Updates: Israeli attacks on Gaza kill 28; warplanes bomb south Lebanon

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For more on Israel’s latest deadly strikes on Gaza and Lebanon, see our report here.

You can read our article here on an NGO’s findings about abuse and torture against Palestinians within Israel’s prison system.

And finally, you can read more about why the death toll in Gaza has been rising despite the ceasefire that started last month.

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

• Israeli air strikes on Gaza City and Khan Younis have killed at least 28 Palestinians, including women and children, and injured 77. Hamas says it marks a “serious escalation”.
• Israeli warplanes have carried out attacks on towns in southern Lebanon, including Aynata and Tair Filsi, shortly after earlier Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 people in the country.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson has hit out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to an Israeli military outpost inside Syria, describing the “very public” trip as “concerning”.
• The situation for families and children in Gaza remains “catastrophic” amid heavy flooding and severe rains, UNICEF says, while the UN’s World Food Programme noted that many families in the enclave are bracing for another winter spent without proper shelter.
• The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has called for more funding, saying its current shortfall “risks the rights, lives and future” of millions of Palestinians.
• Germany has withheld its support for an extension of UNRWA’s mandate for the first time, saying the agency requires “consistent and verifiable reforms”.

Israeli troops have carried out two raids in the occupied West Bank, targeting the village of al-Lubban Asharqiya south of Nablus and the town of Hizma northeast of Jerusalem, the Wafa news agency reports.

In al-Lubban Asharqiya, residents said soldiers opened fire at a Palestinian vehicle and threw stun grenades in front of several shops in the village.

In Hizma, the Jerusalem governorate said Israeli forces stormed the town and fired live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas canisters extensively. No injuries were reported.

Such raids have become an almost daily occurrence across the West Bank, where Israeli forces routinely carry out arrest campaigns and incursions into Palestinian towns and villages.

The Syrian and Israeli ambassadors have had a testy exchange at a meeting of the UN Security Council, just hours after Netanyahu visited an Israeli military outpost inside Syria.

Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s UN envoy, said his government “strongly condemns this provocative tour, which epitomises Israel’s ongoing aggression against Syria and its people”.

“We renew our calls on the UN and this council to take firm and immediate action to halt these violations, ensure their non-recurrence, end the occupation and enforce relevant resolutions, particularly the 1974 disengagement agreement” agreed after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

In response, Israel’s Danny Danon did not directly address Netanyahu’s trip to the part of southern Syria that his country occupies. Instead, he lectured his Syrian counterpart on what his country should do.

“This council has heard Syria’s pledge of reform and reconciliation, but promises alone do not rebuild nations,” Danon said, adding that it was up to Damascus to prove it would protect minorities like the Druze and end what he called “the cycle of indiscriminate killing”.

Olabi retorted that it was actually Israel who had to prove itself before the international community.

“You have struck Syria more than 1,000 times. And we have responded with requests for diplomacy. … We have responded with zero signs of aggression towards Israel,” he said after switching to English to deliver his follow-up remarks.

“We have engaged constructively, and we still wait for you to do the same,” he concluded.

The countries are currently negotiating a security pact.

Israel’s High Court has ordered the government to explain why it has not established an independent state commission of inquiry into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

The conditional order comes in response to multiple petitions arguing that only a state commission can credibly examine the intelligence, military and political failures surrounding the attack.

Netanyahu’s government has instead established a nonstate inquiry with limited authority, a decision that has drawn criticism from families of Israeli captives as well as former officials.

The court has given Netanyahu, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and the government until January 4 to submit their responses, Haaretz said.

At a preliminary vote in a UN General Assembly subcommittee in New York, the German representative abstained, for the first time withholding support for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees.

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in Berlin that the government expects “consistent and verifiable reforms within UNRWA” before backing another mandate renewal.

The resolution passed with 144 votes in favour, 11 against and 16 abstentions. A final vote in the full General Assembly, which is set to extend UNRWA’s current mandate from mid-2026 to mid-2029, is scheduled for December.

Wadephul said there had been unacceptable cooperation in some cases with groups hostile to Israel that had fuelled tensions.

Israel has long maintained that several staff members of UNRWA were Hamas operatives. Last month, the International Court of Justice became the latest body to reject that claim, saying Israel has not offered enough proof.

At least 28 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes across Gaza today, and many of the sites targeted were sheltering displaced families.

Israel has carried out more than 393 ceasefire violations since the truce began in October and says its latest breach was in response to Hamas attacks.

Watch below for more:

Israel’s parliament has advanced a government bill that would prevent water and electricity providers from offering their services to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The Knesset today approved the first reading of the bill by a margin of 28 to 8 votes. It will next be brought before the relevant parliamentary committee, according to the Wafa news agency.

Israeli state authorities are already prohibited from having any connection with UNRWA.

However, the latest legislation goes further, aiming to prevent water and electricity from being supplied to properties registered to UNRWA, while also allowing the Israeli state to seize land the UN agency has registered with the Israel Land Authority.

The proposal is seen as the latest attempt by Israel to undermine the work of UNRWA.

Hamas has released a statement condemning what it calls Israel’s “horrific massacre” in the cities of Gaza and Khan Younis.

The group said it regarded today’s Israeli air strikes on Gaza — which have killed at least 28 Palestinians, including women and children — as a “serious escalation”.

It also denied Israel’s claim that Hamas fighters had fired at Israeli troops first, prompting it to respond with air strikes.

