Israel-Hamas war updates: Children among dead as Israeli strike hits Rafah
Strike hits near Al Jazeera team; many casualties streaming into nearby Kuwaiti Hospital.
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For the latest updates from December 29, please click here.
- An Israeli strike hit a residential building in Rafah near Al Jazeera’s reporting team. They report seeing many casualties streaming into the nearby Kuwaiti hospital.
- Fifty Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, Khan Younis and Maghazi areas on Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
- The World Health Organization says tens of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing central Gaza and Khan Younis, attempting to escape Israeli attacks.
- In Gaza, at least 21,320 people have been killed and 55,603 injured in Israeli attacks since October 7. The death toll from Hamas’s attack on Israel stands at 1,139.
WATCH: A conscientious objector on why she won’t enlist
Sofi Orr is only 17. She will be expected to enlist in the Israeli army in a few months.
But she’s made a decision not to join the army despite abuse and threats she’s been receiving.
While Israeli society has strongly shifted to the right since October 7, she says there can be no military solution to a political problem.
Watch our interview with Sofi Orr below:
Here’s what happened today
Below is a recap of the day’s main developments:
- At least 20 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air attack on a residential building in Rafah.
- The Israeli war cabinet meeting on ‘post-war’ plans for Gaza has been cancelled after opposition from far-right ministers.
- Tel Aviv protest leader says only an end to occupation can bring security for Israel.
- The spokesman for the Qassam Brigades said there will be no hostage deal before a complete stop to the Israeli war.
- UN Human Rights office says settlers feel “emboldened” to carry out attacks in the occupied West Bank.
Syria says it intercepted Israeli ‘air aggression’
Syria’s Defence Ministry said that the country’s air defences intercepted Israeli strikes on areas surrounding the capital Damascus.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the Defence Ministry said that Israel carried out the attack at dawn “from the direction of the Lebanese territory” targeting a number of points in the vicinity of the capital.
“Our air defence means repelled the aggression missiles and shot down some of them. The aggression resulted in some material losses,” the ministry added.
Earlier, Reuters news agency reported that Israel struck Syria’s main air defence base, as well as a radar station in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province of southwestern Syria.
Israel regularly attacks sites in Syria that it says are linked to Iran-backed armed groups but rarely publicly acknowledges such raids.
Israel’s war on Gaza’s children
More than 8,663 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, according to the government media office, which added that thousands more are missing under the rubble amid relentless bombardment.
An overwhelming number of more than 21,000 people killed in the nearly three months of Israeli bombardment, which is the most destructive in recent history, have been civilians. Israel has repeatedly targeted schools, and even neonatal care centres have not been spared, resulting in the killing of newborn babies.
According to Save the Children data in early November, a child was being killed every 10 minutes. The UN has called the besieged Palestinian enclave “a graveyard” for children due to the high casualty figures.
WATCH: Israeli conscientious objector says she refuses to be part of ‘endless cycle of bloodshed’
Israel hits air defence base in southern Syria: Reuters
Citing Syrian army and intelligence sources, Reuters has reported that Israeli strikes reported earlier were on a main Syrian air defence base.
The strikes were believed to have targeted the base, as well as a radar station, in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province of southwestern Syria, a Syrian military intelligence source and another regional security official familiar with the matter told the news agency.
Last month, another anti-aircraft defence system and radar station in Tel Qulaib and Tel Maseeh in southern Syria were hit in what the senior intelligence sources said was an intensified campaign by Israel to disrupt Syrian air defence systems that Iran was involved in expanding.
Israeli has repeatedly struck Syrian government positions since the beginning of the war, in what military experts have said appears to an effort to slowing Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria.
Spanish politician shows solidarity with Palestinians in parliament
Maria Marin, member of the Podemos party, brought an effigy of a shrouded Palestinian child into parliament during a meeting meant to address the budget of the region of Murcia.
Her gesture was meant to represent the thousands of Palestinian children killed in Gaza.
“Spain, its people, and the people of Murcia will never be friends with the perpetrators of the genocide,” she said, criticizing officials’ disregard for Gaza’s ongoing suffering.
Hoy los santos inocentes son los más de 8.000 niños asesinados en Palestina por Israel y el rey Herodes es el genocida Benjamin Netanyahu.
Los mártires de Gaza, presentes en el Pleno. El mundo no puede cerrar los ojos. Paremos el genocidio #FreePalestine 🙏🏻 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/XF3pHu2wEI
— María Marín (@MariaMarinMart) December 28, 2023
Translation: Today, the holy innocents are the more than 8,000 children murdered in Palestine by Israel, and King Herod is the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu. The martyrs of Gaza, present in the plenary. The world cannot close its eyes. Let’s stop the genocide.
WATCH: What’s behind South Africa’s support for Palestinians?
