Updates: Gaza families trapped in flooded tents as enclave hit by storm

That’s a wrap from us.

Read about how the death of a 21-year-old Palestinian while in Israeli custody has raised alarm as rights groups document systematic torture in detention facilities, here.

And watch 50-year-old Sharifa Qdeih describe being used as a human shield by the Israeli army here.

You can also find all our coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the ongoing ceasefire process here.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a look at the day’s top developments:

• Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian families across Gaza are bracing for heavy rainfall and flooding as a major winter storm hits the bombarded enclave.
• Israel has confirmed it attacked Palestinians near the so-called yellow line in northern Gaza, killing one person; medical sources told Al Jazeera that a Palestinian child was killed in Israeli fire near Jabalia.
• Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar says Israel will not back down from its demand that Hamas be disarmed as part of the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.
• The UN’s peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) says the Israeli military fired at peacekeepers who were patrolling the Blue Line – an unofficial “border” between Lebanon and Israel – in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
• Iceland has become the fifth country to announce that it will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest after organisers confirmed Israel’s participation last week.

Oweis Hemam, 18, says Israeli settlers dragged him away while he was praying – and that the abuse continued after he was taken into Israeli custody.

The Palestinian teen’s case comes as Israeli settler violence has reached some of the highest levels ever recorded in the occupied West Bank.

Watch Hemam describe his ordeal in the video below from our colleagues at AJ+:

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Al Jazeera correspondents are reporting that several tents in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, were flooded by heavy rains over the past few hours.

The area is home to a tented encampment that was designated a humanitarian or “safe” area by Israel. Despite displaced Palestinians being ordered to al-Mawasi by the Israeli army, the area has come under repeated attack.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on the Trump administration to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza after a report from UNICEF this week warned that Palestinian children face a dire malnutrition crisis.

“The latest UNICEF findings reveal a humanitarian catastrophe that cannot be ignored. No child should suffer or die from preventable malnutrition, especially when the international community has the ability and the responsibility to ensure adequate aid reaches Gaza,” CAIR said in a statement.

“We call on the Trump administration to honor its commitments under the ceasefire, remove remaining barriers to humanitarian access, and work with international partners to guarantee the immediate and unrestricted flow of food, medical supplies and aid personnel.”

UNICEF said on Tuesday that malnourished Palestinian mothers have been giving birth to underweight or premature babies across Gaza. Those babies either die in neonatal intensive care units or survive but face malnutrition and medical complications that can be lifelong, the agency said.

“This domino effect – from mother to child – should have been prevented. No child should be scarred by war before they have taken their first breath,” UNICEF communications manager Tess Ingram said.

“But in Gaza, this brutal reality was caused by the conflict and exacerbated by the aid restrictions, which depleted hospitals and starved and stressed mothers. So much suffering could have been prevented, if international humanitarian law had been respected.”

The Israeli army has issued a statement saying several Israeli civilians crossed into Gaza and were apprehended.

“The [army] emphasizes that any entry into a combat zone is prohibited, endangers civilians, and disrupts the activity of … troops in the area,” it said.

It is not clear why the group entered Gaza. Israeli civilians have occasionally attempted to enter the Strip since the start of the war in October 2023, including Israeli settlers seeking to reclaim territories in the Strip evacuated by Israel in 2005.

Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades as they stormed the village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, a local leader told Palestinian news agency Wafa.

No injuries were reported in the raid, Wafa said.

It comes amid a surge in Israeli military and settler violence across the West Bank in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has posted a picture on social media with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas following their meeting in Madrid.

In the picture, the Spanish leader is seen holding Abbas’s hand as they walk. “Spain walks and will always walk hand in hand with Palestine,” Sanchez wrote on X. “A friendly country. A brotherly country.”

Spain’s leftwing government has been steadfast in its support for Palestine and Palestinians, unlike other European nations.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar replied to Sanchez with a stark response on X: “Do not speak in the name of the future,” he told the Spanish prime minister. “It’s not yours.”

España camina y caminará siempre de la mano de Palestina.

Un país amigo.
Un país hermano. pic.twitter.com/2smmh8CukZ

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) December 10, 2025

Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq has condemned this week’s Israeli raid on the East Jerusalem headquarters of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, as “a grave attack on the international legal order”.

