By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News)
GAZA
At least 74 children were killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip during the first week of 2025, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday.
Israel’s “nighttime attacks” in areas like Gaza City, Khan Younis and Al Mawasi — a supposed “safe zone” — have claimed young lives, as UNICEF stated that “the most recent attack, yesterday, saw five children reportedly killed in Al Mawasi.”
“For the children of Gaza, the new year has brought more death and suffering from attacks, deprivation, and increasing exposure to the cold,” Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement, adding, “A cease-fire is long overdue.”
Highlighting the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the agency noted that more than 1 million children are living in makeshift tents, with many families displaced for months.
“Since December 26, eight infants and newborns have reportedly died from hypothermia – a major threat to young children who are unable to regulate their body temperature,” it said.
At least 51 more Palestinians were killed in unabated Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, pushing up the overall death toll since October 2023 to 45,936, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Wednesday.
A ministry statement added that some 109,274 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 51 people and injured 78 others in six 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.
At least five Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday evening, the Civil Defense Agency said.
The service said its crews recovered the bodies of five people after the strike that targeted a group of civilians near Gaza Municipality Park in the city center.
Six more Palestinians were killed in Israeli overnight airstrikes on homes in Gaza City and Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip as the Israeli genocidal war continues unabated, local media reported on Wednesday morning.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted medical sources as saying that five Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a home for the “Barghout” family in the Zeitoun neighborhood, southeastern Gaza City.
Ten more Palestinians, including six children, were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a home in the Bureij refugee camp, Wafa also reported.
Meanwhile, Israeli military says three soldiers were killed and one other was seriously wounded in an “incident” in northern Gaza.
It identified two of the slain troops as Matityahu Yaakov Perel and Kanaoo Kasa, both 22 years old, saying that the name of the third soldier will be released later.
Perel and Kasa served in the 401st “Iron Tracks” Brigade, which has suffered heavy losses under Hamas attacks since the start of the ground invasion of Gaza in 2023.
WEST BANK
At least three Palestinians, including two children, were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, local media said.
The attack targeted a site in Tammoun town, south of Tubas city in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported.
The victims included two children aged 9 and 10 and their bodies were seized by Israeli army forces while withdrawing from the town, Wafa said.
Israel’s Army Radio confirmed the drone strike, claiming that the three Palestinians killed in the attack were allegedly planting an explosive device.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, for its part, accused the Israeli army of preventing medics from reaching the site of the attack.
Israeli army forces raided Tammoun town early Wednesday and cordoned off a house there, ordering a Palestinian inside to surrender, according to witnesses.
An Israeli army commander shot dead a Palestinian man used as a human shield in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, according to Israeli media on Wednesday.
The Palestinian was forced to serve as a human shield by Israeli army forces to search buildings in Khan Younis when he was shot to death by an army commander, said the Hebrew-language independent investigative journalism website, “The Hottest Place in Hell.”
As the Palestinian was permitted to be in the area, a commander in the army’s Nahal Brigade arrived, identified the man as Palestinian, took out a rifle, and shot him dead.
The report suggested that the army commander did not know that the Palestinian man was authorized to be inside the building being searched.
The Israeli army confirmed the killing and launched an investigation into the incident.
“The incident was investigated by the brigade commander, and the findings have been implemented during troops’ current operations,” it said in a statement.
In August, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the Israeli army has used Palestinians as human shields for soldiers to search buildings before entering them in Gaza.
“Our lives are more important than their lives,” soldiers were told.
The Israeli army rounded up at least 45 more Palestinians in fresh military raids in the occupied West Bank, according to prisoners’ affairs groups on Wednesday.
Two women and a child were among the detainees in the raids that targeted East Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Tulkarem, Tubas, and Ramallah, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
Israeli soldiers interrogated 25 Palestinians in Sair town, south of Hebron city, and detained two people, the statement said.
“The arrest campaigns came amid a massive aggression launched by the (Israeli) occupation against our people in retaliation that falls under the crime of collective punishment,” it added.
The new arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October 2023 to over 14,300, including those who were released after being arrested, according to Palestinian figures.
Illegal Israeli settlers today closed the western entrance to the town of Teqou, southeast of Bethlehem.
Local sources reported that a group of Israeli settlers gathered at the western entrance to Teqou and closed it, as well as the main street and prevented citizens’ vehicles from passing.
Israeli forces forced the owners of shops to close their stores during the storming of Sebastia, northwest of Nablus.
