Closing summary
It’s coming up to 2.30pm in Tel Aviv and Gaza City. The Guardian’s coverage of the Middle East crisis is coming to a close. Here’s a round-up of today’s events:
The Israeli military said it failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area. Paramedics treated 14 people with minor shrapnel injuries and some were taken to hospital, the ambulance service said in a statement.
The US has removed a bounty from Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that seized power in Syria. The move followed talks between Syria’s new authorities and a US delegation after which a HTS statement said they wanted Syria to contribute to “regional peace”.
Pope Francis condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty”, a day after an Israeli air strike reportedly killed 12 members of the same family, including seven children. “Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches my heart,” he told an audience of members of the government of the Holy See.
The Gaza death toll rose to 45,227, according to the Gaza health ministry. The toll includes 21 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which also said 107,573 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
Israel security forces carried out raids in the West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency. Palestinian news agencies also reported that Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in the West Bank village of Burqa, east of Ramallah.
The Israeli military said its forces shot a protester during a demonstration against the army’s activities in a village in southern Syria on Friday, injuring him in the leg. Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on 8 December Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military facilities in what it says is a bid to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.
According to Gaza’s civil defence agency the death toll of the family that was killed in an Israeli strike on Jabalia yesterday has risen from 11 to 12, including seven children.
