US's Blinken in Israel as Gaza death toll hits 23,210

Our live coverage on Israel's war on Gaza has come to an end for today. Join us tomorrow from 08:00 GMT for the latest on Israel's brutal onslaught of the besieged enclave and its regional and international implications.

The media relations office of Hezbollah has denied that the head of the group’s drone unit was killed in an Israeli attack.

“The Zionist entity’s broadcasting authority and the military spokesman for the Israeli occupation army claimed that the enemy had assassinated what he sometimes called the official of the Hezbollah marching unit or the air force official at other times,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Hezbollah’s media relations categorically deny this false allegation, which has absolutely no truth, and confirms that the Mujahid brother in charge of the marching unit in Hezbollah was never subjected to any assassination attempt as the enemy claimed.”
 

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeated calls for the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, shortly after US Secretary of State Blinken said that displaced Palestinians in Gaza must be allowed to return home as quickly as possible.

In a social media post welcoming Blinken to Israel, Smotrich said that Israel appreciates US support “but as far as our existence in our country is concerned, we will always act according to the Israeli interest”.

“We will work to enable the opening of Gaza’s gates for the voluntary immigration of refugees,” Smotrich added.

All entrances to the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank have been stormed by Israeli forces and confrontations have broken out with residents after armoured military bulldozers began destroying infrastructure.

A video that surfaced online showed a large military buildup on the outskirts of the city.

The Wafa news agency reported that bulldozers were vandalising property there.

Rabbis and rabbinical students representing various US Jewish organisations staged a demonstration at the United Nations on Tuesday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The group, consisting of 36 rabbis, gathered inside the UN Security Council Chamber, with banners urging President Joe Biden to reconsider US vetoes on ceasefire resolutions.

While Washington has previously blocked such resolutions in the Security Council, a significant majority of the UN General Assembly recently supported a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

The Israeli public broadcaster Kann News reports that the country’s health ministry instructed hospitals to be prepared to receive thousands of additional casualties in a short period.

The report by the Israeli outlet underscores the growing possibility of an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which Israeli officials have hinted at for the last several weeks.

Israel's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by international media organisations to allow independent access for journalists to the war-torn Gaza Strip.

Israel controls entry to the besieged Palestinian territory and has not allowed journalists to travel there independently since the start of its onslaught on 7 October.

The court argued the restrictions were justified on "security grounds", as the independent entry of journalists could "endanger" Israeli forces.

In its ruling handed down on Monday, the court said allowing journalists inside Gaza could "give away" operational details, including troop locations, in a way that could "put them in real danger".

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Jerusalem, which floated the petition as a representative of dozens of international media organisations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said it was "disappointed" by the ruling.

"Israel's ban on independent foreign press access to Gaza, for 95 days straight, is unprecedented," the FPA said in a statement on Tuesday.

A Yemeni military source told Al Jazeera that the Yemeni rebel group had targeted a ship linked to Israel in the Red Sea.

Earlier, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) group said it had received reports of an unmanned aircraft over waters near Yemen.

US top diplomat Antony Blinken says Israel has agreed on a plan for a UN mission to assess the situation in war-torn northern Gaza to enable the safe return of displaced Palestinians.

"As Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF (Israel army) scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission," Blinken said during a visit to Israel.

"It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to the north."

The medical group Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) has published a statement condemning an attack on an MSF shelter the day before, which killed the five-year-old daughter of an MSF staff worker.

The statement says the girl was injured in the strike and died on January 9.

The group says that it notified Israeli forces that the shelter was housing MSF workers and their families before the strike, and that, while it is unable to confirm the origin of the munition, the shell “appears to be similar to those used by Israeli tanks”.

“We are outraged and deeply saddened by the death of yet another family member of our MSF staff. This strike on civilians is unacceptable and, once again, goes to show that it doesn’t matter where you are in Gaza, nowhere is safe,” said Thomas Lauvin, MSF project coordinator in Gaza.

Jordanian state media has reported that the country’s King Abdullah will host a tripartite summit with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday.

The meeting of the three regional leaders will focus on “serious developments” in Gaza.

Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter says she will propose to the government to follow South Africa’s lead after it filed a genocide case at the ICJ against Israel.

"Belgium cannot stand by and watch the immense human suffering in Gaza. We must act against the threat of genocide," she said on X.

Belgium cannot stand by and watch the immense human suffering in Gaza. We must act against the threat of genocide.

