Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 425

As Israeli tanks pushed into northern parts of the Khan Younis area in the south of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics said further Israeli airstrikes killed at least 47 people in a day across the enclave, Reuters reports.

With shells crashing near residential areas, families left their homes and headed westward toward the nearby humanitarian-designated area of Al-Mawasi.

Israeli forces also fired on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza for the fifth straight day, hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya said. Three of his medical staff had been wounded, one critically, on Tuesday night, he said.

An Israeli airstrike at a tent encampment in al-Mawasi killed at least 17 people and wounded several, medics said. The Civil Emergency Service said the attack sparked fires in several tents housing displaced families.

The Israeli military claimed the strike targeted senior Hamas fighters operating from the humanitarian zone in Khan Younis.

Doctors Without Borders Deputy Head of Mission for Palestine Karine Robert said that Israel’s “violent incursion” at the Turkish Hospital in the city of Tubas was “unacceptable and shocking”, Al Jazeera reports

“During this hour-long raid, five medical staff were detained and one person was wounded. Medical staff on site were threatened at gunpoint and subjected to aggressive questioning. Patients were told to stay still or they would be shot and killed,” MSF said in a post on X.

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has travelled to Qatar and Israel to kickstart the US president-elect’s diplomatic push to help reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal before he takes office on Jan. 20, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters.

Steve Witkoff, who will officially take up the position under Trump’s administration, met separately in late November with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the source said.

Witkoff’s conversations appear aimed at building on nearly 14 months of unsuccessful diplomacy by the Biden administration, Qatar and Egypt aimed at a lasting ceasefire between Israel and fighter group Hamas in Gaza and the release of dozens of Israeli hostages held in the enclave.

The meetings also signal that the Gulf state of Qatar has resumed as a key mediator after suspending its role last month, the source said.

The source added that Hamas negotiators would likely return to the Qatari capital Doha for more talks soon.

Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, is calling for “continuous international engagement and robust monitoring to establish stability” in the country following last week’s truce between Israel and Hezbollah, Al Jazeera reports.

“While the ceasefire offers a vital break, it remains delicate,” Riza said during a visit to the Nabatieh governorate, expressing concern over “violations in certain areas and ongoing tensions along the border”.

He said an estimated 600,000 displaced people are starting to return to their homes, with two-thirds of the figure heading to Nabatieh as well as South Lebanon governorate.

But the return process “is not without significant challenges”, Riza noted, as the two governorates have “experienced an overwhelming level of destruction, with tens of thousands of buildings either partially or completely destroyed”.

He went on to call for unhindered and swift humanitarian access, as well as sustained funding and donor support to help Lebanon recover.

Amnesty International accused Israel of “committing genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the bombardment last year, saying its new report was a “wake-up call” for the international community, AFP reports.

The London-based rights organisation said its findings were based on “dehumanising and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials”, satellite images documenting devastation, fieldwork and ground reports from Gazans.

“Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” she added.

“There is absolutely no doubt that Israel has military objectives. But the existence of military objectives does not negate the possibility of a genocidal intent,” Callamard told AFP at a press conference in The Hague.

She said the organisation had based its findings on the criteria set out in the UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said that 20 people, including five children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp near Khan Younis in the territory’s south.

The agency’s spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP there were “20 martyrs, including five children, and dozens were injured after the occupation (Israel) bombed the tents of the displaced in the Al-Mawasi area” near Khan Yunis.

Asked about the strike, the Israeli military said it targeted “senior Hamas terrorists […] in the humanitarian area in Khan Younis”.

It said there were “secondary explosions” following the strike, which they said indicated that weapons were stored there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced in a statement that the body of a hostage has been recovered from the Gaza Strip, AFP reports.

“In a special operation, the body of hostage Itay Svirsky, who was kidnapped on October 7 (2023) from kibbutz Beeri and murdered in captivity by Hamas terrorists in June 2024, was brought back,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

The Prisoners’ Affairs Commission (PAC) and the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS) have reported that a Palestinian detainee has died in Israeli detention, Al Jazeera reports.

In a joint news release, the prisoner organisations said that Mohammad Walkid Hussein Ali, 45, was a resident of the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank and had previously spent about 20 years in Israeli prisons and detention centres. Ali was detained again by Israeli forces last week.

According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 10,200 people, including 270 children and 94 women, in Israeli prisons and detention centres.

The total includes 3,443 Palestinians placed under “administrative detention”, which allows Palestinians to be detained without charge or trial.

Doctors Without Borders has said that Israeli forces raided and opened fire inside the Turkish hospital in Tubas in the occupied West Bank, Anadolu reports.

MSF International said on X that Israeli forces detained staff, intimidated patients and caused damage to the emergency room.

“During this hour-long raid, five medical staff were detained and one person was wounded. Medical staff on site were threatened at gunpoint and subjected to aggressive questioning. Patients were told to stay still or they would be shot and killed,” the medical charity said.

“This violent incursion is unacceptable and shocking,” argued Karine Robert, MSF deputy head of mission for Palestine.

The Israeli army says it is continuing to target Hezbollah activities that violate the terms of the ceasefire, Al Jazeera reports.

Its spokesperson said the Israeli air force attacked a launch pad that was identified in the Majdal Zoun area in southern Lebanon, adding that the army destroyed “combat equipment” in the areas of Khiam, Sawwaneh and Aitaroun, also in southern Lebanon.

