Closing summary
It’s 2.15am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv and we’ll close this blog shortly. Our live coverage will resume later today. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The Israeli military said it had expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to refugee camps in the central part of the Palestinian territory. Israeli forces continued to bombard the densely populated Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza for a fourth day on Tuesday. The World Health Organisation emergency medical teams coordinator, Sean Casey, said “100-plus patients” had been brought into al-Aqsa hospital in the space of 30 minutes on Monday, adding that “about 100” more lifeless bodies were brought into the hospital around the same time.
Israel is engaged in a “multi-front war”, its defence minister Yoav Gallant, has said, hinting at military operations across the Middle East as the war in Gaza showed new signs of a dangerous regional escalation. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Gallant said Israel was “coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria [an Israeli term for the West Bank], Iraq, Yemen and Iran”.
Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza will probably go on for many months, the country’s military chief has said. Herzi Halevi, the Israel Defence Forces’ chief of staff, said on Tuesday that its forces would reach the Hamas leadership “whether it takes a week or whether it takes months”.
Nearly 21,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday. The latest figures say 20,915 people have been killed and 54,918 injured, including 241 Palestinians who were killed in the past 24 hours and 382 injured.
Israeli forces killed two Palestinian people in a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry has said. The two people – aged 17 and 31 – were shot dead in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the ministry said.
All telecommunications and Internet services have been lost in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian phone service provider, Paltel, said on Tuesday. In a social media post, it said its services had experienced a “complete breakdown” that was “due to the ongoing offensive”.
The United Nations is “gravely concerned” about the “continued bombardment” of central Gaza by Israeli forces, a UN human rights office spokesperson has said. In a statement, Seif Magango urged Israeli forces to take all measures available to protect civilians and that attacks must adhere to the principles of humanitarian international law.
The Israel Defence Forces said nine of its soldiers were wounded in an anti-tank missile fired by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group on Tuesday. The IDF soldiers were evacuating a civilian who had been injured in an earlier Hezbollah attack on a church, the army said. One of the soldiers was in a “serious condition”, it said. Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari accused Hezbollah of “committing war crimes by indiscriminately attacking places of worship”.
Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch former deputy prime minister and a Middle East expert, has been appointed the United Nations’ coordinator for humanitarian aid to Gaza. The announcement by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, follows last week’s security council resolution calling for aid to be delivered to the territory “at scale”. The US welcomed Kaag’s appointment. She is expected to start on 8 January.
Yemen’s Houthi rebel group has said it carried out drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat, as well as a commercial vessel in the Red Sea. A Houthi military spokesperson said the group launched an attack with missiles on a MSC United commercial ship in the Red Sea after it rejected three warning calls, as well as drone attacks on the southern Israeli city of Eilat “and other areas in occupied Palestine”.
US Central Command said the US had downed 12 drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land attack cruise missiles fired by Houthis in the southern Red Sea.
The Israeli army has said it arrested senior Palestinian politician Khalida Jarrar in the occupied West Bank, along with other activists of her party. Jarrar, a prominent figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had been previously arrested by Israeli forces in October 2019 and released in September the following year, after being held without trial.
A blast occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, authorities said. No staff members were wounded or killed in the incident, authorities said, adding that investigations into its cause were ongoing. Israel urged its citizens in India, specifically in New Delhi, to exercise caution.
Israel will no longer grant automatic visas to UN employees, after accusing the global body of being “complicit partners” in Hamas’s tactics. The move comes after Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, said on Monday that he had instructed his ministry not to renew the visa of a UN staff member in Israel.
Updated
The United States has welcomed the appointment Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands as the UN coordinator for humanitarian aid to Gaza.
State department spokesman Matthew Miller said on X (formerly Twitter) that the US looked forward to working closely with Kaag “to accelerate and streamline provision of live-saving humanitarian relief” to Palestinian civilians in the territory.
We welcome today’s @UN appointment of Sigrid Kaag as Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza. We look forward to working closely with her and @UNOPS to accelerate and streamline provision of live-saving humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
— Matthew Miller (@StateDeptSpox) December 26, 2023
Updated
UN names Netherlands' Sigrid Kaag aid coordinator for Gaza
Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch former deputy prime minister and a Middle East east expert, has been appointed the United Nations’ coordinator for humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The announcement by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Tuesday follows the security council’s adoption of a resolution on Friday requesting him to expeditiously appoint a senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, where more than 2 million civilians are in desperate need of food, water and medicine, the Associated Press reports.
