It’s just past 5am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and this blog is now closing. But first, here is a summary of the events so far:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said there is a “gap” between Israel’s “intent to protect civilians” in Gaza and what has been happening on the ground. Blinken, speaking at a news conference in Washington after a meeting with the UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said: “It remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection.”
Reuters is reporting that Israel has agreed, at the request of the US, to open the Kerem Shalom border crossing for only the screening and inspection of the humanitarian aid delivered into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, a senior US official said on Thursday. But there has been no time frame given for when the crossing might open.
The United Arab Emirates has asked for the UN security council to vote tomorrow on a draft resolution that demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, according to diplomats. The renewed push for a ceasefire, reported by Reuters, was made after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, took the rare step of invoking article 99 of the UN charter on Wednesday to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace.
The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, has said there is no longer a functioning humanitarian operation in southern Gaza, saying instead that the aid that is reaching civilians in the territory is “erratic”, “undependable” and “not sustainable”. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva on Thursday, Griffiths said the pace of the military assault in southern Gaza “is a repeat” of the assault in northern Gaza, and warned that there was nowhere safe for civilians in the southern part of the besieged territory.
Israel’s military has continued its heavy bombardment amid intense fighting in Gaza as its war with Hamas hit the two-month mark. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had struck about 250 targets in Gaza over a 24-hour period, ending on Thursday morning. At the northern end of the Gaza Strip, there was heavy fighting in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
At least 350 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the course of 24 hours, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said in its latest update on Thursday. The cumulative total is 17,177 Palestinian deaths and 46,000 injured since the war began on 7 October, according to the ministry’s tally. About 20 people were killed in airstrikes that hit two homes in the residential part of Rafah in southern Gaza, according to witnesses. Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt, is where the IDF has told people to relocate to avoid areas likely to be bombed.
Israeli forces have given contradictory recommendations to Gaza civilians on where to seek refuge and humanitarian relief. Those who have fled to an IDF-declared “humanitarian zone” at al-Mawasi in the south-west corner of the Gaza Strip have depicted a desperate scene with no shelter and barely any food. The IDF, meanwhile, has not ruled out bombing the area.
Joe Biden spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on Thursday in which the US president “stressed that much more assistance was urgently required” across Gaza, the White House said. Biden “emphasised the critical need to protect civilians and to separate the civilian population from Hamas including through corridors that allow people to move safely from defined areas of hostilities” during his call with the Israeli prime minister, a readout of the call said.
The White House has said Israel and Hamas are not close to another deal on a new humanitarian pause. Discussions are happening “literally every day” on a possible new agreement, the White House’s national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday. The Pentagon said the US military has resumed its flights of surveillance drones over Gaza to aid the search for hostages taken by Hamas.
The International Federation of Journalists says 2023 has been an unprecedented year for the number of media workers killed on the job, Associated Press reports. The organisation makes note of the Israel-Hamas war, saying deaths in the war have surpassed those of any conflict in three decades. The group says that 68 journalists have been killed since Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel, or more than one a day.
And these are some of the latest images coming through of the Israel Defence Forces operating on the border with Gaza, from inside Israel, as well as attending funerals of soldiers.
We have been getting some more images out of Khan Younis as the fighting continues there. Here are some of them:
This is our latest video on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Those who have fled talk about a lack of shelter, water and other services. Watch here:
And here is Julian Borger and Ruth Michaelson’s piece on what aid agencies have to say:
Posts on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s X account a few hours ago shows him lighting the first Hanukkah candle as Israel begins to mark the start of the Jewish festival. As part of a chain of posts he says “We are currently deep inside the Gaza Strip” and that he’s spoken to US president Joe Biden:
I spoke with @POTUS Biden this evening and I told him: 'We are on the eve of Chanukah.' He told me that he had a menorah in his office. I told him: 'We have a menorah in our heart, for our country and our future.'
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) December 7, 2023
The International Federation of Journalists says 2023 has been an unprecedented year for the number of media workers killed on the job, Associated Press reports.
The organisation makes note of the Israel-Hamas war, saying deaths in the war have surpassed those of any conflict in three decades.
The group says that 68 journalists have been killed since Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel, or more than one a day. They account for 72% of all media deaths worldwide this year, the organisation says.
The group says Ukraine also “remains a dangerous country for journalists” almost two years after Russian troops invaded.
For more on what the US secretary of state Antony Blinken had to say about Israel’s intent to protect civilians in Gaza and the actual results, have a look at this video with his comments, which he gave at a news conference in Washington, after meeting UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron:
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has issued its daily update on the war. It outlines that:
On 7 December as of 22:00, 69 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 61,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November, and the average of 500 truckloads (including fuel) that entered every working day prior to 7 October.
The update mentions that some people are being evacuated out of Gaza:
On 7 December, 121 sick people and 491 foreign or dual nationals were evacuated from Gaza to Egypt.
The update also outlines and explains the difficulties with aid:
The ability of the UN to receive incoming loads of aid has been significantly impaired over the past few days by several factors. These include a shortage of trucks within Gaza, with some being stranded in the Middle Area, which has been severed from the south; telecommunications blackouts; and the increasing number of staff who were unable to report to the Rafah crossing due to the hostilities.
It also explains the issue with internally displaced people and the conditions being faced as they leave Khan Younis.
Influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to Rafah continued on 7 December. Since 3 December, tens of thousands of IDPs have arrived, the majority from across the Khan Younis governorate. Humanitarian actors in Gaza are reporting extreme overcrowded conditions and lack of basic resources in Rafah, where there is no empty space left for people to shelter, not even in the streets and other open areas. Thousands of people wait for hours in large crowds around aid distribution centres as people are in desperate need of food, water, shelter, health, and protection. There are concerns of a breakdown in law and order under these conditions.
Let’s get more on the importance of the Kerem Shalom crossing as we wait to hear confirmation on when it could open. Harriet Sherwood writes in our full report on the Israel-Hamas war:
Israel said it would open the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gaza to inspect humanitarian aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war.
The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said there were “promising signs” that the crossing, which carried more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before the war, could be opened soon. “It would be the first miracle we’ve seen for some weeks, but would also be a huge boost to the logistical process and logistical base of a humanitarian operation,” he said.
The west has been pressing for the crossing to be reopened for more than a month to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip, but has met Israeli resistance.
Col Elad Goren, from Israel’s Cogat military liaison to the Palestinians, did not give a date for the opening of the crossing, and said the crossing point would be used to increase the capacity to inspect aid trucks, but not to allow aid into Gaza directly.
Read the rest of Harriet’s update here:
A man has fired a shotgun twice outside a Jewish temple in upstate New York on Thursday, hours before the start of Hanukkah, then said “Free Palestine” as he was taken into custody, police said. No one was injured.
The shots were fired outside Temple Israel just before 2 pm local time and a 28-year-old man was in custody, according to officials. Police did not identify the man, but Gov. Kathy Hochul said he was a local resident, Associated Press reports.
The episode in the state capital of Albany took place amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll.
Hochul said she directed the state police and New York National Guard to be on high alert and to increase existing patrols of at-risk sites that were planned for Hanukkah, which begins Thursday evening at sundown.
Reged Ahmad here picking up the blog from Leonie Chao-Fong
Reuters is reporting that Israel has agreed, at the request of the US, to open the Kerem Shalom border crossing for only the screening and inspection of the humanitarian aid delivered into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, a senior US official said on Thursday.
Washington has been discussing with the Israelis for weeks the possible opening of Kerem Shalom to speed up the inspection process of the aid trucks. The U.S. official did not give a time frame on when the crossing would open.
We’ll being any more updates on this development to you when we get it.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 1am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, has said there is no longer a functioning humanitarian operation in southern Gaza, saying instead that the aid that is reaching civilians in the territory is “erratic”, “undependable” and “not sustainable”. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva on Thursday, Griffiths said the pace of the military assault in southern Gaza “is a repeat” of the assault in northern Gaza, and warned that there was nowhere safe for civilians in the southern part of the besieged territory.
Israel’s military has continued its heavy bombardment amid intense fighting in Gaza as its war with Hamas hit the two-month mark. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had struck about 250 targets in Gaza over a 24-hour period, ending on Thursday morning. At the northern end of the Gaza Strip, there was heavy fighting in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
At least 350 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the course of 24 hours, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said in its latest update on Thursday. The cumulative total is 17,177 Palestinian deaths and 46,000 injured since the war began on 7 October, according to the ministry’s tally. About 20 people were killed in airstrikes that hit two homes in the residential part of Rafah in southern Gaza, according to witnesses. Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt, is where the IDF has told people to relocate to avoid areas likely to be bombed.
Israeli forces have given contradictory recommendations to Gaza civilians on where to seek refuge and humanitarian relief. Those who have fled to an IDF-declared “humanitarian zone” at al-Mawasi in the south-west corner of the Gaza Strip have depicted a desperate scene with no shelter and barely any food. The IDF, meanwhile, has not ruled out bombing the area.
Israeli media have published footage appearing to show dozens of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear and being guarded by Israeli soldiers in Gaza. In one of the clips, which have been circulated widely on social media, a group of blindfolded men are seen kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs as (IDF) soldiers watch them. Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a London-based Arabic-language news outlet, said that among those detained was its reporter Diaa al-Kahlout, as well as members of his family.
The UN aid chief has said there are “promising signs” that the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel could soon be opened to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. “It would be the first miracle we’ve seen for some weeks, but would also be a huge boost to the logistical process and logistical base of a humanitarian operation,” Martin Griffiths told reporters on Thursday. His comments came after a senior Israeli official said that Israel will open the crossing for the inspection of humanitarian aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war.
