Israeli forces have again bombed the so-called “safe zone” in Gaza’s al-Mawasi, killing at least 21 people and wounding dozens more, according to Atif al-Hout, the director of the Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. Our correspondents say women and children were “incinerated” in the attack.
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) have announced detainee Alaa Marwan Hamza Mahlawi’s death in Israeli custody.
Mahlawi, 42, from Gaza, who had been imprisoned since December 21, 2023, did not suffer from any chronic illnesses before his incarceration, according to his family.
The advocacy groups said in a statement that Mahlawi was held in the Naqab Prison, where other detainees said his health had significantly deteriorated.
In November, Mahlawi was transferred to the Israeli Asaf Harofeh Hospital, where he died this morning.The statement stressed that the number of Palestinian detainees who have mysteriously died in Israeli custody has significantly increased since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Since the war began last year, at least 49 Palestinian detainees have died in custody, 30 of them from Gaza.
Abdel-Malik al-Houthi has praised Iran-allied regional groups – including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq – for supporting Palestinians in Gaza by attacking Israel and its interests in the region, saying that they represent a “spotlight of hope”.
The Houthis have been targeting shipping lanes in and around the Red Sea and firing missiles and rockets at Israel in an effort that they say is aimed at ending the war on Gaza.Al-Houthi said his group has attacked 211 Israel-linked ships over the past year.
Hamas has welcomed a report by Amnesty International accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza and called for world action.
The group said in a statement that the report was “a new message to the international community … on the need to act to bring an end to this genocide that has lasted for more than 400 days”.
Washington says top US diplomat Antony Blinken reiterated to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar during a meeting in Malta that “Israel must do more to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza”.
However, Blinken has said repeatedly that Israel is not blocking aid to Gaza. US law prohibits providing military assistance to countries that restrict US-backed humanitarian aid.
The US has handed Israel $17.9bn in security aid in the first year of the war on Gaza, according to a study by Brown University.
“The Secretary emphasized the urgency of bringing all of the hostages home, ending the war in Gaza, and establishing a path for the post-conflict period that provides lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” the US State Department said in a statement describing the meeting.
It added that Blinken reaffirmed to Saar the US commitment to Israel’s security.
“The Secretary and the Foreign Minister also discussed the ongoing cessation of hostilities in Lebanon and the importance of ensuring the agreement is fully implemented,” the statement said.
The Lebanese group’s chief will speak at 6pm Beirut time (16:00 GMT), according to Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets.
Qassem’s remarks are expected to address the fragile ceasefire with Israel and the push to elect a Lebanese president.
Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s emergency officer currently in Gaza, says the catastrophic humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate.
“We are seeing people begging for pieces of bread. Three women were trampled to death just a few days ago, waiting for pieces of bread,” Wateridge said, speaking in front of an empty UNRWA warehouse.
“UNRWA is not permitted by Israeli authorities to use multiple crossings in the Gaza Strip so the community might see that as: ‘Why is UNRWA not going to the crossing? Why is UNRWA not getting the flour?’ We are denied. We are denied,” she said.
Wateridge said people need everything, from water, food, shelter and warm clothes, “anybody else in the world takes for granted, that is what people need here”.
“Children – you cannot tell anymore if they are shivering from the cold or from the fear of drones and bombs around,” she said on X.Aftermath of an Israeli strike on a tent camp, in Khan Younis
The velocity of the Israeli strikes continues to upscale rapidly in multiple geographical locations across the Strip.
It has been quite grim in the north where the Israeli army is targeting everyone and anything is moving on the ground in the north of the Strip.
One of the latest reports that we managed to get from our witnesses, and even our sources on the ground in the city of Beit Lahiya, was that a residential building was massively targeted just half an hour ago. Fifteen Palestinians were confirmed killed based on medical sources.
The latest attacks took place on the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Israeli drones have been extensively deployed on that vicinity and they have targeted a group of civilians who were receiving a treatment inside.
One of them is a man seen on a wheelchair who was about to leave the hospital.
This is a very sombre reality that, day by day, is deepening due to the Israeli unrelenting military campaign that has no end in sight.
We recently received news that patients in Kamal Adwan Hospital were targeted by Israeli quadcopters – one of those injured is in a wheelchair.
