By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
GAZA
At least 58 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 45,317, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Monday.
A ministry statement added that some 107,713 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 58 people and injured 86 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.
Israeli army forces have placed an explosives-laden box near the gate of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, a video showed on Monday.
The footage shared by the hospital’s director Hussam Abu Safiya showed an Israeli vehicle deploying a wooden box bearing a hazardous symbol (a triangle with an exclamation mark) outside one of the hospital’s gates.
“Israeli occupation vehicles, using robotic devices, are placing explosives boxes at the gates of the hospital,” Abu Safiya said in a Facebook post.
He added that Israeli forces had recently detonated residential buildings near the hospital using similar explosive devices.
In the meantime, Israeli drones dropped incendiary material in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, sparking fire that engulfed several houses in the hospital’s vicinity.
Four civilians were killed and several others were injured on Monday evening in an Israeli shelling targeting a gathering of civilians near al-Saraya Junction in central Gaza City.
Early on Monday, Abu Safiya warned that the medical facility was facing daily Israeli bombardment, which he said was part of a “deliberate campaign of killing and forced displacement.”
Death toll from an Israeli strike on tents of displaced civilians in an Israeli-designated “safe zone” in southern Gaza rose to 11, a medical source said.
Two children were among the victims in the attack that targeted al-Mawasi area in western Khan Younis late Sunday, the source added.
Medics had earlier put the death toll from the strike at seven.
The Civil Defense Service confirmed that its teams had recovered the bodies of several victims from the site of the attack.
According to witnesses, the Israeli strike set the tents ablaze with people and civil defense personnel struggling to extinguish the fire.
Israel has systematically targeted civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship in its offensive on Gaza, repeatedly claiming, often without evidence, that they were striking targets belonging to the Palestinian group Hamas.
The Israeli army killed at least 14 more Palestinians Monday morning, including five guards escorting aid trucks, and injured dozens in several airstrikes and shelling across the Gaza Strip.
A medical source told Anadolu that five Palestinians guarding aid trucks were killed in western Rafah city, southern Gaza Strip, while over 20 others were injured in Israeli airstrike.
According to Palestinian figures, the Israeli army has killed over 720 Palestinian policemen and security personnel guarding aid trucks in Gaza since the onset of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza in October last year.
Meanwhile, in two-and-a-half months, only 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza, a UK-based charity said, drawing attention to the dire situation in the Palestinian enclave.
“Of the meagre 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” Oxfam said in a statement on Sunday.
“For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours,” it said.
Oxfam said that it and other international humanitarian agencies have been “continually prevented” from delivering lifesaving aid in the North Gaza Governorate since Oct. 6 when Israel escalated its military siege of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun.
“Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it’s impossible to know exact numbers,” it said. “At the beginning of December, humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water.”
A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Israeli military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians, the charity added.
Several civilians were killed and others were injured on Monday afternoon when the Israeli occupation aircraft bombed the Shuja’iyya neighborhood.
Local sources reported that three Palestinians were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a group of citizens in Mashtaha Street in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood east of Gaza Governorate.
Three civilians were killed and others were injured on Monday in the bombing of the Israeli warplanes east of the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
According to medical sources, 16 Palestinians, including children and women, were killed since dawn today in the Israeli bombing of various parts of the Gaza Strip, 14 of them in the center and south of the Strip.
WEST BANK
At least 10 more Palestinians were detained in fresh Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank, according to prisoners’ affairs groups on Monday.
The detainees were taken into custody in the cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tubas 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.
According to the statement, Israeli forces interrogated around 100 Palestinians in the Fawwar refugee camp in southern Hebron city.
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 army demolished a new Palestinian home near Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Monday, a local official said.
Israeli forces backed by a bulldozer raided the village of Al-Shuyukh in the southern West Bank and razed the two-story house after vacating its residents, Hani Jaara, a member of the Fatah group, told Anadolu.
He said Israeli forces cited the lack of a building permit for the demolition.
Israel widely uses the pretext of a lack of construction permits to demolish Palestinian homes, especially in Area C in the occupied West Bank, which constitutes around 60% of its space.