The IDF said it killed two senior officials in Hamas’s intelligence division in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip this week. In a statement, the IDF said Abed al-Aziz Rantisi and Ahmed Ayush were killed in a strike on a Hamas intelligence command room “a few days ago”. Separately, the IDF said the son of Israeli cabinet minister Gadi Eizenkot was killed in fighting in northern Gaza.
The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said there had been a “clear shift” in the injuries of Palestinian gunshot victims in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. MSF staff in West Bank hospitals have noted that victims are now being shot more often in the head and torso rather than the limbs, according to the organisation’s international president, Christos Christou. Christou also warned that Gaza faces a catastrophe extending far beyond a humanitarian crisis, describing the situation in the densely populated enclave as chaotic. Meanwhile, Belgium will deny entry to Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank involved in violence against Palestinians, its deputy prime minister has said.
Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah against escalating the fighting after an Israeli man was killed by a guided-missile attack fired from Lebanon on Thursday, according to Israeli reports. “If Hezbollah chooses to start an all-out war then it will by its own hand turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, not far from here, into Gaza and Khan Younis,” the Israeli prime minister said.
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, has said that Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip amounted to “genocide”, and urged the bombing to be stopped as soon as possible. His comments came as he spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting on Thursday at a meeting in the Kremlin, in which Putin said it was vital to discuss the issue of Palestine.
Joe Biden spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on Thursday in which the US president “stressed that much more assistance was urgently required” across Gaza, the White House said. Biden “emphasised the critical need to protect civilians and to separate the civilian population from Hamas including through corridors that allow people to move safely from defined areas of hostilities” during his call with the Israeli prime minister, a readout of the call said.
The White House has said Israel and Hamas are not close to another deal on a new humanitarian pause. Discussions are happening “literally every day” on a possible new agreement, the White House’s national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday. The Pentagon said the US military has resumed its flights of surveillance drones over Gaza to aid the search for hostages taken by Hamas.
The United Arab Emirates has asked for the UN security council to vote on Friday on a draft resolution that demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, according to diplomats. The Biden administration is gearing up for a showdown at the UN security council at which it may feel impelled to use its veto to protect Israel by rejecting calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The renewed push for a ceasefire comes a day after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, took the rare step of invoking article 99 of the UN charter on Wednesday to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said Israel should “behave differently” in southern Gaza than it has in the north. Cameron, in an interview with CNN, said he agreed with comments by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that Israel “cannot have a repeat of what happened in the north in the south in terms of harm being done to civilians”.
Israeli tank shells fired in quick succession killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others as they filmed in Lebanon on 13 October, investigations by their employers have found. Human rights groups have called for a war crimes investigation into the attacks.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, has described a decision by António Guterres to invoke article 99 of the UN charter as “the right thing to do”. The UN chief infuriated Israel on Thursday by invoking the article to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace. It was the first time he had invoked the article since he became secretary general in 2017.
Four arms factories in the UK producing parts for Israeli fighter jets have been forced to close by protesters operating under the banner Workers for a Free Palestine. The blockades have been organised in coordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, who are also blockading arms factories.
Updated
Blinken notes 'gap' between Israel's intention to protect Gaza civilians and 'actual results'
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said there a “gap” between Israel’s “intent to protect civilians” in Gaza and what has been happening on the ground.
Blinken, speaking at a news conference in Washington after a meeting with the UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said: “It remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection.” He added:
There does remain a gap between, exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.
Updated
The United Arab Emirates has asked for the UN security council to vote tomorrow on a draft resolution that demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, according to diplomats.
The renewed push for a ceasefire, reported by Reuters, was made after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, took the rare step of invoking article 99 of the UN charter on Wednesday to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace. It was the first time Guterres had invoked the article since he became secretary general in 2017.
To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the five permanent members – the US, Russia, China, France or Britain. The US has said it does not support any further action by the council at this time.
Martin Griffiths, the UN aid chief, said that despite the fact that there was no longer a functioning humanitarian programme in Gaza, it “doesn’t mean to say that humanitarians are themselves running for cover”.
“We’re still at it,” Griffiths told reporters in Geneva.
We are still in Gaza. [The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] is still in Gaza. My office [for the coordination of humanitarian affairs] is still there. We are still unloading trucks in the Rafah crossing.
But what we don’t have is any sense of clarity of planning, is any sense of what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Updated
UN aid chief says there is no humanitarian operation in southern Gaza
The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, has said there is no longer a functioning humanitarian operation in southern Gaza, saying instead that the aid that is reaching civilians in the territory is “erratic”, “undependable” and “not sustainable”.
Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, Griffiths said the pace of the military assault in southern Gaza “is a repeat” of the assault in northern Gaza, and warned that there was nowhere safe for civilians in the southern part of the besieged territory. He said:
“We do not have a humanitarian operation in southern Gaza that can be called by that name anymore,” he said, adding:
What we have at the moment in Gaza … we have trucks still crossing daily through the Rafah crossing, is at best humanitarian opportunism, to try to reach through some roads which are still accessible, which haven’t been mined or destroyed, to some people who can be found, where some food or some water or some other supply can be given. But it’s a programme of opportunism. Its erratic, it’s undependable, and frankly, it’s not sustainable.
Updated
The World Health Organization (WHO) delivered supplies to two hospitals in southern Gaza that have not received any deliveries since 29 November, its director general said.
“Very intense fighting” had made it increasingly difficult for the WHO to send trauma and emergency care supplies to the European Gaza hospital and Nasser medical complex, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
In a post on social media, he said “nowhere is safe” in Gaza, adding that he was “extremely concerned” about thousands of patients and healthcare workers in the Palestinian territory.
Today @WHO delivered trauma and emergency care supplies to European Gaza Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex in southern #Gaza to cover the needs of 4500 patients. So much more is needed.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 7, 2023
The very intense fighting is making it increasingly difficult to run any health… pic.twitter.com/HxeohVVZuG
Updated
Biden says 'much more assistance urgently required' in Gaza during call with Netanyahu
Joe Biden spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on Thursday in which the US president “stressed that much more assistance was urgently required” across Gaza, the White House said.
Biden “emphasised the critical need to protect civilians and to separate the civilian population from Hamas including through corridors that allow people to move safely from defined areas of hostilities” during his call with the Israeli prime minister, a readout of the call said.
The leaders agreed “to remain deeply engaged to pursue every possible opportunity to free the remaining hostages”, it said.
The head of the Euro-Med human rights monitor said he recognised his friend among the detained Palestinian men in the footage being circulated by Israeli media.
Ramy Abdu, the chair of the Geneva-based rights group, said his friend al-Kahlout was among the detainees, as well as the director of a school and a United Nations employee.
Posting to social media, Abdu said he had “begged” Kahlout to leave Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, but that his friend had said he could not leave his own daughter and elderly mother behind.
Updated
Israeli media have published footage appearing to show dozens of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear and being guarded by Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
In one of the clips, which have been circulated widely on social media, a group of blindfolded men are seen kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers watch them. In another clip, a group is seen being transported in the back of an Israeli military vehicle.
When asked about these images, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said: “Terrorists were surrendering.” Israeli media have reported that the men are Hamas fighters who have surrendered.
But Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a London-based Arabic-language news outlet, said that among those detained was its reporter Diaa al-Kahlout, as well as members of his family.
The outlet’s English-language publication, the New Arab, said the Israeli military had arrested Kahlout “along with his brothers, relatives, and other civilians, from the market street in Beit Lahia” in the north of the Gaza Strip. Its report said:
Al-Kahlout was among dozens of Gaza residents arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza and were forced to strip off their clothes and were searched and humiliated before they were taken to an unknown location, according to eyewitness reports.
Updated
Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have gathered across the country today to mark the start of Hanukkah.
About 240 people were captured by Hamas during the 7 October attacks in southern Israel, and 138 hostages are still being held in Gaza.
Updated
The Times of Israel has a few more details about Joe Biden’s recently concluded phone call with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Thursday’s call was, the newspaper says, the 16th such conversation between the two leaders since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on 7 October.
According to the Times, Biden also spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan. We’re watching the White House website for readouts of both of the president’s calls.
A prominent anesthesia doctor was among the victims of an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia, sources in Gaza say.
🕯️
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) December 7, 2023
It is with deep sorrow that we announce the tragic murder of Dr Ayman Jerjawi
Dr. Ayman, an exceptional anesthesia specialist, was killed today in an Israeli bombing. He remained in Beit Lahia, dedicating himself to treating patients at Kamal Idwan Hospital until last breath pic.twitter.com/HBkLavRG2d
Dr Ayman Jerjawi was “an exceptional anesthesia specialist [who] remained in Beit Lahia, dedicating himself to treating patients at Kamal Idwan Hospital until [his] last breath”, according to a tweet posted by Palestinian Affairs reporter Younis Tirawi.
Updated
Biden and Netanyahu discuss 'ongoing movement' of war in Gaza
Joe Biden, the US president, and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone earlier on Thursday, CNN is reporting.
The network has just interviewed Israeli government spokesperson Avi Hyman, who said he was “sure” the two leaders discussed “the ongoing movement” in the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hyman said:
I believe that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the American administration and we thank them for their continued support.
We’ll bring you more details of Biden’s conversation with Netanyahu when we get them.
White House senior security aide John Finer has given a wide-ranging address covering US positions on various aspects of the conflict in Gaza to the Aspen Security Forum, a gathering of “decision-makers and thought leaders from Washington DC and around the world”.
Finer told the conference, among other things, that the US had not given Israel a firm deadline to end major combat operations against Hamas in Gaza because it believed the Islamist group would continue to pose a threat if the war ended today, Reuters reports.
