A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo on Friday to look at an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official said.
The plan was put last week to officials of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which is also battling Israeli forces in the territory.
Sources close to Hamas say Cairo’s three-stage plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and ultimately a ceasefire to end the war sparked by the deadly 7 October attack on Israel, Agence France-Presse reports.
It also provides for a Palestinian government of technocrats after talks involving “all Palestinian factions”, which would be responsible for governing and rebuilding in postwar Gaza.
The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP on Thursday about the planned visit:
A high-level delegation from the Hamas political office will visit Cairo tomorrow to meet Egyptian officials and give the response of the Palestinian factions, including several observations, to their plan
The official said these observations focus on “the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, as well as obtaining guarantees for a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza”.
Qatar, backed by Egypt and the United States, last month helped broker a first week-long truce in which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Key events
Israel has named another soldier killed fighting inside the Gaza Strip. In addition it says the families of two soldiers have been notified that they were “seriously injured in various battles in the northern Gaza Strip”.
On Thursday Associated Press reported that the number of Israeli forces personnel injured during the war had risen to roughly 3,000. At least 160 IDF troops have been killed during the ground operation in Gaza.
Local authorities said that more than 21,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action inside Gaza since 7 October, and 300 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank while 85% of the civilian population in Gaza has been displaced.
Iran has hanged four people convicted of spying for Israel, AFP reports the judiciary said on Friday, less than two weeks after authorities had executed a man on similar grounds.
“Four members of a sabotage group related to the Zionist regime … were hanged this morning” in Iran’s northwestern province of West Azerbaijan, the judiciary’s Mizan online website reported.
The three men and one woman had all been sentenced to death on charges of “moharebeh”, or waging war against God, and “corruption on Earth” through their “collaboration with the Zionist regime”.
The group “committed extensive actions against the country’s security under the guidance of the Mossad”, Mizan said.
In its latest operational update, Israel’s military has said it is “extending operations in the area of Khan Younis”.
It claims to have “eliminated dozens of terrorists using aerial strikes, and sniper and tank fire”.
It also claims that in “intelligence-based searches” of residences in the Jabaliya refugee camp it found “weapons, Hamas military certifications and textbooks about the IDF”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israeli shelling over two days near Al-Amal hospital in southern Gaza’s main city Khan Younis has killed 41 people, the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Thursday.
The casualties include “displaced persons seeking shelter” at Red Crescent premises, AFP reports that it said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has also issued a video interview with Mohammed Salah, who it says is a paramedic at their ambulance centre in the Jabaliya refugee camp. In the video he describes ambulance staff being made to undress and being beaten and interrogated by Israeli forces operating inside Gaza.
Testimony of Mohammed Salah, a paramedic at the PRCS ambulance center 🚑 in #Jabalia about the beating and humiliation he and his colleagues endured during their arrest by the Israeli forces after the invasion of the #Jabalia ambulance center in northern #Gaza a week ago.
🚨The… pic.twitter.com/Hi9K192WzY— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 29, 2023
Summary of events so far
It’s 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of the latest so far:
-
A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo on Friday to look at an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official said. The plan was put last week to officials of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which is also battling Israeli forces in the territory. Sources close to Hamas say Cairo’s three-stage plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and ultimately a ceasefire to end the war sparked by the deadly 7 October attack on Israel, Agence France-Presse reports.
-
Hamas is “open to any ideas or proposals for a complete and final cessation of aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip”, an official with the Palestinian militant group has said. Osama Hamdan, at a press conference on Thursday, said Hamas is not interested in a “partial or temporary cessation of aggression”, adding that the remaining hostages held in Gaza would only be released after a permanent ceasefire is implemented.
-
An American warship has shot down a drone and an anti-ship ballistic missile fired Thursday by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the US military said. Centcom said it was the 22nd attempted attack on international shipping by the Houthis since mid-October.
-
The US has imposed sanctions on a group of money exchange services from Yemen and Turkey alleged to help provide funding to Houthi rebels who have been launching attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the southern Red Sea.
-
Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled a war cabinet meeting that was scheduled for Thursday night to discuss Israel’s plan for Gaza after the war with Hamas ends. The Israeli prime minister has reportedly refused requests from security officials to make plans for control of Gaza after the war with Hamas ends.
-
The main focus of fighting in Gaza is now in central areas, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out over the past several days as their tanks advance. Tens of thousands of people fleeing the huge Nuseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts were heading south or west on Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents.
-
A total of 21,320 Palestinians have been killed and 55,603 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, a spokesperson from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Thursday.
-
At least 20 people were killed and 55 wounded by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to a Gaza health ministry spokesperson. The incident occurred near the Kuwaiti hospital, Al Jazeera reported, adding that it had “completely flattened” a residential building full of displaced people. The report has not been verified.
-
The number of children who have been killed in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, has reached an “unprecedented” level, the UN children’s fund (Unicef) has warned on Thursday. About 83 children have been killed in the West Bank in the past 12 weeks, Unicef said in a statement. A separate UN report published on Thursday deplored what it said was a “rapid deterioration” of human rights in the West Bank and urged Israeli authorities to end violence against the Palestinian population there. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) said about 4,785 Palestinians had been detained and 300 killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
-
Israeli airstrikes hit near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and in the country’s south on Thursday, its defence ministry and state media has said. The strikes are believed to have targeted a Syrian army air defence base and a radar station in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province in south-western Syria, according to sources.
-
Joe Biden has said he is “devastated” to learn of the death of Judy (also known as Judih) Weinstein, a US-Israeli-Canadian woman, during the Hamas attacks on 7 October. The kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on Thursday said Weinstein, 70, was “fatally wounded” during the attacks alongside her Israeli-American husband, Gadi Haggai, 73. It said the bodies of the couple “remain held in captivity by Hamas”.