I want Belgium to take action at the International Court of Justice, following the lead of South Africa.

I will propose this within the Belgian government. #begov

— Petra De Sutter (@pdsutter) January 9, 2024

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that four key Arab nations and Turkey have agreed to begin planning for the reconstruction and governance of Gaza once Israel's war ends.

Blinken, who is on an urgent Middle East mission aimed primarily at preventing the conflict from spreading as fears rise of a regional war, said Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey would consider participating in and contributing to "day after" scenarios for the Palestinian enclave, which has been devastated by three months of deadly Israeli bombardment.

Those countries had previously resisted US calls for post-war planning to begin, insisting that there must first be a ceasefire and a sharp reduction in the civilian suffering caused by Israel's military campaign.

But on what is now his fourth trip to the Middle East since the war began in October, Blinken said those countries are ready to start such planning and that each would consider its own involvement in whatever is eventually decided upon.

"Everywhere I went, I found leaders who are determined to prevent the conflict that we’re facing now from spreading, doing everything possible to deter escalation to prevent a widening of the conflict," Blinken told reporters travelling with him.

Blinken made the comments after meeting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Saudi royal's winter camp outside the ancient incense-route trading city of al-Ula in western Saudi Arabia. Blinken had earlier visited Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE.

The leaders of those countries "agreed to work together and to coordinate our efforts to help Gaza stabilise and recover, to chart a political path forward for the Palestinians and to work toward long-term peace, security and stability in the region as a whole", Blinken said.

He said they "are prepared to make the necessary commitments to make the hard decisions to advance all of these objectives to advance this vision for the region".

For his first service of 2024, Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac read a biblical passage in which God chooses the weakest "to shame the powerful", a key theme to him as the Gaza war rages on.

Since the start of the war on 7 October, Isaac has tirelessly preached for a ceasefire in the strip and reproached Western churches for their "silence".

Isaac, 45, said the passage, from Saint Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, is more relevant than ever given the current situation in the Palestinian territory.

"I believe God is using the children of Gaza to challenge the hypocrisy of the Western world, the racism, the prejudice of the Western world towards Palestinians and towards the children of Gaza," he told AFP.

Isaac is a pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the city revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus Christ.

He said he felt that, as an English speaker and a Christian, he had to speak up against the "genocide happening in front of everybody's eyes" in Gaza.

"Many in the world will not listen to the actual stories of the people of Gaza but they will listen to me because I'm a pastor, because they resonate with a Christian clergy speaking," he said.

A video of Isaac labelling Israel's actions in Gaza "genocide" during a sermon in December has been shared tens of thousands of times on social media.

During the sermon he also slammed Christian leaders for not speaking out, telling his congregation that "silence is complicity".

"And we still don't see strong calls from church leaders calling for a ceasefire," he told AFP, calling on Christian leaders to visit the West Bank, illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

Israel has been widely criticised over its war on Gaza, which has so far killed more than 23,200 people in the strip.

Isaac said Israel was being treated with "impunity" and "can break not just the international law, they can commit war crimes, and no one's going to hold them accountable".

"We're angry that the world does not see us, does not look at Palestinians as equals," he said.

Israel's defence minister told the top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Tuesday that increasing pressure on Iran was "critical" as it could prevent a regional escalation as the Gaza war grinds on.

"An increase in the pressure placed on Iran is critical and may prevent regional escalation in additional arenas," Yoav Gallant was quoted as saying in a government statement.

Egypt has rejected a proposal by Israel for greater Israeli oversight over the buffer zone on the Egypt-Gaza border and is prioritising efforts to broker a ceasefire before working on post-war arrangements, three Egyptian security sources said.

Egypt shares a 13-kilometre (eight-mile) border with Gaza which is the only border of the Palestinian coastal enclave not directly controlled by Israel. Along with Qatar, Egypt has also played a leading role in talks to broker a new ceasefire in Gaza and secure a deal for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and others.

The Egyptian sources said that during those talks Israel had approached Egypt about securing the Salah al-Din Corridor (Philadelphi Corridor), a narrow buffer zone along the border, as part of Israeli plans to prevent future attacks.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said joint monitoring of the Salah al-Din Corridor with Egypt was among issues that have been discussed by the countries.

Asked if Egypt had refused, the Israeli official said: "I'm not aware of that."

Egypt's state-linked Al Qahera News cited an anonymous source on Monday as saying that recent reports of planned cooperation between Egypt and Israel on the corridor were false.

