This blog is now closing. But do keep up to date on all of our coverage and developments in the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East.
The UK is facing accusations of double standards after formally submitting detailed legal arguments to the international court of justice in The Hague six weeks ago to support claims that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya ethnic group through its mass mistreatment of children and systematically depriving people of their homes and food.
The UK made its 21-page “declaration of intervention” jointly with five other countries, but it is not supporting South Africa as it prepares to try to convince the ICJ on Thursday that Israel is at risk of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
The UK submission on Myanmar argues there is a lower threshold for determining genocide if the damage has been inflicted on children as opposed to adults. The submission said other actions that could be defined as genocidal, if systematic, include forced displacement from homes, deprivation of medical services and the imposition of subsistence diets.
It argues that given declarations of intent to commit genocide are rare, the court’s test should not solely be explicit statements or numbers killed, but reasonable inference drawn from a pattern of conduct and factual evidence.
Israel will defend itself at the UN-derived ICJ insisting it has been seeking to protect its civilian population in an attempt to destroy Hamas but not the Palestinian people. It says its postwar plans for Gaza involving Palestinian-led governance is proof of a lack of genocidal intent.
Read the rest of Patrick Wintour’s report here:
Reged Ahmad here picking up the blog from Maya Yang
Let’s get a closer look at what the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has been saying on his regional tour.
He’s warned on Sunday that the war in Gaza could “metastasise” and threaten security in the wider Middle East, Agence France-Presse reports.
Blinken told a news conference in Doha alongside Qatar’s prime minister sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani:
This is a moment of profound tension in the region. This is a conflict that could easily metastasise, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering
Amid the deepening humanitarian crisis and mass displacement in Gaza, Blinken said civilians “must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow”.
“They cannot, they must not be pressed to leave Gaza,” he added, after two Israeli minsters suggested Palestinians should be encouraged to emigrate.
Blinken arrived in Qatar following stops in Jordan, Turkey and Greece. He went on to Abu Dhabi late Sunday, and on Monday is due to travel to Saudi Arabia.
Blinken will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula, said a US official on condition of anonymity.
For more on what Blinken had to say – read our full report:
Summary
Here is where the day stands:
The Qatari foreign ministry has released a statement following US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s meeting with Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Sunday. In the statement, the Qatari foreign ministry said that Blinken and al-Thani discussed ways to pressure for a ceasefire, lift restrictions imposed on humanitarian aid and discussed negotiations to release prisoners and the latest regional developments.
Some bakeries in Gaza have resumed functioning after over 50 days of closures due to shortages in fuel and electricity as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks across the strip. The World Food Programme announced the resumption of bakery functions in Gaza on Sunday, adding that it is providing wheat flour, salt, sugar and yeast so bakeries can start making bread again.
Beirut’s airport screens were hacked on Sunday with messages that showed anti-Hezbollah messages, Agence France-Presse reports Lebanon’s state news agency saying. According to Lebanese media reports, the messages urged Hezbollah to not “drag the country into war”. Another message said: “You’re going to blow up our airport by bringing in weapons. Let the airport be freed from the grip of the [Hezbollah] statelet,” AFP reports.
A Hezbollah rocket barrage on Saturday night damaged a strategic airbase in northern Israel, the country’s military confirmed. The Israeli Defense Forces declined to comment on the extent of the damage at Mt Meron airbase, which is less than 10km (6.21 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that he will urge Israel to do more to prevent Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, Reuters reports. Speaking at a news conference following his meeting with Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Blinken added that Palestinian civilians must be allowed to return home and not be forced to leave Gaza.
UNRWA’s Gaza deputy director Scott Anderson gave an update on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks which have killed nearly 23,000 Palestinians while leaving nearly 2 million survivors internally displaced. Speaking to CNN, Anderson said: “The levels of hunger are quite severe in Gaza. From Rafah to the north, it gets worse, the farther north you go.”
Crew from Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee have been forced to withdraw from Gaza’s al-Aqsa hospital due to Israeli bombardment. In a statement released on Sunday, MAP said: “As a result of increasing Israeli military activity around the Al Aqsa hospital, the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s Middle Area, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s Emergency Medical Team (EMT) has been forced to withdraw and cease activities.”
