Updates: Israel continues to block Gaza aid; heavy rains flood tent camps

Thanks for joining us.

View our piece that honours all the journalists killed this year in Gaza, here.

You can take a look back at a year of war and misery in Gaza, here.

You can look at our gallery, which shows Israel’s war on Gaza over 12 months in 12 photos, here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Before we go, here is a recap of the day’s major developments:

• An Israeli air strike on a house in al-Fakhari, east of Khan Younis, has wounded several Palestinians.
• One person has been killed and another wounded in an Israeli drone strike on Jabalia in northern Gaza.
• At least six people have been killed in an Israeli raid on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
• UNRWA says more than 100 tents housing displaced Palestinians are flooded in Khan Younis.
• The head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has called for the “immediate release” of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, who is being held by the Israeli military after having been arrested at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

Ted Chaiban, the deputy executive director of humanitarian action and supply operations at UNICEF, has called for the immediate release of Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The 51-year-old Abu Safia is reportedly being held in the Sde Teiman base in Israel’s Negev desert after Israeli forces detained him after a raid on the hospital last week.

In a post on X, Chainan said he had seen the “lifesaving work” of Abu Safia and his colleagues firsthand.

The UN’s high commissioner for human rights in the Palestinian territory, Ajit Songhai, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s war on Gaza “violates international law”.

“Israel does not want to abide by international law,” Songhai said, adding that there was a “systematic destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip”.

Last week, Israeli forces raided and forcibly evacuated the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

The United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) has honoured all of its staff members killed in Gaza in 2024 in a post on X.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has said economic indicators for 2024 point to the collapse of Gaza’s economy and a sharp decline in productivity in the occupied West Bank due to the continuing war.

The bureau’s President Ola Awad was quoted by Wafa as saying estimates indicated an unprecedented sharp contraction of GDP in the Gaza Strip by more than 82 percent due to the collapse of all economic activities and an increase in the unemployment rate to 80 percent.

The West Bank economy also declined by more than 19 percent, with the unemployment rate rising to 35 percent.

The Israeli army says two rockets were identified crossing from the central Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

In a statement, the army said one projectile was intercepted and the other fell into an open area in the western Negev.

Families are seeing their tents being completely flooded as 90 percent of the population of Gaza is internally displaced.

Winter used to be a time of public gatherings and family meetings, but now it has become a nightmare.

The situation is worsened by the lack of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, as organisations say Israel is preventing its access.

Warm blankets, winter clothes and fuel needed for heating are all lacking.

Here is a quick reminder of what has happened this year in the Gaza Strip.

• Israel’s war on the enclave has killed more than 23,000 people and wounded more than 51,000 in 2024 alone.
• In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent any act that could be considered genocide. Despite this, rights organisations based in Palestine and internationally concluded that Israel has actively embarked upon a campaign of genocide within the Strip.
• Israel continued its relentless attacks on Rafah even after the ICJ ordered it to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza City and withdraw from the enclave in May.
• Israel has rendered 34 hospitals in Gaza “nonfunctional” and forced 80 health centres to shut down entirely.
• In October, Israel banned UNRWA, a vital lifeline for Palestinians, from operating in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Israel.
• Also in October, Israel began the ongoing siege of northern Gaza, bombarding Beit Hanoon, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya from the ground and the air as well as denying civilians the right to their homes, food, water, medical support and safe travel.

You can read more about 2024 in Gaza, here.

The Hebron municipality in the occupied West Bank has warned of excavation and extension works by Israeli forces on the Ibrahimi Mosque.

In a statement on Facebook, the municipality said the actions were part of Israel’s “ongoing attempts to threaten by stripping the municipality of its powers in the area”.

“These Israeli attacks come as part of a series of continuous violations aimed at demolishing the Holy Mosque of Ibrahim and changing its Islamic and historical landmarks … these actions reflect the sleeping intention to impose new conditions on the ground and obscuring the Palestinian identity of the site,” the municipality said.