Hamas has said it has information that Israel intends to carry out a hostage rescue operation similar to one conducted in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp in June and threatened to “neutralise” the captives if any such action took place, according to an internal statement seen by Reuters.

In the statement dated November 22, Hamas told its operatives not to consider what the repercussions of following the instructions might be and said it held Israel responsible for the fate of the hostages.

The statement, which a senior Hamas source told Reuters was circulated to its factions by the intelligence unit of the group’s military wing, did not say when any Israeli operation was expected to take place.

In the Hamas statement, the group told its operatives to “tighten” the living conditions of the captives and said this should be done in accordance with instructions issued after the Nuseirat operation.

In a section titled “recommendations”, Hamas also instructed its operatives to “activate neutralisation orders … as an immediate and swift response to any adventure by the enemy”.

Israeli settlers have wounded a Palestinian and set buildings on fire while raiding two villages in the occupied West Bank after a nearby settlement outpost was evicted by Israeli forces.

“Israeli civilians entered the village of Beit Furik” east of the Palestinian city of Nablus, the Israeli army said, adding that they “set property on fire, and hurled stones”.

Local authorities told AFP that the attacks took place early in the morning.

The army said that the settlers reacted after Israeli forces “acted against illegal construction by Israeli civilians adjacent to the town of Beit Furik” on Tuesday night, triggering clashes during which the settlers injured two policemen with stones.

Nahi Hanani, deputy head of the Beit Furik council, told AFP that dozens of settlers attacked the village “setting fire to a truck in front of one house and another vehicle”, early today.

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The Israeli military has alleged that six hostages whose bodies were retrieved in August were killed by Hamas “close” to the time of an Israeli strike in the same area of Gaza that was carried out in February, Reuters reports.

The Israeli court has approved the government’s decision to extend the closure of Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah for 60 more days, the news outlet reported.

On September 22, Israeli forces stormed the office and banned Al Jazeera for 45 days under a military order.

They then confiscated all equipment and documents in the office, prevented employees from using their cars and stopped the channel’s broadcast.

The ban has been extended several times since then.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the ceasefire in Lebanon was “holding” despite a series of accusations by Hezbollah that Israel had violated the terms of the deal, Al Jazeera reports.

“The ceasefire is holding, and we’re using the mechanism that was established when any concerns have arisen about any alleged or purported violations,” Blinken told journalists on the sidelines of a Nato meeting in Brussels.

Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations Network, says the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening as winter approaches with only a trickle of aid coming in, Al Jazeera reports.

“The winter makes things very complicated for tens of thousands of families, many of whom are living in approximately 100,000 tents all over the Gaza Strip,” he told Al Jazeera.

“I cannot even describe these tents as real tents. They are pieces of plastic and cloth which cover small spaces, under which live the elderly, children and the sick,” he said. “At times, we have 10 to 15 people staying inside.”

Al-Shawa said thousands of tents have already been flooded and damaged. and many families spent the night in the cold, with nothing to protect their hunger-weakened bodies.

“We still warn of more catastrophes in the Gaza Strip, the repercussions will be unprecedented, especially for the children. We cannot provide them with anything. As NGOs and aid centres, our warehouses are empty of aid.”

The health ministry in Gaza has said that at least 44,532 people have been killed in nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants, AFP reports.

The toll includes 30 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 105,538 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since fighting broke out on October 7, 2023.

The director of hospitals at the Gaza Ministry of Health has given Al Jazeera Arabic an update warning that more than 100 patients in the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital are at risk of death.

He said that Israel is targeting Kamal Adwan Hospital to force people inside to flee and that Israeli forces are preventing access to Al-Awda Hospital. Stopping the oxygen supplies of the hospitals would mean stopping entire health services, the update adds.

Israeli forces have severely beaten an elderly man on his own land in the town of Aqraba in the Nablus governorate, according to the mayor of the town, Salah Jaber, Al Jazeera reports.

The Wafa news agency quoted Jaber as saying that the man died later in the National Hospital in the city of Nablus.

The death was confirmed to Wafa by Ahmed Al-Azar, a paramedic, who was involved in the injured man’s transfer to hospital.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 4,047 people and wounded 16,638 others since October 7, 2023, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad has said in a televised press conference, Reuters reports.

The attacks have killed 316 children and 790 women, Abiad added, adding that Lebanon had registered 67 Israeli attacks on hospitals, that 40 hospitals were directly targeted and that seven hospitals had been forced to close.

Israel says it targets Hezbollah’s fighters and infrastructure.

Families in the repeatedly bombed central parts of the Gaza Strip and other parts continue to face “dire conditions” on a daily basis, according to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Al Jazeera reports.

The organisation said an immediate ceasefire and “unhindered access to humanitarian aid” are urgently needed as hundreds of thousands struggle to get basic necessities for survival.

The Israeli military has said that its 401st Armoured Brigade troops continue to fight “in the heart of Jabalia” in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which has been under intense siege for many weeks, Al Jazeera reports.

Israeli soldiers “destroy terrorist infrastructure and eliminate many terrorists” in air strikes and close-quarters combat, the army has claimed, adding that its forces have also found a laboratory for making explosives inside a residence.

Many hundreds of civilians have been killed in Jabalia, as tens of thousands have been forced from their homes and starved on the streets.