Israel has named its former supreme court president Aharon Barak as its addition to the international court of justice (ICJ) panel scheduled to hear a genocide allegation filed against it this week, an Israeli official said. Under the ICJ’s rules a state that does not have a judge of its nationality already on the bench can choose an ad hoc judge to sit in their case, Reuters reports.
Here are some images coming through the newswires from Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed at least nearly 23,000 Palestinians since 7 October while displaced survivors grapple with shortages in food, water, fuel and medical supplies:
Updated
The Qatari foreign ministry has released a statement following US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s meeting with Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Sunday.
In the statement, the Qatari foreign ministry said that Blinken and al-Thani discussed ways to pressure for a ceasefire, lift restrictions imposed on humanitarian aid and discussed negotiations to release prisoners and the latest regional developments.
It said that Qatar has warned of the “danger of expanding the cycle of violence in the region that is already suffering from constant conflicts”, adding that al-Thani “stressed the need for concerted regional and international efforts in order to achieve a ceasefire to stop bloodshed, protect civilians, deliver aid and limit the expansion of the conflict in the region”.
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Meets US Secretary of State#MOFAQatar pic.twitter.com/uAS6H1ZmIo
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Qatar (@MofaQatar_EN) January 7, 2024
Updated
World Food Programme: some bakeries functioning in Gaza after 50 days of closures
Some bakeries in Gaza have resumed functioning after over 50 days of closures due to shortages in fuel and electricity as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks across the strip.
The World Food Programme announced the resumption of bakery functions in Gaza on Sunday, adding that it is providing wheat flour, salt, sugar and yeast so bakeries can start making bread again.
Some bakeries in #Gaza are back up and running after over 50 days of closures.
— World Food Programme (@WFP) January 7, 2024
WFP is providing wheat flour, salt, sugar and yeast so bakeries can start making bread again, increasing accessibility and affordability for thousands of displaced families. pic.twitter.com/pfwHgBnqJc
In a statement on Friday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned that famine is “around the corner” as Palestinians displaced by Israeli attacks face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded”.
Three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) January 5, 2024
This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.
My statement:https://t.co/lkUlogG3Cm pic.twitter.com/kLFBZsKGLt
The Palestine Red Crescent Society transferred one wounded Palestinian and 17 Palestinians who were killed by Israel’s strike on two houses in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday.
It added that Israeli forces opened fire on several citizens near Salah al-Din street.
🚨Today, the Palestine Red Crescent teams transferred 18 casualties 🚑due to the occupation's shelling of two houses in Deir al-Balah, central #Gaza, and the Israeli forces opening fire on several citizens near Salah al-Din Street.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 7, 2024
📷Filmed by PRCS volunteer, Mohammed Suliman. pic.twitter.com/LvFSCBjsEB
Israel has said that its ongoing war in Gaza – which has already killed at least nearly 23,000 Palestinians since 7 October – could last a year, in turn prompting fears of a regional war.
The Guardian’s Jason Burke reports:
Israeli defence officials and former senior intelligence officers have said they expect fighting in Gaza to continue for at least a year, raising the prospect of thousands more civilian casualties, a deepening humanitarian crisis and a continuing grave threat to regional stability.
In a briefing, R Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the centre and south of Gaza, where military efforts are now focused, was “dense and saturated with terrorists” with “an underground city of branching tunnels”.
Three months would be needed to clear the area and fighting would “continue during the year 2024”, Hagari said.
He said scattered fighting was to be expected in northern Gaza, along with rockets sporadically being launched from there toward Israel, but that Hamas militants were “without a framework and without commanders”.
Maj Gen Amos Yadlin, a former head of military intelligence who is close to senior serving officers, compared the campaign to that led by a multinational coalition against Islamic State in 2017 that took nine months. But in Gaza the situation was much more challenging, he said
“It will take a year to dismantle Hamas,” he said. “It is not the six-day war [of 1967]. The timeline is long … [IS strongholds] Mosul and Raqqa were not fortified underground … and the coalition was 85 countries.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
Lebanese media: Beirut airport screens hacked with anti-Hezbollah messages
Beirut’s airport screens were hacked on Sunday with messages that showed anti-Hezbollah messages, Agence France-Presse reports Lebanon’s state news agency saying.