He also said the Biden administration believed that “many military targets” remained for Israel in the south of Gaza, and that currently upwards of 200 trucks of humanitarian aid were entering the territory. “But we want more,” he said.
Other guest speakers at the one-day security conference in Colorado, hosted by the Aspen Institute, include David Cameron, the former British prime minister now serving as foreign secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state during the Bush administration.
Cameron, in a TV interview ahead of the conference, said Israel should “behave differently” in southern Gaza than it has in the north.
Cameron told CNN that he agreed with comments by the US secretary of state Antony Blinken that Israel “cannot have a repeat of what happened in the north in the south in terms of harm being done to civilians”.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 10pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israel’s military has continued its heavy bombardment amid intense fighting in Gaza as its war with Hamas hit the two-month mark. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had struck about 250 targets in Gaza over a 24-hour period, ending on Thursday morning. At the northern end of the Gaza Strip, there was heavy fighting in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
At least 350 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the course of 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said in its latest update on Thursday. The cumulative total is 17,177 deaths and 46,000 injured since the war began on 7 October, according to the ministry’s tally. About 20 people were killed in airstrikes that hit two homes in the residential part of Rafah in southern Gaza, according to witnesses. Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt, is where the IDF has told people to relocate to avoid areas likely to be bombed.
Israeli forces have given contradictory recommendations to Gaza civilians on where to seek refuge and humanitarian relief. Those who have fled to an IDF-declared “humanitarian zone” at al-Mawasi in the south-west corner of the Gaza Strip have depicted a desperate scene with no shelter and barely any food. The IDF, meanwhile, has not ruled out bombing the area.
The UN aid chief has said there are “promising signs” that the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel could soon be opened to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. “It would be the first miracle we’ve seen for some weeks, but would also be a huge boost to the logistical process and logistical base of a humanitarian operation,” Martin Griffiths told reporters on Thursday. His comments came after a senior Israeli official said that Israel will open the crossing for the inspection of humanitarian aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has described reports of Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza being besieged as “extremely concerning”. On Wednesday, a hospital spokesperson said the facility was “besieged” by Israeli forces, adding that 95 employees and 38 patients were still inside the hospital.
The IDF said it killed two senior officials in Hamas’s intelligence division in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip this week. In a statement, the IDF said Abed al-Aziz Rantisi and Ahmed Ayush were killed in a strike on a Hamas intelligence command room “a few days ago”. Separately, the IDF said the son of Israeli cabinet minister Gadi Eizenkot was killed in fighting in northern Gaza.
The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said there had been a “clear shift” in the injuries of Palestinian gunshot victims in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. MSF staff in West Bank hospitals have noted that victims are now being shot more often in the head and torso rather than the limbs, according to the organisation’s international president, Christos Christou. Meanwhile, Belgium will deny entry to Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank involved in violence against Palestinians, the country’s deputy prime minister, Petra De Sutter, has said.
MSF head Christos Christou has also warned that Gaza faces a catastrophe extending far beyond a humanitarian crisis, describing the situation in the densely populated enclave as chaotic. “My teams on the ground keep saying to me that it is unbearable. It is unsustainable … There is no safe place,” he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah against escalating the fighting after an Israeli man was killed by a guided-missile attack fired from Lebanon on Thursday, according to Israeli reports. “If Hezbollah chooses to start an all-out war then it will by its own hand turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, not far from here, into Gaza and Khan Younis,” the Israeli prime minister said.
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, has said that Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip amounted to “genocide”, and urged the bombing be stopped as soon as possible. His comments came as he spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting on Thursday at a meeting in the Kremlin, in which Putin said it was vital to discuss the issue of Palestine.
The White House has said Israel and Hamas are not close to another deal on a new humanitarian pause. Discussions are happening “literally every day” on a possible new agreement, the White House’s national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday. The Pentagon said the US military has resumed its flights of surveillance drones over Gaza to aid the search for hostages taken by Hamas.
The Biden administration geared up for a showdown at the UN security council in the next 48 hours at which it may feel impelled to use its veto to protect Israel by rejecting calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The United Arab Emirates, the only Arab country on the 15-strong security council, said it would table a resolution on Thursday for debate on Friday after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and most Islamic states called for the ceasefire.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said Israel should “behave differently” in southern Gaza than it has in the north. Cameron, in an interview with CNN, said he agreed with comments by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that Israel “cannot have a repeat of what happened in the north in the south in terms of harm being done to civilians”.
Israeli tank shells fired in quick succession killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others as they filmed in Lebanon on 13 October, investigations by their employers have found. Human rights groups have called for a war crimes investigation into the attacks.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, has described a decision by António Guterres to invoke article 99 of the UN charter as “the right thing to do”. The UN chief infuriated Israel on Thursday by invoking the article to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace. It was the first time he had invoked the article since he became secretary general in 2017.
Four arms factories in the UK producing parts for Israeli fighter jets have been forced to close by protesters operating under the banner Workers for a Free Palestine. The blockades have been organised in coordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, who are also blockading arms factories.
The presidents of three of the nation’s top universities are facing intense backlash, including from the White House, after they appeared to evade questions during a congressional hearing about whether a student calling for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ codes of conduct.
In a contentious, hours-long debate on Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sought to address the steps they were taking to combat rising antisemitism on campus since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. But it was their careful, indirect response to a question posed by the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York that drew scathing criticism.
In an exchange that has now gone viral, Stefanik, a graduate of Harvard, pressed Elizabeth Magill, the president of UPenn, on Tuesday to say whether students calling for the genocide of Jews would be disciplined under the university’s code of conduct. In her line of questioning, Stefanik appeared to be conflating chants calling for “intifada” – a word that in Arabic means uprising, and has been used in reference to both peaceful and violent Palestinian protest – with hypothetical calls for genocide.
“If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” Magill replied, in a reference to distinctions in first amendment law. “It is a context-dependent decision.” Stefanik pushed her to answer “yes” or “no”, which Magill did not.
The White House has said Israel and Hamas are not close to another deal on a new humanitarian pause.
Discussions are happening “literally every day” on a possible new agreement, the White House’s national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. He added:
I wish I had specific progress to speak to – I don’t. Obviously we’re not close to inking another deal on humanitarian pause, nor do I have any news to break here today about the return of hostages.
Israeli military says two senior Hamas intelligence officials killed in airstrike
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it killed two senior officials in Hamas’s intelligence division in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip this week.
In a statement, the IDF said Abed al-Aziz Rantisi was responsible for Hamas’s observation capabilities, and was involved in the planning of the 7 October attacks on Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
He was killed in a strike on a Hamas intelligence command room, along with Ahmed Ayush, “a few days ago”, it said.
צה"ל ושב״כ חיסלו שני בכירים במערך המודיעין של ארגון הטרור חמאס ברצועת עזה:
— דובר צה״ל דניאל הגרי - Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) December 7, 2023
מטוסי קרב בהכוונת מודיעינית של אמ"ן ושב״כ חיסלו לפני מספר ימים את עבד אלעזיז רנתיסי, בכיר במודיעין הצבאי של ארגון הטרור חמאס.
רנתיסי היה אחראי על כלל התצפיות של החמאס ולקח חלק בתכנון הטבח האכזרי של ה-7.10 pic.twitter.com/FyGncf7MG7
Egypt would like to see the Palestinian Authority (PA) govern Gaza after the war comes to an end, Egyptian foreign minster Sameh Shoukry has said.
Shoukry, speaking at an event in Washington on Thursday, said it was too early to discuss details of arrangements for the future of the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.
The PA and Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and “should be accorded the ability to govern both the West Bank and Gaza,” Shoukry said, adding:
I think we have to wait and see what is the consequences of this military operation and the conditions that exist in Gaza and then proceed to address the political relationships.
IDF instructions on Gaza refuge zones cruel ‘mirage’, say aid agencies
Instructions from Israeli forces telling Gaza civilians where to seek refuge and humanitarian relief have given contradictory recommendations, while aid agencies and Palestinians who have heeded them describe the offer of safety as a cruel “mirage” amid an intensifying military campaign.
Those who have fled to a “humanitarian zone” declared by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) at al-Mawasi, a Bedouin settlement on sand dunes in the south-west corner of the Gaza Strip, have depicted a desperate scene with no shelter and barely any food. The IDF, meanwhile, has not ruled out bombing the area, claiming that rockets were fired from there, most recently on Wednesday.
Al-Mawasi was first touted as a safe zone a few days after the bombardment of Gaza began in response to the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel. However, the IDF has been inconsistent in recommending al-Mawasi.
Maps and instructions distributed recently to the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza show the territory divided into 623 numbered districts, with orange arrows showing how civilians should move from one district to another to get out of the way of planned IDF military operations.
The arrows have changed direction as circumstances have changed in the past few days, but none of them specifically pointed towards al-Mawasi, nor was the 14 sq km coastal area mentioned in the accompanying text.
Al-Mawasi was however shown in a presentation by the IDF to the international press on Thursday. It appeared as a grey area on a map of southern Gaza, and labelled as a “humanitarian zone”.
Read the full story here: IDF instructions on Gaza refuge zones cruel ‘mirage’, say aid agencies
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, has described a decision by UN secretary general António Guterres to invoke a rare UN charter to force security council members to address the situation in Gaza as “the right thing to do”.
Guterres infuriated Israel on Thursday by invoking article 99 of the UN charter to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace. It was the first time he had invoked the article since he became secretary general in 2017.
