Closing summary
The UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) said that 14,500 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on the territory last October. “One child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short. Killing children cannot be justified,” the agency wrote in a post on X.
At least 45,338 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,764 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement issued earlier today.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is said to have reached an agreement with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defence ministry.
Israel has instructed its diplomatic missions in Europe to try to get the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen designated as a terrorist organisation.
Al Jazeera is reporting that at least 20 patients and staff at the Kamal Adwan hospital in in northern Beit Lahiya were injured after the Israeli army detonated remote-controlled explosives in the health facility. Gaza’s health ministry was quoted as saying that Israeli bombing is targeting all the departments of the hospital “around the clock without stopping”. Munir Al-Bursh, director of Gaza’s health ministry, said the Israeli army had ordered officials at the Indonesian hospital to evacuate it on Monday, before storming it in the early hours of Tuesday and forcing those inside to leave.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that there is “some progress” in efforts to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza.
We are closing this blog now. Thanks for following along. You can find all of our latest Middle East coverage here.
Updated
Mona Chalabi is data editor at Guardian US
Worldwide, 104 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024 – and more than half of them were in Palestine.
Journalists there have faced death more than their colleagues in any other country, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
Research by the IFJ, a non-partisan organization representing the rights of media workers, found that 55 journalists were killed in Palestine this year, compared with 49 in the rest of the world. Their figures do not include journalists who have been arrested (75 Palestinian journalists have been imprisoned since October 2023, and just 30 of them have been released) nor does it include those who are injured (approximately 49) or missing (at least two).
Since Israel has prohibited the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, only Palestinians are able to report on violence and human rights abuses committed in the territory.
For those Palestinian journalists who have not been killed by the Israeli military, working conditions are still near-impossible. Over 90% said they had lost equipment essential for reporting and that they were without essential protective gear such as helmets according to a survey by ARIJ, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism.
You can read the full story here:
Syrian ex-rebel factions agree to merge under defence ministry
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) has reached an agreement on with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defence ministry, the new administration has said.
The country’s prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, had said last week that the ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Bashar al-Assad’s army. Assad was a member of the Alawite minority who led a secular dictatorship.
Since taking Damascus earlier this month, Jolani and his Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have pledged to protect religious minorities and denied having plans to impose strict Islamic rule. Jolani has also said “general exhaustion” in Syria meant it did not want another war.
Syria’s historic ethnic and religious minorities include Muslim Kurds and Shi’ites - who feared during the civil war that any future Sunni Islamist rule would imperil their way of life - as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.
What is the current state of the Gaza hostage and ceasefire talks?
After months of deadlock, Israel and Hamas appear to be moving closer toward a ceasefire to end Israel’s 14-month-old war on Gaza. As we mentioned in the opening summary, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that there is “some progress” in efforts to reach a deal.
Last week, officials also expressed optimism, saying that a deal may be close for a phased release of the surviving hostages in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Here is an extract from a report filed last Tuesday from my colleague Peter Beaumont:
Hamas said in a statement that a deal was possible if Israel stopped setting new conditions. A Palestinian official close to the mediation efforts said negotiations were serious, with discussions under way about every word.
Reinforcing the sense of optimism the White House spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview with Fox News: “We believe – and the Israelis have said this – that we’re getting closer, and no doubt about it, we believe that, but we also are cautious in our optimism.”
He added, however: “We’ve been in this position before where we weren’t able to get it over the finish line.”
A report in the Washington Post on Tuesday suggested that Hamas had softened its demands for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip as a precondition of a deal…
On Monday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said that he expected the deal to get widespread support. “There will be a sweeping majority in the security cabinet and the cabinet for the emerging hostage deal.”
Katz has said Israel would maintain security control over Gaza after a ceasefire.
Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. The Israeli military said the man was killed in a “counter-terrorism” operation that resulted in 18 arrests, Reuters reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa said that Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew. We have not yet been able to independently verify any of this information. Meanwhile, medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate Israeli airstrikes across the territory today.