Guterres said Kaag, who speaks fluent Arabic and five other languages, “brings a wealth of experience in political, humanitarian and development affairs as well as in diplomacy” to her new post. She is expected to start on 8 January.
“She will facilitate, coordinate, monitor, and verify humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza,” he said, adding that Kaag will also establish a UN mechanism to accelerate aid deliveries “through states which are not party to the conflict”.
Gaza’s entire population of 2.3 million population is in food crisis, with 576,000 people at catastrophic or starvation levels and the risk of famine “increasing each day”, according to a report released last Thursday by 23 UN and nongovernmental organisations. It blamed the widespread hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza.
Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into the territory after the militant Hamas group’s 7 October rampage in southern Israel which killed about 1,200 people. The Israel-Gaza war has so far killed more than 20,900 people in Gaza, according to its Hamas-run health ministry.
After US pressure, Israel allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt, but UN agencies say that for weeks only 10% of food needs has been entering Gaza. Last week, Israel opened the Kerem Shalom crossing into the territory and truck traffic increased but an Israeli strike on Thursday morning on the Palestinian side of the crossing stopped aid pickups, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said.
This is Adam Fulton picking up our live coverage. It’s 1.15am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv
Updated
Here is the latest full report on the Israel-Gaza war from the Guardian’s Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem:
Israel is engaged in a “multi-front war”, its defence minister has said, hinting at military operations across the Middle East as the war in Gaza showed new signs of a dangerous regional escalation.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Yoav Gallant said Israel was “coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria [an Israeli term for the West Bank], Iraq, Yemen and Iran”.
“We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres,” he told the Knesset, without specifying.
Iran-allied militias around the Middle East have attacked Israel and US military installations across the region since Hamas launched its devastating attack on southern Israel on 7 October, killing 1,140 people and taking up to 250 hostage.
The US has downed 12 drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land attack cruise missiles fired by the Houthis in the Southern Red Sea, according to US Central Command on X.
U.S. assets, to include the USS LABOON (DDG 58) and F/A-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, shot down twelve one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack cruise missiles in the Southern Red Sea that were fired by the… pic.twitter.com/vRQ5e6Au6d
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) December 26, 2023
The post came after the Yemeni rebel group said it carried out drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat, as well as a commercial vessel in the Red Sea earlier in the day.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s just past midnight in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The Israeli military said it has expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to refugee camps in the central part of the Palestinian territory. Israeli forces continued to bombard the densely populated Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza for a fourth day on Tuesday. WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, Sean Casey, said “100-plus patients” had been brought into Al-Aqsa hospital in the space of 30 minutes on Monday, adding that “about 100” more lifeless bodies were brought into the hospital at around the same time.
Israel is engaged in a “multi-front war”, its defence minister Yoav Gallant has said, hinting at military operations across the Middle East as the war in Gaza showed new signs of a dangerous regional escalation. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Gallant said Israel was “coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria [an Israeli term for the West Bank], Iraq, Yemen and Iran”.
Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza will probably go on for many months, the country’s military chief has said. Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the IDF, told a press conference on Tuesday that its forces will reach the Hamas leadership “whether it takes a week or whether it takes months”.
Nearly 21,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday. The latest figures state that 20,915 people have been killed and 54,918 injured, including 241 Palestinians who were killed in the past 24 hours and 382 were injured.
Israeli forces killed two Palestinian people on Tuesday in a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry has said. The two people – aged 17 and 31 – were shot dead in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the ministry said.
All telecommunications and Internet services have been lost in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian phone service provider, Paltel, said on Tuesday. In a social media post, it said its services had experienced a “complete breakdown” that was “due to the ongoing offensive”.
The UN is “gravely concerned” about the “continued bombardment” of central Gaza by Israeli forces, a UN human rights office spokesperson has said. In a statement, Seif Magango urged Israeli forces to take all measures available to protect civilians and that attacks must adhere to the principles of humanitarian international law.
Israel Defense Forces said nine of its soldiers were wounded in an anti-tank missile fired by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group on Tuesday. The IDF soldiers were evacuating a civilian who had been injured in an earlier Hezbollah attack on a church, the army said. One of the soldiers was in a “serious condition”, it said. Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari accused Hezbollah of “committing war crimes by indiscriminately attacking places of worship”.
Yemen’s Houthi rebel group has said that it carried out drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat, as well as a commercial vessel in the Red Sea. A Houthi military spokesperson said the group launched an attack with missiles on a MSC United commercial ship in the Red Sea after it rejected three warning calls, as well as drone attacks on the southern Israeli city of Eilat “and other areas in occupied Palestine”.