The head of Egypt's State Information Service did not respond to a request for comment.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed on Tuesday that it is investigating potential crimes against journalists since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in November that it had filed a complaint with the Hague-based ICC alleging war crimes over the deaths of journalists trying to cover the conflict.

"The office of prosecutor Karim Khan has assured the organisation that crimes against journalists are included in its investigation into Palestine," the NGO announced on Monday.

The court confirmed the statement, saying: "The ICC Office of the Prosecutor's investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine concerns crimes committed within the Court's jurisdiction since 13 June 2014."

At least 79 journalists and media professionals – 72 Palestinian, four Israeli, and three Lebanese – have been killed since the war began three months ago, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Tuesday he was worried that Israel might have breached international law in Gaza, and that the advice he had received so far was that Israel was compliant but there were questions to answer.

Asked during a question-and-answer session with lawmakers if Israel could be vulnerable to a challenge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague over whether its actions were proportionate, Cameron said the stance was "close to that".

Cameron did not directly answer lawmakers about whether he had received legal advice that Israel might have broken international law, but said some incidents had raised questions over whether there had been breaches.

"Am I worried that Israel has taken action that might be in breach of international law, because this particular premises has been bombed, or whatever? Yes, of course," Cameron said as he took questions from parliament's foreign affairs committee.

Cameron said that there was always a "question mark" over whether a given incident broke international law, which lawyers would examine and then advise him over.

"The advice has been so far, that they [Israel] have the commitment, the capability and the compliance [with international law], but on lots of occasions that is under question."

(Reuters)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned its ability to provide aid and support struggling hospitals in war-ravaged Gaza was "shrinking", despite international demands for more aid to be allowed in.

WHO staff described desperate scenes of seriously injured patients, including young children, begging for food in hospitals – which have seen most of their health workers flee for their own safety.

"We're seeing this humanitarian catastrophe unfold before our eyes," Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, told reporters in Geneva via videolink from the Gaza Strip.

"We're seeing the health system collapse at a very rapid pace," he warned.

The Israeli army has claimed the war is entering a new phase, involving troop reductions and more targeted operations in the territory's centre and south.

But Casey said that on the ground, he had "not seen the lowering of the intensification".

"What we are still seeing… is a huge number of casualties related to hostilities, so shrapnel injuries, gunshot wounds, crush injuries from buildings that collapse. That's still happening every single day."

The United Nations says the Gaza war has displaced around 85 percent of Gaza's population of 2.4 million, and left civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory at risk of famine and disease.

A UN Security Council resolution last month demanded that more aid be let in but the WHO said its access had only got worse.

"We've seen the shrinking of humanitarian space," Casey said.

Israel has implied the United Nations is largely to blame for the lack of aid reaching those in need in Gaza.

But Casey insisted the WHO and other UN organisations were "constantly trying to reach the areas in greatest need".

"Every day we line up our convoys, we wait for clearance (from the warring parties) and we don't get it," he said.

"And then we come back and we do it again the next day."

The WHO has been unable to reach northern Gaza for the past two weeks, and has been forced to cancel six planned missions there.

The organisation said that only 15 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, most of them in the south.

The agency has long described desperate scenes in the few barely functioning hospitals remaining in the north, facing severe shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel.

And it warned that the situation was increasingly dire in the middle and south of the densely populated territory.

"Hostilities and evacuation orders in neighbourhoods of the middle area and Khan Younis… are affecting access to hospitals for patients and ambulances, and making it incredibly complex for WHO to reach those hospitals to provide supplies and fuel," said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO's representative for the Palestinian territories.

Speaking to journalists from Jerusalem, he warned that this "was a recipe for disaster and will make more hospitals non-functional".

Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including a five-year-old child, in the past 48 hours.

On Sunday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians, including a five-year-old girl, at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem, and on Monday night, Israeli forces killed another three Palestinians during a military raid in Tulkarm.

Late on Monday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian young men outside the Tulkarm refugee camp shortly before raiding the camp. Residents described the killing as "brutal".

The Palestinian health ministry identified the three men as Tareq Shaheen, 23, Ahed Mousa, 21, and Yousef Kahwli, 20.

Read more from our West Bank correspondent.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday that his forces must avoid inflicting further harm on civilians in Gaza, the State Department says.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says Blinken had reaffirmed US support for Israel's attempts to stop any repeat of Hamas's 7 October attack.

Miller says Blinken then "stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza".

