By Abdul Adil
(AA, Wafa, Al Jazeera, NNA, The Muslim News):
LEBANON
One Lebanese was killed on Saturday in an Israeli forces drone strike targeting his motorcycle in Deir Siryan in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) confirmed the Israeli attack and reported that the bike rider was killed.
The incident occurred despite a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, which went into effect on Nov. 27 in the hopes of ending 14 months of fighting between Israel’s army and Hezbollah.
However, the peace agreement brokered by the US and France proved fragile, as Israeli forces attacked southern Lebanon on the same day shortly after the agreement was signed, with authorities in Beirut confirming 156 cease-fire violations since then.
Under the cease-fire terms, Israel is required to withdraw its forces south of the Blue Line—a de facto border—in phases, while the Lebanese army is to deploy in southern Lebanon within 60 days.
The US and France are responsible for overseeing the agreement’s implementation, but details on enforcement mechanisms are unclear.
Rescue teams have retrieved four more dead bodies from the rubble of a damaged residential building in the Basta neighbourhood of Beirut, following an Israeli raid prior to the ceasefire, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reports, not specifying when the strike took place.
Lebanon’s Civil Defence is also searching for missing persons in Ghobeiry, in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
In Lebanon, at least 4,047 people have been killed and 16,638 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began.
GAZA
At least 52 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 44,664, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Saturday.
A ministry statement added that some 105,976 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 52 people and injured 142 others in four 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.
Eighteen Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed and others injured on Saturday in Israeli airstrikes across various parts of besieged Gaza.
According to medical sources, an airstrike near the Ahmad Shawqi School in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood killed three people and injured several others.
Eight more Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the Al-Karama area, northwest of Gaza City, according to medical sources.
In northern Gaza, a young girl was killed in an airstrike on Beit Lahia, the same sources confirmed.
Eyewitnesses reported heavy artillery and aerial bombardment targeting the vicinity of Kuwait Square in southeastern Gaza City and residential areas in Beit Lahia.
They added that the Israeli army carried out building demolitions in Beit Lahia and the Jabalia refugee camp, with massive explosions shaking the area.
Six Palestinians were also killed by Israeli airstrikes on the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to medical sources.
East of Khan Younis, tanks and artillery reportedly fired indiscriminately, while in central Gaza, Israeli warplanes bombarded areas southeast of the Maghazi refugee camp.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza on Saturday released a video showing an Israeli airstrike targeting an ambulance stationed near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
The footage, shared by the Health Ministry, reveals intense gunfire from Israeli forces hitting the ambulance. The video also shows the vehicle’s driver inside at the time of the assault.
The Ministry stated that the attack took place on Friday when Israeli forces opened heavy fire on the ambulance positioned near the hospital.
Ambulance use in northern Gaza has become increasingly rare amid ongoing attacks.
Most ambulances are now inoperable due to repeated strikes and acute fuel shortages, leaving only one or two operational vehicles near the hospital.
At least 26 people, including six children and five women, have been killed in Israeli strikes on central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, the Wafa news agency reports.
Gaza’s civil defence said the Indonesian Hospital came under Israeli attack in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.
Elsewhere in the city, at least 29 people were reported killed in a series of air strikes on and near the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Medical sources tell our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that at least 39 have been killed since the early hours of this morning in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
At least 26 of that number, as we reported earlier, were killed in Israel’s bombing of homes in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.
At least 60 were wounded in those attacks.
In Rafah, southern Gaza, two Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a motorcycle near the Abu Halawa intersection east of the city.
A civilian was also killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a vehicle in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, while another person lost his life when an Israeli missile hit a residential apartment in the western part of the city.
In Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike targeted a group of people in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, resulting in one young man killed and several others wounded. A child later succumbed to critical injuries sustained in an earlier attack near al-Shifa Tower in western Gaza City.
Regarding the situation in the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Israeli tanks have pulled back slightly, positioning themselves around 500 meters from the facility, according to WAFA correspondent. However, sniper fire from elevated positions still poses a deadly risk for anyone attempting to move in the area.
Meanwhile, both casualties and wounded remain stranded in the area, unable to be reached by emergency teams due to the dangerous conditions. Reports also indicate further shelling on a home belonging to the al-Mabhouh family, with additional casualties feared.
Eight civilians were killed on Saturday in the Israeli bombing of the Al-Karama area, northwest of Gaza City.
WEST BANK
Israeli illegal settlers vandalised an olive grove and a water well in the occupied West Bank village of Yasuf, east of the city of Salfit, the Wafa news agency reports.
Wael Abu Madi, head of Yasuf Village Council, said that settlers chopped down 15 olive trees at the Hariqat ash-Shaer, northeast of the village, as well as a water well at the Hariqat ar-Razeq locality, east of the village.
According to the statistics of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Israeli settlers carried out 310 attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in November 2024.
Settlers violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.
Settlers violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, and attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.
Over 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers are living in colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, two Palestinians were injured on Saturday evening after being assaulted by Israeli settlers in the town of At-Taybah, east of Ramallah, according to medical sources.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that they provided medical assistance to the two young men, who were subsequently transported to a nearby hospital for further treatment.
Earlier in the day, another Palestinian was injured and his vehicle damaged in a separate incident involving settlers in the town of Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah. The attack occurred during the afternoon hours.
YEMEN
The Israeli army claimed on Saturday that its air force had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen before it entered Israeli airspace.
In X, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee confirmed that the missile was intercepted by the air force before it breached Israeli airspace. No sirens were triggered, he added.
Since November 2023, Yemen’s Houthis have targeted Israeli or Israeli-linked cargo ships in the Red Sea with missiles and drones, as well as launched attacks on Israeli territory.
The Houthis say these actions are in solidarity with Gaza amid the genocidal Israeli war that began in October 2023 and has so far killed more than 44,600 people, mostly women and children.
INDIA
India cited “national interests” and commitments to various regimes in defending arms supplies to Israel.
“The issue of India’s exports, including India’s exports of anything which directly or indirectly has any military implications, is guided by our national interest and by our commitments to various regimes,” Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in response to a question in parliament.
Indian parliamentarian John Brittas asked if it is a fact that Palestine’s minister of state in the foreign office met Indian ambassador Renu Yadav to request New Delhi reconsider arms sales to Israel because of their use against Palestine civilians.
“We are very responsible members of various international regimes, including the Wassenaar arrangement. We have an export control and licensing process. And we take decisions regarding any export which is based on what we consider to be our national interest,” Jaishankar said Thursday.
He said, ”Israel is a country in which we have a strong record of cooperation in national security” and added, “It is also a country that has stood by us at different moments when our national security was under threat.”
“So, when we take any decision we will bear in mind, obviously, the larger circumstances but we will definitely be driven by our national interest in this matter,” he said.
Jaishankar also said India supports a two-state solution.
In September, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a public interest litigation that sought an order for the federal government to halt licenses to Indian firms exporting arms to Israel.
While the government has not issued any public statement regarding arms supplies to Israel, the Al Jazeera Media Group claimed in an investigation that New Delhi was supplying weapons to Tel Aviv.
[Photo: Palestinians living in al-Wahda Street in the west of Gaza continue to maintain their daily lives despite the challenging conditions in the makeshift tents they have set up on Gaza on December 07, 2024. Photojournalist: Dawoud Abo Alkas/AA]