The Israeli army has said it arrested senior Palestinian politician Khalida Jarrar in the occupied West Bank, along with other activists of her party. Jarrar, a prominent figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had been previously arrested by Israeli forces in October 2019 and released in September the following year, after being held without trial.
A blast occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, authorities said. No staff members were wounded or killed during the incident, authorities said, adding that investigations into its cause were ongoing. Israel urged its citizens in India, specifically in New Delhi, to exercise caution.
Israel will no longer grant automatic visas to United Nations employees, after accusing the global body of being “complicit partners” in Hamas’s tactics. The move comes after Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, on Monday said he had instructed his ministry not to renew the visa of a UN staff member in Israel.
Updated
France is “gravely concerned” by Israel’s announcement that it will intensify and prolong fighting against Hamas in Gaza, the French foreign ministry has said.
A statement from the ministry said France “strongly reiterates its call for an immediate truce leading to a ceasefire”, while condemning the “systematic bombing that has again left many civilian victims in recent days”.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said nine of its soldiers were wounded in an anti-tank missile fired by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group on Tuesday.
The IDF soldiers were evacuating a civilian who had been injured in an earlier Hezbollah attack on a church, the army said. One of the soldiers was in a “serious condition”, it said.
The Israeli army said that in the earlier attack, the missile had hit a Greek Orthodox church in Iqrit, referring to an abandoned Palestinian Christian village whose inhabitants were forced to leave during the 1948 war and creation of Israel, AFP reported.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari accused Hezbollah of “committing war crimes by indiscriminately attacking places of worship”.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires of a school in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza that has suffered massive damage from Israeli attacks.
Updated
The Emir of Qatar, sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, held a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden, on Tuesday to discuss the latest developments in Gaza, according to Qatari state media.
The pair also spoke about current joint mediation efforts for calming the situation in Gaza to reach a permanent ceasefire, according to a report from the Qatari state news agency.
Updated
Israel's military says it has expanded Gaza offensive into refugee camps
The Israeli military said it has expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to the densely populated urban refugee camps in the central part of the Palestinian territory.
As we reported earlier, people in central Gaza described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps on Tuesday. The camps are crowded with Palestinians whose families fled during the 1948 war as well as with civilians who recently fled northern Gaza in the early stages of Israel’s ground offensive.
“We have expanded the fighting to an area known as the central camps,” Israel’s military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, told a news conference today, Associated Press reported. He added:
We will continue to adapt the operation, the method and the composition of the forces according to the operational need.
Updated
Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said he will not extend the term of the country’s Prison Service commissioner, Katy Perry.
In a statement from his ministry, Ben-Gvir said he did not have enough faith in Perry to allow her to continue in her current position, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The Israeli minister also accused Perry of having conducted negotiations with imprisoned Hamas militants on the terms of their incarceration, the Times of Israel reported.
In response, a statement from Perry said:
An unsurprising decision by an irresponsible minister that combines unfounded and baseless claims, a detachment from reality and childishness that show his lack of understanding of the prisons service.
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity party also responded to the announcement, warning that replacing senior officials “at this time harms the functioning of the country during a time of war and is not right”.
Updated
Here’s a small update after we reported earlier that an explosion occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.
No staff members were wounded or killed during the incident, according to authorities, who added that investigations into its cause were ongoing.
Officials were still inspecting the area but it has since been reopened to the general public, Reuters reported. There was no information suggesting anyone on the street had been hurt, it said.
Israel urged its citizens in India, specifically in New Delhi, to exercise caution. The blast “may have been an attack”, Israel’s national security council said in a statement issued by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
“We can confirm that around 5:20 pm there was a blast at close proximity to the embassy,” an Israeli embassy spokesperson told Reuters, adding that local police and security teams were investigating.
Nothing had been found in the search operation three hours after the blast, an official involved in the investigation told the news agency.
Updated
Houthis claim attacks on Israeli city of Eilat and ship in Red Sea
Yemen’s Houthi rebel group has said that it carried out drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat, as well as a commercial vessel in the Red Sea.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said the group launched an attack with missiles on a MSC United commercial ship in the Red Sea after it rejected three warning calls, Reuters reported.
The group also carried out drone attacks on the southern Israeli city of Eilat “and other areas in occupied Palestine”, he added.
Updated
Israel hands over bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza - report
Israel has returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza after taking them from morgues and graves to check there were no hostages among them, AFP reported, citing sources in Gaza’s health ministry.