According to Lebanese media reports, the messages urged Hezbollah to not “drag the country into war.” Another message said, “You’re going to blow up our airport by bringing in weapons. Let the airport be freed from the grip of the [Hezbollah] statelet,” AFP reports.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said, “the cyber-attack on the departure and arrival screens at the airport disrupted the BHS baggage inspection system,” adding that authorities were working to restore the screens “and to maintain normal movement at the airport”.
AFP reports local media circulating images of the anti-Hezbollah messages which were shown onscreen alongside the emblem of the Christian “Soldiers of God” group.
AFP further reports that the group declined to comment after being contacted but that it later released a video statement in which it appeared to deny involvement in the cyber attack, calling it “the work of the devil”.
“Don’t get us into a war” #Beirut airport screens hacked with a message to #Hezbollah SH #Nasrallah #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/u0Ynq8PjyC
— Maha Yahya (@mahamyahya) January 7, 2024
Updated
A Hezbollah rocket barrage on Saturday night damaged a strategic airbase in northern Israel, the country’s military confirmed.
The Israeli Defence Forces declined to comment on the extent of the damage at Mt Meron airbase, which is less than 10km (6.21 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
Images released by Hezbollah, and published by Israeli media, appeared to show a fire on or beside a dome protecting sensitive equipment at the airbase.
The IDF said back-up systems meant the country’s air defence systems continued to function, and it was investigating the attack to prevent similar damage in the future.
Hezbollah said on Saturday it had targeted the base in response for the assassination of Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed by a missile strike in Beirut last week.
The successful attack on a sensitive military facility underlines Hezbollah’s military capacity.
Israelis security officials acknowledge the group would present a far more formidable enemy than Hamas if exchanges of cross-border fire, which have continued for three months, escalate into a full conflict.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that he will urge Israel to do more to prevent Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Speaking at a news conference following his meeting with Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Blinken added that Palestinian civilians must be allowed to return home and not be forced to leave Gaza.
Since 7 October, Israeli forces have killed nearly 23,000 Palestinians while displacing nearly 2 million survivors across the narrow strip.
Blinken added that there are “too many journalists being killed in Gaza” and called the killing of Al Jazeera’s journalist Wael Dahdouh’s son Hamza by an Israeli strike on Sunday an “unimaginable tragedy”.
Journalist Mustafa Thuraya was also killed in the attack when their vehicle was struck by an Israeli missile, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement released on Sunday, the network said:
“We urge the International Criminal Court, the governments and human rights organisations, and the United Nations to hold Israel accountable for its heinous crimes and demand an end to the targeting and killing of journalists.”
Updated
In a new interview with CBS, Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, spoke of the “the unnecessarily cumbersome process going through the Israeli screening process” of supplies, and “the so-called deconfliction process”.
Van Hollen, who recently visited the Rafah border crossing with Democratic senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said:
“There are two big things that are happening. One is the unnecessarily cumbersome process, going through the Israeli screening process, which I believe is the result of political decisions by the [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu coalition.
For example, many items that should be allowed to go into Gaza, water- sort of- filtration systems, other systems like that, were in a warehouse of rejected items that we visited. While we were there, we saw a truck turned away that had a big box from UNICEF… It was a unit to help with water desalinization. It was rejected. And when one item on a truck is rejected, the entire truck is rejected.
The other big issue is within Gaza, the so-called deconfliction process, which is just a fancy name for those who are providing humanitarian assistance to have the confidence that they can deliver it without being killed. And according to all the international NGOs that we talked about, who’ve been operating in conflict zones around the world, they’ve never seen a worse process for assuring the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
Updated
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, toured a World Food Programme warehouse that is providing aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the US state department said on Sunday.
“We are focused on maximizing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and the secretary commended the extraordinary work of WFP to get more food to more people, more effectively,” the US state department said.
In Amman, @SecBlinken toured a @WFP warehouse that is providing life-saving assistance to civilians in Gaza.