The mayor of Sebastia, Muhammad Azem, said that the occupation forces stormed the town amid provocative actions and searched vehicles, stressing that the occupation is practicing a policy of punishment against the residents of the town by forcing them to close their shops.
A Palestinian woman was injured on Wednesday evening after the Israeli occupation forces assaulted her in Al-Ghanem neighborhood in Tulkarm camp.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that its crews transferred an injured woman, 36, from the camp to the Martyr Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital, after she was beaten by the occupation soldiers during their raid on the camp.
The occupation bulldozers continue to destroy the infrastructure of Tulkarm camp, in its various neighborhoods, including Al-Balawneh neighborhood, Al-Madaris, Al-Akasha, Al-Rabaia, and Al-Shuhada, and destroy the public and private properties.
Eyewitnesses from inside the camp said that the occupation forces raided the homes of citizens and forced them to leave the camp, specifically in Al-Ghanem neighborhood, which is witnessing a large deployment of occupation soldiers and their vehicles.
The occupation forces deployed their snipers on the rooftops of several buildings inside and around the camp, amidst the sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions, while tightening their siege on its entrances from all directions, and sending more of their vehicles to the area.
The Israeli forces also stormed the Dhnaba suburb adjacent to the camp, fired gas bombs at the Al-Firdaws Mosque junction, raided a number of citizens’ homes, searched them and subjected their residents to interrogation.
Israeli occupation forces stormed the city of Tulkarm at noon on Wednesday.
WAFA correspondent said that a number of occupation vehicles stormed the city from its western entrance, and headed towards Al-Alimi Street (the courts), Al-Younis roundabout, and Nablus Street leading to Tulkarm camp, amidst heavy flying of drones at a low altitude.
She added that the occupation forces raided al-Qaddoumi residential building, adjacent to Tulkarm camp, and deployed their snipers throughout it, after detaining the families living in it, including children and women, in one room, and preventing the owners of the residential apartments who returned to it from entering it, and expelled them and removed them from the area at gunpoint.
Settlers attacked a number of Palestinians’ vehicles with stones on Wednesday on the road between Ramallah and Nablus.
Eyewitnesses said that a group of settlers attacked the vehicles with stones and empty bottles near the entrance to Shilo colony, which caused damage to some of them.
According to the latest report of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, the Israeli occupation forces and settlers carried out 16,612 attacks against Palestinians and their property in various governorates last year, a record increase in the number of attacks recorded in one year.
The total attacks were concentrated in the governorates of Hebron with 2,934 attacks, then Nablus with 2,531, and Ramallah with 2,224.
An Israeli special unit kidnapped a young man from the Deheishe refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, today, Wednesday.
Security sources told WAFA that an Israeli special unit affiliated with the occupation forces detained Salah Mohammad Faraj, a man in his 40s, while he was in the village of Artas, south of Bethlehem.
Israeli occupation Wednesday authorities forced a Jerusalemite to demolish his home in Wadi al-Rababa neighborhood in Silwan town, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Shadi Samreen said that the Israeli occupation municipality notified him of the demolition of his home under the pretext of building without a permit, which prompted him to demolish it himself, to avoid the exorbitant costs imposed by the municipality if it carried out the demolition.
He explained that he has been living in the house since 2014, along with his wife and three children.
Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem say they are forced to build without permit because the Israeli municipality rarely issues permits to the city’s original Palestinian citizens as a way to reduce their number by forcing them to leave it and find accommodation and work elsewhere.
An Israeli settler ran over a school student in the village of Al-Manshiya, south of Bethlehem, on Wednesday.
The head of the village council in Al-Manshiya, Khader Abu Diya, told WAFA that a settler ran over Musa Ali Salahat, 12, near the entrance to the village, while he was leaving his school, before the colonist fled the area.
Abu Diya added that the child was transferred to Al-Yamama Hospital in Al-Khader, as he suffered fractures and bruises, and will undergo surgery.
Israeli occupation forces Wednesday stormed Khirbet al-Tawil, which is part of the lands of the town of Aqraba, south of Nablus.
Yousef Diriya, an activist in the resistance to settlements, reported that the occupation forces, with military reinforcements, stormed the said area in preparation for demolishing some facilities.
Israeli settlers Wednesday attacked Palestinians’ vehicles near the town of Beita, south of Nablus.
Eyewitnesses said that a group of settlers attacked Palestinians’ vehicles by throwing stones near Mount Sabih, which is part of the lands of the town of Beita.
