Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israel 'as many as 29,000': monitor

That’s it for our Gaza live updates for now — we’ll be back later today with the latest coverage of events on the ground.

Local media have reported several strikes in Gaza in the past few hours.

Eight Palestinians were reportedly killed in a Thursday night strike on a house in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Palestinian Red Crescent had earlier said it had evacuated three dead and six injured by the strike.

One person was reportedly killed and another injured in a strike on the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip.

An in yet another strike, this time on a house in Deir al-Balah, also in central Gaza, several people were injured and transferred to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Israeli forces raided several parts the occupied West Bank in the early hours of Friday, the Palestinian Authority's official media reported.

Israeli forces stormed several areas in Hebron at dawn, WAFA reported.

A 16-year-old child was arrested in the Sultan camp in Jericho, and his family's home raided, according to WAFA.

Israeli forces also stormed the Balata camp in Nablus, and the town of Al-Bireh.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of New York on Thursday, staging a mock funeral in a demonstration against Israel's continued heavy bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Holding banners demanding an immediate ceasefire, the activists gathered in Manhattan's Bryant Park while some briefly stood in the middle of the busy Sixth Avenue in the heart of New York's Midtown district.

Several women shrouded in black held baby dolls swaddled in white cloths to represent the toll the fighting has taken on children in the coastal territory.

The mock funeral procession headed to New York's iconic Times Square where the protest continued with giant electronic advertisements as a backdrop.

"Today's action is to draw attention to the fact that, as of now, almost 10,000 children, just children alone, not counting everybody, not counting all Palestinians, have been killed... in Gaza," said archivist Grace Lile, 64.

The US on Thursday said it shot down one drone and one anti-ship ballistic missile in the Southern Red Sea that were fired by Houthis in the 22nd attempted attack on international shipping since 19 October.

There was no damage or reported injuries, US Central Command also said in its post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

(Reuters)

Israel carried out an aerial strike targeting a main Syrian air defence base in southern Syria on Thursday, Syrian army and intelligence sources said.

Citing a Syrian military source, state media had earlier said missile strikes coming from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights had targeted several sites it did not identify.

There was no immediate comment from Israel's military.

(Reuters)

A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli security forces after he reportedly stabbed two people at a checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday.

Ahmed Alyan was killed at the Mazmoria checkpoint that separates the Jerusalem and Bethlehem governorates, the Palestinian Authority's WAFA news agency said.

Israeli forces stormed his family's home in the town of Jabal Mukaber and arrested Alyan's father, mother, and sister, according to WAFA.

An Israeli soldier and a civilian security guard suffered minor injuries from the attack.

(Reuters, The New Arab)

Nine Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces bombed a house near in the town of Al-Fokhari east of Khan Younis, Palestinian media has reported.

Elsewhere, a drone strike hit a residential block near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed correspondent Basel Khlaf reported. No fatalities have been reported in that strike.

Syrian state media reported Israeli attacks near the capital Damascus on Thursday.

"An Israeli attack targeted the vicinity of the capital Damascus," state television said.

Israel has intensified its strikes on Syria since Israel launched its war on Gaza on 7 October.

Damascus International Airport has been out of service since Israeli strikes targeted it in late November, just hours after flights resumed following similar attacks the previous month.

Israeli troops killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza on 15 December when they mistook cries for help as a ruse by Hamas militants to draw them into an ambush, the military said on Thursday.

The Israel military published its findings on the killings on Thursday, claiming "that there was no malice in the event, and the soldiers carried out the right action to the best of their understanding of the event at that moment."

(Reuters)

Hamas delegation to discuss Egypt's Gaza ceasefire plan

A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo Friday to give its "observations" about an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official said.

The plan was put last week to officials of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group, which is also battling Israeli forces in the territory, when the chiefs of both movements visited the Egyptian capital.

Sources close to Hamas say Cairo's three-stage plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and ultimately a ceasefire to end the war that began on 7 October.