In a letter to the council’s 15 members, the UN chief warned of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and urged its members to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
It was a “brave and courageous position” for Guterres to take this step, Mansour told reporters today, Al Jazeera reported.
This indicates how “dangerous” things are in Gaza, the Palestinian UN envoy added.
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The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has described reports of Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza being besieged as “extremely concerning”.
On Wednesday, a hospital spokesperson said the facility was “besieged” by Israeli forces, adding that 95 employees and 38 patients were still inside the hospital.
Posting to social media today, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the patients and healthcare staff who are still inside the hospital must be protected.
Reports of minimally functioning Al-Awda hospital in northern #Gaza being besieged are extremely concerning.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 7, 2023
There are still patients and health personnel inside the facility, who must be protected.
We call for an immediate ceasefire. #NotATarget
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, will travel to Washington tomorrow along with counterparts in a so-called contact group of Muslim countries to discuss the situation in Gaza, according to the Turkish foreign ministry.
A contact group of foreign ministers from the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is expected in Washington to demand that the US ends its support for Israeli actions.
The contact group was set up after a rare joint summit of Arab League and OIC leaders in Riyadh on 11 November. The group has been touring the capitals of the five permanent members of the UN security council.
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Israel 'must behave differently' in southern Gaza, says David Cameron
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said Israel should “behave differently” in southern Gaza than it has in the north.
Cameron, in an interview with CNN, said he agreed with comments by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that Israel “cannot have a repeat of what happened in the north in the south in terms of harm being done to civilians”.
Cameron said Blinken “made a series of points about how Israel is trying to behave differently in the south of Gaza to the north of Gaza”, adding:
I think that is right, and we should continue to make those points to them.
He added:
Ultimately the long-term security of Israel does depend not only on their own armed strength and fortitude, but also on having Palestinians able to live in peace and security as well.
Updated
Netanyahu warns Hezbollah after reports of a civilian killed on Lebanese border
Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah against escalating the fighting after an Israeli man was killed by a guided-missile attack fired from Lebanon on Thursday, according to Israeli reports.
The Israeli military has said the attack was carried out by Hezbollah. It said its fighter jets struck a number of Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in response to repeated attacks on northern Israel today.
Israel’s prime minister, speaking to soldiers during a visit near the border, said:
If Hezbollah chooses to start an all-out war then it will by its own hand turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, not far from here, into Gaza and Khan Younis.
A Palestinian man with learning disabilities was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, his brother said.
Amer Abu Aber, 30, told NBC News that his brother, Tariq Ghazawi, was stopped by Israeli soldiers as he tried to pass a checkpoint. He said:
The army stopped him and asked him where is your ID? His ID was at home. He wanted to continue on his way, and the soldiers shot him at the checkpoint. My brother is known to everyone as having special needs.
He said his brother was taken to the hospital and has a bone fracture from the shooting.
Updated
The UN has said 1.87 million people – more than 80% of Gaza’s population – have been driven from their homes in the past two months.
Many families have been displaced multiple times to avoid the Israeli advance, and are living in tents and overcrowded makeshift shelters.
Updated
The son of Israeli cabinet minister Gadi Eizenkot has been killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
The IDF did not provide precise details about the death of Gal Meir Eizenkot, 25, other than to say he was killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip.
Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity party, to which Eizenkot belongs, said in a statement:
Together with all of Israel I send my support to Gadi and to his entire family, and a big hug. We are all committed to keep fighting for the sacred cause for which Gal died.
Updated
The US military has resumed its flights of surveillance drones over Gaza to aid the search for hostages taken by Hamas, the Pentagon said.
The US had paused its drone flights over Gaza during the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which collapsed last week.
The Pentagon spokesperson Lisa Lawrence said in a statement on Thursday:
In support of hostage recovery efforts, the US has resumed unarmed UAV flights over Gaza, and we continue to provide advice and assistance to support our Israeli partner as they work on their hostage recovery efforts.
Updated
Three-year-old twins Emma and Yulio Cunio and their mother, Sharon Aloni Cunio, 34, who were held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, have been discharged from hospital.
The three were released on 27 November as part of a temporary ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. They were discharged from Schneider children’s medical centre on Thursday, the Times of Israel reported.
Sharon’s sister Danielle Aloni, 44, and her daughter Emilia, five, were also held hostage and were released on 24 November.
The twins’ father, David, 34, is still in Hamas captivity in Gaza.
Updated
Four arms factories in the UK producing parts for Israeli fighter jets have been forced to close by protesters operating under the banner Workers for a Free Palestine.
The four factories are Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth, BAE Systems at Samlesbury Aerodrome in Lancashire, L3Harris factory in Brighton and Hove, and BAE Govan in Glasgow. All produce parts for F-35 stealth combat aircraft currently being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.
The protesters, who include health workers, teachers, hospitality workers, academics and artists, are calling for an end to arms sales to Israel and for the UK government to support a permanent ceasefire.
The blockades have been organised in coordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, who are also blockading arms factories.
UN aid chief says 'promising signs' that Kerem Shalom crossing could soon open for humanitarian aid
The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, has said there are “promising signs” that the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel could soon be opened to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Griffiths, speaking to reporters in Geneva on Thursday, said:
We’re still negotiating, and with some promising signs at the moment. There are promising signs now that that may be able to open soon.
His comments came after a senior Israeli official said that Israel will open the crossing for the inspection of humanitarian aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war.
Col Elad Goren, from Israel’s Cogat military liaison to the Palestinians, did not give a date for the crossing to be opened and said the crossing point would be used to increase the capacity to inspect aid trucks, but not to allow aid into Gaza directly.
Griffiths said both Israel and Egypt had become much more open to the idea of reviving the Kerem Shalom route. The crossing would open “probably not in one go, but certainly gradually,” he said, adding:
It would be the first miracle we’ve seen for some weeks, but would also be a huge boost to the logistical process and logistical base of a humanitarian operation.
The Kerem Shalom crossing was used to carry more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before the current conflict.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it has documented 236 attacks on health care in the West Bank since 7 October.
In a post on social media, the WHO described the number of attacks as “unprecedented”, and called for “the respect of international law and active intervention to ensure the protection of health care”.
WHO has documented an unprecedented number of attacks on health care in the West Bank in the past two months, since 7 October 2023.
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) December 7, 2023
236 health attacks have resulted in:
🔹Obstruction to delivery of health care (60%; 142 attacks)
🔹Use of force against health care (53%; 126… pic.twitter.com/CCy98ybH9M
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke with Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, today, a senior US state department official has said.
During the call, Blinken conveyed that Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in its offensive in southern Gaza, Reuters reported.
Blinken also urged Dermer to let Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza while welcoming its decision to let more fuel into the territory, the official said.
Updated
The destruction of more than a third of Gaza’s homes as Israel bombards the territory in pursuit of Hamas is leading international legal experts to raise the concept of “domicide” – the mass destruction of dwellings to make the territory uninhabitable.
In the current Gaza war, independent experts estimate that as much as 40% of the housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. The UN says 1.8 million people are internally displaced inside Gaza, many living in overcrowded UN shelters in the south.
Although Gaza has been damaged in previous conflicts and rebuilt, largely with money from the Gulf states, the current scale of the devastation is of a different order.
At issue is whether the scale of the infrastructure damage is a byproduct of the search for Hamas or part of a covert plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza, erasing the possibility of Gaza becoming a semi-viable society in the foreseeable future.
Domicide, a concept increasingly accepted in academia, is not a distinct crime against humanity under international law, and the UN special rapporteur on the right to housing tabled a report to the UN in October last year arguing that “a very important protection gap” needed to be filled.
The destruction of homes in Aleppo in the Syrian civil war, the flattening of Rohingya settlements in Myanmar and the destruction of Mariupol in Ukraine have in recent years increased focus on the issue.
“It is necessary to address hostilities being carried out in the knowledge that they will systematically destroy and damage civilian housing and infrastructure, rendering an entire city – such as Gaza City – uninhabitable for civilians,” the UN rapporteur, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, a law professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, told the Guardian.
Read the full story: Widespread destruction in Gaza puts concept of ‘domicide’ in focus
The head of Médecins Sans Frontières, Christos Christou, said he witnessed ambulances being prevented from reaching patients and the hospital entrance blocked during an Israeli military incursion into the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Speaking to reporters at MSF’s headquarters in Geneva, he said:
Inside the hospital you can feel the level of desperation, knowing that you’re not able to reach the people. There’s nothing worse for a doctor than not being able to reach patients.
Within the Gaza Strip, patients were arriving in hospitals with severe injuries due to Israel’s bombardment and dehydration, he said.
“Something quite under-reported is the level of psychological trauma that we see,” he added, notably among children arriving in Gaza hospitals with no surviving relatives.
Even if they are intact and they are OK, there is a huge psychological trauma there that will take, I don’t think only years, it will take generations to be healed.
Updated
The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said there had been a “clear shift” in the injuries of Palestinian gunshot victims in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
MSF staff in West Bank hospitals have noted that victims are now being shot more often in the head and torso rather than the limbs, according to the organisation’s international president, Christos Christou.
“The type of trauma they are dealing with has changed completely,” Christou told reporters at MSF’s headquarters in Geneva on Thursday, AFP reported.
In the past, the mechanism of the shooting was different. They were targeting the limbs. Instead of having injuries in the limbs, they have gunshot wounds in the abdomen, the trunk and the head.
This is a clear shift. When you see that shift in the trauma, you will see more and more dead people.
Daily settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have more than doubled, UN figures show, since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.
More than 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and settler attacks in the West Bank during the current conflict, according to figures by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Updated
Israeli tank shells fired in quick succession killed a Reuters journalist and injured six others as they filmed in Lebanon on 13 October, investigations by their employers have found.