The bodies, which had been transported to Israel, were returned through the Red Cross to Hamas authorities who buried them in a mass grave in Gaza, it said. Their identities are not immediately known.
An AFP photographer saw a digger lowering the blue body bags into a mass grave in Rafah. No families of the dead were present, Al Jazeera reported.
Updated
The UN has announced the appointment of a coordinator to oversee humanitarian relief shipments into Gaza.
The appointment comes after the UN security council backed a resolution to boost humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory to contain the imminent threat of famine and deadly epidemics.
Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands will “facilitate, coordinate, monitor and verify humanitarian relief consignments for Gaza,” the UN said in a statement today.
She will also establish a “mechanism” to accelerate aid into Gaza through countries not involved with the conflict, it said.
Updated
More than 100 people needed emergency hospital treatment after Maghazi refugee camp blast, says WHO
More than 100 people were hospitalised in the space of half an hour on Monday after reported blasts near Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, a World Health Organization (WHO) official has said.
WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, Sean Casey, said “100-plus patients” had been brought into Al-Aqsa hospital in the space of 30 minutes on Monday.
All of them needed urgent treatment for serious wounds, he said, adding that “about 100” more lifeless bodies were brought into the hospital at around the same time.
More than 100 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes late on Sunday in Gaza, including at least 70 in bombings that hit a residential block in the Maghazi refugee camp near Deir al-Balah, health officials in Gaza said. The Israeli military said it was reviewing the Maghazi incident.
Three refugee camps were hit, the UN human rights office spokesperson Seif Magango said in a statement. “An unknown number of people are still believed to be trapped under the rubble,” he added.
Updated
Israel will no longer grant automatic visas to United Nations employees, after accusing the global body of being “complicit partners” in Hamas’s tactics.
A spokesperson for the Israeli government, Eylon Levy, said Israeli will consider visa requests from UN employees on a case-by-case basis, the Times of Israel reported.
He accused the UN of covering up for Hamas, saying it had failed to condemn the group for allegedly operating out of hospitals and stealing aid intended for civilians in Gaza.
The move comes after Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, on Monday said he had instructed his ministry not to renew the visa of a UN staff member in Israel.
In a social media post, Cohen said the UN’s conduct since the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October had been “a disgrace to the organization and the international community.” Israel “will stop working with those who cooperate with the Hamas terrorist organization’s propaganda,” he added.
We will no longer remain silent in the face of the UN's hypocrisy!
— אלי כהן | Eli Cohen (@elicoh1) December 25, 2023
I instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to extend the visa of one of the organization's employees in Israel, and to deny the visa request of another employee.
The conduct of the UN since October 7th is…
Here’s more from Israel’s military chief, Herzi Halevi, who has said that he expects the war in Gaza to continue for “many more months”.
Halevi, speaking at a press conference near Gaza, was asked about a reported Israeli airstrike that killed a senior Iranian general in Syria.
Iranian officials and allied militant groups in the region have vowed revenge for the reported killing of Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guards in Syria.
Halevi declined to comment on the reported airstrike, according to Reuters. He said:
The IDF is working together with other security organisations throughout the Middle East, within the borders of the state, around the borders of the state.
He added:
We take whatever action necessary to make it very clear that we are very determined to defend the country, are willing to go far.
Updated
People in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah have been left “with nowhere to go and nothing to eat”, the World Food Programme’s representative in the Palestinian territories has said.
Samer AbdelJaber, in a post on social media, said humanitarian groups are distributing food parcels to people setting up tents “wherever they can” in Rafah but that “it’s not enough for everyone”.
In #Rafah, people are setting up tents wherever they can, after being displaced with nowhere to go and nothing to eat.@WFP & partners are distributing food parcels to people residing in these make-shift camps - but it's not enough for everyone. Millions in #Gaza are hungry. pic.twitter.com/R3kFCOpY37
— Samer AbdelJaber (@SamerWFP) December 26, 2023
Pro-Palestinian protesters staged a demonstration near the homes of the US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, and the White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Monday.
Near Austin’s home, they held signs calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The protesters chanted: “Austin, Austin, rise and shine – no sleep during genocide.” A crowd of protesters later adopted a similar tactic outside Sullivan’s home.
Posting on X,the People’s Forum activist group said it “woke up … Lloyd Austin as he tried to go on with his [Christmas] while arming & supporting zionist genocide against the Palestinian people. Now, we disrupt ANOTHER war criminal: [Jake Sullivan]. The people say NO XMAS AS USUAL!”
Updated
Israel army chief says Gaza war to continue for 'many more months'
Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza will probably go on for many months, the country’s military chief has said.
Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told a press conference today that the military is expanding operations in southern and central Gaza as it is close to dismantling all of Hamas’s battalions in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the Times of Israel reported.
The war “will continue for many more months, and we will work with different methods so that our achievements are preserved for a long time”, AFP reported that Halevi said. He added:
There are no magic solutions, there are no shortcuts when it comes to thoroughly dismantling a terrorist organisation except being stubborn and determined in the fighting.
He said the IDF will reach the Hamas leadership “whether it takes a week or whether it takes months”, adding:
We are increasing the military pressure, in different ways, powerfully and in a deceptive way. This pressure enables the realisation of the goals of the war, the dismantling of Hamas, and the return of the hostages.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from the Rafah border crossing in Egypt, where Palestinians are waiting after being evacuated from Gaza.
A senior Israeli official has said there are differences between the US and Israel over the war but that both countries are “on the same side”.
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN:
We can have different discussions on this tactical issue or that tactical issue. We listen very attentively to whatever Washington says, and I believe they listen very carefully to whatever we say to them.
But ultimately, we’re on the same side of this. We want to see Hamas destroyed.
He added that it was “only a matter of time” before Israel achieved victory in northern Gaza, arguing that reconstruction in the territory could not happen until Hamas is eliminated.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will meet with Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, today.
The meeting will discuss the conflict in Gaza and the return of hostages held by Hamas, according to a White House statement.
Internet and phone services down in Gaza, says provider
The Palestinian phone service provider, Paltel, has said all telecommunications and Internet services have been lost in the Gaza Strip.
A social media post by the company reads:
We regret to announce a complete breakdown of fixed telecommunications and internet services in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing offensive.
Our teams are working diligently, within the available resources, to restore services.
We regret to announce that fixed and internet services in Gaza Strip have been lost due to the ongoing aggression.
— Paltel (@Paltelco) December 26, 2023
Our teams are working diligently, within the available resources, to restore services.
Summary of the day so far...
Israel’s military said an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon had hit a church in northern Israel and injured a civilian, AFP reported. It said the missile hit the Greek orthodox church on a hilltop in Iqrit.
A blast occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, government authorities said. Israel’s foreign ministry said all staff were unharmed and Israeli authorities were cooperating with their Indian counterparts to investigate the cause of the explosion.
The UN’s human rights office spokesperson, Seif Magango, said the UN was “gravely concerned” about the “continued bombardment” of central Gaza by Israeli forces. He said Israeli forces must take all measures available to protect civilians and that attacks must adhere to the principles of humanitarian international law.
20,915 people have been killed and 54,918 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry has said. The ministry said 241 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours and 382 injured.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Israel was facing a “multi-front war and are coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran”. He told lawmakers: “We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres.”
People in central Gaza described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps, which were crowded with people who fled from the north in search of safety, the Associated Press reported.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said some displaced people had been injured in artillery shelling that targeted the upper floors of the organisation’s headquarters in Khan Younis. It wrote on X that thousands of internally displaced people had been sheltering in the building.
Updated
Israel's military says church struck by anti-tank missile from Lebanon
Israel’s military has said an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon had hit a church in northern Israel and injured a civilian, AFP reports.
It said the missile hit the Greek orthodox church on a hilltop in Iqrit. The army accused the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah of continued firing at Israeli “civilian and religious sites”.
Clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel have continued to intensify, with daily exchanges of missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the frontier.
Updated
Blast reported near Israeli embassy in New Delhi
A blast occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday and all staff were unharmed, government authorities said.
“We can confirm that… there was a blast at close proximity to the embassy,” the Israeli embassy spokesperson, Guy Nir, told Reuters.
Israel’s foreign ministry said all staff were unharmed and Israeli authorities were cooperating with their Indian counterparts to investigate the cause of the explosion.
Updated
UN ‘gravely concerned’ by Israeli 'bombardment' of central Gaza
The UN’s human rights office spokesperson, Seif Magango, has said the UN is “gravely concerned” about the “continued bombardment” of central Gaza by Israeli forces.
He said Israeli forces must take all measures available to protect civilians and that attacks must adhere to the principles of humanitarian international law.
In a statement, Magango said:
We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of middle Gaza by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve.
It is particularly concerning that this latest intense bombardment comes after Israeli forces ordered residents from the south of Wadi Gaza to move to Middle Gaza and Tal al-Sultan in Rafah.
The Israeli Air Force reportedly carried out more than 50 strikes across middle Gaza on 24-25 December, including on three refugee camps, al-Bureij, al-Nuseirat, and al-Maghazi.
