Closing summary
Israel and Hamas are wrangling over the details of a potential deal to halt Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip and return hostages home. A Hamas official said the group had approved a list of 34 Israeli hostages to be returned as part of a deal that could eventually lead to a ceasefire. But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office swiftly issued a statement saying Hamas had not provided such a list. Israel said on Monday that Hamas had yet to clarify whether the 34 hostages it claimed it was ready to free were dead or alive.
Gaza’s health ministry said that 49 people were killed by Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall number of Palestinians killed by the military since October 2023 to 45,854.
The health ministry was reported to have said that the Israeli military committed three “massacres” in Gaza over the past day, with deadly attacks having taken place in southern and central parts of the Strip.
Foreign ministers from the UAE and Syria’s new government discussed strengthening relations at a meeting during the first official Syrian visit to the Gulf country since the overthrow of former president Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey said that it was “only a matter of time” before Syrian Kurdish fighters - seen by the west as essential in the fight against Islamic State jihadists - would be “eliminated”.
Gunmen opened fire on a bus and other vehicles near a village in the occupied West Bank, killing three people and injuring eight, the emergency services said. The Israeli military reported that troops were “pursuing the terrorists” who carried out the attack near the village of al-Funduq.
Israeli forces fired on a World Food Programme convoy in Gaza on Sunday, hitting vehicles carrying eight staff members some 16 times.
We are closing this blog now. Thanks for following along. You can find all of our latest Middle East coverage here.
Israeli forces fired on a World Food Programme convoy in Gaza, UN agency says
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter for the Guardian
Israeli forces fired on a World Food Programme convoy in Gaza on Sunday, hitting vehicles carrying eight staff members some 16 times.
A statement issued by the UN agency said it “strongly condemns the horrifying incident on January 5, when a clearly marked WFP convoy was shot at by Israeli forces near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, putting the lives of our staff at tremendous risk and leaving the vehicles immobilized.”
“The convoy, consisting of three vehicles carrying eight staff members, came under hostile fire despite having received all of the necessary clearances from Israeli authorities. At least 16 bullets struck the vehicles.”
The UAE’s top diplomat Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani “discussed ways to enhance the strong fraternal relations between the two countries,” UAE’s official Wam news agency reported (see post at 10:30 for more details).
Sheikh Abdullah was reported to have “reiterated the UAE’s firm position in supporting Syria’s independence and sovereignty over all its territories”.
The meetings in Abu Dhabi also included Syrian defence minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, according to Wam.
The UAE had championed restoring ties with Bashar al-Assad in the years before his downfall. The Gulf country had hoped to distance Assad from Iran and had taken up a leading role in rehabilitating him among the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab states that shunned him after he accepted help from Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran and Russia to put down the Sunni-led rebellion against him.
As we have mentioned in previous posts in the blog (see at 10.02), gunmen earlier today opened fire on a bus and other vehicles near a village in the occupied West Bank, killing three people, according to paramedics.
The military said that troops had set up roadblocks and were encircling several nearby towns to apprehend the attackers.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he had directed the military to “act forcefully” to find the attackers.
“We will not tolerate a Gaza-like reality in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and anyone who follows Hamas’ path in Gaza and enables or supports the murder and harm of Jews will pay a heavy price,” Katz wrote in a post on X.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of the country’s ruling coalition, also warned of harsh consequences in the wake of the attack.
“Funduq, Nablus and Jenin should look like Jabalia”, a now-devastated town in northern Gaza, he said in a statement, “so that Kfar Saba doesn’t, God forbid, become Kfar Aza”, referring respectively to a central Israeli city near the West Bank, and a kibbutz community near Gaza that was devastated during the 7 October attack.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the 7 October attack, in which 1,200 people were killed, praised Monday’s shooting attack in the West Bank.
Hamas said in a statement:
The shooting attack .. confirms that the resistance in the West Bank will continue despite the occupation’s terrorism and security measures.
The operation is a heroic response to the ongoing crimes and war of extermination committed by the occupation against our people.
Updated
Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for the Guardian
Social order in Gaza is likely to collapse further if Israel goes ahead with its threat this month to end all cooperation with the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, Louise Wateridge, its senior emergency officer, has warned.
Wateridge, who has just returned from Gaza, described the territory as increasingly fractured and said the two Knesset bills due to come into force at the end of the month blocking cooperation with the agency would make it impossible for Unrwa to operate or to distribute aid in a war zone.
“If we’re no longer able to communicate to the Israeli authorities, we no longer have a deconfliction process in place, so none of our buildings will be de-conflicted or protected any more, and we simply won’t be able to be there,” she said.
She said the levels of lawlessness already occurring in the Kerem Shalom crossing had so far not spread across Gaza due to the societal ties Palestinians have with each other and their relationship with Unrwa.
