By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, The Muslim News):
GAZA
At least 46 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli indiscriminate attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll of Palestinians killed since last year to 44,976, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Sunday.
A ministry statement added that some 106,759 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 46 people and injured 135 others in five massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Three Palestinians were killed, including a cameraman for the Qatari television Al Jazeera, in an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, medics said.
The Doha-based television said that its cameraman Ahmad Louh [Allouh] was killed while covering Israeli attacks in central Gaza.
Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza confirmed that Louh lost his life in a strike targeting a civil defense point in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Two civil defense members were also killed in the attack, according to Zaki Imad Al-Din, a member of the Civil Defense Agency.
The cameraman’s death brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since last year to 196, according to Gaza’s government media office.
The attack occurred as Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 28 Palestinians on Sunday, medics said. Allouh is the third journalist killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours.
Al Jazeera Arabic reported that Allouh was working while killed, wearing a press vest and helmet. He was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s city of Deir el-Balah.
Allouh had been covering Israel’s war on Gaza when it first began in October 2023, embedded with the Strip’s civil defence teams, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said.
“It’s another heartbreaking day for Palestinians, civil defence teams, journalists. We [have been] wondering, how many times are we going to continue reporting on the killing[s] of our colleagues and beloved ones?” Khoudary said, reporting from Deir el-Balah.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said earlier on Sunday that Palestinian journalist Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli air attack that targeted their home in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, late on Saturday.
Earlier on Saturday, Al Mashhad Media said its journalist Mohammed Balousha was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.
Also on Sunday, an airstrike hit people protecting aid trucks west of Gaza City, and medics said several were killed or wounded but exact figures were unavailable as of yet.
Residents also said at least 11 people were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City. Nine were killed in the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia camp when clusters of houses were bombed or set ablaze, and two were killed by drone fire in Rafah.
Israeli forces also blew up multiple residential buildings in the Abu Qamar area of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
At least four Palestinians were killed on Sunday evening in an Israeli bombing east of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
WAFA correspondent said that Israeli aircraft raided the village of Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Yunis, which led to the killing of four Palestinians and the injury of others.
Israeli fighter jets also hit a house in al-Nafaq neighborhood in northern Gaza, leaving five people dead and injuring several others, a medical source said.
Three more people were killed and several injured in another strike on a Palestinian home in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, he added.
The bodies of four people were recovered after an Israeli strike on another house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, taking the death toll in the attack to seven, another source said.
In northern Gaza, a husband, wife, and two daughters were killed in Israeli artillery shelling in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, he added.
Eight people were also injured in an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced civilians in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the source said.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian medic warned Sunday of an “environmental catastrophe” in northern Gaza as corpses piled up across the area amid a deadly Israeli offensive.
“There are large numbers of dead bodies in the streets that can’t be reached,” Mohammad Abu Afsh, the head of Gaza-based Medical Relief Organization, an NGO, said in a statement.
“Stray dogs and cats are devouring the piled-up bodies, which portends a serious environmental disaster,” he warned.
WEST BANK
The Israeli army carried out raids late Saturday across the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.
Military forces raided Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron using tear gas against Palestinians, it said
In Ramallah’s Barka village, soldiers stormed a house and sealed off the village’s entrances and exits.
Israeli illegal settlers, meanwhile, attacked Palestinian-owned vehicles in Ramallah and assaulted a Palestinian in Salfit, injuring the victim, who was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian teenager was shot and injured on Sunday evening during an Israeli military incursion into the Balata refugee camp east of Nablus, according to local and security sources.
Sources told WAFA that an Israeli military force, accompanied by a bulldozer, stormed Nablus through the Beit Furik military checkpoint before raiding the Balata camp, amid the heavy firing of live bullets. According to sources, loud explosions were heard in the area during the raid.
During the raid, a 16-year-old boy was struck in the head with bullet shrapnel and was immediately rushed to the hospital for treatment.
Israeli occupation forces Sunday began constructing a new colonial road south of Hebron, uprooting trees and razing Palestinian land in the process, according to local sources.
Mohammad Amro, head of the Joint Services Council, stated that Israeli bulldozers started leveling land near the military tower at the entrance of Deir Razih village. The road is being built to serve Israeli colonists in the area.
Amro also reported that soldiers assaulted a Palestinian resident and damaged a vehicle during the operation.
Israeli occupation forces Sunday night sealed off a vital road in the Old City of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, using barbed wire to block access, according to local sources.
