By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, NNA, Wafa, The Muslim News):
GAZA
Israeli attacks killed at least 71 Palestinians, injured more than 99 others including children, across the Gaza Strip, according medical sources bringing the overall death toll since last year to 44,835,and injured to 106,356, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Gaza Government Media Office says Israel killed 13 security officers guarding humanitarian aid “as part of the starvation policy against civilians”.
Health authorities say Israel killed Saeed Joda, a top doctor who worked at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 1,057 medical personnel were killed by Israeli army fire in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
Figures released by local authorities also showed that Israeli attacks forced 34 hospitals and 80 health centers out of service, while 162 health institutions and 135 ambulances were targeted by army forces.
During the course of its 14-month war on Gaza, Israel has been internationally condemned for both severely limiting aid to the strip, pushing millions of people in the enclave to the brink of starvation, and for targeting people distributing and receiving humanitarian aid.
WAFA correspondent reported that Israeli warplanes launched multiple airstrikes on the building and nearby homes, resulting in the killing of 21 Palestinians, the majority of whom were women and children. Many others were injured in the attack.
The Israeli army Thursday morning killed at least 40 Palestinians in a series of airstrikes that targeted guards escorting aid trucks as well as homes sheltering displaced people across the war-torn Gaza Strip.
In the central Gaza Strip, 15 more Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a home sheltering people in the western Nuseirat refugee camp, a medical source told Anadolu.
Witnesses said Israeli drones and gunboats opened heavy fire on the northern areas of the Nuseirat camp, but no information was yet available about injuries.
Another medical source also told Anadolu that seven Palestinians were killed and others injured, including children, in an Israeli airstrike on a building in western Gaza City.
Three more people died of their injuries sustained in Israeli attacks in Gaza City, the source added.
Two Palestinians were killed and several others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Thursday evening. The attacks targeted a house in the Jabalia al-Nazla area, located in the northern Gaza Strip.
WAFA correspondent reported that the Israeli airstrike on a home in Jabalia al-Nazla resulted in the killing of two civilians and left several others wounded.
In addition, Israeli warplanes fired machine gun fire at residential homes in the Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza City, while Israeli artillery targeted the area surrounding the Abu Shereia office within the same neighborhood.
Several more people were injured when an Israeli drone struck a residential apartment in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City.
WEST BANK
The head of the Balata refugee camp near the city of Nablus, Imad Tirawi, says Israeli forces shot one man dead after they entered the area in the early hours of Thursday.
Tirawi said that residents found the body of Jihad Abu Salim, who “was not known as a fighter” after the forces left the camp.
However, the Israeli military said its forces “eliminated a terrorist during counterterrorism activity in Nablus and located a gun and ammunition”.
In a separate statement, the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said Israeli forces had shot dead 25-year-old Muhammad Barahmeh in the northern city of Qalqilya early on Thursday, adding that Barahmeh’s body was taken by Israeli forces.
The Israeli army issued a similar statement to the killing in the Balata refugee camp, saying a “terrorist was eliminated” by the military and border police in Qalqilya.
It identified the slain Palestinian as Mohammad Abdel-Kareem Barahma, 25, whose body was seized by the Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, Israeli army rounded up at least 40 Palestinians in military raids in the occupied West Bank, according to prisoners’ affairs groups on Thursday.
The detainees were taken into custody during the raids that targeted East Jerusalem, Hebron, Salfit, Qalqilya, and Ramallah, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
“The raids were marked by abuse, threats against detainees and their families, and acts of vandalism and destruction on citizens’ homes,” it added.
The new arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October last year to over 12,100, including those who were released after being arrested, according to Palestinian figures.
The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
The Israeli occupation authorities seized 55 dunums of Palestinian land on Thursday in the towns of Qatanna and Biddu, located northwest of Jerusalem.
The PLO’s Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported that the land was confiscated under the pretext of being “state land,” with the stated aim of expanding the nearby Israeli settlement of Har Adar, which is built on Palestinian land in the area.
The seized land is located behind the Israeli segregation wall, which has restricted Palestinian access to these areas for over 20 years. This has been part of a systematic effort by the Israeli occupation to seize Palestinian land for settlement expansion.
The Commission pointed out that 2024 has been the most difficult and dangerous year for Palestinian geography, due to intensified and systematic land confiscations, military orders, and an unprecedented increase in settlement expansion by the Israeli occupation.
In addition Israeli illegal settlers set fire to a residential room and filled a water well with rubble in the Jabaris area of the northern Jordan Valley, northeast of the occupied West Bank, on Thursday.
Local sources reported that the settlers targeted a room belonging to Palestinian citizen Mohammad Faqih, setting it ablaze, and also filled his water well with debris, rendering it unusable.
The Jordan Valley has witnessed an increase in violent attacks by Israeli settlers, including physical assaults on Palestinians, expulsions from grazing lands, livestock theft, and the burning of property. These actions are part of a broader effort to displace Palestinian communities in the area.
LEBANON
The Israeli army says it targeted a “number of Hezbollah” members in southern Lebanon who posed a “threat” to Israeli civilians.
The army added that its troops remain deployed in southern Lebanon and will act in defence of the State of Israel.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported earlier that an Israeli air raid in Khiam, southern Lebanon, killed one person and injured another.
Israel has been carrying out near-daily attacks in Lebanon since its ceasefire with Hezbollah came into effect last month in violation of the truce agreement.
Earlier in December, Hezbollah launched one “warning attack” at an Israeli base in response to the Israeli assaults.
But following the attack, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem suggested that the group would leave dealing with Israeli violations to the Lebanese government.
Hezbollah and Israel reached a truce in November after more than 62 days of intense fighting that saw Israel bomb areas across Lebanon, killing more than 4,000 people.
Meanwhile, Israeli army has withdrawn its forces from Khiam in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli media on Thursday.
The Israeli public broadcaster KAN said Lebanese army forces and UN peacekeepers replaced Israeli troops in the town under a cease-fire deal between Israel and Lebanon.
KAN said US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Michael Kurilla arrived in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and watched the Lebanese army deployment in Khiam after Israeli troop withdrawal.
CENTCOM said Gen. Kurilla met with Lebanese army chief Joseph Aoun to discuss the “ongoing efforts to advance a lasting cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon.”
Lebanon’s state news agency NNA said that Lebanese army forces have deployed in five points around Khiam in coordination with the UNIFIL forces.
The cease-fire deal came into force on Nov. 27 in hopes of ending 14 months of fighting between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.
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.
SYRIA
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday strongly denounced “recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and urged Israel to end attacks.
The secretary general is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria, stressing the urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference.
He said the UN chief “stresses that the 1974 disengagement agreement remains in force, condemning all actions that will be inconsistent with the agreement.”
The agreement between Israel and Syria established the borders of a buffer zone and demilitarized area.
It is monitored by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), as it is tasked with maintaining a cease-fire between Israel and Syria following the 1973 Middle East War.
[Photo: Family members mourn as bodies of their dear ones who were killed by Israeli forces attacking a house belonging to the al-Habbash family in Gaza’s al-Nasirat Camp are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for funeral, on December 12, 2024 in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra/AA]
