Updates: Women, children among the dead in Israeli attack on north Gaza

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For the latest episode of Al Jazeera’s Listening Post, which deals with the steps taken by the Israeli military to conceal the identities of its soldiers abroad, check this out.

To read about the visit to Syria by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, go here.

And to keep up with our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and regional tensions, visit here.

We will be closing this blog soon. Let’s take a look at the latest developments:

• Israeli air strikes killed dozens more Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including eight people in another school-turned-shelter that the Israeli army claimed was a Hamas command centre.
• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to send senior negotiators, including the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, to Doha for more talks on a Gaza ceasefire agreement.
• Israeli forces launched attacks across southern Lebanon, even as the Lebanese army progressed with its deployment in multiple areas in coordination with the UN.
• Violent Israeli settlers engaged in more arson and armed attacks under protection from soldiers across the occupied West Bank, where arrests of Palestinians and clashes were also reported.
• Israeli police and antigovernment protesters clashed in Tel Aviv as families of captives held in Gaza protested for their release.
• The family of a captive filmed a message for US President-elect Donald Trump, who is reportedly pushing for a Gaza truce deal by the time he assumes office in the next few days.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a delegation of senior officials to Qatar for negotiations on a captive release and Gaza ceasefire deal.

The announcement was welcomed by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group for those held in Gaza, which called it “a historic opportunity to secure the release of all our loved ones”.

“Leave no stone unturned and return with an agreement that ensures the return of all hostages, down to the last one,” it said in a statement.

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas resumed last weekend in Qatar.

As a growing number of Israeli voices openly condemn the actions of their military in Gaza, the Israeli government is taking extraordinary steps to conceal the identities of soldiers committing war crimes.

Israel’s army says its forces identified three suspects in Mount Dov, or occupied Shebaa Farms, who were moving inside Lebanese territory near the Israeli border.

A warplane attacked the three people, it said, without elaborating further.

The Israeli military said it continues to be deployed inside Lebanese territory but remains committed to “understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.

Israeli forces have been accused by Lebanon and its army of repeatedly violating the ceasefire agreement reached on November 27.

Earlier, we reported that four Israeli soldiers were killed in battle in northern Gaza. The army says five troops were also wounded during a Hamas attack, with two of the injured in critical condition.

The incident occurred in the Beit Hanoon area after an explosive device detonated near the soldiers’ vehicle.

At least 835 Israeli soldiers have been killed and 5,590 others wounded since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, according to military figures.

A group of armed Israeli settlers stormed the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank and descended on Ibrahimi Mosque under heavy protection from Israeli forces.

Local sources cited by the Wafa news agency said “hundreds” of armed settlers, escorted by soldiers, entered multiple neighbourhoods in the Old City, chanting “racist and anti-Arab slogans” and engaging in threats.

They reportedly performed Talmudic rituals at the mosque, as the movement of Palestinians to the area was restricted amid a military curfew. In the town of as-Samu, south of Hebron, Israeli soldiers reportedly shot a young Palestinian in the leg.

Hospitals in Gaza have become battle zones. Patients and health workers are victims of Israel’s war.

Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, is missing after being detained by Israeli forces for questioning. How can the UN and the world powers stop Israel from attacking health facilities?

The Times of Israel and Haaretz newspapers report that at least two people have been arrested at antigovernment demonstrations outside the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Police said they made “requests that protesters disperse. Protesters refused to disperse and lit bonfires and fired flares on the street”.

An air strike killed a five-year-old girl and two male relatives in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

The girl’s body, in a pink sweater, was wrapped and placed on the floor of the morgue. Her father knelt and pressed his face to hers. “God!” he cried.

Earlier, another Israeli air strike killed at least eight Palestinians including two children and two women in a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza. The strike on the Halawa school that houses displaced people in the Jabalia area also wounded 30 others, including 19 children.

Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas “command centre” at a former school in Jabaliya, without giving evidence.

The Israeli military says four of its soldiers have died in battle in the besieged north of the Gaza Strip.

They include a 37-year-old truck driver in the 14th Armored Brigade’s 79th Battalion and three soldiers aged between 19 and 21 from Battalion 931, which is part of the Nahal Brigade.

Israel’s Kan News also reported heavy clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters around Beit Hanoon in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

Israel has laid siege to northern Gaza for more than three months, putting Palestinians under constant bombardment and denying them the right to their homes, food, water, medical support and safe travel.

Trine Mach, a Danish politician with the Red-Green alliance, has told Al Jazeera she believes her country’s government is “way behind the reality” in its position on Israel-Palestine.

“It’s still protecting Israel’s right to defend itself and not really condemning all the atrocities that are happening, not accepting that we’re talking war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” she said on the sidelines of the European Palestinian Network’s conference in Copenhagen. “What is happening is that Denmark is a very close ally of the US.”

She said the “F-35 collaboration programme” is “core to the whole discussion”.

Denmark has previously acknowledged sending F-35 combat aircraft parts to Israel. “I think that alliance with the US keeps Denmark from actually speaking up in what I would consider to be the right way.”

The Lebanese civil defence agency reports its rescue workers recovered the bodies and remains of 11 people in Naqoura, Bayada and Tayr Harfa.

Two more bodies were discovered under the rubble of structures destroyed by the Israeli military in the town of Khiam, near the border with Israel.

The agency and the army have been working to remove debris and reopen roads as the Israeli military has gradually withdrawn from areas in the south, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement reached on November 27.

The Israeli military reports its warplanes launched about 110 air strikes across the occupied West Bank since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023.

The army claimed the attacks killed at least 165 “armed terrorists” while adhering to international law.

It also said armed Palestinians used mosques to attack Israeli forces in the occupied territory, “putting the Palestinian population at risk and exploiting them”.

Israeli air strikes have been less common in the West Bank when compared to the dozens that are launched on the Gaza Strip on a daily basis, but they have been increasingly used in deadly attacks.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Amman, Jordan, because it has been banned in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Officials who spoke anonymously to Israeli media say there hasn’t really been any serious progress since these talks started a few weeks ago.

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending a high-level delegation that will include the head of Israel’s Mossad, the head of the Shin Bet, and the negotiator for the Israeli military.

It’s worth mentioning the last time these three men went as a delegation for Gaza negotiations was in August of 2024. So it’s been some time since the entire Israeli delegation was at the table.

Incoming US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy also met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president-elect has said he wants to be involved in these negotiations and see a ceasefire deal.

The Israelis have said they have sticking points but are willing to go to the negotiating table this time.

Relatives of some captives held in Gaza are speaking outside the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The Times of Israel quotes Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of deceased captive Yoram Metzger, as saying, “Instead of the hostages returning alive, we are receiving the captives in body bags. Only in Israel is total failure sold as ‘a heroic operation’.

“We don’t want you to send more soldiers who lose their lives while extracting bodies. We don’t want more soldiers to fall in a pointless war. How much more blood must be spilled for Netanyahu’s personal interests, for messianic delusions at the expense of the hostages and soldiers?”