Here’s how things stand on Sunday, January 7, 2024:
Latest updates:
- An Israeli air attack killed at least six people in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, with witnesses saying that human remains are scattered at the scene.
- Armed fighting broke out in Nablus in the occupied West Bank after Israeli forces stormed the city and arrested at least one Palestinian.
- Jenin, Hebron, Qalqilya and Jericho in the occupied West Bank were also raided by the Israeli forces, sources told Al Jazeera.
- Hani al-Masdar, who coached Palestine’s Olympic football team, was killed in an Israeli air raid in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Football Association, which did not specify the area of the attack.
- Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the Israeli army “dismantled” the Hamas leadership in northern Gaza and is now turning its attention to central and southern Gaza.
Human impact
- At least 22,722 people have been killed and 58,166 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll from the October 7 attack on Israel stands at 1,139.
- Gaza is experiencing “deliberate starvation not famine”, Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, said in a post on X, adding that “an immediate ceasefire” is needed.
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a report sent to the members of the Security Council, warned that “widespread famine looms” in Gaza, according to Al Jazeera sources.
Diplomacy
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Jordan after a visit to Turkey during a Middle East tour that will also take him to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
- European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has sounded the alarm during a visit to Beirut about Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict in a spillover from the war in Gaza.
- France’s foreign minister told her Iranian counterpart in a phone call that “Iran and its affiliates” must stop “destabilising acts” that could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East amid Israel’s offensive on Gaza.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a short video statement that Israel must not stop its war on Hamas until all its goals are achieved.
