Israel-Gaza updates: Israel kills at least 33 in Nuseirat camp ‘massacre’

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You can read about the Israeli-imposed hunger crisis in Gaza here.

Read about press freedom groups’ reports on the attacks on Palestinian journalists here.

And follow our live coverage of the events in neighbouring Syria here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of today’s major events:

• An Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp killed at least 33 people and left dozens of others injured or missing, the Gaza Government Media Office said.
• Israel issued more displacement orders for several areas in Gaza City, leaving already displaced people with nowhere to go.
• After a meeting with Netanyahu, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said a ceasefire and captives deal to end the war in Gaza is close, adding that it is “time to finish the job”.
• Israeli bombardment killed three displaced people sheltering in tents in Khan Younis.
• Israel said it targeted Hezbollah members, as Lebanese media outlets reported that one person was killed and another injured in an Israeli attack in the southern town of Khiam.
• The Palestinian Authority slammed Paraguay for relocating its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, calling the decision a “violation of international law”.
• Trump promised to “solve” the Middle East issue, saying Netanyahu knows that the incoming US administration wants the Gaza war to end.

As the Gaza Government Media office condemned the Nuseirat attack that killed 33 people and injured dozens more, it noted that it comes amid ongoing attacks on the territory’s medical system.

“This latest crime coincides with the Israeli occupation’s plan to topple the health system in the Gaza Strip, exerting massive pressure on medical teams,” it said.

“It is coupled with continued attacks on hospitals and medical centres, putting them out of service. Moreover, the occupation prevents the entry of medicines and medical supplies and equipment as part of the crime of genocide.”

Student protesters calling on New York University to shut down its campus in Tel Aviv have rallied outside the Bobst Library.

The university said eight demonstrators were arrested as police officers intervened to “help ensure the safety of community members and maintain order”.

Pro-Palestine campus protests rocked US universities in April and May. But the demonstrations appeared to have quieted down in recent months after a crackdown by administrators and law enforcement agencies saw hundreds of students arrested and penalised.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) says Israel has destroyed 85 percent of Syria’s air defences “after more than a decade of work to try to evade” them.

The influential pro-Israel lobby group cited the Israeli military as saying that the country’s “air dominance could enable safer passage for Israeli jets to carry out a strike on Iran”.

“The US and Israel must work together to ensure this moment of uncertainty can become a moment of opportunity to weaken our adversaries, strengthen our shared security, and expand peace and normalization across the region,” AIPAC said in an email to supporters.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria since the fall of the al-Assad government.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says a newly released White House strategy to combat Islamophobia is “too little, too late”, citing President Joe Biden’s unconditional backing of Israel’s war on Gaza.

“President Biden cannot credibly claim to care about Muslims or Islamophobia while simultaneously supporting the Israeli government’s destruction of mosques, desecration of Qurans, and mass murder of a predominantly Muslim population,” the group said in a statement.

“By enabling Netanyahu’s war crimes, President Biden has sadly become a mass murderer of Muslims.”

At least three people were killed in Israeli shelling on tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, our correspondent on the ground reports.

Several people were also injured in the incident.

As we reported earlier, the Israeli bombardment of central Gaza has killed 33 Palestinians and injured many more.

The Reuters news agency has published a few photos from the aftermath of the attack.

Efforts to end Israel’s war on Gaza are picking up pace again, a month after being stalled.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are both in the region to drive the negotiations. Qatar has resumed its mediation along with other stakeholders to try and halt Israeli bombardments and seek a deal on swapping captives and prisoners.

Al Jazeera’s Inside Story speaks to experts on what is behind this push in the final days of the Biden administration.

Watch the discussion below:

Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that a woman, identified as Amal Dhaher, has succumbed to wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike on the southern village of Dibbine that had killed her husband and mother.

Israel bombed Dibbine earlier this week in violation of the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah that went into effect in November.

Israeli settlers have set fire to a room and filled a water well with rubble in the Jabaris area of the northern Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.