— Department of State (@StateDept) January 7, 2024
We are focused on maximizing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and the Secretary commended the extraordinary work of WFP to get more food to more people, more effectively. pic.twitter.com/DR4HNFMjDp
Blinken’s WFP visit comes as part of his week-long diplomacy tour across the region where he is set to meet with various leaders in efforts de-escalate the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.
Updated
UNRWA in 'life-saving' mode in Gaza as humanitarian crisis deteriorates
UNRWA’s Gaza deputy director Scott Anderson gave an update on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks which have killed nearly 23,000 Palestinians while leaving nearly 2 million survivors internally displaced.
Speaking to CNN, Anderson said:
“The levels of hunger are quite severe in Gaza. From Rafah to the north, it gets worse, the farther north you go. We’re making a concerted effort to try to import more food into Gaza and make sure it gets to people in need, including the 1.4 million people in the Rafah governorate.
And then secondly, the hospital network in Gaza has been severely damaged. It’s almost collapsed. Bed capacity is well over 300% for normal beds and well over 200% for ICU. And because of the security situation, organizations like Medecins Sans Frontier…have had to evacuate hospitals where they were providing support. So for us, it’s very much in life-saving mode and trying to make sure that we get things to people that they need.
He added:
“The largest concern I would have is, the pressure on people is extraordinary and I don’t know how much more they can bear before something explodes in the southern part of Gaza within the civilian population which would impact the UN and other international humanitarians’ ability to respond to the ongoing operation.”
“People are trying their best to live their lives and take care of their children”@ScottAnderGaza tells @CNN he doesn’t know how much more people in 📍#Gaza can bear in these dire conditions, without sufficient food, shelter, water and any basic amenities. pic.twitter.com/QMmfCacd2E
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) January 7, 2024
Crew from Medical Aid for Palestinians and the International Rescue Committee have been forced to withdraw from Gaza’s al-Aqsa hospital due to Israeli bombardment.
In a statement released on Sunday, MAP said:
“As a result of increasing Israeli military activity around the Al Aqsa hospital, the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s Middle Area, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s Emergency Medical Team (EMT) has been forced to withdraw and cease activities.
The Israeli military has dropped leaflets designating areas surrounding the hospital as a ‘red zone.’ Given the recent history of attacks on medical staff and facilities in Gaza, the team is unable to return. Many local health workers have also been unable to access the hospital to care for the hundreds of patients that remain due to the conflict.”
🚨As a result of increasing Israeli military activity around the Al Aqsa Hospital, the only functioning hospital in #Gaza’s Middle Area, MAP and @RESCUEorg’s Emergency Medical Team has been forced to withdraw and cease activities.https://t.co/nh91UBdNte pic.twitter.com/PUv056uisO
— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) January 7, 2024
Medical facilities across Gaza have been attacked and severely damaged as a result of Israel’s deadly bombardment across the strip since 7 October.
Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch have condemned Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system as “unlawful”. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has called Israel’s evacuation orders to Gaza’s hospitals a “death sentence for the sick and injured”.
Since 7 October, Israeli forces have killed nearly 23,000 Palestinians across Gaza while displacing nearly 2 million survivors.
Updated
Israel names former supreme court president Aharon Barak to ICJ panel for South Africa's genocide hearing
Israel has named its former supreme court president Aharon Barak as its addition to the international court of justice panel scheduled to hear a genocide allegation filed against it this week, an Israeli official said.
Reuters reports:
Under the ICJ’s rules a state that does not have a judge of its nationality already on the bench can choose an ad hoc judge to sit in their case.
Barak, a champion of supreme court activism, was a focus of opposition for members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, whose judicial reform push last year bitterly polarised the public.
South Africa, which accuses Israel of genocide in the Gaza war, has also appointed an ad hoc judge, its former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, South African media said.
Updated
Volunteers with the Palestine Red Crescent Society are treating Palestinians injured by Israeli strikes in torchlight amid fuel and electricity shortages.