South Africa has displayed robust support for Palestinians over Israel’s war on Gaza. As Nabila Bana explains, this solidarity has a long history rooted in South Africa’s apartheid past ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/G3a0yazKhD
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 28, 2023
Blinken to find himself ‘between a rock and a hard place’ on Middle East trip
With the top US diplomat expected to make his fifth trip to Israel since the beginning of the war, he is likely to face regional Arab allies increasingly pushing for a ceasefire, Natali Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, told Al Jazeera.
The trip comes as Egypt has taken more of a leading role in pushing for a ceasefire, including introducing a plan towards the cessation of fighting in recent days.
Meanwhile, while the US has publicly indicated it wants Israel to move to a lower-intensity phase in the war, it has not heaped any public pressure on Israeli officials to actually do so.
“At the moment, we don’t see the US actually putting pressure on Israel for a ceasefire,” Tocci said. “However, as that Egyptian role is actually increasing … in calling for a ceasefire, Blinken will basically find himself in between a rock and a hard place.”
Video shows PRCS crews transporting casualties from attack on Maghazi
Earlier we reported on an Israeli strike on the camp resulting in a number of casualties. The exact number could not be immediately determined.
In a video posted on X, a Palestinian Red Crescent crew and other civilian rescuers were seen transporting injured victims as well as dead bodies following the strike.
The humanitarian group said it transported six injured people and three others who were killed in the latest strike.
On Sunday, a strike on the camp in Deir el-Balah killed at least 90 people, in one of the deadliest Israeli attacks since October 7.
The Palestine Red Crescent teams evacuated 3 martyrs and 6 injuries due to the Israeli shelling of a house this evening in the #Maghazi camp in the central #Gaza Strip.
📷Filmed by PRCS volunteer, Mohammed Suliman . pic.twitter.com/wZ7Vv8Tab8— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 28, 2023
Hezbollah drone targets Kiryat Shmona
Hezbollah has published a video on its Telegram channel showing one of its unmanned combat aerial vehicles targeting an Israeli army checkpoint in the vicinity of the Kiryat Shmona city near the Lebanese border.
The group also said it was “targeting Israeli enemy settlements in response to its attacks on civilians in southern Lebanon”.
Earlier, the movement said it targeted an Israeli military vehicle inside the Ramot Naftali barracks.
Hamas delegation to discuss Egypt’s ceasefire plan in Cairo: AFP
A Hamas delegation is set to travel to Cairo tomorrow to give its “observations” on an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire in Gaza, a Hamas official told the AFP news agency.
The plan was put last week to officials of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group but is not expected to be accepted by Israel. The plan reportedly calls for staggered pauses in fighting and the gradual release of captives moving towards a full ceasefire.
The Hamas official quoted said the delegation would be from Hamas’s political office in Qatar.
The official said Hamas’s response to the plan focuses on “the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, as well as obtaining guarantees for a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza”.
WATCH: Israeli strike on Rafah kills at least 20 Palestinians
We’ve been reporting on the strike that hit a residential building in the southern Gaza city, very close to an Al Jazeera team.
Watch the video of our team’s reporting on the aftermath of the strike:
Video shows aftermath of attack on az-Zawayda
The Palestinian Red Crescent has said it evacuated eight people following the strike on the house in central Gaza.
In a video posted on X, a large fire can be seen with emergency responders walking through a heavily damaged home.
Two young children and an elderly man with a head injury can be seen among the wounded.
🚨The PRCS teams evacuate 8 casualties, 🚑including children, due to the Israeli targeting of a house in Al-Zawaida in the central #Gaza Strip, causing it to catch fire. 👇In this video, we witness horrifying scenes of a large fire, and ambulance teams working under ⚠️dangerous… pic.twitter.com/3FKW1936Os
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 28, 2023
New Israeli strike on the Maghazi refugee camp
Al Jazeera’s correspondent is reporting that there were a number of Palestinians killed and others wounded in the strike on the area in the central Gaza Strip.
Maghazi has seen constant bombardment in recent days. At least 90 people were killed late Sunday when Israel struck the small refugee camp in Deir el-Balah, in one of the war’s deadliest attacks.
We will bring you more updates as information comes in.
Israeli war cabinet meeting on Gaza post-war plans cancelled: Israeli media
The meeting was set to be the first to focus on Israel’s plans for Gaza after its military operations end.
The cancellation comes after the meeting was criticised by the far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had said the subject was outside of the war council’s mandate.
Far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party had also announced it was holding its own meeting in protest over Smotrich’s exclusion from the discussion.
Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are part of the wider Israeli security council, but are not part of the war cabinet, whose main members are Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and opposition leader Benny Gantz.
Internal pressure piles up on Netanyahu as cabinet refuses to discuss ‘day after war’
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the Israeli war cabinet convened this evening but stopped short of discussing what will happen the day after the war on Gaza.