Human rights groups called for a war crimes investigation into the attacks, after conducting their own independent investigations and reaching the same conclusion.
Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist, was killed instantly by a first shell, the reports published on Thursday found. It also seriously injured the AFP photographer Christina Assi, 28, who had a leg amputated and is still in hospital.
A second weapon firing less than a minute later injured others in the group, who were travelling and working together, and destroyed a vehicle used by Al Jazeera journalists.
Evidence presented in the reports included expert analysis of munitions fragments, satellite images, the accounts of survivors and video recordings filmed by the group and other journalists before and during the attack.
“The evidence we now have, and have published today, shows that an Israeli tank crew killed our colleague Issam Abdallah,” the Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni said. “We condemn Issam’s killing. We call on Israel to explain how this could have happened and to hold to account those responsible for his death and the wounding of Christina Assi of the AFP, our colleagues Thaier Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, and the three other journalists.”
Summary
Here are all the key developments in the Israel-Hamas war from today:
Israelis and Jewish people around the world celebrated a more solemn Hannukah festival than usual.
The Biden administration geared up for a showdown at the UN security council in the next 48 hours at which it may feel impelled to use its veto to protect Israel by rejecting calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
Israel will open the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza for the inspection of humanitarian aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war, a senior Israeli official said. The move follows sustained international pressure to allow more aid into the Gaza strip.
The daily tally from the Gaza health ministry reported that 350 Palestinians had been killed in last 24 hours, along with 1,900 injured. The cumulative total is 17,177 deaths and 46,000 injured.
A guided-missile attack by Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon killed a civilian in northern Israel on Thursday, Israel’s Channel 13 TV said.
Belgium will deny entry to Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank involved in violence against Palestinians, its deputy PM, Petra De Sutter, has said, adding that she would advocate for an EU-wide travel ban.
The head of medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that Gaza faces a catastrophe extending far beyond a humanitarian crisis, describing the situation in the densely populated enclave as chaotic.
The Israeli military onslaught in southern Gaza is causing destruction, danger, and civilian terror and suffering at such a scale that makes any humanitarian response impossible across the entire enclave, Oxfam warned.
Austria said it is ending a suspension of aid to Palestinians, since a review had found no indication funds were being used to fund or promote terrorism.
Egypt is still pushing to accelerate the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, the state information service has said, after the amounts of relief getting through to the enclave dipped with the end of a truce on 1 December. The government body added that Egypt believes Israel’s operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank aim to force Palestinians towards Jordan.
Israel accused Palestinian militants of having launched rockets from within a zone in the southern Gaza Strip where it has said civilians fleeing the now eight-week-old war can find safety.
Amnesty International said that Israeli strikes that killed the Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in south Lebanon on 13 October were probably a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime.
Thanks for following, I’m handing over to my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong in the US who’ll keep you updated for the rest of the day.
Updated
Iranian president says western countries supporting 'genocide' in Gaza
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, has said that Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip amounted to genocide, and urged the bombing be stopped as soon as possible.
His comments came as he spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting on Thursday at a meeting in the Kremlin, in which Putin said it was vital to discuss the issue of Palestine.
Israel has previously said allegations of genocide are deplorable and that its actions target militants of the Hamas group that rules Gaza, not civilians.
Updated
There’s more from the Palestinian health ministry after the announcement of the daily death toll:
Spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told a brief news conference from Nasser hospital in southern Gaza that the ministry was urgently trying to reopen al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, located in Gaza City.
Some 36 health workers remain in detention after being arrested by Israeli forces during the two-month-old war, including the director of al-Shifa, he said.
About 46,000 people in Gaza have been injured since the war began and fewer than 1% have been evacuated via the Rafah crossing to Egypt for treatment, al-Qidra added.
Updated
Here are the latest images coming out of Gaza:
Israel to open Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza for first time in war
Israel will open the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza for the inspection of humanitarian aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war, a senior Israeli official has said.
The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, reports:
The west has been pressing for the crossing to be opened for more than a month to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip, but has met Israeli resistance. The threat of a UN ceasefire resolution may have led the US to increase the pressure on Israel, and the offer being made by Israel still falls short of what the west had sought.
Col Elad Goren, from Israel’s Cogat military liaison to the Palestinians, did not give a date for the crossing to be opened and said the crossing point would be used to increase the capacity to inspect aid trucks, but not to allow aid into Gaza directly.
Instead the aid after inspection will be required to be taken to the Rafah crossing into Egypt. Goren said that even without Kerem Shalom, Israel is capable of facilitating the entry of up to 250 aid lorries each day through Egypt’s Rafah crossing. He blamed the UN collection process for the slow flow of aid, and not the Israeli inspection process.
The UN said on 6 December that 80 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza.
The UN said:
This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November, and the average of 500 truckloads (including fuel) that entered every working day prior to 7 October.
Updated
Across the US, public schools have been taking stances on the Israel-Hamas war, often leading to more division than solidarity. Districts have repeatedly found themselves in hot water over their approaches, writes journalist Robin Buller for the Guardian.
On 7 October, the day Hamas attacked Israel and the country began bombarding Gaza, the superintendent of the Los Angeles unified school district posted on social media: “We stand with Israel.”
Weeks later, the teacher’s union in Oakland, California, issued a statement. “The Israeli government created an apartheid state,” it read. “We unequivocally condemn the 75-year-long illegal military occupation of Palestine.”
Both statements were met with almost immediate backlash from the community - parents, teachers and even politicians – who either disagreed with the content of the announcements or were befuddled by why a local school district would take a position on a complex global conflict.
It’s not just California: in Massachusetts, two school district superintendents were lambasted for insufficiently calling out Hamas in the statements they issued shortly after the conflict began and a Minneapolis teachers union sparked controversy when it issued a statement calling for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and for a boycott of Israel.
Updated
Belgium will deny entry to Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank involved in violence against Palestinians, the country’s deputy prime minister, Petra De Sutter, has said.
The European Union has condemned the increase in settler violence since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel and this week the United States began imposing visa bans on people accused of being involved.
De Sutter posted on X:
Violent settlers will be denied entry into Belgium and I will be proposing that Belgium advocates for an EU-wide travel ban.
On Wednesday evening, the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, had also said that Belgium would work with the US on sanctions against individuals harming peace in the West Bank.
The West Bank occupation violates international law.
— Petra De Sutter (@pdsutter) December 7, 2023
Violent settlers will be denied entry into Belgium and I will be proposing that Belgium advocates for an EU-wide travel ban.
No free pass for violence, racism and hate. https://t.co/AEcmEU34dE
Updated
The head of medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that Gaza faces a catastrophe extending far beyond a humanitarian crisis, describing the situation in the densely populated enclave as chaotic.
Israeli forces battled Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip’s biggest cities on Thursday in a new phase of the war that is now entering its third month, with wide areas of the narrow territory flattened by Israeli bombardment and 85% of the 2.3 million population left homeless, according to UN figures.
Dr Christos Christou, international president of Doctors Without Borders, told reporters in Geneva:
My people on the ground keep updating me on the situation, and I can tell you that it has gone far beyond the humanitarian crisis.
It is a humanitarian catastrophe. It is a chaotic situation, and I’m extremely worried that very soon people will be in a mode of just trying to survive, which will come with very severe consequences.
In a bid to escape Israeli bombardment, Gazans have amassed at the southern tip of Gaza, heeding Israeli leaflets and messages saying that they would be safe on the border with Egypt. The United Nations and aid organisations have said that nowhere is safe in Gaza.
Christou said:
The people have been asked to be squeezed in a very small area. My teams on the ground keep saying to me that it is unbearable. It is unsustainable … There is no safe place.
In an open letter to the UN security council published on Monday, Christou implored the body to demand an end to Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza unimpeded.
Israel says it does its utmost to minimise civilian casualties but that Hamas combatants use built-up residential areas for cover, something the Islamist militant group denies.
Updated
Sanctions against Israeli settlers in the West Bank involved in violence are being talked about in Brussels but the European Union could not follow the US with a visa ban as Israelis can enter the Schengen area freely, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, Lisa O’Carroll, reports.
Officials say that one possible scenario is putting settlers, identified as involved in the attacks, on a sanctions list. This way, their names would be flagged at border controls and they could be refused entry to the EU on arrival.
Updated
The EU has said the increased settler violence in the West Bank is of major concern and has demanded that the criminals including those behind the destruction of a school funded by the bloc are apprehended, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, Lisa O’Carroll, reports.
The European Commission’s lead spokesperson for foreign affairs said:
This is an ongoing concern, and increasing concern, of the European Union and our member states, [about] what we are witnessing in the West Bank.
This increased violence of settlers, radical settlers who are really terrorising in an indiscriminate manner, innocent Palestinians, destroying their fields, their houses, and in some cases, also EU funded structures, this is something that is really very unsettling to us.
He said they were repeatedly telling Israel that this is “not acceptable and that this needs to be tackled. First of all these things have to be stopped, and those responsible need to be held to account and answer for their crimes.”
Updated
An Israeli citizen has been killed by a guided-missile, according to Israeli TV
A guided-missile attack by Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon killed a civilian in northern Israel on Thursday, Israel’s Channel 13 TV said.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it pronounced the death of a 60-year-old man at Fassuta, about 3km (1.8 miles) from Matat, a village abutting the Lebanese border which the Israeli military had reported coming under a missile attack.
Updated
350 Palestinians killed in last 24 hours, Gaza health ministry reports
Gaza health ministry has reported the latest death toll at 350, along with 1,900 injured.