In a video posted on X, PRCS volunteers can be seen treating an injured man in darkness as another volunteer holds up a torch at a medical point in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
Despite the power outage, our volunteers continue to work in the PRCS medical point in #Jabalia, northern #Gaza to save the lives of patients and the injured, amid a shortage of medical supplies and medications.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 7, 2024
📷Filmed by PRCS volunteer: Yusuf Khader, 6/1/2024… pic.twitter.com/ipM5n6kv7F
Updated
Summary
It’s not long after 5pm in Israel and Palestine. Here is a summary of where things are in the Middle East.
Two journalists have been killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza . Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouhof Al Jazeera and Mustafa Thuria, a video freelancer for AFP, died while travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics confirmed.
Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Khan Younis and the Rafah area near the Egyptian border have killed dozens of civilians, including babies and children. Families have been searching for survivors in the rubble.
At least 113 Palestinians have been killed and 250 others injured over the past 24 hours in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry said in a statement. Sunday’s tally brings the death toll in Gaza to 22,835 people killed and 58,416 injured since 7 October.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is continuing his tour of the region and is in Jordan. Jordan’s King Abdullah used their meeting to push Washington to support a ceasefire. In a statement issued by the palace, he warned of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Blinken also met the country’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, as part of a diplomatic push to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas igniting a wider war in the region.
The Israeli military says it has completed its mission to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure in northern Gaza and has scaled back its military operations there as the offensive moves south. R Adm Daniel Hagari said scattered fighting in northern Gaza was to be expected, along with rockets sporadically being launched from there toward Israel.
Israel’s cabinet will vote on a 2024 wartime budget on Thursday, its finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said, after ministers approved 9bn shekels (£1.9bn) in financial support for military reservists.
Nine people are confirmed to have died in the occupied West Bank, as more details emerge about an Israeli drone strike in Jenin. Seven Palestinians were targeted in an airstrike by the Israeli army in Jenin refugee camp and an Israeli police officer was killed during an operation, the Israeli army said. An Israeli civilian was also shot dead in another incident north of Ramallah, the army said.
Médecins Sans Frontières has evacuated its staff and families from Gaza’s middle area after evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces for neighbourhoods surrounding al-Aqsa hospital. “It is with heavy conscience that we have to evacuate while patients, hospital staff and many people seeking safety remain in the hospital premises,” Carolina Lopez, the emergency coordinator at the hospital, said.
Updated
Israel’s cabinet will vote on a 2024 wartime budget on Thursday, its finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Sunday, after ministers approved 9bn shekels (£1.9bn) in financial support for military reservists.
In a joint statement with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, Smotrich said: “The state of Israel puts the reservists and their families at the centre and this is the anchor of the budget for 2024 that we will deliver this weekend.”
Reuters gives some more context here:
Israel last year approved a two-year budget for 2023 and 2024, but the war against Hamas in Gaza has shaken government finances, requiring budget changes and additional spending.
In December parliament approved a special war budget for 2023 of nearly 30bn shekels to help fund the war and compensate those impacted by Hamas’s 7 October attacks that sparked the war.
Smotrich’s spokesman clarified that the budget vote would likely take place on Thursday but offered no further details.
The Finance Ministry has said that the war will likely cost at least another 50bn shekels in 2024 and result in a near-tripling of its budget deficit to around 6% of GDP, in a projection that fighting will last through February.
The Bank of Israel is urging the government to rein in spending unrelated to the war to balance out the additional defence and home-front expenses, saying looser fiscal policy could slow the pace of interest rate reductions.
Updated
This is video footage of the aftermath of the fatal Israeli airstrike on a car carrying two journalists in southern Gaza.
Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer for AFP, were killed when their car was struck driving between Rafah and Khan Younis.
Hamza’s father, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, holds his late son’s hand. His wife, two other children and a grandson were killed by a separate Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the war.
Updated
The death toll in the occupied West Bank on Sunday has risen to nine, AFP has reported, as more details emerge about an Israeli drone strike in the area this morning.
Seven Palestinians were targeted in an airstrike by the Israeli army in Jenin refugee camp and an Israeli police officer was killed during an operation, the Israeli army said. An Israeli civilian was also shot dead in another incident north of Ramallah, the army said.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported early on Sunday that a major deployment of Israeli forces was under way in Jenin, with six Palestinians, including four brothers, killed in an “Israeli drone strike”. They reported that a seventh died later from wounds.