The State Department spokesman says Blinken and Netanyahu discussed attempts to free the remaining hostages from the 7 October attack, which Israel says number 132, though 25 of them are believed to have been killed.

And they also talked about the importance of getting more aid to the people of Gaza.

"The secretary reiterated the need to ensure lasting, sustainable peace for Israel and the region, including by the realisation of a Palestinian state," Miller says.

In a slap to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hundreds of Israelis have signalled that they're backing the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. 

More than 600 Israelis have signed a petition calling on the ICJ to rule in favour of South Africa's lawsuit against the state of Israel, calling for a decision that will bring an immediate end to the war.

Dr Anat Matar, one of the petition initiators, told The New Arab that she is filing the petition to the ICJ in The Hague on Tuesday. 

"I initiated this petition first of all because I wanted to show that there is part of Israeli citizens who agree with South Africa's move," the Tel Aviv University senior lecturer said.

"What I know for sure is that this war must be stopped immediately. Every moment that passes is a crime."

Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif announced that he's also supporting the initiative.

"My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all of its residents, not to a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide," he said on X.

Read more from our correspondent in Jerusalem.

Lebanon's Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli command base on Tuesday in retaliation for the killings of one of its commanders and a senior Hamas leader.

Hezbollah and its arch-foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Gaza war broke out on 7 October.

The Shia Muslim movement, an ally of Sunni Hamas, said it had targeted the "enemy's northern command centre" in the city of Safed with "several suicide drones".

It said the attack was part of its response to the killings of Hamas deputy political leader Saleh al-Arouri on 2 January and of Hezbollah field commander Wissam Tawil on Monday.

The Israeli army confirmed that a "hostile aircraft" had come down at one of its bases in the north and said that "no injuries or damage were reported".

Hind Khoudary, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, says that only death will keep her and her fellow reporters from their work.

"We will continue reporting," she says on X.

"The only thing that will stop us is – killing us."

Israel's war has heavily impacted journalists in Gaza, with the strip's government media office saying 112 have been killed.

We will continue reporting.

The only thing that will stop us is - killing us. pic.twitter.com/uBqJLEDVNf

— Hind Khoudary (@Hind_Gaza) January 9, 2024

Marie-Pascale Radoux, whose son Orion is still believed held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, has urged Israel and the Palestinian militant group to reach "a ceasefire, or at least a truce, to allow hostages to be freed".

"There has to be a ceasefire, for the hostages, the civilians, the children, the families, all the hundreds and hundreds of innocent people," the 62-year-old added in an interview with AFP.

"That's what we're asking [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu," Radoux said.

On 13 December, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly backed a non-binding resolution calling for a ceasefire but the Israeli premier has ruled that out until Hamas is "eliminated".

"I also ask Hamas to take care of my son because he had physical frailties," Radoux added in a worried voice.

Orion Hernandez Radoux, a French Mexican, was attending the Tribe of Nova music festival when Hamas entered southern Israel from Gaza on 7 October.

The day of the attack, Orion tried to flee but was caught and taken by the militants into Gaza. He is believed to still be a prisoner.

But while Orion is named on Israel's official hostage list – still numbering 132 – his mother has had no proof that he remains alive.

The Israeli army says that 185 soldiers have been killed so far in its war on the Gaza Strip, AFP reports.

The military says nine soldiers died in fighting on Monday.

Reuters also reports that the military says nine soldiers had been killed in Gaza, bringing its total war losses there to 187.

The Gaza government media office says Israel has committed more than "1,944 massacres".

It says the death toll in the strip since the war broke out is 23,210, the same figure given by the Gaza health ministry.

The media office says more than 7,000 people are missing under the rubble.

Israeli air forces have destroyed the tallest residential tower in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Al-Farra Tower was 16 storeys high, The New Arab's Arabic-language edition al-Araby al-Jadeed reports.

Israel's Supreme Court has dismissed a request from the Foreign Press Association for officials to let international reporters freely access Gaza.

News website The Times of Israel cites Hebrew media as saying the decision was passed out yesterday.

The decision says that although there is a right to press freedom, the current situation in Gaza gives grounds for the limitation as media reporting of Israeli army positions could threaten troops.

Reporters can continue accessing Gaza embedded with the Israeli army, according to judges Dafna Barak-Erez, Khaled Kabub, and Ruth Ronen.

The practice of news outlets embedding with Israeli forces in Gaza is highly controversial as the military is able to control what journalists see and who they can talk with.