You can read the full story here:
Updated
35-day-old baby dies due to cold weather in Gaza, officials say
A 35-day-old baby has died due to exposure to the harsh winter weather in Gaza, officials said, becoming at least the eighth victim of the cold in the past two weeks, Reuters reports.
The weather continued to exact a toll on the hundreds of thousands in Gaza displaced into makeshift shelters. People are packed into tent camps along the coast as the cold, wet winter sets in. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and say there are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood. Aid groups have accused the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
On Sunday, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said the “cold weather and lack of shelter are causing the deaths of newborns in Gaza.”
As a reminder, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has urged Israel to release Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, who was arrested as the Israeli military forced patients and medical staff to leave the health facility on 27 December.
“Kamal Adwan hospital in North Gaza remains completely out of function and we have received no updates on the safety and wellbeing of its director Dr Hussam Abu Safia since his detention on 27 December,” the WHO chief posted on X on Saturday.
“We continue to urge Israel to release him. We repeat: attacks on hospitals and health professionals must end. People in Gaza need access to health care,” he wrote.
Dr Abu Safiya was initially taken to the Sde Teiman detention camp, according to his son, who has been told that the doctor’s leg was badly injured during a raid on the hospital by Israeli soldiers. Israel has not said where the head doctor or the hospital’s other missing medical personnel are being held but claimed that the hospital was being used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Dr Abu Safiya had kept Kamal Adwan running through more than 80 days of siege and attacks by Israeli forces amid a renewed Israeli military assault in the surrounding Jabalia refugee camp.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron has said that his country will not abandon Kurdish fighters. “We must regard the regime change in Syria without naivety,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors, adding that France would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” who are fighting extremist groups in Syria.
Updated
Turkey says it is 'only a matter of time' before Syrian Kurdish fighters are 'eliminated'
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has told a news conference that it was “only a matter of time” before Syrian Kurdish fighters - seen by the west as essential in the fight against Islamic State jihadists - will be wiped out.
Speaking in a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi, he told journalists:
Conditions in Syria have changed. We believe it’s only a matter of time before PKK/YPG is eliminated.
Fidan went on to warn against any western support for Kurdish fighters in Syria. “If you (the west) have different aims in the region, if you want to serve another policy by using Daesh as an excuse to embolden the PKK, then there is no way for that either,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS group.
The Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) has been fighting for autonomy in south-east Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and the country’s western allies.
Syria is home to tens of thousands of Kurdish fighters who lead the the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Ankara considers an extension of the PKK. The SDF, which holds a vast swathe of territory in north-east Syria and includes some Arab fighters, was founded in 2015 and did much of the hardest fighting against IS.
Updated
Al Jazeera has cited Gaza’s health ministry as saying that the Israeli military has committed three “massacres” in Gaza over the past day, killing nearly 50 people and injuring 75 others who arrived at hospitals. There have been reports of deadly Israeli attacks on on a residential building in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and in the southern city of Rafah. We will give you more details on these attacks when we get them.
Updated
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza reaches 45,854, says health ministry
At least 45,854 Palestinian people have been killed and 109,139 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.
Syria’s new foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, landed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) today on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad last month in a surprise offensive.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defence minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab arrive in the United Arab Emirates,” official news agency Sana reported, a day after they visited its Gulf neighbour Qatar.
Syria is eager for investment from wealthy Gulf states to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure and boost the economy, after years of crippling sanctions from the west.
#Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates on his first visit to the country since armed opposition forces toppled president Bashar al-Assad last month, official news agency SANA says. https://t.co/qFpkcinEVb
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) January 6, 2025
Three Israelis killed in northern West Bank shooting
In the opening summary, we reported that three Israelis were killed in a shooting in the occupied West Bank. We now have a bit more information about what happened.
“Paramedics have confirmed the deaths of three victims, including two women and a man,” emergency service provider Magen David Adom said. The two women killed in the shooting were in their 60s, while the man was around 40.
The military says troops are “pursuing the terrorists” who carried out the attack near the village of al-Funduq, which left 8 people injured, according to reports.
“We will reach the despicable murderers and hold them, as well as anyone who assisted them, accountable,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement from his office. “No one will be spared.”
🚨BREAKING: 3 killed, 8 injured in shooting attack on Route 55 near Al-Funduq (between Karnei Shomron & Kedumim). Bus driver seriously wounded, 2 moderate, 5 mild injuries. pic.twitter.com/DbKLOZAO4j
— Magen David Adom (@Mdais) January 6, 2025
Updated
The Israeli parliament decided in late October to pass a law banning the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, from operating in the country. Two bills were passed by the Knesset – the Israeli parliament - in late October to ban Unrwa from “any activity” and to declare it a terror group after allegations by Israel that members of the Unrwa staff in Gaza were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted. The UN launched an investigation into the Israeli claims and fired nine Unrwa staff as a result. Unrwa denies any wider involvement with Hamas.
