Saba does not become Kfar Aza, God forbid”, referring to a town in central Israel and a community near Gaza that was affected in the October 7, 2023 attacks, Al Jazeera reports.

He made the comments on X following a bus shooting attack earlier today that killed three people near the Palestinian village of Funduq in the occupied West Bank.

Smotrich demanded Netanyahu should call an urgent cabinet meeting today “to discuss a change in perception and the true eradication of terrorism in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]”.

Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 45,854 Palestinians and wounded 109,139 since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports.

As the day progresses and we hear more about the [ceasefire] talks in Doha and Cairo, the attacks are increasing exponentially — the heavy artillery in the eastern part of the Strip is destroying more of the remaining residential buildings, Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera reports from Deir el-Balah, Gaza.

“People were literally forced to run in the streets away from the falling debris and shrapnel. A residential home was prewarned in the past few days but an attack did not occur until the past half an hour — and this leaves many people with a great deal of anxiety, waiting for the unknown,” the reporter said.

“Another element that people have to endure and try to survive is the byproduct of being forced into displacement — and sleeping in makeshift tents with improper living conditions — which is leading to the deaths of children. So far, we are looking at eight cases of death due to hypothermia among infants,” Mahmoud said.

He added that the emotional, psychological, and physical toll is particularly heavy on civil defence crews, who are sometimes unable to remove everyone and end up leaving and ceasing their operations because of the dangers involved in their work.

An eighth Palestinian baby has died of hypothermia in the Gaza strip, where 1.9 million displaced people are enduring a harsh winter as the Israeli onslaught restricts entry of humanitarian aid, including blankets and tents, Al Jazeera reports.

The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel, the latest in a series of launches from the besieged Palestinian territory, AFP reports.

“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.

Gunmen opened fire on vehicles, including a passenger bus, near a village in the occupied West Bank, killing three people and wounding seven, the Israeli military and emergency services said, according to AFP.

“Paramedics have confirmed the deaths of three victims, including two women and a man,” emergency service provider Magen David Adom said, while the military reported that troops were “pursuing the terrorists” who carried out the attack near the village of Al-Funduq.