There’s no number as of now about how many Palestinians have been injured or killed in this attack, but the footage we’ve seen shows the floor of Kamal Adwan filled with blood, Palestinians on the ground at the entrance of Kamal Adwan Hospital, also people covered with blood.
It’s not the first time Israeli forces targeted a hospital today. Earlier, they also targeted the water tanks of the Indonesian Hospital, which is not operational but has been home for displaced people.
Also, earlier today, a house behind Kamal Adwan Hospital was targeted in an attack that killed seven Palestinians.
So the attacks on northern Gaza are intensifying. And there might be people who have been evacuating from the northern Gaza Strip to Gaza City, but there are still thousands of Palestinians who remain, without food, water, medicine or any aid allowed to those areas.
After Israel issued more forced evacuation orders for people in northern Gaza, displaced people, including women and children, were fired upon by Israeli forces and armed drones. Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Khalili reports from Jabalia.
Al-Mawasi is a 12sq km area for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families, and this is where these families have been taking refuge after receiving forced evacuation orders from the Israeli military.Smoke is still hanging in the air after the latest Israeli attack on this area.
Based on witnesses’ reports, this encampment has been targeted without any sort of warning.We can see the scale of destruction right as the Israeli military had targeted this place with two consecutive air strikes.
You can see the remnants of the personal belongings that had been shattered. Here, we can see books, and even we can see burned bags, and even some papers for educational purposes, including one of these papers, has been written down on it like riding a bicycle.
It means that children were in this place.
And here we can see also the food that left behind these displaced people.
We can see even here pasta, flour, and different personal belongings that had been quite shattered.
If you can take a look at this place, it has been incredibly, the destruction is quite extensive, where civilians have been absolutely caught in the grip of this area with no let up in bombardment.
This strike, in fact, encapsulates the catastrophic calamity Palestinians are really going through, especially since there are not any place across the Gaza Strip or even shelters that could be safe.
The general directorate of Gaza’s civil defence has warned of a complete halt to the service and humanitarian interventions it provides to displaced Palestinians in the area that the Israeli military claims is “humanitarian” in the southern Gaza Strip.
Muhammad al-Mughair, director of supply and equipment of Gaza’s civil defence, says since October 7 last year, international organisations have refused to provide his organisation with fuel “under the pretext of preventing the Israeli occupation”.
Al-Mughair confirmed that Palestinian Civil Defence crews are still providing their humanitarian services throughout the Gaza Strip with the minimum available resources and capabilities.
This week, 13 out of 22 fire and rescue vehicles stopped working in the southern Gaza Strip due to the shortage, he added.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has said that Israel is holding 46 bodies of Palestinians who were killed in Israeli prisons since the Gaza war erupted.
It said in a statement on Telegram that a total of 57 Palestinians were killed in Israeli prisons since October 7 last year and their names were announced by the Israeli authorities
Israeli air attacks continue to threaten northern Gaza’s health facilities. The latest attacks killed seven people near the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital and injured three at the inactive Indonesian Hospital, which has transformed into a shelter for the displaced.
Twenty-eight Palestinians are in custody after Israel’s last round of raids in the occupied West Bank, spanning the governorates of Ramallah, Tulkarem, Tubas and Jerusalem.
A French delegation is in Beirut to discuss the implementation of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, which France has accused Israel of violating dozens of times.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel’s military says it is continuing to operate in southern Lebanon, destroying underground infrastructure, killing fighters and eliminating “any threats”.
The Israeli military says its forces have killed seven Palestinian fighters “from the air” and arrested 50 “wanted individuals” during ground operations in the occupied West Bank over the past week.
The announcement came a day after Israel claimed to have killed three Hamas operatives in the Aqqaba area of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, where a car was bombed by an Israeli fighter jet.
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, confirmed the deaths of only two members in that attack. It promised to continue resisting Israeli forces “until victory and liberation”.
The third person injured in the Aqqaba attack was later arrested by the Israeli forces in a hospital in Nablus.
An Israeli air raid in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood has killed at least three people, according to our colleagues on the ground.The Wafa news agency reported a deadly strike in the area.
This comes as Palestinians in Gaza City reel from an overnight attack on a residential building that killed and wounded dozens. An entire family is still trapped under the rubble, our colleagues report. AJLabs breaks down the cost of food and other essentials in the besieged enclave.