The Israeli army has said 27 soldiers were injured in the last day, including seven in serious condition, The New Arab's Arabic-language edition al-Araby al-Jadeed reports.

Twenty-three of the soldiers were injured during fighting in Gaza.

As Israel announced that it is transitioning to the "third phase" of its bloody war on the besieged Gaza Strip, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are determined to return to their homes in Gaza City and the north of the territory. 

More than 80 per cent of the total population in the Gaza Strip, which has been under an illegal and tight Israeli siege for more than 17 years, are congregating in the southern areas under "inhumane conditions" to escape death and destruction indiscriminately unleashed by the Israeli military.

In the city of Rafah, located at the southernmost part of Gaza, more than 1.4 million Palestinians, the majority of whom are displaced, live in difficult humanitarian conditions with little to no water, food, housing and medicine.

Read more from our Gaza correspondent.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) staff have evacuated two Palestinians killed in Gaza.

PRCS says in a post on X that the two "martyrs" died "as a result of artillery shelling of a group of civilians" in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the middle of the strip.

🚨The Palestine Red Crescent teams evacuated two martyrs 🚑as a result of artillery shelling of a group of civilians in the Al-Maghazi camp, central #Gaza.
📷Filmed by: PRCS volunteer, Mohammed Suliman pic.twitter.com/uqVSuiIwjO

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 9, 2024

World Health Organization (WHO) officials voice concern about the possible collapse of hospitals in southern Gaza as the war intensifies around the city of Khan Younis, with many medical staff and patients fleeing for their lives.

"So what we're seeing is really worrying around a lot of the hospitals and an intensification of hostilities, very close to the European Gaza hospital," Sean Casey, WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator in Gaza, tells a Geneva press briefing by video link.

"We are seeing the health system collapse at a very rapid pace," he adds, saying that an estimated 600 patients had fled one facility. 

The Israeli military says nine more soldiers have been killed in Gaza, bringing its total war losses there to 187.

Most of the latest fatalities were from engineering units operating against Hamas tunnels in south and central Gaza, where Israel has shifted the focus of fighting after declaring the group dismantled in the north on Saturday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the military said four soldiers had been killed. The updated figure of nine, all killed on Monday, followed notification of families.

(Reuters)

The international community has an obligation to organise security in Gaza after the war there and a reformed Palestinian Authority must play a crucial role in the future, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says on a visit to Egypt.

(Reuters)

The death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has hit 23,210, the strip's health ministry says.

Diaa al-Kahlout, the Gaza bureau chief for The New Arab's Arabic-language edition al-Araby al-Jadeed, has been released, more than a month after he was rounded up in a mass arrest by Israeli forces in the strip.

Al-Araby al-Jadeed says on social media platform X that al-Kahlout was among a group of detainees freed today.

Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Tuesday it launched a drone attack against an Israeli military command centre as part of its response to the killing of senior Hezbollah figure Wissam Tawil on Monday and the deputy chief of Hamas last week.

The group said it launched "a number of explosive attack drones" at the military headquarters in Safed, the first time it has targeted the site.

(Reuters)

Israeli President Isaac Herzog says that "there is nothing more atrocious and preposterous" than a lawsuit filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The case, brought by South Africa, is due to begin hearings on Thursday. Speaking to visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Herzog accuses South Africa of hypocrisy for bringing the case, and thanked Washington for its support of Israel.

"Actually our enemies, Hamas, in their charter, call for the destruction of our nation, the State of Israel – the only nation-state of the Jewish people," Herzog says.

"We will be there at the International Court of Justice and will present proudly our case of using self-defence under our most inherent right under international humanitarian law."

Countries including Turkey and Malaysia have voiced their support for South Africa's case. Palestinian rights groups al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights welcomed the filing as a "principled move".

Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 22,800 people in the strip.

(Reuters, The New Arab)

Hamas's armed wing, the Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said in a post on Telegram yesterday that it had "foiled a Zionist attempt to free one of the enemy's hostages in the al-Bureij refugee camp [in the central Gaza Strip] after a special force snuck into a place that the enemy thought the hostage was located".

It added that its fighters had clashed with the group of Israeli forces and "killed and injured" its members.

Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, posted a video message on Telegram yesterday of an Israeli hostage in Gaza urging Israel to end the war and return the hostages peacefully.

Over 100 hostages remain in Gaza after a similar number were freed during a week-long truce in November in return for the release of 240 Palestinians held by Israel.