Wafa news agency is reporting that Jonathan Whittall, a senior official of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territory (OCHA), said in a statement that Israeli authorities have rejected more than 140 UN requests to enter northern Gaza during the last two months.

The Israeli military is currently engaged in a deadly siege of northern Gaza that has left Palestinians in Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia severed from essential services for more than two and a half months.

Israeli settlers have attacked a young man in the Arab Mlihat Bedouin community northwest of Jericho, the Wafa news agency reports.

A group of settlers stormed the area and assaulted and wounded the resident.

The Arab Mlihat Bedouin community is a Palestinian community in the Jordan Valley that is frequently targeted by settlers under the protection of Israeli forces.

The attacks include assaults, forcing residents out of grazing areas and attempts to steal their livestock.

Pascale Coissard, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, spoke to Al Jazeera from the al-Mawasi camp for displaced Palestinians about the flooding across Gaza.

“The streets are flooded. The main road on the coastal side is flooded. A lot of tents are flooded. You can see children in flip-flops under the rain living in these conditions,” she said.

Coissard said the rain caused makeshift tents to collapse in some places.

“People have no real shelter. It’s makeshift. It’s not a place where you can spend the winter.”

Israeli restrictions on the entry of supplies “make it difficult for the humanitarian organisations that distribute blankets and clothing for the winter to people who need it”, she said.

“When there is no way to get warm … and it’s been raining for more than 24 hours straight now, people get sick,” Coissard said.

She added that young children, particularly babies and newborns who don’t have an adequate immune system to cope with these conditions, are the most vulnerable.

The Palestinian Fatah movement reiterated that the “priority” is for Israel’s war on Gaza to end, for it to be reunified with the West Bank and to establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

In a statement, the group marked the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Revolution, saying that “there is no security, stability, and peace in the Middle East without the free and independent Palestinian state being a reality”.

It added that the “suspicious silence” from the world was “encouraging the [Israeli] occupation state to continue the genocidal war in Gaza” and its “attacks, raids, arrests, and the policy of mass punishment” in the West Bank.

“There is no peace and no true coexistence in the Middle East without the Palestinian state,” it added.

Warnings have been given of an imminent risk of famine in parts of Gaza due to Israel’s attacks and blocking of humanitarian aid and food supplies.

Malnutrition is affecting many people, in particular children with long-term risks to their health.

Is Israel using starvation as a weapon of war? Listen to our podcast below:

Palestine’s Tourism Ministry said several archaeological sites in Jericho and the Jordan Valley have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces and settlers.

According to the ministry, Israeli forces fenced off the Khirbet el-Beiyudat site in al-Auja, Jericho, with an iron fence. Israeli settlers were allowed to storm the Tulul Abu al-‘Alayiq archaeological site, also in Jericho, and conducted illegal excavations.

The ministry also said that these repeated attacks on Palestinian archaeological sites were part of a systematic campaign by Israel to seize Palestinian national heritage and implement its annexation plan.

It added the goal of these actions, which violates the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1970 UNESCO Convention, was to erase the Palestinian memory tied to these sites and plunder Palestinian cultural resources.

Israeli players have been barred from the World Indoor Bowls Championships in England next month following a campaign by pro-Palestinian groups to ban entries from Israel due to its devastating war.

In a statement, the World Bowls Tour said Israeli bowlers’ participation in the Scottish International Open in August had produced “a significant escalation in related political concerns.

“As a result of the intensity of the situation, the WBT Board, in consultation with our event partners and other relevant stakeholders, has made the difficult decision to withdraw the invitation for Israel to participate in the forthcoming World Indoor Championships,” it added.

“Bowls is, and always has been, a sport that unites people and this choice reflects our commitment to protecting the championships and ensuring they run smoothly for everyone involved.”

But the Board of Deputies of British Jews slammed the decision, calling it an “overt act of discrimination against Israeli participants, who are excluded solely on the basis of their nationality”.