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, will visit Ankara on 4 January to meet his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for talks likely to focus on the situations in Gaza and Syria as well as bilateral ties, a Turkish official said.
Turkey has harshly criticised Israel for its attacks on Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire and said Israeli leaders should be tried in international courts for war crimes.
Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have launched attacks on Israel and its allies in support of Hamas.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming through from Gaza:
Updated
The Israeli army has said it arrested senior Palestinian politician Khalida Jarrar in the occupied West Bank, along with other activists of her party, AFP reports.
Jarrar, 60, is a prominent figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a faction in the Palestine Liberation Organisation considered a “terrorist” group by Israel, the US and the EU.
“Khaleda Jarrar, a wanted terrorist, was arrested … along with other PFLP activists,” the army said in a statement.
Jarrar had been previously arrested by Israeli forces in October 2019 and released in September the following year, after being held without trial.
Her husband, Ghassan Jarrar, told AFP soldiers stormed the family home in the city of Ramallah “by breaking open the front door at 5am (0300 GMT”).
Jarrar was elected in 2006 to the Palestinian assembly as a PFLP representative. She has lobbied for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The PFLP, in a statement, said Israel’s army launched a “vast campaign on Tuesday morning to arrest leaders” of the group in the occupied West Bank.
“These arrests will not break the will of our people,” it said.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
20,915 people have been killed and 54,918 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry said that 241 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours and 382 were injured.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Israel is facing a “multi-front war”. “We are in a multi-front war and are coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran,” he told lawmakers. “We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres.”
People in central Gaza described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps, which are crowded with people who fled from the north in search of safety, the Associated Press reported.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said some displaced people have been injured in artillery shelling that targeted the upper floors of the organisation’s headquarters in Khan Younis. It wrote on X that thousands of internally displaced people are sheltering in the building.
Almost 21,000 people killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, says health ministry
20,915 people have been killed and 54,918 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry said that 241 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours and 382 were injured.
Israel has been under pressure from the US to shift operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase and reduce civilian deaths.
Updated
The Israeli air force has said dozens of fighter jets on an “attack flight” over the southern Gaza Strip attacked over 100 targets of Hamas, including tunnel shafts and military sites.
Updated
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said 160 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since ground operations began on 20 October.
A drone was downed near the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Dahab on Tuesday, two security sources, who could not confirm its origin, told Reuters.
Egypt’s Al Qahera News TV had reported earlier that explosions were heard over Dahab.
“A flying object was downed approximately 2km from the shores of Dahab,” Al Qahera said, citing witnesses.
Earlier in December, Egyptian air defences shot down a suspected drone near Dahab, security sources had said.
The Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen have escalated attacks on shipping in the Red Sea in protest against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Updated
Israeli defence minister: 'We are in a multi-front war'
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has been quoted by Reuters as saying the below in an address to lawmakers.
Gallant said:
We are in a multi-front war and are coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran.
We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres.
The comments come after an Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighbourhood on Monday was reported to have killed a high-ranking Iranian general, Sayyed Razi Mousavi.
The killing of Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guards in Syria, came amid ongoing fears of the Israel-Hamas war sparking a regional spillover.
Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have launched attacks on Israel and its allies in support of Hamas.
Clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel have continued to intensify, with daily exchanges of missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the frontier.
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will hold talks with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in Moscow on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry said.
The ministers plan to discuss bilateral ties as well as the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, among other issues.
Israeli forces bombard near refugee camps in central Gaza, say residents
People in central Gaza have described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps, which are crowded with people who fled from the north in search of safety, the Associated Press reports.
“The bombing was very intense,” Radwan Abu Sheitta, a Palestinian teacher said by phone from his home in Bureij. “It seems they are approaching,” he said of the Israeli troops.
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military arm, said its fighters hit an Israeli tank east of Bureij. This claim is yet to be independently verified, but it suggests Israeli forces could be moving toward the camp.
Artillery also reportedly struck areas east of the Nuseirat camp.
“We couldn’t sleep because of the bombing,” said Ezzel-Din Mohammed Abdallah al-Masry, a Palestinian fisherman who was displaced to the area from northern Gaza with his five children and other family members. “The children are terrified. We are terrified.”
More than 100 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes late on Sunday in Gaza, including at least 70 in bombings that hit a residential block in the Maghazi refugee camp near Deir al-Balah, health officials in Gaza said. The Israeli military said it was reviewing the Maghazi incident.