The cumulative total is 17,177 deaths and 46,000 injured since the invasion began on 7 October, according to the ministry’s tally.
Updated
Israel has said a Palestinian teenager who was among the youngest prisoners and detainees it freed under a Gaza truce cannot return to his former school in Jerusalem until at least mid-January after a period of probation.
Reuters reports:
Ahmad Salaymeh’s family sees in the ban a violation of his rights as well as a reminder of Israeli control over Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Salaymeh, 14, was arrested in July, with police accusing him of stone-throwing, grievous bodily harm and property damage. An additional terrorism count indicated that he was accused of having attacked Israelis for political reasons.
The boy denies any wrongdoing.
Salaymeh was summarily released from pre-trial detention, along with scores of other Palestinian teens, during a truce between 24 November and 1 December under which Israel recovered almost half of the 240 hostages held by Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
After a week’s recuperation at home, he wanted to resume his studies. But the school informed Salaymeh’s father that his return was being prevented by Israeli authorities.
Updated
The part of the Israel Defence Force that deals with the administration of the occupied territories Cogat (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), has given a press conference to emphasise what it is doing on the humanitarian side for Gaza.
The Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, reports:
The head of the civil department, Col Elad Goren claimed that Israel would no longer limit the quantity of humanitarian supplies coming across the Rafah border crossing, subject to the trucks being inspected. Those inspections are currently being done at the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt.
Goren said:
As we speak right now, there is a team from Cogat sitting with the US, with the UN and with the Egyptians at Nitzana in order to discuss together how to increase the volume of humanitarian assistance. We won’t be the problem. We will adjust ourselves to all the needs. The needs are up to the UN. If they will tell us that there is a need for 200 trucks and they have the capabilities to take it, it’s not a problem.
Goren said Israel could inspect 250 trucks a day at Nitzana, and that “in the next few days” the inspection facilities at Keren Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border near Egypt, would be available to expand that capacity.
This comes however at a time when the UN has said that the expansion of IDF ground operations to the south have made aid operations meaningless, with no safe areas for people to gather and for aid to be distributed. Furthermore, staff were unable to reach Rafah to help unload the trucks and distribute the relief supplies around Gaza.
Activists are blockading and protesting in front of weapons manufacturers and suppliers to Israel across Europe.
These include Exxelia (Paris, France), Terma Group (Aarhus and Copenhagen, Denmark; Leiden, The Netherlands), and UAV Engines (Shenstone, UK).
A military component manufactured by Exxelia enabled Israeli forces to precisely guide a missile to strike the roof of the Shuheibar family home on 17 July 2014, killing three children and seriously injuring two further children, according to the Workers in Palestine group.
The group adds that gun pods manufactured by Terma Group enable the occupation to mount excessive amounts of explosives to the otherwise small and agile fighter jets, F-35, and cites a report in the Danish media that 75 children were killed in Gaza in May 2021 and August 2022 by fighter jets carrying parts from Terma Group.
Updated
An Israeli government spokesperson has said he was not aware of investigators’ findings that Israeli tank fire had killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six others in Lebanon but denied Israeli forces targeted non-combatants.
“We do not target civilians,” spokesperson Eylon Levy said in a televised briefing when asked about the findings in reports from Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
“We’ve been doing everything possible to get civilians out of harm’s way.”
Updated
West Bank settler violence – a photo essay
A recent Human Rights Watch report says settler violence in the occupied West Bank has doubled since the 7 October attacks. Photographer David Lombeida stayed with Palestinian families facing threats and abuse from settlers encroaching on their land.
Violence in the occupied West Bank was already at a more than 15-year high in 2023, with 200 Palestinians and 26 Israelis killed, but since Hamas unleashed the deadliest day in Israel’s history on 7 October it has surged in parallel with the war in Gaza.
Since that date 260 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including in raids by the Israeli military against suspected militants, and by extremist settlers – whose daily attacks against Palestinians have more than doubled in the last two months, UN data shows. The international community has issued strong statements to the Israeli government that it must protect Palestinians from attacks by extremist settlers.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires from the Gaza Strip:
Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA
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Washington faces showdown over fresh UN resolution for Gaza ceasefire
The Biden administration faces a showdown at the UN security council in the next 48 hours at which it may feel impelled to use its veto to protect Israel by rejecting calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The United Arab Emirates, the Arab country on the 15-strong security council, said it would table a resolution on Thursday for debate on Friday after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and most Islamic states called for a humanitarian ceasefire.
Guterres infuriated Israel on Thursday by taking the rare step of invoking article 99 of the UN Charter to notify the security council that the crisis in Gaza represented a threat to world peace. It was the first time he had invoked the article since he became secretary general in 2017.
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A German chancellor will for the first time preside over the lighting of the giant Hanukkah menorah in front of Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate on Thursday, in a sign of solidarity with Jewish people two months after the Hamas attacks.
Reuters reports:
Berlin rabbi Yehuda Teichtal said after blessing the 10-metre high, nine-branched candelabra traditionally lit during the eight-day Jewish festival of lights:
It truly is a historic moment.
The message is loud and clear that we will all stand up together for more love and more light.
Olaf Scholz’s gesture, which comes as Germany’s renascent Jewish community has been shaken by a surge in antisemitic attacks since the start of the war in Gaza, has been welcomed by many.
But it also comes at a time when that conflict is testing German’s post-war consensus - even among some members of the Jewish community - on broad support for the government of Israel, a policy born out of atonement for the Holocaust.
There were 994 antisemitic incidents across Germany from the start of the war on 7 October to 9 November (29 a day) a 320% rise on last year’s daily average, according to the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism.
Official statistics show antisemitism had already been on the rise before 7 October, driven by the far-right. Leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, currently second in polls, have argued the country should move on from atoning for its past crimes.
Felix Klein, the government official charged with coordinating the fight against antisemitism, told Reuters most antisemitic incidents since 7 October could be traced back to Muslim communities.
Those responses have highlighted another deep fault line in German society. Leading members of the Muslim community have accused the government of unfairly shifting the blame onto them and using Gaza to fuel the ever-divisive debate on immigration.
Aiman Mazyek, head of Germany’s Central Council of Muslims, said:
Germany has always had a problem with antisemitism, and especially with right extremism.
And now people see a chance to shift that burden, saying: Look! It’s not us, it’s the Muslims, the Arabs bringing antisemitism to Germany.
His concerns have been echoed by rights organisations – and also by some leading members of Germany’s own Jewish community who say they feel a common cause against all forms of discrimination.
More than 100 German Jewish intellectuals signed an open letter in October expressing their “full solidarity with our Arab, Muslim and especially Palestinian neighbours” who they said were facing racism.
They said:
What frightens us is the prevailing atmosphere of racism and xenophobia in Germany, hand in hand with a constraining and paternalistic philo-Semitism.
At Thursday’s ceremony at the Brandenburg Gate, Muslim representatives will be there, alongside the Jewish, and Christian, leaders.
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Austria ends suspension of aid to Palestinians
Austria says it is ending a suspension of aid to Palestinians, since a review had found no indication funds were being used to fund or promote terrorism.
Soon after Austria’s announcement on 9 October that it was freezing aid pending the review, neighbouring Germany said it was also reviewing aid to the Palestinians. The European Union ordered its own review, and said last month there was no evidence of funds going to Hamas and assistance would continue.
Austria’s foreign ministry said in a statement:
There is no indication that Austrian development projects funded by the ADA (Austrian Development Agency) were misused to fund or promote terrorism or to spread anti-semitic content.
Nine projects funded by Austria had been reviewed with a total value of €17.5m (£15m) it said.
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Meta will review how the company has handled violent content on its social media platforms in two cases involving hostage-taking and bombing in the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to its independent oversight board.
Reuters reports:
The cases will be the first to use a new expedited review mechanism announced earlier this year that requires the board to make decisions within 30 days. The board usually deliberates for several months on its cases.
The board’s decision to take on the cases comes as social media platforms have been flooded with violent, hateful and misleading content in the two-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.
After that attack, Meta temporarily lowered its threshold for removing potentially harmful content, including posts that clearly identified hostages taken by Hamas. The company has also faced accusations that it was suppressing expressions of support for Palestinians living under Israel’s military response in Gaza.
In one case to be reviewed by the board, Meta took down a video on Instagram showing the aftermath of an explosion at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, including injured and dead children, the board said.
A caption on the video claimed the hospital had been targeted by the “usurping occupation,” an apparent reference to the Israeli army, it said. The hospital, the biggest medical facility in Gaza, has been at the centre of accusations of war crimes on both sides of the conflict. Human Rights Watch last month said its investigation found the explosion at the hospital was probably caused by a rocket commonly used by Palestinian armed groups.
Meta restored the content with a warning screen after the board selected the case for review.
The other case involves a video on Facebook showing a woman begging her kidnappers not to kill her as she is driven away on a motorbike. A caption urges people to raise awareness of what happened on 7 October, the board said.
Meta initially took down the video, but reversed its decision weeks later in response to trends around how hostage kidnapping videos were being shared, according to the board.
As with the video in the first case, it was restored with a warning screen, the board said.
In a statement, Meta said it welcomed the oversight board’s review and pledged to implement its decision in each case.
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Egypt trying to accelerate aid to Gaza
Egypt is still pushing to accelerate the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, the state information service has said, after the amounts of relief getting through to the enclave dipped with the end of a truce on 1 December.
Reuters reports that the government body reiterated that Egypt would never allow the emptying of the Gaza Strip of its residents as they are pushed southwards towards the border with Egypt. The state information service added that Egypt believes Israel’s operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank aim to force Palestinians towards Jordan.