It also provides for a Palestinian government of technocrats after talks involving "all Palestinian factions", which would be responsible for governing and rebuilding in post-war Gaza.

Two wounded Palestinian children arrived in France on Thursday to get hospital treatment, the French foreign ministry has said.

An Israeli air strike killed 20 Palestinians and wounded 55 others in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra has said.

Hamas official Osman Hamdan has begun speaking at a press conference to provide details on the latest attacks in Gaza.

He said that the recent events in Beit Lahia, Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij and Khan Younis have led to the highest civilian toll since the war began on October 7. 

Hamdan said that 300 people were killed and 40 were injured.

A Palestinian man has been killed by Israeli forces in west of Bethlehem.

The Palestinian ministry of health said that Muhammad Sayel Abdelqader al-Jundi, 38, from Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was killed near the tunnel checkpoint in Bethlehem.

Al Jundi was taken to the Beit Jala Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

An Israeli air strike has hit northern Gaza's Beit Hanoon that has led to reports of Palestinian casualties, according to Al Jazeera.

They said that while Palestinian news agency Wafa did not give a specific number of casualties, a reporter from Al Jazeera said that five people were killed.

In its latest response to attacks on shipping by the Houthis, the United States on Thursday sanctioned an individual and three currency exchange houses that it accused of facilitating the flow of Iranian financial assistance to the Yemeni movement.

The exchange houses are based in Turkey and Yemen, the US Treasury said in a statement.

"Today's action underscores our resolve to restrict the illicit flow of funds to the Houthis, who continue to conduct dangerous attacks on international shipping and risk further destabilizing the region," Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in the statement.

Israel has given preliminary approval to Cyprus for a maritime humanitarian corridor to ship aid to the besieged and war-torn Gaza Strip, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The proposal, in the works for more than a month, aims to deliver large quantities of badly needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said on Thursday Israel had tentatively approved a system to allow international aid to be checked "with Israeli supervision" in Cyprus before being delivered direct to Gaza.

"There's a basic authorisation to use this route, but there are still some logistical problems that are waiting to be solved," Haiat told AFP.

Cyprus has proposed establishing a humanitarian corridor to collect, inspect and store aid on the east Mediterranean island before shipping it to Gaza, some 210 nautical miles away.

Official sources told the Cyprus News Agency that Cyprus had completed its part of the necessary procedures, but the issue of the security of the ships and their crews approaching Gaza was raised, as well as who would receive the aid.

During a visit to Nicosia last week, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen expressed support for creating a fast-track process for humanitarian aid sent to Gaza by sea.

He said Cyprus, Israel and other regional partners are promoting the initiative to facilitate the transfer of aid "in an organised and well-inspected manner".

Under the plan, the aid would be checked in Cyprus by a joint committee, including representatives from Israel.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has made its latest update on the health conditions of Gaza's women who are currently pregnant, noting that they “have reached catastrophic levels beyond description,” as more than 1.9 million displaced people also “lack of water, food and medicine".

Ashraf al Qudra, the ministry's spokesman, said that  "50,000 pregnant women are suffering from thirst, malnutrition, and health care in shelter centers." 

He added that 50 percent of Gaza's displaced are children, who are exposed to thirst, malnutrition, respiratory diseases, extreme cold and lack of access to vaccinations for newborn babies.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has issued a statement to condemn Thursday's Israeli attack on Al Amal Hospital that led to the killing of 10 people and wounded 21.

“The PRCS expresses its deep concern for the safety of its staff working in the hospital and the headquarters of the Society, especially since the latest targeting; today is the fifth targeting of the hospital and its surroundings in less than a week,” the organisation tweeted on X.

“The occupations intensification in targeting the vicinity of al-Amal Hospital during the past few days may be considered a prelude to targeting it directly.”

PRCS also implored for the international community to “intervene immediately” and assist the hospital with urgent protections.