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Israeli forces killed two Palestinian people on Tuesday in a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry has said.
The two people – aged 17 and 31 – were shot dead in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the ministry said.
A resident from the camp told AFP that troops stormed the camp from its southern and northern entrances.
“The two men were killed just outside their homes,” he said.
The army did not offer an immediate comment to the claims.
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The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory has said demolitions were reported this morning in Furush Beit Dajan in the West Bank and yesterday in Deir Ballut.
Demolitions reported this morning in Furush Beit Dajan and yesterday in Deir Ballut, #WestBank, occupied #Palestinian territory. https://t.co/hG9VUlAUXf pic.twitter.com/opaWay7oYS
— OCHA oPt (Palestine) (@ochaopt) December 26, 2023
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Iraq’s government has condemned overnight US air strikes on Iraqi military positions that it said killed one serviceman and injured 18 other people, calling them a “clear hostile act”.
The US carried out retaliatory air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by Iran-aligned militants that left one US service member in critical condition and injured two others, Reuters reports.
The government condemned the US strikes as “an unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.
US forces have repeatedly targeted sites used by Iran and its proxy forces in Iraq and Syria in response to dozens of attacks on American and allied forces in the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on 7 October.
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The Japanese government will freeze assets and impose sanctions on payments and capital transactions on three senior Hamas members, the country’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, has said.
The three individuals were believed to be involved in the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel and in a position to use funds to finance such terrorist activities, the top Japanese government spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
The Israeli opposition leader and former prime minister, Yair Lapid, has again called for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to step down.
“Changing a prime minister in the middle of a war is not good. But the one in office is worse. He cannot continue,” Lapid was quoted by Al Jazeera as having told the Israeli news outlet GLZ Radio.
Speculation over whether Netanyahu can maintain his wartime coalition has been rife. Parties could walk away, potentially collapsing the government.
Netanyahu has been fiercely criticised for not taking responsibility for failing to prevent the 7 October attack.
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Palestine Red Crescent Society says headquarters targeted
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has said some displaced people have been injured in artillery shelling that targeted the upper floors of the organisation’s headquarters in Khan Younis.
It added that thousands of internally displaced people are sheltering in the building.
🚨 Urgent: Artillery shelling targets the upper floors of the PRCS headquarters in #KhanYounis, causing several injuries among the displaced individuals, as thousands of IDPs are sheltering in the building.#Gaza#NotATarget ❌ pic.twitter.com/zCHyva5Pu7
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 26, 2023
The Israeli army recently said it was sending more ground forces, including combat engineers, to Khan Younis, Gaza’s second biggest city, to target Hamas militants above ground and in tunnels.
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India’s navy has said it is deploying three warships and reconnaissance aircraft in the Arabian Sea to “maintain a deterrent presence” after a string of recent shipping attacks.
Three guided-missile destroyers as well as P8I long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft were being deployed following “the recent spate of attacks in the Arabian Sea”, it said in a statement late on Monday, Agence France-Presse reports.
The US accused Iran of carrying out a drone attack on Saturday on the MV Chem Pluto tanker 200 nautical miles (370km) off the coast of India, claims Iran’s foreign ministry dubbed “worthless”.
It was the first time Washington has openly accused Iran of directly targeting ships since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, the militant group backed by Tehran, in Gaza.
In the Red Sea, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have carried out a string of drone and missile attacks in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The assaults prompted Washington to last week launch a US-led coalition involving joint patrols in Red Sea waters near Yemen to safeguard commercial traffic.
Here are some of the latest images coming in from the Gaza Strip and Israel over the newswires, after Gaza health officials said more than 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight to Monday in Gaza.
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The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is heckled by hostages’ families as he addresses parliament in this footage below.
As he vows during a speech to continue the war against Hamas in Gaza, relatives of the hostages interrupt him and call for their immediate return, shouting: “Now! Now!”
They boo Netanyahu as he says Israeli forces need “more time” to increase military pressure on Hamas, which he has argued will help to secure the captives’ release.
Later, protesters gathered near the defence ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv before a meeting of the war cabinet, holding posters demanding “Free our hostages now – at any cost!”.
On Monday, the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said Israel needed to “bring the hostages home now”, adding that “we are not doing enough”, in comments that drew applause from hostages’ families.
The video is here:
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Here’s video footage of the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike that hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, reportedly killing more than 70 Palestinians.
The overall toll for Sunday night was reportedly more than 100, making it one of the deadliest nights of the 11-week-old war.
Building were seen flattened as Palestinians searched through the rubble with bare hands. Bodies wrapped in white cloth were later seen outside the al-Aqsa hospital as relatives of the dead mourned.