Since the conflict in Gaza began on 7 October, the Rafah crossing on its border with Egypt has been the only entry point for aid trucks carrying desperately needed supplies of food, medicines, water and fuel.
The number of trucks crossing daily has dropped in recent days to fewer than 100, from nearly 200 when the week-long truce was in place. On Wednesday, 80 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt, according to the United Nations.
Egypt, along with the United Nations, has been lobbying Israel to speed up an inspection process for aid trucks that requires the vehicles to drive to Egypt’s border with Israel before looping back to Rafah.
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Israel has accused Palestinian militants of having launched rockets from within a zone in the southern Gaza Strip where it has said civilians fleeing the now eight-week-old war can find safety.
Twelve rockets were launched from the al-Mawasi zone on Wednesday and at least one more from close to a humanitarian area in Rafah, the Israeli military said on social media, accusing Hamas of “using the civilians as a human shield”.
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The Israeli military onslaught in southern Gaza is causing destruction, danger, and civilian terror and suffering at such a scale that makes any humanitarian response impossible across the entire enclave, Oxfam has warned.
Marta Valdes Garcia, Oxfam humanitarian director said:
Our political leaders are failing – in abject weakness – to forge a ceasefire, which is the only possible humanitarian action that now really matters.
The systemic, militarised chaos has overwhelmed the international humanitarian system. Our governments don’t even have the smokescreen of humanitarianism to hide behind now as Israel carries out its campaign of collective punishment.
Israel’s so-called safe zones within Gaza are a mirage: unprotected, not agreed or trusted, not provisioned, and not accessible. We fear that masses of terrified people will be forced beyond Gaza itself under the guise of ‘safety’. This would force the humanitarian system into an impossible choice between helping civilians and being complicit in their forced deportation.
The terrible irony is that this militarised destruction of Gaza is literally blowing away any chance of real security for both Palestinians and Israelis alike. Gaza needs a ceasefire now and humanitarian agencies need the guarantee of safe access in order to help its people and save lives.
Oxfam staff in Gaza have seen young children asking their parents to pack their clothes into separate bags for when they are next forced to flee under fire, in case their parents are killed. People are reduced to fighting over basic necessities like food, water and fuel.
One Oxfam partner said on Thursday:
This is one of the most difficult days and wars that we have experienced. If you look anywhere around, you will find displaced people, injured people, people sleeping in the streets, and even we face many difficulties in distributing aid because there is no safe place in Gaza. Every area can be dangerous, each and every place can be bombed at any moment.
Virtually no aid is now going into Gaza. Whatever Israel might allow to trickle in is insufficient and cannot be safely distributed to civilians being forced to run for their lives, Oxfam said.
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Four arms factories in the UK producing Israeli fighter jets have been shut down by 1,000 trade unionists operating under the banner Workers for a Free Palestine.
The four factories are Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth, BAE Systems at Samlesbury Aerodrome in Lancashire, L3Harris factory in Brighton and Hove, and BAE Govan in Glasgow. All produce parts for F-35 stealth combat aircraft currently being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.
The trade unionists, who include health workers, teachers, hospitality workers, academics, artists, are calling for an end to arms sales to Israel and for the UK government to support a permanent ceasefire.
The blockades have been organised in coordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, who are also blockading arms factories on Thursday.
Trade unions represented including Unite, Unison, GMB, the NEU, the BMA, UCU, Bectu and BFAWU.
Workers in Palestine, a coalition of Palestinian trade unions which is calling for industrial action and civil disobedience to halt the arms trade with Israel, said:
We salute all those in the trade union movement taking a stand to disrupt the flow of arms to Israel. Shutting down four factories across the UK today, along with several simultaneous blockades in Europe, are critical acts of solidarity - refusing to conduct business as usual in the face of Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza and ongoing genocide. As the British government refuses to call for a ceasefire and directly supports Israel’s military attack, a rapidly growing movement of workers are clearly saying “not in our name”.
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Israel’s leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, has criticised the Israeli government’s response to a planned far-right march in Israel in a post on X.
His post reads [translated by Google Translate]:
The march in Jerusalem tonight is a blatant Kahanist attempt to set fire to more arenas and cause more destruction and death. As prime minister I approved marches in Jerusalem, but not violent provocations. If there really was a cabinet in Israel, he would not allow it.
The march is organised by two ultranationalist groups and scheduled to take place on Thursday evening through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.
הצעדה בירושלים הערב היא נסיון כהניסטי בוטה להצית אש בזירות נוספות ולגרום לעוד הרס ומוות. כראש ממשלה אישרתי צעדות בירושלים, אבל לא פרובוקציות אלימות. אם היה באמת קבינט בישראל, הוא לא היה מרשה את זה.
— יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) December 7, 2023
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Amnesty International calls for investigation into strike that killed journalist
Amnesty International has said Israeli strikes that killed the Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in south Lebanon on 13 October were probably a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime.
Human Rights Watch, in a separate statement, said the two Israeli strikes were “an apparently deliberate attack on civilians and thus a war crime”.
A Reuters investigation published on Thursday found an Israeli tank crew killed Abdallah and wounded the six other reporters by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling from a distance.
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Reuters has an exclusive interview with a former hostage of Hamas, a Thai farm labourer, Anucha Angkaew.
Angkaew was seized by 10 armed militants, whom he identified as Hamas by the Palestinian flags on their sleeves, on 7 October.
Angkaew said:
We shouted ‘Thailand, Thailand’, but they didn’t care.
I thought I would die.
Two of the six Thais he was with were killed soon after, including a friend who Angkaew said was shot in front of him in a random act of violence. The rest were forced on to a truck for a roughly 30 minute ride into Gaza.
Angkaew’s account offers a glimpse into what many hostages endured – and some continue to endure. He described sleeping on a sandy floor and being beaten by Hamas captors, who he said singled out Israelis for especially brutal treatment. Almost all his time was spent inside two small underground rooms, secured by armed guards and accessed by dark narrow tunnels.
Hamas officials did not immediately respond to a written request for comment on Angkaew’s account, Reuters reported.
Angkaew was speaking from his family home in rural north-eastern Thailand, where he returned this month after 50 days in captivity.
About 130 people, including eight Thais, remain captive. Before the war, around 30,000 Thai labourers worked in the agriculture sector, making them one of Israel’s largest migrant worker groups.
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Displacement, hunger, lack of medical care and clean water, and the onset of winter are having a devastating impact on women and children in Gaza, the Care International charity has said.
The charity, which has worked in Gaza since 1948, made its comments to coincide with the two-month mark of the armed conflict in Gaza. It said the war was disproportionately affecting women and children, who make up almost 70% of those killed in Gaza since 7 October.
Hiba Tibi, Care’s acting deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:
One month ago, I thought the suffering could not get any deeper, but the downward spiral keeps worsening.
We are seeing women and children across the Gaza Strip under immense stress, confronted with unthinkable horrors. Child mortality, hunger and psychological trauma are all reaching unprecedented highs. The current situation is bringing them to breaking point, making anything beyond focusing on survival impossible.
Mothers eat once per day in favour of their children’s health. Lack of medical care, hygiene, and high levels of malnutrition while living in overcrowded shelters are a poisonous mix, and we fear the numbers of women and children dying of otherwise preventable and treatable diseases will rise.
Mothers are telling us their children have stopped speaking or eating because of what they have seen and lived through. Others are crying and screaming with every loud sound they hear. Two months of war have traumatised an entire generation of children.
Our team has spoken to doctors who must perform C-sections without anaesthesia and see mothers who lose their babies right after giving birth because there is no power to run incubators that could keep them alive.
Aaron Brent, Care’s West Bank and Gaza acting country director, said:
In Gaza, women are the last to eat and children are the first to die. The tragic reality for children is that they are hiding to survive the bombing, mourning dead parents and siblings, fleeing with their families, or collecting firewood to keep warm instead of playing or going to school. Education is a forgotten dream for children terrified this day might be their last.
Care is calling for civilian lives to be protected, for the immediate release of hostages, thorough and prompt investigations of rape and gender-based violence, a full flow – rather than a trickle – of humanitarian aid through all border crossings in Gaza, and an immediate lasting ceasefire.
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The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has acknowledged “there are increasingly few safe places” for civilians in Gaza and has joined the US in warning that Israel risks “strategic defeat”, the Guardian’s foreign affairs correspondent Daniel Hurst reports.
Wong conceded on Thursday that her language about the conflict did not go “as far as some might want” but said this “does not diminish our concern for the numbers of civilian casualties that we are seeing”.
On the final parliamentary sitting day of the year, Wong also described the end of the weeklong “pause” in hostilities as a “grave setback”.
The assistant minister for foreign affairs, Tim Watts, said he would “travel to Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories” this week to try to prevent the conflict from spreading and to push for “a just and enduring peace”.
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Israelis are marking the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in a more solemn fashion than usual this year. Here are some photos.
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It’s past 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here’s a summary of the latest developments:
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has backed the UN secretary general in his decision to invoke article 99 of the UN charter. Borrell says: “The #UNSC [UN security council] must act immediately to prevent a full collapse of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has invoked a rarely used clause in the UN charter to warn that the conflict “may aggravate existing threats to international peace and security”. Guterres, in a letter to the security council, said he expects “public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions” in Gaza as the territory comes under constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In response, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said Guterres “reached a new moral low” and once again called for the UN chief to resign.
Associated Press has published a poll which shows Democratic views on how President Joe Biden is handling the conflict have rebounded slightly. The poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 59% of Democrats approve of Biden’s approach to the conflict, a rise from 50% in November.