Under the 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was divided into three portions – Area A, B, and C.
Illegal Israeli settlers Monday evening attacked Palestinian residents’ vehicles near the northern entrance to the city of al-Bireh, according to local sources.
Sources reported that settlers gathered near the Beit El colony, built illegally on Palestinian land north of al-Bireh, and attacked passing Palestinian-registered vehicles. No injuries or material damage were reported in the attack.
Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their properties has escalated significantly since October 7, 2023. The attacks, which included the destruction of homes and properties, have drawn widespread condemnation. In response, several countries have imposed sanctions on colonists accused of committing violent acts in the West Bank.
A Palestinian minor was injured on Monday evening by Israeli soldiers’ live fire during a military incursion into the town of Beita, south of Nablus, according to a local official.
The mayor of Beita, Mahmoud Barham, said Israeli forces stormed the town amid the heavy firing of live bullets and tear gas canisters, spurring confrontation with the local Palestinian residents.
A minor was injured by live bullets in the leg during the confrontations, which necessitated his transfer to hospital for treatment.
Israeli settlers began plowing Palestinian lands in the Khalayel Al-Loz area, southeast of Bethlehem.
Hassan Breijieh, a researcher in wall and settlement affairs, reported that sttlers began plowing lands between citizens’ homes, belonging to citizens from the Abayat family.
Israeli settlers today grazed their sheep on Palestinians’ lands north of Jericho.
Hassan Malihat, the general supervisor of the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, explained to “Wafa” said that settlers grazed their sheep on Palestinians’ lands in the Ein Al-Auja Bedouin community, which led to the destruction of Palestinians’ fodder and the vandalism of property.
Meanwhile, a group of Israeli settlers also spread among citizens’ homes, terrorizing children and women.
Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Shuyukh al-Arroub, north of Hebron, on Monday, demolished a house, and shot a Palestinian.
The head of the Shuyukh al-Arroub village council, Ibrahim Halayqa, said that the occupation forces demolished a house belonging to citizen Muhammad Haroun Halayqa, which houses seven people, noting that the occupation had issued a notice to stop work and construction there four months ago, under the pretext that construction is prohibited in the “Al-Bass” area.
According to local sources, a Palestinian young man was injured by live bullets in the thigh during the clashes that erupted after the house was demolished.
It is worth noting that the Israelis demolished another house last month, in addition to delivering notices to demolish other houses in that area.
LEBANON
The Israeli military targeted and demolished homes in southern Lebanon on Sunday in the latest violations of a cease-fire that began on Nov. 27.
The number of violations by the Israeli military has reached 287, resulting in 31 deaths and 37 injuries, according to official reports.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli military destroyed numerous homes in the town of Kfarkela in Nabatieh governorate in southern Lebanon.
Similar actions were reported in the Hanin area of Bint Jbeil, where homes were also targeted.
In Lebanon, Israel’s military launched a “major bombing operation” on the town of Kfar Kila, in violation of a ceasefire agreed last month, according to local media
Israeli forces maintain a heavy presence across several areas of Bint Jbeil, continuing operations to destroy homes and infrastructure.
According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, at least 4,061 people have been killed since Oct. 8, 2023, including 1,106 women and children and 222 health care workers.
Another 16,661 people have been injured.
YEMEN
Israeli air defences have tracked and destroyed a Houthi drone, according to a statement by the Israeli army.
It said the explosives-laden aircraft was intercepted before entering Israeli territory and there were no sirens.
This comes after a ballistic missile fired by the Yemeni group was partially intercepted but damaged a school building in Tel Aviv on Saturday without inflicting any casualties.
The Houthis [Ansar Allah] carried out the attack after the Israeli military launched its third major round of air raids on Yemen, which destroyed ships and targeted power plants and an oil facility.
[Photo: Palestinians leave their homes with whatever belongings they could take with them due to the Israeli army’s attacks in Shuja’iyya neighbourhood east of Gaza City on December 23, 2024. Photojournalist: Dawoud Abo Alkas/AA]