The PRCS condemns the targeting of Al-Amal Hospital by the occupation forces and calls on the international community to provide urgent protection for the hospital.#NotATarget ❌#IHL #AlAmalHospital pic.twitter.com/SUuNRSyEql

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 28, 2023

News publication Al Jazeera has said that its teams have reported that 12 missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israeli military bases.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces struck Shebaa Farms and the surrounding areas of southern Lebanon's  Rashaya al-Fakhar and al-Khiam.

A freed hostage has spoken out about her time being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza after October 7.

In an interview with Reuters, Chen Almog-Goldstein said she and three of her children were in captivity for 51 days, following the killing of her husband and daughter.

She said the family spent their first and last nights in an underground tunnel before they were released in a late November prisoner swap, seven weeks into the war on Gaza. In between, they were moved several times from house to house.

Food and water were sometimes restricted, she said, while sanitary conditions were tough with no running water in the toilets and just one change of clothes.

She added that the fear was constant even though Hamas members said she and her 17-year-old daughter, Agam, and sons Gal, 11 and Tal, 9, would not be harmed.

Other hostages were less fortunate, she said. In one of the hideouts the family was placed with a group of female captives.

"Some were beaten, handcuffed for some hours. Not just men, women were beaten too and we heard of sexual abuse, some first hand and some were girls we met who had witnessed it or had heard about it, harm inflicted at gunpoint."

Hamas has denied accusations of sexual abuse.

A US-Israeli woman seized in the October 7 Hamas attack was killed on the same day and her body remains in the Gaza Strip, her kibbutz community said on Thursday.

Judith Weinstein Haggai, 70, had been thought to be the oldest woman among the hostages still held in Gaza.

Her community of Nir Oz said that Haggai was "murdered in the massacre", and that her body remains in the Palestinian territory.

Thursday's announcement by the kibbutz follows confirmation on December 23 that her husband, Gad Haggai, was also killed on October 7.

"The bodies of both are still in the custody of Hamas," the community said, without elaborating.

The couple were among some 250 people taken hostage from Israeli border communities and military posts.

More than 100 of those abducted have since been freed, while 129 are still being held in Gaza -- 23 bodies among them.

Ahl Haggai, the couple's son, said that in a final phone call his mother told a paramedic that she and her husband had both been wounded.

"The only evidence we have... is a video of my dad on the back of a truck, laying down injured," Ahl told French news agency AFP earlier this month.

"She's nowhere to be found," he said, with only his mother's glasses recovered from the kibbutz.

Euromed Monitor have issued its calculations based on the death toll figures provided by the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, stating that the number of killings by Israeli aggression may go up to 29,124- including those presumed dead under the rubble.

#Infographic| Statistics on the Israeli Genocide in the Gaza Strip (07 October-27 December 2023)https://t.co/0aoWEsFmpj pic.twitter.com/aW4tAycsx7

— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) December 27, 2023

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has reported that 10 people were killed and 12 wounded in an attack near Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

The organisation said in a tweet on X that it was "the third targeting of the hospital surroundings in less than an hour."

PRCS later released a video illustrating the aftermath of the attack- showing a child being treated for his wounds in an ambulance.

🚨Dozens of martyrs and wounded, including children, in a bombardment near the PRCS Al-Amal Hospital in #KhanYounis.
📷 Filmed by: PRCS volunteer, Talat Alagha#NotATarget ❌#IHL#AlAmalHospital pic.twitter.com/IeDFimctCK

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 28, 2023

🚨 Urgent: 10 martyrs and 12 wounded in a bombardment near the PRCS Al-Amal Hospital in #KhanYounis.
🔴This is the third targeting of the hospital surroundings in less than an hour.#AlAmalHospital#KhanYounis #NotATarget ❌ pic.twitter.com/dgpPw0r5nz

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 28, 2023

- Egypt confirmed on Thursday that it had put forward a framework proposal to end the bloodshed in Gaza including a three-stage plan for a ceasefire, the head of its state media body said.