Israeli forces have surrounded the Gaza house of top Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, Benjamin Netanyahu has said. “It’s only a matter of time before we get him,” the Israeli prime minister said on Wednesday. The IDF said Sinwar, who Israeli officials have described as the architect of the 7 October attacks, is hiding underground. A senior Netanyahu adviser described the operation as a “symbolic victory”.
Israeli forces and Hamas are fighting house-to-house battles along the length of the Gaza Strip. As the IDF have been fighting their way through badly bomb-damaged urban areas in northern and southern Gaza, Hamas has increasingly relied on improvised bombs to inflict casualties and slow down the assault. The focal points of the fighting over the past two days have been the Jabalia refugee camp and the Shuja’iyya district in northern Gaza, and Khan Younis and Bani Suheila in the south.
Israeli forces have surrounded Khan Younis are now operating “in the heart” of the southern Gaza city, the IDF said on Wednesday. The IDF called on residents of Khan Younis to flee for safer areas on Wednesday morning, noting that there would be a pause until 2pm in the bombardment of Rafah, immediately to the south on the Egyptian border. Residents reported that the IDF dropped leaflets quoting a verse in the Qur’an on the area. The UN and aid agencies say nowhere in Gaza is safe any more.
The United States has discussed with Israel its timeline for military operations in Gaza and “how this falls into a longer-term strategy for addressing this issue that goes beyond just military means”, the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has told Reuters in a telephone interview. “We have talked to them about timetables. I don’t want to share that because Israel has already kind of telegraphed precisely the location of its ground operation and I don’t want to be the one telegraphing timetables.”
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Here are some of the latest images coming from inside Israel on the first day of Hanukkah and two months into the war. It’s the first Jewish festival since the 7 October Hamas attacks.
It’s approaching mid-morning in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Reuters is reporting on the mood in Israel at the start of the Jewish festival, Hanukkah – here’s some of what they’ve had to say on the atmosphere inside the country:
Two months into a war with Hamas, the faces of Israelis taken hostage to Gaza still appear on individual posters plastered across Jerusalem bus stops and flashed across buildings. The sombre mood was all-consuming on Thursday at the start of Hanukkah, the first Jewish festival since 7 October when Hamas massacred 1,200 people.
It was a solemn moment for all of Israel and not only for families of the 138 Israelis still held hostage.For some Israelis, the feeling is of a country shrinking. Some 200,000 Israelis have been uprooted from both the south of Israel where Hamas infiltrated and the north of Israel where Hezbollah attacked from Lebanon. Absent tourists because of the war, hotels have accommodated many of the evacuees.
“Oct. 7 was a day that changed the course of history in Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat said, calling it “the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” Aghast at the Hamas killings, Israelis have bought up guns with the government’s blessing. The nation is largely self-absorbed. Israeli television channels, dominated by war news, rarely broadcast scenes from Gaza except to show soldiers in action.
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Associated Press has published a new poll, which shows Democratic views on how President Joe Biden is handling the conflict has rebounded slightly.
The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 59% of Democrats approve of Biden’s approach to the conflict, a tick up from 50% in November.
The shift occurred during a time in which Biden and top US officials expressed increased concern about civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, emphasised the need for a future independent Palestinian state and helped secure the release of hostages held by Hamas during a temporary truce, Associated Press reports.
New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, has called on all parties involved in the Israel / Gaza conflict - including countries with influence in the region - to “take urgent steps towards establishing a ceasefire”.
Peters, who is also the foreign affairs minister, put forward a motion on Thursday, asking New Zealand’s parliament to express grave concern at the ongoing violence in the region. Introducing a motion in parliament allowed the political parties to debate it.
Peters asked parliament to support a motion that would:
Express grave concern at the ongoing violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories, unequivocally condemn the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October 2023 and call for the release on all hostages, call on all parties involved in the conflict as well as all countries with influence in the region take urgent steps towards establishing a ceasefire, recognising Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law, and that all civilians be protected from armed conflict, affirm that a lasting solution to the conflict will only be achieved by peaceful means and that action to revive the Middle East Peace Process is critical.
During the debate, Labour’s associate foreign affairs spokesperson Damien O’Connor described the situation in Gaza as “nothing more than a genocide” and requested an amendment to the motion to call for an immediate ceasefire, rather than “steps towards”.
Green MP co-leader Marama Davidson echoed O’Connor’s calls for an amendment and added it was “grotesque” to describe Israel’s response as self-defence.
Te Pāti Māori supported the motion but co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer questioned the government over what steps it would take to ensure a ceasefire was achieved and what pressure it would put on the US.
The opposition parties’ amendments were rejected by the governing parties, bar one from Labour’s Phil Twyford, which called for the process to seek “a just and lasting peace that recognises the existence and self-determination of Israelis and Palestinians”. It also called for the establishment of a free and independent Palestinian state, as part of a two-state solution, “with both nations having secure and recognised borders where all citizens have equal rights and freedoms”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has backed the UN secretary-general in his decision to invoke article 99 of the UN charter. Borrell says “The #UNSC must act immediately to prevent a full collapse of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
I ask the EU members of the UN Security Council and like-minded partners to support @UN Secretary General @AntonioGuterres’s call.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) December 7, 2023
The #UNSC must act immediately to prevent a full collapse of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Let’s just recap what the Israeli military have said about Yehya Sinwar.
The Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari says Hamas’ top leader in Gaza is “not above ground, he is underground,” but would not elaborate on where Israel believes him to be. ”Our job is to find Sinwar and kill him.”, he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces had encircled the Khan Younis house of the Hamas leader. Netanyahu said in a video statement:
His house may not be his fortress and he can escape but it’s only a matter of time before we get him
The Israeli military said its special forces at Khan Younis had broken through defence lines of Hamas fighters and were assaulting their positions in the city center. It said warplanes destroyed tunnel shafts and troops seized a Hamas outpost as well as several weapons caches. The Israeli accounts of the battle could not be independently confirmed.
Hamas posted video it said showed its fighters in Shujaiya moving through narrow alleys and wrecked buildings and opening fire with rocket-propelled grenades on Israel armored vehicles. Several of the vehicles are shown bursting into flames, according to Associated Press.
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Gaza facing a 'severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system', says UN secretary-general
The UN secretary-general says Gaza is facing a “severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system”. António Guterres has invoked a rarely used article to push for a ceasefire. His letter to the council said Gaza’s humanitarian system was at risk of collapse after two months of war that has created “appalling human suffering.”
I've just invoked Art.99 of the UN Charter - for the 1st time in my tenure as Secretary-General.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) December 6, 2023
Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe & appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared. pic.twitter.com/pA0eRXZnFJ
Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which says the secretary-general may inform the council of matters he believes threaten international peace. He is expected to address the council to press for a cease-fire.
But Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan has reacted to the move, saying the secretary-general invoked Article 99 to pressure Israel, accusing the UN chief of “a new moral low” and “bias against Israel.”
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Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Reged Ahmad. It’s currently 6:45am in Gaza and Tel Aviv.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has invoked a rarely used clause in the UN charter to warn that the conflict “may aggravate existing threats to international peace and security”. Guterres, in a letter to the Security Council, said he expects “public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions” in Gaza as the territory comes under constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In response, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said Guterres “reached a new moral low” and once again called for the UN chief to resign.
Israeli forces have surrounded the Gaza house of top Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, Benjamin Netanyahu has said. “It’s only a matter of time before we get him,” the Israeli prime minister said on Wednesday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sinwar, who Israeli officials have described as the architect of the 7 October attacks, is hiding underground. A senior Netanyahu adviser described the operation as a “symbolic victory”.
Israeli forces and Hamas are fighting house-to-house battles along the length of the Gaza Strip. As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been fighting their way through badly bomb-damaged urban areas in northern and southern Gaza, Hamas has increasingly relied on improvised bombs to inflict casualties and slow down the assault. The focal points of the fighting over the past two days have been the Jabalia refugee camp and the Shuja’iyya district in northern Gaza, and Khan Younis and Bani Suheila in the south.
Israeli forces have surrounded the city of Khan Younis are now operating “in the heart” of the southern Gaza city, the IDF said on Wednesday. The IDF called on residents of Khan Younis to flee the city for safer areas on Wednesday morning, noting that there would be a pause until 2pm in the bombardment of Rafah, immediately to the south on the Egyptian border. Residents reported that the IDF dropped leaflets quoting a verse in the Qur’an on the area. The UN and aid agencies say nowhere in Gaza is safe any more.
The United States has discussed with Israel its timeline for military operations in Gaza and “how this falls into a longer-term strategy for addressing this issue that goes beyond just military means,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has told Reuters in a telephone interview. “We have talked to them about timetables. I don’t want to share that because Israel has already kind of telegraphed precisely the location of its ground operation and I don’t want to be the one telegraphing timetables”
British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps will use a trip to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to push for humanitarian aid to be delivered faster, including by sea directly into Gaza, his office said on Thursday. “We are working to find the best way to get aid and support to those in desperate need in the quickest and most direct route. That includes options by land, sea and air,” Shapps said.
Gaza’s health ministry has said 1,207 Palestinians had been killed since the collapse of a temporary ceasefire at the beginning of the month, and that 70% of the dead were women and children. At least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, in Gaza since 7 October, according to a statement from the Hamas media office on Tuesday. There are reported to be more than 7,600 people missing. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures issued during the conflict. The Gaza ministry said more than 100 bodies were currently awaiting burial inside the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, which it said was without fuel and was coming under fire.
Israel’s security cabinet has agreed to allow a “minimal addition” of fuel for entry to the Gaza Strip “to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of disease” in the territory’s south, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Wednesday. The “minimal amount” will be determined by the war cabinet, it said.
