Sunday, December 31, 2023
17:00 GMT – Fresh Israeli airstrikes kill 68 Palestinians in Gaza City
At least 68 Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Sunday, according to the official Wafa news agency.
Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes on the al-Zaitoun neighbourhood, leaving 48 dead and scores injured, Wafa said, citing local sources.
Another 20 people were killed in airstrikes in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa University, the broadcaster said.
14:30 GMT – Israeli minister calls for 'voluntary migration' of Gazans
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday called for the "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"We need to encourage immigration from there. If there were 100,000-200,000 Arabs in the Strip and not two million, the whole conversation about the day after (the war) would be completely different," Smotrich told Israeli Army Radio.
"They want to leave. They have been living in a ghetto for 75 years and are in need," added Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party.
11:50 GMT – Israeli army storms five Palestinian camps in occupied West Bank
Israeli forces stormed five Palestinian camps in the occupied West Bank in pre-dawn raids to arrest people, destroying infrastructure with bulldozers and clashing with locals, injuring two people.
The Israeli army raid, described by locals as one of the largest, was carried out on the camps of Tulkarm and Nur Shams, an Anadolu correspondent on the ground said.
At least two Palestinians sustained minor injuries during the clashes, he added.
9:50 GMT – Gaza death toll rises to 21,822
At least 150 Palestinians in Gaza were killed in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll from Israeli attacks to 21,822, the Health Ministry in Gaza said on Sunday.
The relentless strikes on the besieged enclave have left at least 56,451 people injured.
Israel continues to defy calls for ceasefire, with its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the frowned upon war would last longer.
7:45 GMT - Israeli PM Netanyahu vows to retake Gaza's border with Egypt
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retake control of Gaza's border with Egypt, escalating Israel's aggression on the besieged enclave as the Palestinian death toll rises to over 21,670.
"The war is at its height," Netanyahu told reporters of the fighting since October 7 when the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and its allies infiltrated Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 240 others.
He said the Philadelphi Corridor buffer zone that runs along Gaza's border with Egypt must be in Israeli hands.
06:50 GMT - Historian Raz Segal blasts Israel’s ‘genocidal incitement’ against Palestinians in Gaza
Israeli historian Raz Segal blasted Israel’s aggression against the people of Gaza and said that it amounts to “incitement to genocide.”
Segal told Breaking Points YouTube channel that the incitement is dealt with in Article 3 of the “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or the Genocide Convention for short -- an international agreement that criminalises genocide and obligates countries to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition.
“Incitement to genocide, which usually happens actually in media discourses, but also in political discourses, sometimes in public spaces in various ways,” he said. “Anyone who follows Hebrew language sources” would know about the “genocidal discourse” in Israeli media and outdoor signs as well.
06:00 GMT - US shoots down 2 anti-ship ballistic missiles fired by Houthi group in Red Sea: CENTCOM
The US said Saturday it shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles in the Red Sea in response to a Houthi attack on a merchant vessel.
"Today at approximately 8:30 p.m. (Sanaa time), the container ship MAERSK HANGZHOU reported that they were struck by a missile while transiting the Southern Red Sea.
"The Singapore-flagged, Denmark-own ed/operated container ship requested assistance, and the USS GRAVELY (DDG 107) and USS LABOON (DDG 58) have responded to the ship," US Central Command (CENTCOM) wrote on X.
05:20 GMT - Israeli War Cabinet members refuse to attend news conference with Netanyahu
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz refused to attend a news conference by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday.
The Israeli broadcasting authority reported on X that Gallant and Gantz refused to attend the conference without specifying the reason.
As of 1840 GMT, there has been no official statement from the three men.
04:30 GMT - More than 20 Israeli soldiers killed, injured in Gaza: Al Qassam Brigades
Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, said that more than 20 Israeli soldiers were killed and injured during clashes in Gaza City.
The Al Qassam Brigades said on Telegram that their fighters clashed with Israeli special forces “penetrating the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, resulting in more than 20 soldiers killed or injured.”
In another post, it added that fighters targeted an “Israeli Merkava tank with a Sho'ath explosive in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza.”
For our live updates from Saturday, December 30, click here.
