By Abdul Adil
(AA, NNA, Wafa, Al Jazeera, The Muslim News):
GAZA
At least 77 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 45,206, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Friday.
A ministry statement added that some 107,512 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 77 people and injured 174 others in three 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.
An Israeli airstrike Friday night shelled a home in the Jabalia al-Nazla area of northern Gaza, killing ten people, including seven children, and wounding several others.
According to WAFA correspondent, this latest strike is part of the ongoing Israeli military offensive, which has been intensifying since October 7, 2023.
Seven civilians, including two children, were killed on Friday evening in an Israeli airstrike targeting an apartment in al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, local sources reported.
An Israeli drone targeted an apartment in the central Gaza Strip, killing seven Palestinians.
A medical source told Anadolu that the bodies of four Palestinians and a number of injured people were brought to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following the attack on an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
In a statement, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said that the bodies of three more people and 16 injured people were brought to the hospital after the same attack.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that an Israeli drone targeted an apartment causing fatalities and severe damage to the entire building.
Four Palestinians were killed and several others injured on Friday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home in northern Gaza, according to eyewitnesses.
The strike hit a home in Beit Hanoun, where Israel’s military has intensified operations and ethnic cleansing for over two months, eyewitnesses said.
Israel has continued a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza since Oct. 5 to allegedly prevent the Palestinian group Hamas from regrouping.
Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.
Since then, no sufficient humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel has been allowed into the area, leaving the remaining population on the verge of imminent famine.
In southern Gaza, medical sources reported that an infant, Aisha Adnan Sufyan Al-Qassas, died early Friday due to extreme cold while sheltering in a tent in Khan Younis’s Al-Mawasi region.
At least 10 Palestinians were killed and three injured, two critically, in an Israeli attack on the Al-Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City, health sources said Friday.
Israeli forces targeted a group of Palestinians who were waiting in line for water at the camp, the sources said.
Meanwhile, a fighter from the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Friday killed two Israeli soldiers before blowing himself up near a group of troops in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, said in a statement that the fighter killed an Israeli army sniper and his aide at “point-blank range” in the Jabalia refugee camp.
After killing the two, the fighter disguised in Israeli army uniform, managed to reach a group of six Israeli soldiers and blew himself up, killing and injuring them, the statement added.
The Israeli army has not yet commented on the attacks.
WEST BANK
Two Palestinians were injured, including a 15-year-old child and a disabled man, by Israeli forces on Friday evening in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
In a statement, the organization reported that the child was shot in the knee with live ammunition during confrontations in Beit Furik, east of Nablus.
Clashes erupted after Israeli forces stormed the Al Naqqar neighborhood, firing live rounds, stun grenades, and tear gas. Several others suffered from tear gas inhalation, witnesses confirmed.
Separately, a 25-year-old man with disabilities was shot in the knee during a raid in Wadi Qana, northwest of Salfit. He was transported to a hospital for treatment, though details about the circumstances remain unclear.
Illegal Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian resident’s vehicle in the Northern Jordan Valley on Friday evening, pelting it with stones and smashing its windshield, local sources said.
According to the sources, the victim, a resident of Kardala village, was targeted by a group of colonists, resulting in significant damage to his vehicle.
The Northern Jordan Valley has become a hotspot for frequent assaults by settlers, often under the protection of Israeli forces. These attacks typically include harassment of residents, raids on their tents, expulsion from grazing lands, and attempts to steal livestock.
A man, his wife, and two daughters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday morning, which targeted the Al-Azza neighborhood in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza.
WAFA correspondent reported that the Israeli aircraft launched an airstrike on the area, resulting in the murder of the man, his wife, and their two daughters. Several others were also reported to have been injured in the attack.
Local sources also reported that Israeli forces carried out demolition operations targeting residential buildings in Beit Lahiya, a town in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli settlers established a new colonial outpost today near the Arab al-Malihat Bedouin community along the Al-Ma’arajat Road, northwest of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.
Hassan Mleihat, the general supervisor of the Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, told WAFA that a group of settlers set up a tent on the land belonging to the community early this morning, performing provocative dances in the area.
Mleihat also highlighted the presence of five settler outposts in the vicinity of the Al-Ma’arajat Road, with four of them established since October 7, 2023.