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza reaches 45,338, says health ministry
At least 45,338 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,764 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
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.
Updated
Israeli forces have detained at least 15 Palestinian people across the occupied West Bank since last night, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and the Palestinian Authority Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs said.
According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, the detentions were carried out in Nablus, Hebron, Tubas, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Salfit and Ramallah.
These detentions were accompanied by house demolitions and the detention of several individuals without charge, Wafa reported.
It is estimated that over 12,100 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.
They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
US group Hostage Aid Worldwide said this morning that it believes US freelance journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012, is still alive, though it did not offer concrete information on his whereabouts.
“We have data that Austin is alive till January 2024, but the president of the US said in August that he is alive, and we are sure that he is alive today,” Hostage Aid Worldwide’s Nizar Zakka said.
“We are trying to be as transparent as possible and to share as much information as possible.”
At a press conference in Damascus, Zakka showed an image he said indicated the locations where Tice had been held from November 2017 to February 2024. Tice was working for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets in Syria.
Since the recent collapse of Assad’s regime, thousands of prisoners have been freed, but Tice’s whereabouts have remained unknown. In light of Assad’s ousting, the White House declared the recovery of Tice, 43, a “top priority”.
Updated
One child gets killed every hour in Gaza, Unrwa says
Quoting Unicef figures, the UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) has said that 14,500 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on the territory last October.
In a post on X, Unrwa, which has been banned from operating within Israel and occupied East Jerusalem by the Israeli parliament, wrote:
One child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short. Killing children cannot be justified. Those who survive are scarred physically and emotionally.
Deprived of learning, boys & girls in Gaza sift through the rubble. The clock is ticking for these children. They are losing their lives, their futures & mostly their hope.
The estimated death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza (in early December this year) was more than 44,000 and a recent assessment by the UN Human Rights Office found that 44% of the fatalities it was able to verify were children. About 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, approximately 90% of the territory’s total population, have been displaced, many several times. Half of that number are children who have lost their home and been forced to flee their neighbourhoods.
Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, has released figures on the Syrians who have settled in Turkey based on their cities of origin. More than half of Turkey’s Syrian refugee population hails from the country’s north, specifically Idlib—which was ruled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s so-called Salvation government—and the city of Aleppo, the country’s largest. According to the figures, around 4% of Turkey’s Syrian population comes from the capital Damascus.
Aleppo: 1.2m
Idlib: 187, 498
Deir ez-Zor: 106,192
Hama: 102,758
İçişleri Bakanımız Sn. @AliYerlikaya, Ülkemizde geçici koruma altında bulunan Suriyelilerin geldikleri bölgeleri ve sayılarını açıkladı:
— Göç İdaresi Başkanlığı (@Gocidaresi) December 24, 2024
📌Halep: 1.239.845
📌İdlip: 187.498
📌Deyrizor: 106.192
📌Hama: 102.758
📌Haseke: 96.502 pic.twitter.com/uyVtd43Z4a
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Israel asks diplomats to try to get the Houthi rebels designated as a terrorist group
Israel has instructed its diplomatic missions in Europe to try to get the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen designated as a terrorist organisation.
The Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.
The strikes on shipping by the Houthis, who have also launched missiles at Israel, have prompted retaliatory strikes by the US and Britain.
“The Houthis pose a threat not only to Israel but also to the region and the entire world. The first and most basic thing to do is to designate them as a terrorist organization,” Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said in a statement.
The US, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Israel currently designate the Houthis terrorists, Sa’ar said.
Updated
More than 25,000 Syrians have returned home from Turkey since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown earlier this month, Turkey’s interior minister has said.
Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled the civil war that broke out in 2011, and whose presence has been an issue for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. The majority of the Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey have been living in Istanbul, Gaziantep or Sanliurfa.
“The number of people returning to Syria in the last 15 days has exceeded 25,000,” Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency.
Yerlikaya said a migration office would be established in the Turkish embassy and consulate in Damascus and Aleppo so that the records of returning Syrians could be kept. Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus, the Syrian capital, nearly a week after Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara.