AFP reports:
Suleiman Moussa, a resident of Jenin, said the “airstrike” followed sounds of gunfire.
“We came here and saw people thrown to the ground, some with heads cut off, some body parts. It was an unbelievable scene and we didn’t know what to do,” Moussa told AFP.
“Later people called the ambulance which came and took six martyrs and another person in a critical situation.”
Updated
Peter Beaumont in Beirut and Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem report on the return of the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to the Middle East for the fourth time in three months:
The US secretary of state has said his trip would be dominated by “not necessarily easy conversations” with allies and partners about what they are willing to do “to build durable peace and security”.
“We have an intense focus on preventing this conflict from spreading,” said Blinken in Jordan before visits to Israel, the West Bank, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Biden administration had warned Israel against a significant escalation in Lebanon, while also citing a secret US Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that Israel would struggle to fight conflicts on two fronts, in Gaza and Lebanon.
The paper also reported that early in the Gaza war, Joe Biden called Netanyahu up to three times a day to dissuade Israel from launching a war on Hezbollah simultaneously, amid fears “all hell would break loose” in the region.
You can read the full article here:
Updated
Israeli military offensive to move to southern Gaza
The claim that Hamas’s military infrastructure has been destroyed in northern Gaza means Israeli troops will now focus more on the south, AP reports:
R Adm Daniel Hagari, the military spokesman, said scattered fighting in northern Gaza was to be expected, along with rockets sporadically being launched from there toward Israel. He said Hamas no longer operates in an organised manner in the area, but that militants “without a framework and without commanders” are still present. The military has said it has killed more than 8,000 Hamas fighters, without presenting evidence.
Hagari said Israeli forces would act differently in the south than they had in northern Gaza, where heavy bombardment and ground combat leveled entire neighborhoods.
He said the urban refugee camps currently being targeted by the military are packed with gunmen and that “an underground city of sprawling tunnels” was discovered underneath Khan Younis. He said the military was “applying the lessons we learned,” but did not elaborate. Echoing Israeli political leaders, he said the fighting “will continue throughout 2024”.
Updated
Israel says it has completed mission to destroy Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza
The Israeli military says it has completed its mission to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure in northern Gaza and has scaled back its military operations there as the offensive moves south, AP reports:
In recent weeks, Israel had already been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory’s south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while being pounded by Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday again insisted the war would not end until the objectives of eliminating Hamas, getting Israel’s hostages returned and ensuring that Gaza won’t be a threat to Israel are met.
“I say this to both our enemies and our friend,” he told his cabinet. “This is our responsibility and this is the obligation of all of us.”
Updated
Summary
If you’re just joining us, here is a quick summary of the latest in the Middle East today.
Two journalists were killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza on Sunday morning. Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh, a journalist with Al Jazeera and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer for AFP, were killed while travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics confirmed.
Israeli air strikes on Sunday in the southern city of Khan Yunis and in the Rafah area near the Egyptian border, have killed dozens of civilians, including babies and children. Families have been searching for survivors in the rubble.
At least 113 Palestinians have been killed and 250 others injured over the past 24 hours in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. Sunday’s tally brings the death toll in Gaza to 22,835 Palestinians killed and 58,416 injured since 7 October, the statement added.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken continues his tour of the region and is in Jordan today. Jordan’s King Abdullah used their meeting to push America to support an Israeli ceasefire. In a statement issued by the palace, he warned of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Blinken also met the country’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, as part of a diplomatic push to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas from spreading elsewhere in the region.
Six people were killed early on Sunday during an Israeli airstrike in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Médecins Sans Frontières has evacuated its staff and families from Gaza’s middle area following evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces for neighbourhoods surrounding al-Aqsa hospital. “It is with heavy conscience that we have to evacuate while patients, hospital staff and many people seeking safety remain in the hospital premises,” Carolina Lopez, the emergency coordinator at al-Aqsa hospital, said.
The US is working alongside its allies to see what can be done to protect civilians in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war in the strip, said Blinken on Saturday, Reuters reports. Blinken’s comments come as Israeli forces have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians across the strip since 7 October.