Unrwa has said the new laws – due to come into effect this month – will cause the supply chain of aid to Gaza to “fall apart”, excepting an already dire humanitarian crisis, with widespread shortages of food, medicine and clean water across the Strip. Unrwa operates in Gaza, the West Bank and in surrounding countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, where large numbers of Palestinian refugees live. It provides schools, mental health support, hospitals and waste disposal services, among other things, as well as being the central organisation for the distribution of aid.
Updated
The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has said the number of babies in Gaza who have died from the cold weather and a “lack of shelter” has risen to 7.
“Cold weather and lack of shelter are causing the deaths of newborns in Gaza. 7,700 newborns lack lifesaving care. To date, at least seven babies have reportedly died,” Unrwa wrote in a post on X.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displaced from their homes by Israeli bombardments, are packed into tent camps along the coast as the cold, wet winter sets in. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and say there are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood. Aid groups have accused the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
Updated
Israel says Hamas has not given 'status' of the 34 hostages the group says it is ready to free
Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the Palestinian militant group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
“The list of hostages... was not provided to Israel by Hamas but was originally given by Israel to the mediators in July 2024.”
Updated
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group for relatives of those abducted by Hamas during the 7 October attack on southern Israel last year, has reacted to reports of a Saudi Arabian news outlet publishing a list of the 34 hostages who will potentially be freed in the first phase of a potential deal with Hamas. The list does not detail who is alive. Hamas militants seized 251 hostages during the 2023 attack, of whom 96 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.
The forum said:
The families of the hostages are shaken and upset by the list published this morning.
We call on the media and the public to show sensitivity and responsibility regarding the publication of this and other such things until a deal is signed, and also during it.
The time is ripe for a comprehensive agreement that will return all the hostages – the living for healing, and the murdered and fallen for a proper burial. We are leaving no one behind.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under growing pressure from hostages’ families to reach a deal that will free their loved ones, with weekly demonstrations organised by the hostages forum. His critics accuse him of stalling on a deal, with a key obstacle to a truce being Israel’s reluctance to agree to a lasting ceasefire.
Updated
Israel and Hamas wrangle over potential ceasefire deal as deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza continue
Israel and Hamas are wrangling over the details of a potential deal to halt Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip and return hostages home, as Palestinian officials said intensified Israeli bombardments had killed more than 100 people over the weekend.
A Hamas official said the group had approved a list of 34 Israeli hostages to be returned as part of a deal that could eventually lead to a ceasefire, Reuters reported. But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office swiftly issued a statement on Sunday saying Hamas had not provided such a list.
A renewed push is under way to reach a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office on 20 January.
“We very much want to bring this over the finish line in the next two weeks, the time we have remaining,” outgoing US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told a press conference in South Korea earlier today when asked whether a ceasefire deal was close.
In other developments:
Israeli military airstrikes continued throughout the Gaza Strip on Sunday, with an airstrike killing five people in a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza and another killing four in Jabalia in the territory’s north, Gaza health officials said. Later in the day, an airstrike hit a police station in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing five people, medics said. It was not immediately clear if all the people who were killed were police officers. At nightfall, medics said an Israeli airstrike had killed three people in Bureij camp in central Gaza, bringing Sunday’s death toll to 17.
Two Palestinians, including a 17-year-old boy, were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to the Palestinian Fatah party and the Palestinian health ministry. Palestinian media said Israeli forces opened fire on the home of a 37-year-old man in a town south of Jenin. The health ministry said the 17-year-old was killed in an Israeli raid in Askar camp in Nablus. The Israeli military said its forces killed an armed militant in the West Bank, confiscated weapons and dismantled an explosives manufacturing laboratory. Separately, it said it was looking into reports that a 17-year-old was killed.
Gunmen opened fire on vehicles, including a passenger bus, on Monday near a village in the occupied West Bank, killing three people and injuring at least seven others, the Israeli military and emergency services said. “Paramedics have confirmed the deaths of three victims, including two women and a man,” emergency service provider Magen David Adom said, while the military reported that troops were “pursuing the terrorists” who carried out the attack near the village of Al-Funduq.
Antony Blinken will meet his European counterparts Thursday in Rome on Syria, as the west looks to engage the new Islamist-led leadership. Blinken would “meet with European counterparts to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition”, a state department statement said as he visited Seoul on Monday.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year while inside the militant group’s war operations room, according to new details on Sunday disclosed by a senior Hezbollah security official, the Associated Press reports. “His eminence [Nasrallah] used to lead the battle and war from this location,” Wafiq Safa told a news conference on Sunday near the site where Nasrallah was killed. A series of Israeli airstrikes flattened several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on 27 September last year, killing Nasrallah.
Updated