“It is part of a broader effort to undermine UN institutions, dismantle protections for Palestinian refugees & erode their rights,” the group wrote on social media.

Al-Haq said that includes the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in what is now Israel, after the Nakba of 1948, when about 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled during the creation of the Israeli state.

As we reported on Monday, Israeli forces stormed UNRWA’s office in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, seizing furniture and equipment. They also removed a UN flag and replaced it with an Israeli one, the agency said.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has condemned global inaction as Palestinians in Gaza brace for the incoming winter storm.

“I keep asking how we became such monsters, uncapable of stopping this nightmare. For them, for us, for whatever remains of the people in whose name this genocide is being committed,” she wrote on social media.

Albanese has been a leading voice condemning Israel’s two-year war on Gaza and demanding justice for alleged Israeli war crimes.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has stressed that Israel will not back down on its demand that Hamas be disarmed as part of the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

“At the heart of phase two is the disarmament and demilitarisation of Gaza. These games of redefining what ‘disarmament’ means will be over. The international consensus is clear, and it will be enforced,” Saar told The Jerusalem Post on the sidelines of his meeting with US officials in Washington, DC.

The comments come after the Palestinian group offered assurances that it would curb any future attacks on Israel from Gaza, but added that surrendering its weapons would be like “removing the soul” from the group.

Saar also told the Israeli news outlet that Israel and Syria were further from reaching a security agreement than before, after Syria “raised new demands”.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs network, has said Gaza is unequipped to deal with the approaching storm as Israel continues to restrict the entry of humanitarian aid.

Shawa told Al Jazeera from Gaza City that only 40,000 tents out of a needed 300,000 were allowed in. Tools to repair the sewage system and the water networks were also restricted, raising concerns that the wastewater lagoon might be flooded.

He added that sewage and solid waste were at risk of contaminating drinking water as well as people’s food supplies, raising the risk of diseases at a time when 2.2 million people are crammed into 43 percent of the Gaza Strip, while the remaining 57 percent lies beyond Israel’s so-called yellow line.

“If Israel were to allow the entrance of supplies, things would be different. But for now, it has done all it can to make life more complicated for Palestinians,” Shawa said.

A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that vulnerable Palestinians in Gaza, including newborn children, are at particular risk from the incoming winter storm.

Farhan Haq told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that about 200 families also were expected to arrive at a new displacement site in eastern Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

“These households made the decision to move given the impact of the frequent rains and the risk of flooding in their previous location,” said Haq, adding that the distribution of tents and other humanitarian supplies continues.

As we’ve been reporting, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian families are at risk amid colder winter temperatures and heavy rainfall.

A video posted on Instagram and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad unit shows Palestinians shovelling sand around tents in a desperate attempt to build barriers to keep them from getting flooded by the approaching storm.

Flash floods, strong winds and hail are forecast throughout Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza, where a majority of the population displaced by two years of war now lives in tents.

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Watch Al Jazeera’s Simon Speakman Cordall break the situation down below:

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has said Netanyahu will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “very soon,” after the encounter was repeatedly postponed.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At the end of the conversation, which was friendly and warm, the two leaders agreed to meet very soon,” the statement said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

This would be the first meeting between the two leaders since Israel launched its attack on Gaza in October 2023. It is not clear where the encounter would take place.

The International Criminal Court issued warrants to arrest both Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November last year. ICC members are theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court, however, India has neither signed nor ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court.

Gideon Saar has hailed a meeting with his American counterpart, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Washington, DC.

“I thanked the Secretary for his support for Israel and longstanding friendship,” the Israeli foreign minister wrote on social media.

Saar said the pair discussed “mutual opportunities and challenges” in the Middle East and other parts of the world, adding that he welcomed the Trump administration’s steps against the International Criminal Court.

The US government has repeatedly attacked the ICC over its decision to investigate and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.

Washington has imposed sanctions against ICC judges, accusing them of taking “baseless actions” against the US and its allies, namely Israel.

Honored to meet again in Washington DC with @SecRubio.
I thanked the Secretary for his support for Israel and longstanding friendship.
We had a good discussion on our mutual opportunities and challenges in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and beyond.
I told the Secretary… pic.twitter.com/tnOfp1J4kB

— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) December 10, 2025