Updated
Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, has spoken about the death of his son, Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh. Hamza was killed this morning in an Israeli airstrike alongside Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer for AFP, when their car was hit in southern Gaza.
Wael Al-Dahdouh said he was saying goodbye to his son “just like droves of people here do every day, every hour and every second,” Al Jazeera reported.
“I, just like all of these people, am bidding farewell today … May Allah give us strength to carry on for the sake of Hamza and for the sake of all the martyrs,” he said.
He added: “This is the road that we have chosen consciously. We have offered much, we have offered a lot of blood because this is our destiny. We shall continue. Hamza was not part of me. He was all of me.”
Wael Al-Dahdouh’s wife and two children were killed by a separate Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the war.
Updated
At least 113 Palestinians have been killed and 250 others injured over the past 24 hours in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday, Reuters reports.
Sunday’s tally brings the death toll in Gaza to 22,835 Palestinians killed and 58,416 injured since 7 October, the statement added.
Updated
At least 64 people have been killed overnight and early on Sunday in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, according to its Hamas-run health ministry. The death toll includes babies and children.
AFP reports:
Israeli bombardment [claimed] civilian lives in the southern city of Khan Yunis and in the Rafah area near the Egyptian border, where many of the territory’s displaced people have sought refuge, AFP correspondents reported.
Relatives were mourning the dead at Khan Yunis’ European hospital, among them Mohamed Awad, who wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy and listed other family members killed.
“My brother, his wife, his children, his relatives and the brothers of his wife - there are more than 20 martyrs,” he said.
The Israeli army - which said on Saturday it had “dismantled” Hamas’s military leadership in northern Gaza - reported that its forces had killed more “terrorists” in central Gaza, including in a drone strike in the Bureij refugee camp, a built-up urban area.
Updated
Journalists among those killed in Israeli strikes in southern Gaza
Two journalists have been killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza this morning. Hamza Wael Dahdouh, a journalist with Al Jazeera and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer for AFP, were killed while travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics confirmed to AFP. Reports suggest the car was hit in the region between Rafah and western Khan Younis.
Hamza Wael Dahdouh’s father, Wael Al-Dahdouh, is Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief and was also recently wounded in a strike. His wife and two children were killed by a separate Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the war.
At least 77 journalists and media workers were killed between 7 October, when the war started, and 31 December, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
There have been major civilian casualties from strikes on the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis this morning. Health officials in Nasser hospital said on Sunday that Israeli strikes on houses in the town had killed 50 people, with many images coming through this morning of babies and children who have been killed.
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Palestinians have been searching for survivors amid the rubble in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, on Sunday after an Israeli airstrike.
Haitham Imad, a photographer for EPA, has been taking pictures this morning of the Brais family as they hunt for missing people among destroyed buildings.
It is not yet clear how many have died in the strike but other images filed this morning show multiple bodies being taken for burial from the mortuary at Nasser hospital, including babies.
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Jordan’s King Abdullah used his meeting with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to push for an Israeli ceasefire. In a statement issued by the palace, he warned of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
In a sign that the talks had done little to water down Jordan’s position on the conflict, the monarch told Blinken that Washington had a major role to play to put pressure on Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Blinken is in Jordan as part of his week-long tour of the region. He also met the foreign minister and visited a World Food Program warehouse where trucks are being packed with aid to be delivered to Gaza.
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Peter Beaumont is in Beirut, where the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, has prompted fears that the war could spill over into Lebanon. You can read full report here, which includes powerful reportage from the city.
This is an extract of his analysis of the current fears for conflict spreading further in the region:
[fear of an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel] has dominated debate in Lebanon and the wider region in the days since Arouri’s killing, even as a tenuous normality has returned to Beirut’s sprawling southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, in wake of the attack. While streets that emptied in the immediate aftermath of the strike have become busy again, anxiety lingers. The mood was summed up by Lebanon’s outgoing prime minister, Najib Mikati, who on Friday talked of “the danger of attempts to drag Lebanon into a regional war … with serious consequences, particularly for Lebanon and neighbouring countries”.On Saturday morning, as Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel, saying the barrage was only its first response to Arouri’s killing, Mikati’s warning took on an added resonance. The cross-border exchanges have highlighted the fact that, three months on, Israel’s war against Hamas is starting to bleed ever wider across the region.