Local sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that settlers targeted a home belonging to the Faqih family.

The Jordan Valley has witnessed an increase in violent attacks by Israeli settlers, including physical assaults, evicting Palestinians from grazing lands and burning of property.

While it appears that the situation in Syria dominated the meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Washington said the two also discussed the possible ceasefire deal in Gaza.

During the talks in Ankara, Blinken “discussed the urgent need to conclude a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that secures the release of hostages and surges humanitarian assistance to vulnerable Palestinian civilians”, the US State Department said.

Palestinian rights advocates in the United States are denouncing the selection of Republican Congressman Brian Mast to lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mast, a pro-Israel hawk known for his incendiary remarks about Palestinians, was nominated on Monday by fellow Republicans to be the chair of the influential panel in the incoming Congress, prompting outrage.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the antiwar group Code Pink, described Mast as the “most cruel, heartless member of Congress”.

“His total disregard for Palestinian civilians fans the flames of violence. His position as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee bodes ill for a foreign policy that strives to protect human life and promote peace,” she told Al Jazeera.

Mast previously suggested that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate targets for Israeli violence and starvation.

“I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II. It is not a far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians,” the US congressman said last year.

Read more here.

Israeli forces have forcibly evicted a Palestinian family from their home in the village of Jalbun, east of Jenin, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

Local sources told Wafa that Israeli forces raided the house of Ahmad Omar Abu al-Rob’s family and forcibly expelled them from the third floor, where Abu al-Rob’s son, Omar, and his wife were living.

Israeli forces went on to convert the floor into a military outpost and told the family to leave the home for four days.

The village of Jalbun has been subjected to frequent incursions by Israeli forces who raid homes and turn some into military bases, forcing residents to evacuate for extended periods.

A new Israeli poll finds that Netanyahu’s Likud party would remain the largest party in the Knesset if an election were held today, but the far-right groups that comprise the current coalition government would fall below a majority.

According to the Channel 12 poll, pro-Netanyahu parties would receive 51 seats while anti-Netanyahu groups would take 64 seats.

When asked if they would prefer former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett or Netanyahu as leader, respondents were evenly split at 37 percent for both men.

But respondents favoured Netanyahu – who is on trial over alleged corruption – over National Unity chair Benny Gantz with 39-to-29 percent.

The Palestinian Civil Defence says its crews have retrieved the bodies of 15 people in a residential home bombed by Israel in the central Gaza Strip.

Eight people were also injured in the attack.

Doctor Saeed Jouda was targeted by an Israeli drone while travelling in an ambulance in northern Gaza.

Palestinian Foreign Ministry rebuked Paraguay for relocating its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, calling the decision a “violation of international law”.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its condemnation of this decision taken by the President of Paraguay, standing on the wrong side of history and rewarding the Israeli occupation for its continued commission of genocide against the Palestinian people,” the ministry wrote in a statement on X.

The ministry said Paraguay’s decision was in “complete contradiction” with its decision to recognise the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital on January 28, 2011.

It added that Paraguay ‘s President Santiago Pena’s move did not “give any importance to the honourable history recorded by the struggles of the peoples of Latin America to defend the values of justice and peace and to combat the concept of colonialism, oppression and racism”.

The ministry said it would take the appropriate “diplomatic, legal and political measures” to prevent the changing status of Jerusalem.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and subsequently annexed it in 1980. Earlier this year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful.

Hours before an Israeli air strike killed Eman Shanti along with her husband and children in Gaza City on Wednesday, the Palestinian journalist wrote on social media: “Is it possible we’re still alive until now?”

The Gaza Government Media Office said Shanti, who worked for Sawt al-Aqsa Radio, was the 193rd journalist to be killed by Israel in Gaza since the start of the war.

Palestinian human rights advocate Ramy Abdu said Shanti was one of the most loving and caring people of Gaza.

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif said targeting Shanti was maddening. “What danger did the journalist Eman Shanti pose for Israel to kill her with her husband and children?” he asked in a social media post.