Displaced Palestinians not guaranteed safety anywhere in Gaza, says UN official
Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated territory, a UN humanitarian team leader has said.
Gemma Connell, deployed in Gaza for several weeks now, described what she called a “human chessboard” in which thousands of people – displaced many times already – are on the run again and there is no guarantee a destination will be safe, Reuters reports.
Early on Tuesday, Palestinian residents reported several airstrikes near Nasser hospital, southern Gaza’s largest medical facility, in Khan Younis. Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city.
Connell said on Monday:
People were heading up south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans and in trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe.
Connell’s comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the offensive in Gaza “isn’t close to finished” and that “we are expanding the fight in the coming days”.
Connell, a team leader for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs who on Monday visited the Deir al-Balah neighbourhood in central Gaza, said:
I’ve spoken to many people. There’s so little space left here in Rafah that people just don’t know where they will go and it really feels like people being moved around a human chessboard because there’s an evacuation order somewhere.
People flee that area into another area. But they’re not safe there.
Asked for the army’s response, a spokesperson said the military had sought to evacuate civilians from areas of fighting but Hamas systematically attempted to prevent that effort. The army spokesperson said Hamas used civilians as human shields, an accusation the group denies.
Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war on this 26 December. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a snapshot of the latest developments as it turns 7.50am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv.
Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated territory, a UN humanitarian team leader in Gaza has said.
Gemma Connell described a “human chessboard” in which thousands of people – displaced many times already – are on the run again and with no guarantee that any destination will be safe.
Her comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the offensive in Gaza “isn’t close to finished” and that “we are expanding the fight in the coming days”.
Early on Tuesday, Palestinian residents reported several airstrikes near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, while Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the city.
More on those stories soon. In other news:
Israeli airstrikes killed more than 100 Palestinians overnight to Monday in Gaza, health officials in the Hamas-run territory said. Twenty-three were killed in Khan Younis, medics said, while the territory’s health ministry said at least 70 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike targeting Maghazi in central Gaza. Associated Press reported later that at least 106 were killed in the attack on the Maghazi refugee camp. Eight people were killed as Israeli planes and tanks carried out dozens of airstrikes on houses and roads in al-Bureij and al-Nuseirat, health officials said.
Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad have rejected an Egyptian plan proposing that they give up power in the Gaza Strip in return for a permanent ceasefire, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters. Both groups, which have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, rejected offering any concessions beyond the possible release of more of the hostages seized on 7 October.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) says Israel “will pay” for killing one of its commanders, Iranian state TV reports. The Tasnim news agency and Reuters said earlier that an airstrike killed Sayyed Razi Mousavi outside Syria’s capital, Damascus. He was an IRGC member responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran. The IRGC described Mousavi as a brigadier general who was one of their oldest advisers in Syria. The Israeli military declined to comment on the reports.
Israeli strikes have killed 20,674 people and injured 54,536 in Gaza since 7 October, the territory’s health ministry said. It said on Monday that 250 Palestinians had been killed and 500 injured over the past 24 hours.
The Israeli prime minister has vowed to expand the Gaza operation, saying the war “isn’t close to finished” and will take a long time. Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed what he cast as false media speculation that his government might call a halt to fighting against Hamas. “We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight, and we will be intensifying the fighting in the coming days, and the fighting will take long and it is not close to concluding,” he told legislators from his Likud party, according to a statement. Separately, Netanyahu told Israel’s parliament that Israel would not succeed in freeing the remaining hostages held in Gaza without military pressure.
Family members of hostages taken by Hamas heckled Netanyahu during a special session of parliament. They shouted “there is no time” and “now, now, now” while holding posters and signs with the names and photos of their relatives. The prime minister said he would “shake every tree and turn every stone to bring back all the kidnapped”.
The World Health Organisation said it led missions to barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza at the weekend, describing growing desperation and starving people stripping an aid vehicle of supplies. The UN health agency and its partners delivered aid, including fuel, to the al-Shifa hospital, once Gaza’s biggest and most advanced medical facility, the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said late on Sunday on X (formerly Twitter). The mission on 23 December witnessed “rising desperation due to acute hunger”, he said.
Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, has accused the UN of “hypocrisy” and ordered his ministry not to extend one UN employee’s entry visa and to refuse entry for another.
Pope Francis said in his Christmas message that Israeli strikes in Gaza were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians and that was pleading for an end to the military operations. The pontiff called “for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid” as he spoke to thousands of people gathered at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
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