Activist Aref Jaber reported that Israeli forces blocked the entrance to Ein Hamra, the only road serving residents of the a-Salaymeh and Jaber neighborhoods, as well as access to the Ibrahimi Mosque.
With the closure of this road, the occupation is further isolating neighborhoods in the Old City, tightening its control and deepening the division between Palestinian communities in the area.
Israeli occupation forces Sunday night seized two road construction machinery in the village of al-Masara, south of Bethlehem, according to a local official.
Hassan Breijieh, a researcher in colonial and wall affairs, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers stormed the village and confiscated a road roller and a water tanker.
The machinery was being used to pave an internal road that falls within the village’s designated structural plan.
Israeli forces closed several key entrances to Bethlehem governorate on Sunday evening, further restricting movement for Palestinian residents.
According to local security sources, the Israeli military sealed off the southern entrance to the town of Al-Khadr, known as al-Nashash, the entrance of the Aish Ghrab area east of Beit Sahour and the western entrance to the city of Beit Jala.
Israeli forces Sunday stormed the town of Beit Liqya, northwest of Ramallah, and confiscated several vehicles belonging to Palestinian residents, according to security sources.
Sources said that the raid targeted multiple homes in the town, during which several vehicles were seized.
Israeli forces also detained two brothers, after raiding and searching their homes.
Israeli forces Sunday seized around 60 dunums of land belonging to Palestinian residents in the southern part of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, according to local sources.
Ibrahim al-Tal, a local resident, reported that Israelis took control of around 60 dunums of land owned by his three sons. The land is located in the al-Tayaran area near an illegal colony built on Palestinian land in the town of Ad-Dhahiriya, south of Hebron.
Additionally, Israeli soldiers forced farmers out of their land in the southern Hebron area and prevented them from cultivating the land.
Naif al-Basaita, another resident, said that the soldiers forced the farmers out of their lands and prevented them from plowing and planting the land, under the pretext the land was “state property.”
He added that access to the land is only permitted with special Israeli-issued permits. The land, estimated at 250 dunums, belongs to several families in the area.
The al-Tasyran area has been facing a systematic and unprecedented campaign, allowing colonists to seize Palestinian land for colonial expansion, including the creation of new outposts and the expansion of the nearby colony.
SYRIA
Israel has occupied three new villages in southern Syria as Tel Aviv deepened its military incursion into the country following the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Israeli army forces seized Jamlah in Daraa province and the villages of Mazraat Beit Jinn and Maghar al-Mir in the Damascus countryside, according to Anadolu reporters.
The Israeli government on Sunday unanimously approved a plan proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enhance Israeli settlement building in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, with a budget exceeding 40 million shekels ($11.13 million).
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said that the government unanimously approved the plan to “encourage demographic growth in Golan settlements and Katzrin, with a total cost exceeding 40 million shekels.”
The Golan Heights is Syrian territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war.
Katzrin, or Qasrin, is a Syrian village occupied by Israel that was part of Syria’s Quneitra province in the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu’s office explained that the plan was approved “in light of the war and the new front with Syria, and out of a desire to double the population of the Golan.”
“This decision strengthens the Golan settlements and includes measures such as education, renewable energy, establishing a student village, and an organizational development plan to support the Golan Regional Council in accommodating new residents,” it added.
Currently, approximately 50,000 people live in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, half of whom are Israeli illegal settlers, while the other half consists of Druze, Alawites, and others, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
There are 33 Jewish illegal settlements in the occupied Golan, incorporated into what is called the Golan Regional Council.
Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on Dec. 8 after anti-regime groups seized control of Damascus. The takeover came after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters captured key cities across the
YEMEN
Yemeni Houthi [Ansarallah] group reported fresh US-British airstrikes on Sunday targeting Al Hudaydah province in western Yemen.
In a brief statement, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah television said that attacks targeted the At-Tuhayta district in the province.
The broadcaster, however, did not give details about casualties or material damage from the strikes.
There was no immediate comment from the US or the UK on the report.
Al Hudaydah is the most targeted province in Yemen by US and British airstrikes. The province houses an international airport and three vital ports, in addition to a long coastal strip.
The fresh strikes followed a pause in US-UK airstrikes in Yemen since Nov. 28.
[Photo: Palestinian relatives mourn for their near and dear ones who were killed by Israeli strikes on al-Mawasi area in Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 15, 2024. The bodies of those who lost their lives in the attack were received by their families from Nasser Hospital in the city for funeral procedures. Photojournalist: Abed Rahim Khatib/AA]