Updated
Israeli bombing is targeting Kamal Adwan hospital 'around the clock without stopping', Gaza's health ministry says
We mentioned in the opening summary that there are reports of the Israeli military attacking barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza.
Al Jazeera is reporting that at least 20 patients and staff at the Kamal Adwan hospital in in northern Beit Lahiya were injured after the Israeli army detonated remote-controlled explosives in the health facility. Gaza’s health ministry was quoted as saying that Israeli bombing is targeting all the departments of the hospital “around the clock without stopping”. We have not yet been able to independently verify this information.
Israel on Sunday reportedly ordered the closure and evacuation of the hospital, though the IDF later denied conveying any evacuation warnings to the facility this weekend. The head of the hospital, Husam Abu Safiya, told Reuters that obeying the order to shut down was “next to impossible” because there were not enough ambulances to get patients out.
He said:
We currently have nearly 400 civilians inside the hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators. We cannot evacuate these patients safely without assistance, equipment, and time.
We are sending this message under heavy bombardment and direct targeting of the fuel tanks, which if hit will cause a large explosion and mass casualties of the civilians inside.
Gaza’s health ministry has said the three main hospitals in northern Gaza – of which Kamal Adwan is one – are barely functioning and have been under repeated attack since Israel sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and nearby Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in October.
Gaza’s health ministry was quoted by Al Jazeera on Tuesday as saying the Israeli army is “forcing the wounded and patients to evacuate the Indonesian hospital”. It said Israeli “bombing is targeting all the departments of the Kamal Adwan hospital and its surroundings around the clock without stopping”.
“Shrapnel is scattered inside the hospital yard, causing terrifying sounds and serious damage,” the ministry said in a statement. “We appeal to all international and UN institutions and concerned parties to urgently intervene to protect the health system in the Gaza Strip,” it added.
Israeli PM says there is ‘some progress’ being made on Gaza ceasefire deal
Welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and developments in the Middle East more widely.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that there is “some progress” in efforts to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza.
Of the roughly 250 people who were taken hostage in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel last October, in which about 1,200 people were killed, around 100 are still inside the Gaza Strip, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Speaking in the Knesset – Israel’s parliament – Netanyahu said: “We are taking significant actions through all channels to return our loved ones. I would like to tell you cautiously that there is some progress.”
Netanyahu said he could not reveal details of what was being done to secure the return of hostages. He claimed the main reasons for the progress were the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israel’s military actions against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who had been firing rockets into Israel from neighboring Lebanon in support of Hamas.
“Hamas hoped that Iran and Hezbollah would come to its aid but they are busy licking the wounds from the blows we inflicted on them,” he said, adding: “There is progress. I don’t know how long it will take.”
As my colleague Peter Beaumont notes in this story, sticking points that torpedoed previous rounds of ceasefire talks, including the presence of Israel troops in the so-called Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors inside Gaza, appear to have been sidelined for now, although a continuing issue is understood to be the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes in the strip’s north.
In other developments:
Israeli forces have been attacking health facilities in northern Gaza, as it besieges and “directly targets” the Indonesian hospital, Kamal Adwan hospital, and al-Awda hospital in north Gaza over the past hours, according to the territory’s health ministry. Munir Al-Bursh, director of Gaza’s health ministry, said the Israeli army had ordered officials at the Indonesian hospital to evacuate it on Monday, before storming it in the early hours of Tuesday and forcing those inside to leave.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has confirmed that the IDF assassinated former Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year, and warned that the military would also “decapitate” the leadership of Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon on Monday said it has observed recent “concerning actions” by the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, including the destruction of residential areas and road blockages.
The Israeli military says three soldiers were killed yesterday in combat in northern Gaza. The military did not provide details of the circumstances.
A Qatari delegation visited the Syrian capital on Monday for the first time in more than a decade and met with the country’s top insurgent commander, who said strategic cooperation between Damascus and Doha will begin soon.
The Pentagon says US Central Command forces have killed two operatives for the Islamic State militant group in a airstrike in Syria.
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