Since 8 October, limited exchanges across the border – including airstrikes and drone attacks – have become a daily occurrence between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as other factions in Lebanon, inflicting casualties on both sides. Iran-backed groups in Iraq have stepped up attacks on US military bases, while Yemen’s Houthis – who, like Hamas and Hezbollah, have long enjoyed Iranian support – have launched long-range drones and threatened commercial shipping around key routes in the Red Sea. Last week, Islamic State claimed responsibility for two blasts which ripped through a crowd in southern Iran, killing at least 84 people, while a US airstrike in Baghdad killed the commander of an Iranian-backed Shia militia.
But it has been in Lebanon, above all, where the situation has become most dangerous, undermining a fragile understanding between Hezbollah and Israel that has persisted since the hugely destructive second Lebanon war in 2006.
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met King Abdullah II of Jordan and the country’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Aman on Sunday morning as part of a diplomatic push to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas from spreading elsewhere in the region.
Blinken’s position is that detailed plans for the post-conflict future of the territory need to be worked on, but Jordan and other Arab countries have so far been highly critical of Israel’s actions and argue that no long-term planning can happen until there is a ceasefire. Blinken is pushing Israel to adjust its military operations to reduce civilian casualties while boosting the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza.
Blinken also toured a World Food Program warehouse in the Jordanian capital where trucks are being packed with aid to be delivered to Gaza.
After talks on Saturday with Turkish and Greek leaders Blinken said he wanted to prevent “an endless cycle of violence” as part of his week-long visit aimed at calming tensions in the region.
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The Israeli military has signalled a shift away from its focus in northern Gaza, saying it has finished dismantling Hamas’ military infrastructure there.
Its spokesman, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said on Saturday night its forces would “continue to deepen the achievement” there, AP reported, adding that they would strengthen defences along the Israel-Gaza border fence and focus on the central and southern parts of the territory.
It comes as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is on an official visit to the region. The US has repeatedly urged Israel to wind down its air and ground offensive in Gaza and focus on more targeted attacks against Hamas leaders, to prevent harm to Palestinian civilians.
Blinken is expected to put pressure on Israel to protect civilians in Gaza when he lands on Tuesday. In recent weeks, Israel had already been scaling back its attacks on northern Gaza and pushing south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being pushed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while Israeli airstrikes continue.
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More detail has come in on this morning’s airstrike in the occupied West Bank. The strike killed six Palestinians in Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said, while Israel said that one of its soldiers had been killed.
Here’s some more from Reuters, who spoke to people on the ground this morning:
Israel said its aircraft fired on Palestinian militants who had attacked troops in the city of Jenin, while the Palestinian ministry said the strike targeted people who had gathered at the site, and eyewitnesses said the attack happened as Israeli forces were withdrawing.
“One of the martyrs was decapitated,” Mujahid Nazzal, a Palestinian doctor and first responder at the scene, told Reuters.
“It seemed the missile directly hit him. Others had their limbs severed. A seventh person was seriously injured and taken by the ambulance.”
Another witness, Ahmed Suleiman, said, “The air strike happened at the entrance of Jenin in an area called Martyr’s Triangle. You can see the effects of the missile. Blood and body parts scattered everywhere.”
Four of those killed were brothers, according to family members.
An Israeli border police officer was killed and others wounded when their vehicle was hit by an explosive device during operations in Jenin, the Israeli military and police said.
A helicopter helped rescue them with covering fire, the military said, adding that an aircraft fired at a “terrorist squad that hurled explosives and endangered our forces, a number of terrorists were killed.”
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Six dead in Israeli air strike on West Bank city of Jenin - Palestinian officials
Six people were killed early on Sunday during an Israeli airstrike in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
“An Israeli occupation bombardment on a group of citizens killed six people in Jenin,” said the Palestinian Authority-run Ministry of Health, which is based in the West Bank.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported early Sunday that a major deployment of Israeli forces was under way in Jenin.
Violence has intensified in the West Bank since Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza on 7 October. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the conflict broke out, according to the United Nations Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