“They were supposed to talk about what’s going to happen the day after the war, or as Israel refers to it, ‘the day after Hamas’,” Salhut said, speaking from occupied East Jerusalem.
“However, there have been several objections among Netanyahu’s own coalition, to have these discussions. Israeli media is now reporting that the prime minister has succumbed to that pressure and those discussions will not happen just yet.”
The fierce opposition is coming from members of the far right, specifically ultranationalists within Netanyahu’s government like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, Salhut said. The two ministers are not part of the war cabinet but have objected to a lot of decisions. If they left Netanyahu’s coalition, it could fall apart.
“There are a lot of different pressures Netanyahu is under, such as the internal political pressure between him and his own government,” Salhut said.
UNWRA probes latest reported attacks on facilities in Gaza
The latest incidents include an attack on the al-Maghazi Prep School on December 25, in which two internally displaced people sheltering there were killed and another person was wounded, according to the UN agency.
The agency is also verifying damage by a nearby attack to the Bureij sanitation office.
UNRWA has recorded 193 incidents affecting their facilities in Gaza, including 60 direct hits.
It estimates at least 308 internally displaced people have been killed at its shelters, with more than 1,000 injured since the beginning of the war. At least 142 UNRWA staff have been killed.
Israel attacks targets near Damascus: Syrian state media
Explosions have been heard near the Syrian capital, according to Syrian state television, which said Israel is responsible.
More on this breaking news story as soon as we get it.
US hostage envoy praises Qatari role in captive release
In an interview with the US’s Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS), Roger Carstens says that Qatar is “playing a very strong and important role as an intermediary”.
“There are times when, of course, the United States does not really have entree into some of the negotiating groups, and this is a case where Qatar has really been able to bring its gravitas in the region to bear,” he told PBS.
“The bottom line is,” Carstens continued, “we’re in this to make sure that everyone gets back. And even if we were to get all of our Americans back, we are going to stay there and work to get all the hostages back, and we’re done when everyone is accounted for.”
Biden: American thought to be held captive by Hamas killed
The US president says that Judith Weinstein was actually killed during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, and was never taken captive.
Biden says that he was “devastated” by the news.
Weinstein’s husband, Gadi Haggai, was also killed on the same day, Biden said last week.
Two stabbed at Mazmoria checkpoint: Israeli emergency service
The Magen David Adom emergency service has said it responded to a stabbing at the checkpoint south of Jerusalem about 9:05pm (19:05 GMT).
It identified those wounded as a 20-year-old female and a 25-year-old male. Both were listed in moderate condition.
Israeli security forces said they had fired on and “neutralised” the attacker. Further details were not immediately available.
Tel Aviv protest leader says only an end to occupation can bring security for Israel
Al Jazeera’s Sara Kahirat spoke to Alon Lee Green, who told her that the goals of the movement are the achievement of a ceasefire, the return of Israeli captives and an end to the killing of innocent people in Gaza.
“We understand that this way of one war after the other has achieved nothing. It achieved only destruction and death and more hatred between the people,” Green told Al Jazeera.
He said the movement he is part of has been growing since the beginning of the war because of its message of achieving security for Israel.
“We cannot take moral high ground and lecture to people and tell them, ‘No, you are racist’ or ‘You are a fascist.’ No. We need to talk about the interests of Israeli citizens, to end the occupation and to achieve security,” he said.
“This way of controlling millions of people who are not Israeli … cannot bring us security. It can only bring us resistance and violence, and we see where it led us.”
PRCS to establish camp for displaced in Khan Younis
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, in cooperation with the Egyptian Red Crescent, is working to establish the first organised camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis.
In the first stage, the camp will set up 300 tents that will house the displaced families of medical, ambulance and relief staff of the Red Crescent. Later, the capacity will be expanded to 1,000 tents to accommodate some of the thousands of displaced families in the southern Gaza Strip.
Witness describes fleeing Rafah strike
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum has spoken to Mohammed Thabet, who witnessed the Israeli strike on a residential building in Rafah that killed at least 20 Palestinians.
“It’s an intense feeling, of course, even though we know the air strike wasn’t meant for us, but being this close to the location where we are at, the first thoughts are you have to run away and take shelter,” Thabet told Al Jazeera.
“It’s already hard enough as it is, finding your daily meal, finding drinkable water with this amount of people gathered in one city,” he said. “Being this close to the Egyptian border in the far south of the Gaza Strip, people feel like they have nothing else they can do, like you just have to wait and hope for the best.”
When Abu Azzoum asked if Thabet felt safe in southern Gaza, he replied “After everything we saw, not at all. There is nowhere safe in Gaza.”
“This is the general sentiment among Gazans in the south as Israel’s unrelenting bombing does not stop,” Abu Azzoum said.