Egypt is yet to get responses on the proposal from the parties involved, and will give details about the plan once those responses are received, Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt's State Information Service, told news agency Reuters.

The United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Lebanon on Thursday called on authorities to investigate an attack in the country's south that had left one of the force's members wounded.

"A peacekeeper was hurt after a patrol was attacked by a group of young men in Taybeh" near the Israeli border late Wednesday, UNIFIL said in a statement, adding that "a vehicle was also damaged".

"We call on the Lebanese authorities to undertake a full and swift investigation, and for all perpetrators to be brought to justice," it said.

The UN force said such "attacks... are not only condemnable, but they are violations of (UN Security Council) Resolution 1701 and Lebanese law".

Thursday's statement said peacekeepers' freedom of movement "is vital as we work to restore security and stability along the Blue Line", the frontier demarcated by the UN in 2000 after Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said Wednesday that unidentified individuals stopped and attacked a patrol of the UN force's Indonesian contingent, breaking car windows and injuring one of the troops.

Italy has objected to Israel's intention to nominate the mayor of one of the main West Bank settlements as ambassador to Rome, a diplomatic source said Thursday.

In July, the Israel's foreign ministry put forward the name of Benny Kashriel, mayor of Ma'ale Adumim, near Jerusalem, to succeed Alon Bar, a career diplomat due to retire in the summer of 2024.

But Rome also considers that the settlements established in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967 -- and deemed illegal by the United Nations -- are an obstacle to peace.

Kashriel, 72, has been mayor of the urban settlement of nearly 40,000 inhabitants since 1992, and heads a local branch of the right-wing Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But a diplomatic source told French news agency AFP, confirming press reports, that Italian authorities had sent a number of messages indicating that they considered the appointment inappropriate.

 Israel's foreign ministry declined to respond to AFP's report, according to the media outlet.

Israel shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle that had crossed into its territory from Lebanon on Thursday, the military said on X.

Air raid sirens had previously sounded in northern Israel and there were no immediate reports of casualties.

A total of 21,320 Palestinians have been killed and 55,603 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said on Thursday.

Al-Qudra added that 210 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours. 

An Israeli air force has launched a "premediated attack" on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as air raid sirens have reportedly sounded off in northern Israel.

Missiles and drones have also been shot down over the port city of Haifa while explosions were heard in Haifa's suburbs as a drone entering Israeli airspace was intercepted, Israel's Channel 12 reported.

Israeli forces were quoted to have used the wrong type of munition aimed at targetting the Maghazi refugee camp, according to the Times of Israel.

“The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage which could have been avoided,” an Israeli military official told the publication.

At least 90 people were killed on Sunday during an Israeli air raid that struck the refugee camp in Deir el-Balah, in one of the war’s bloodiest attacks.

Israel has reportedly offered a new prisoner exchange deal to mediator Qatar, via the United States, according to Israeli news station Channel 13.

The deal detailed the withdrawal of Israeli forces from densely populated areas of the Strip and allow further aid into the enclave, according to the channel's report.

In its second phase, Hamas would then release female Israeli hostages including female soldiers and any dead bodies of Israelis.

However, according to Channel 13, Hamas rejected Israel's proposal as the offer did not specify for a complete ceasefire while hostages were swapped.

The Palestinian Prisoners Commission and the Prisoner's Society have updated its figures on the arrests of Palestinians by Israeli forces- quoting that at least 25 have since been detained in the West Bank.

This also includes those who were former prisoners who were arrested last night and today morning.

According to Al Jazeera English, the arrests were reportedly made in Ramallah, Hebron, Jericho, Tulkarem, Nablus, Jenin, Tubas and Qalqilya.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has issued a statement to highlight Gaza's increasing issue with starvation, saying that " “Gaza is grappling with catastrophic hunger”.

“Every day is a struggle for survival, finding food and finding water,” Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza was quoted as saying on social media platform X.

UNRWA added that “40 percent of the population are now at risk of famine”.