These outposts are part of efforts to expand Israeli settlers’ influence in the border areas between the Ramallah and Jericho governorates.
At least 822 Palestinians have since October 7, 2023 been killed and around 6,500 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Friday condemned illegal Israeli settlers’ arson attack on the Bir al-Walidain mosque in the village of Marda in the northern West Bank.
In a statement, the ministry said the attack is a “blatant act of racism” and a direct result of “widespread incitement against the Palestinian people, propagated by key figures within the ruling far-right government” of Israel.
Here are the moments when Israeli settlers defaced Bar al-Walidain mosque in the village of Marda, spray-painting “Death to Arabs” and “revenge” across its walls before setting it on fire.
The ministry also noted that the attack is part of a “long history of violations and crimes committed by armed and organized settler militias, officially backed by the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government.”
It urged the UN Security Council and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to “urgently activate an international protection system for the Palestinian people, immediately halt the Israeli genocide, and enforce binding actions to implement international legal resolutions calling for the end of the occupation of Palestine’s territory.”
The attack occurred earlier Friday when a group of illegal settlers entered the eastern neighborhood of Marda, near Salfit, and set fire to the mosque while also spray painted racist slogans on the mosque’s walls.
Witnesses reported that large parts of the mosque were damaged by the fire before local residents were able to control the flames and extinguish them.
LEBANON
The Israeli army violated a cease-fire agreement with Lebanon six times on its 23rd day, reports said Thursday.
Since the cease-fire was declared on Nov. 27, the total number of Israeli violations has risen to 259, with 31 people killed and 37 injured during the incidents.
According to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), Israeli forces demolished homes in the southern Lebanese town of Kafr Kila, causing tremors felt throughout the area.
An Israeli military drone was observed flying over the city of Tyre, while the town of Alma al-Shaab near the border was targeted by Israeli forces, it said.
Homes in the Tayr Harfa area were also bombed, and Israeli military bulldozers demolished houses in the town of Naqoura.
Data from the Lebanese Health Ministry indicates that since Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon began on Oct. 8, 2023, at least 4,061 people have been killed, including 1,106 women and children and 222 health workers, while 16,661 others have been injured.
The Lebanese Civil Defence has recovered three bodies from the rubble of a building targeted by an Israeli air attack on September 27 in Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the National News Agency reports.
The three bodies were transferred to Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut for DNA testing to identify them.
The Civil Defence team was at the site to search for the bodies of seven missing people and will continue their search operation.
SYRIA
Israeli troops fired live bullets at Syrians protesting in the southwest Daraa province hours after Israel’s military offensive and seizure of two Syrian villages on Friday, injuring one.
Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces seized two villages, Jamlah and Maaraba, in Daraa province’s Yarmouk Basin, as its occupation of Syrian territory continues to expand following the collapse of the Baath Party regime.
Since the regime’s downfall on Dec. 8, Israeli forces have escalated their military offensives in Syria, destroying remaining military infrastructure and advancing into previously demilitarized zones.
Locals in Daraa protested against the occupation, chanting, “Israel Get out,” while waving Syria’s new flags. Israeli forces reportedly fired on protesters from nearby elevated positions, injuring one person.
Israel’s recent actions include extending its control in the occupied Golan Heights and advancing to within 25 kilometers of the capital, Damascus. These efforts follow the intensification of regional conflict in late November.
YEMEN
Yemen’s Houthi [Ansar Allah] group said on Friday that it carried out multiple drone strikes on central and southern Israel, including a joint attack with an Iranian-Iraqi military group.
In a recorded statement posted on X, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said, “We conducted a joint operation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq on vital Israeli targets in southern occupied Palestine using several drones.”
“We also launched a significant military operation targeting an Israeli military site in occupied Jaffa with a drone,” he added.
The announcement comes after the Houthis claimed three military operations against Israeli positions on Thursday, coinciding with Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s cities of Sana’a and Al Hudaydah.
While neither the Islamic Resistance in Iraq nor Israel has issued statements regarding these attacks, Saree claimed the operations successfully hit their intended targets.
[Photo: Palestinians struggle with cold and rainy weather as they try to survive in makeshift tents in Gaza City, Gaza on December 20, 2024. .
Photojournalist: Dawoud Abo Alkas/AA]
