Israel attacked Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, as well as Gaza, where air strikes killed at least 54 people on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Gaza’s more than 2 million people “will be moved” in a new ground offensive as Israel’s total blockade on the enclave reaches 65 days.
Hospitals in Gaza are 48 hours away from collapse and the lives of thousands of sick and wounded are at risk, the Gaza Media Office said.
Israel’s war has killed at least 52,567 Palestinians and wounded 118,610, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Student activists hung a 9-metre (30-foot) banner reading GAZA in giant red letters from the McGraw Tower at Cornell University in Ithaca .a banner with red letters saying gaza can be seen on a tower among old buildings
The protest comes as the Trump administration has reportedly frozen more than $1bn in funding for the university in upstate New York, an action partly linked to a push to get universities to crack down on protests against the war.
Cornell has since cancelled a performance by singer Kehlani, who has been a vocal supporter of Palestinians.
Students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at the university have also faced penalties, including PhD student Momodou Taal, who left the United States last month after his student visa was revoked.
Israel’s military has announced that exercises will take place today in the vicinity of the army base in the Tel HaShomer area of Ramat Gan city, east of Tel Aviv.It cautioned about heavy movement of military vehicles and troops, as well as roadblocks in the area.
It will also hold naval exercises in the coastal area of Rosh HaNikra in the north, near the border with Lebanon, and the nearby coastal city of Nahariya, the military said.
“As part of the exercise, there will be a lively movement of vessels in the area and the sounds of explosions will be heard,” it added.
Speaking to AFP, senior Hamas official Basem Naim says, “There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip.”
He called on the international community “to pressure the Netanyahu government to end the crimes of hunger, thirst and killings” in Gaza.
The appeal comes a day after Netanyahu said the population of Gaza “will be moved” in an upcoming offensive, and as conditions in the enclave deteriorate from a crippling 65-day blockade.
Israeli forces have carried out a violent early-morning raid in the town of Abwein, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, reports Wafa.
They arrested one man after storming and ransacking his home, said Wafa. They also beat three civilians during the raid, the agency reported, citing the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Our team on the ground reports that a child has succumbed to wounds sustained in an Israeli bombing carried out on a home in Khan Younis.An Israeli drone attack has killed one person in al-Fukhari, south of the city of Khan Younis, according to our colleagues on the ground.
The casualty adds to at least three others killed in early-morning attacks on Gaza.
Rashida Tlaib – the first woman of Palestinian descent in the US Congress – has said the United States is complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
In a post on X, Tlaib, who was re-elected to the House of Representatives in November, said Netanyahu has announced plans to “forcibly expel and ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population”.
Netanyahu also intends to “flatten and annex Gaza”, she said, adding that the plan comes after 64 days of Israel blocking all food and humanitarian aid from entering the war-torn territory.“This was always their plan,” Tlaib said. “The US is an accomplice in this genocide.”
Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq says Israeli forces have again attacked the occupied West Bank community featured in the Oscar-winning film No Other Land.
According to Al-Haq, Israeli soldiers, using bulldozers, demolished 11 residential structures, seven caves, five livestock pens, six water wells and two tents in Masafer Yatta on Monday.
They also destroyed water tanks, electricity grids and solar panels surrounding the houses, leaving Palestinian residents and their livestock stranded without water or electricity, with nowhere to go, it said.