“The reality is, we need more aid. The only remaining hope is a humanitarian ceasefire.”

"Every day is a struggle for survival, finding food and finding water" @TomWhiteGaza

📍#Gaza is grappling with catastrophic hunger. 40% of the population are now at risk of famine.

The reality is, we need more aid. The only remaining hope is a humanitarian #ceasefire https://t.co/8a5a4AjBt3

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 28, 2023

Palestinians in Nazareth have staged a demonstration to call for the end of Israel's ongoing aggression across the besieged Gaza Strip.

Protesters including senior members of High Follow-Up Committee, held posters that called to 'stop the war, destruction and explusion'.

The High Follow-Up Committee makes up members of the Palestinian minority in Israel that represents concerning matters to the entire community .

the leadership of the Arab community in Israel protested, despite the silencing policy of the government, in Nazareth, with a clear message demanding an end to the war on Gaza. To the Intl. Community: if you choose involvement, let it be to halt the war, not to endorse it. pic.twitter.com/3dGOktzCyC

— MK Aida Touma-Sliman (@AidaTuma) December 28, 2023

The government's media office in Gaza has reported that two journalists have been killed in Israeli bombings- which has raised the death toll to 105.

In Beit Lahia, more than 30 people were killed in an Israeli attack including journalists Ahmad Khair al-Din and Mohammed Khair al-Din in their homes, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

🚨JOURNALIST KILLED ALONG WITH HIS FAMILY.

Photojournalist on Al-Quds Al-Youm channel Ahmed Khair Al-Din was killed accompanied by a number of his family members as a result of the bombing of their house in the Beit Lahia project in the north of the Strip. pic.twitter.com/QoDnyBX8B5

— Palestine Now (@PalestineNW) December 28, 2023

The UN humanitarian office says the scale and intensity of ground operations by Israeli forces  in most areas of Gaza and their devastating impact is impeding aid deliveries.

The office, known as OCHA, cited blocked roads, a scarcity of fuel and telecommunications blackouts as some of the obstacles hampering the humanitarian response.

Despite the challenges, OCHA said the UN World Food Program reached about a half-million people internally displaced in UN shelters south of Wadi Gaza with food parcels, wheat flour, high-energy biscuits and nutrition supplements between December 23 and December 26.

The World Food Program, through its partners, is also helping thousands of people outside UN shelters at distribution points and community kitchens, OCHA said.

The UN humanitarian agency said it is also working to deliver 50 tons of wheat flour to more than a dozen bakeries in Gaza.

Fifty Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza's Beit Lahia, Khan Younis and Maghazi areas on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said.

A drone crashed near a village in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, Israeli forces said Thursday, after an Iraqi armed group with links to Hamas claimed responsibility for an attack in the area.

Israeli media reported that a drone probably carrying explosives launched from Syria was shot down late Wednesday evening south of the settlement of Eliad.

The Israeli army told French news agency AFP that the drone had crashed near Eliad, but gave no further details.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose formation of pro-Iran armed groups, said in a statement it had hit a "vital target" south of Eliad with "appropriate weaponry".

Thousands massed Thursday in the Iranian capital for the funeral of senior Revolutionary Guards commander Razi Moussavi, three days after he was killed in what Tehran says was an Israeli strike.

Iranian state media says an Israeli missile strike on Monday killed Moussavi, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' foreign operations arms, the Quds Force, near the Syrian capital Damascus.

Israeli forces, which has launched hundreds of strikes on Iran-linked targets in war-torn Syria in recent years, said only that it does not comment on foreign media reports.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier on Thursday met with Moussavi's family and led a prayer over the slain general's body before it was taken to the square.

Many of the mourners were waving yellow flags imprinted with the message "I am your opponent", a reference to Israel.

A United Nations report issued has said the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank was rapidly deteriorating and urged Israel to "end unlawful killings" against the Palestinian population.

"The use of military tactics and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling," UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.