Israeli occupation forces Wednesday demolished a barrack and a sheep pen in the village of Mikhmas, northeast of occupied Jerusalem.
Local sources said that the occupation forces demolished a barrack for vehicle maintenance, a sheep pen, and bulldozed a road in the village.
The Israeli occupation forces detained at least 45 people, including former detainees, a woman, and a child, in the occupied West Bank during the last 24 hours.
The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said in a joint statement that the detention operations were concentrated in the cities of Hebron, Nablus, Tubas, Tulkarm, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, accompanied by widespread raids and abuse, assaults and threats against detainees and their families, in addition to vandalism and destruction of citizens’ homes.
In addition, the occupation carried out field investigations of about 25 people in the town of Sa’ir/Hebron, and the occupation kept two of them in detention.
LEBANON
Lebanese media on Wednesday reported six more Israeli violations of a cease-fire agreement between Lebanon and Israel in late November.
The state news agency NNA said an Israeli tank shell hit the residence of Bin Jbeil mayor in southern Lebanon.
Israeli soldiers armed with machine guns launched a search operation in Maroun El Ras in southern Lebanon, the broadcaster said.
Military vehicles were also seen moving on the outskirts of Maroun El Ras as reconnaissance drones flew over Lebanese airspace, NNA said.
According to Lebanese media, Israeli army forces abducted six Syrian nationals in the town of Mess El Jabal before releasing three of them. The released three Syrians were later stopped by the Lebanese intelligence agents for questioning, NNA said.
The Israeli army also fired two flare bombs in Aalma El Chaeb in southern Lebanon at dawn during an attempt by Lebanese civil defense crews to retrieve the bodies of a number of people killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, forcing the crews to flee.
Israeli army forces also carried out a massive explosion in Mess El Jabal town, local media said.
Lebanese authorities have reported over 400 Israeli violations of the cease-fire, including the death of 32 people and injury of 39 others, since the deal came into force on Nov. 27.
The cease-fire agreement aimed to end over 14 months of fighting between the Israeli army and Hezbollah group since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
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.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that he sees hope for a “durable peace” in Lebanon, adding that about one-third of Israeli forces have departed since a truce was struck between Israel and Hezbollah.
That agreement stipulates that Israeli forces must exit Lebanon by January 26, but recent reports in Israeli media have stated that they may stay beyond that deadline in violation of the agreement.
Israel has also continued to carry out near-daily attacks in southern Lebanon, as well as the destruction of civilian homes in areas under its control.
Israel says it is enforcing the agreement by forcing Hezbollah to withdraw its forces to the north of the Litani River, about 30km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.
YEMEN
US warplanes launched seven airstrikes in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and the northern Amran province on Wednesday, the Houthi [Ansar Allah] group said.
The Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV said five strikes targeted the Harf Sufyan district in Amran, while two additional airstrikes hit the Jarban area in the Sanhan district of Sanaa.
No details were provided about injuries or damage from the attacks.
Early on Wednesday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that its forces “conducted multiple precision strikes against two Iranian-backed Houthi underground Advanced Conventional Weapon (ACW) storage facilities within Houthi-controlled territories” in Yemen.
“The Houthis used these facilities to conduct attacks against US Navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” it said in a statement.
The escalation came after the Houthis said on Monday that they had attacked the US aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman in the northern Red Sea and claimed missile and drone attacks on targets in southern and central Israel.
US forces conducted strikes on Houthi weapon storage sites in Yemen on Wednesday, continuing their military action against the Iran-backed group.
US forces targeted two underground facilities storing advanced conventional weapons in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, according to a statement issued by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
Houthi forces used the facilities to launch attacks on the US Navy and commercial vessels traveling through the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, both of which are critical maritime routes for global trade, it said.
The strikes resulted in no injuries to US personnel and caused no damage to American military equipment, according to the statement.
“The strikes are part of CENTCOM’s effort to degrade Iranian-backed Houthi attempts to threaten regional partners and military and merchant vessels in the region,” the statement concluded.
The Red Sea is a critical global sea route, frequently used for oil and fuel shipments. In recent months, Houthi forces have targeted Israeli-linked cargo ships in the Red Sea and the nearby Gulf of Aden in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli offensive since Oct. 7, 2023.
[Photo: The bodies of those who were killed in the Israeli attack are brought from the morgue of Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Belah city for funeral prayers and burial, in Gaza on January 8, 2025. Israeli army targeted a house belonging to the Wahshah family in Burayj Camp in central Gaza, killing and wounding people.[Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra/AA]