The Israeli claim was “a weak and exposed attempt to justify their ongoing crimes and violations”, said Hamas, who noted that more than 300 Palestinians have now been killed since the Gaza ceasefire was signed last month.

“The policy of demolishing and blowing up houses, and the closure of the Rafah land crossing, has continued, in blatant Israeli defiance of the American and regional guarantor,” it added.

Israeli forces delivered a series of demolition notices targeting homes, tents and animal structures in the village of Jinba and nearby Khirbet al-Halawa in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported.

Local activist Osama Makhamra said troops entered Jinba and handed residents orders to demolish a mosque, a public park, two agricultural structures and a tent. Additional notices were issued for two other structures and a livestock shelter, he added.

Separately, the army ordered the demolition of three homes, a tent and two sanitation units.

In Khirbet al-Halawa, Israeli forces issued further notices to tear down a tent belonging to one person as well as a shelter and kitchen belonging to another resident.

Residents say the army has been photographing villages across Masafer Yatta in recent weeks as demolition orders intensify. It is part of what they describe as ongoing efforts to forcibly displace communities from their land.

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Israeli attacks targeting areas in Gaza City and Khan Younis have killed 28 people – mostly women and children – and wounded more than 77 others, in yet another violation of the ceasefire.
• Israel has carried out air raids in the southern Lebanese villages of Deir Kifa, Chehour, Aynata and Tair Filsi, damaging homes in residential areas.
• The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, has called for more funding, saying its current shortfall “risks the rights, lives and future” of millions of Palestinians.
• Gaza’s civil defence has urged residents to stay away from homes that were heavily damaged during Israel’s assault on the enclave, warning that approaching or re-entering these structures poses a direct threat to their lives.
• Save the Children has warned that children in Gaza are sleeping on bare, wet ground in clothing soaked with sewage water after heavy rains flooded hundreds of tents, heightening the risk of disease as winter sets in.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit today to an occupied part of southern Syria.

“This very public visit is concerning to say the least. We call on Israel to respect the 1974 disengagement agreement,” said Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

As we reported earlier, Damascus has already condemned Netanyahu’s trip, labelling it “a serious violation” of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Video posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera shows rescue crews digging through the rubble of a destroyed home with their bare hands in the Gaza City neighbourhood.

In one video, deemed too graphic to include in this live page, the hair of a young boy can be seen emerging from the rubble, as his lifeless body is slowly dug out from under the ruins of his family’s home.

Israeli strikes killed him, his two siblings and their mother and father this evening.

The Palestinian Civil Defence has urged Gaza residents to stay away from homes that were heavily damaged during Israel’s assault on the enclave, warning that approaching or re-entering these structures poses a direct threat to their lives.

Mahmoud Basal, the agency’s spokesperson, told Safa news agency that dozens of people have been killed and hundreds injured in recent weeks due to the collapse of cracked and unstable buildings. He called on displaced families to avoid returning to these homes and instead seek shelter in available tents or emergency centres.

Basal said thousands of homes across the Gaza Strip are now at risk of collapse because of the scale of destruction, with Gaza City having the largest share of structurally compromised buildings.

He added that many residents are returning to unsafe homes only because they have no alternatives, noting that Israel continues to block the entry of urgently needed tents and caravans. He urged the international community to provide safe and immediate alternatives until reconstruction can begin.

“Every moment that passes now represents a direct threat to people’s lives,” Basal said.

Israel has handed demolition orders to four Palestinian families living in Jerusalem’s Old City, claiming their houses are not fit for purpose.

The families, who have lived in Aqabat al-Khalidiya district for almost 60 years, have expressed their shock at the development, Wafa news agency reports.

Israeli authorities have for many years denied them permits to fix their ageing properties, they said, adding that this forced neglect has now been used as a pretext for demolition.

The families confirmed that they will use lawyers to challenge the demolition orders. If their homes are destroyed, it would be yet another Israeli violation against Palestinian residents in the Old City, they added.

Save the Children says children in Gaza are sleeping on bare, wet ground in clothing soaked with sewage water after heavy rains flooded hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters over the weekend, heightening the risk of disease as winter sets in.

The group said more than 13,000 households were affected by Friday’s flooding, as Gaza’s sanitation system has largely collapsed after two years of Israeli bombardment, siege and severe aid restrictions. With drainage systems destroyed, rainwater mixed with sewage inundated tents, soaking mattresses, blankets, clothing and even food supplies.

According to the humanitarian shelter cluster, two-thirds of Gaza’s children – approximately 700,000 – are living in tents that are falling apart after two years of bombardment and displacement.

With more than 81 percent of buildings damaged, many families remain in deteriorating tents, patching holes with blankets and scraps of fabric.

Save the Children warned that cold exposure is deadly for Gaza’s already malnourished children, noting that at least 14 children, including newborns, died of hypothermia over the past two winters.

“This cannot happen again”, Ahmad Alhendawi, regional director for Save the Children in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, said.

“Children and families have woken up submerged in sewage water. For the third winter now since the start of intense Israeli bombardment in October 2023, they are desperate not just for a lasting ceasefire but for secure, safe and warm places to sleep”, Alhendawi said.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says many families in Gaza are bracing for another winter spent without proper shelter, as heavy rain floods their tents and damages what little food supplies they have left.

In a post on X, WFP shared images of soaked tents and warned that plunging temperatures will worsen conditions for displaced families living outdoors.

The agency said its cash assistance programme remains a vital lifeline for the most vulnerable households as winter approaches, and that it is working to expand support to those most at risk.