-
The Israeli military has said it “regrets the harm” caused by a strike that killed dozens of people in the Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza earlier this week. About 86 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike in the Maghazi camp, east of Deir al-Balah, late on Sunday, according to figures by the UN human rights office. “The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage that could have been avoided,” an Israeli military official told Kan news on Thursday.
-
The Israel Defense Forces (DF) has admitted it “failed in its mission” after its soldiers mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza earlier this month. In a report of its final findings of an investigation into the 15 December killing, the IDF’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi said it had “failed in the mission of rescuing the abductees” and that the shooting “did not match the risk and the situation”.
-
Pakistan has banned New Year’s Eve celebrations to show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, the government said late Thursday, urging people instead to “observe simplicity”.
Here are some of the latest images coming out of Rafah in Gaza, where many have fled in an effort to escape the fighting and bombing:
Pakistan has banned New Year’s Eve celebrations to show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, the government said late Thursday, urging people to instead “observe simplicity”.
In an evening televised address to the nation, prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said because of the situation in the Gaza Strip, the government had “completely banned all kinds of events regarding the New Year celebrations”, Agence France-Presse reports.
New Year’s Eve is usually marked in boisterous fashion in Pakistan, with fireworks and aerial gunfire – as well as a bank holiday on 1 January.
Sharjah, an emirate of the United Arab Emirates, has also banned New Year’s Eve fireworks over the war in Gaza.
The ban was “a sincere expression of solidarity and humanitarian cooperation with our siblings in the Gaza Strip”, Sharjah police said in a Facebook post.
The US has imposed sanctions on a group of money exchange services from Yemen and Turkey alleged to help provide funding to Houthi rebels who have been launching attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the southern Red Sea.
Included in the sanctions are the head of a financial intermediary in Sana’a, Yemen, along with three exchange houses in Yemen and Turkey, Associated Press reports.
US Treasury alleges that the people and firms helped transfer millions of dollars to the Houthis.
The sanctions block access to US property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.
Thursday’s action is the latest round of financial penalties meant to punish the Houthis.
The group has sporadically targeted ships in the region in the past, but the attacks have increased since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. Houthi leaders have insisted Israel is their target.
Here are some of the latest images to come out of Israel:
An American warship has shot down a drone and an anti-ship ballistic missile fired Thursday by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the US military said.
The Houthis have repeatedly targeted vessels in the vital Red Sea shipping lane with strikes they say are in support of Palestinians in Gaza. US Central Command (Centcom) said this in a statement, referring to a guided-missile destroyer.
The USS Mason (DDG 87) shot down one drone and one anti-ship ballistic missile in the Southern Red Sea that were fired by the Huthis.
There was no damage to any of the 18 ships in the area or reported injuries.
Centcom added that it was the 22nd attempted attack on international shipping by the Houthis since mid-October.
The attacks are endangering a transit route that carries up to 12 per cent of global trade, prompting the United States to set up a multinational naval taskforce earlier this month to protect Red Sea shipping.
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of New York on Thursday, staging a mock funeral in a demonstration against Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza.
Holding banners demanding an immediate ceasefire, the activists gathered in Manhattan’s Bryant Park while some briefly stood in the middle of the busy Sixth Avenue in the heart of New York’s Midtown district, Agence France-Presse reports.
Several women shrouded in black held baby dolls swaddled in white cloths to represent the toll the fighting has taken on children in the Gaza strip.
The mock funeral procession headed to New York’s iconic Times Square where the protest continued.
New York City has seen dozens of protests since the 7 October attack and Israel’s military response, with both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrators taking to the streets.
Here are some images of this latest protest:
The family of Judy Weinstein have released a photo of her and her husband, Gad Haggai.
Weinstein and her husband were thought to have been among the hostages still held in captivity. Six days ago, the Israeli kibbutz that they lived in, Nir Oz, announced that Haggai was killed on 7 October and his body was taken to Gaza.
On Thursday, the kibbutz said it had learned that Weinstein was also killed on the same day and her body is also being held in Gaza, Associated Press reports.
It was not immediately clear how Israeli authorities determined their deaths.
US president Joe Biden said in a statement he was “devastated” to learn of Weinstein’s death, especially after hearing about the couple during a meeting with their daughter.
A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo on Friday to look at an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official said.
The plan was put last week to officials of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which is also battling Israeli forces in the territory.
Sources close to Hamas say Cairo’s three-stage plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and ultimately a ceasefire to end the war sparked by the deadly 7 October attack on Israel, Agence France-Presse reports.
It also provides for a Palestinian government of technocrats after talks involving “all Palestinian factions”, which would be responsible for governing and rebuilding in postwar Gaza.
The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP on Thursday about the planned visit:
A high-level delegation from the Hamas political office will visit Cairo tomorrow to meet Egyptian officials and give the response of the Palestinian factions, including several observations, to their plan
The official said these observations focus on “the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, as well as obtaining guarantees for a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza”.
Qatar, backed by Egypt and the United States, last month helped broker a first week-long truce in which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Welcome and opening summary
Hello and welcome to our latest blog on the Israel-Gaza war. It’s 7:21am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, I’m Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.
A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo on Friday to give its “observations” about an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official has said. It comes after Egypt said it had put forward a framework proposal to end the conflict that includes three stages ending with a ceasefire, and said it was awaiting responses on the plan.
More on that shortly but first, here’s a summary of the latest events:
-
Hamas is “open to any ideas or proposals for a complete and final cessation of aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip”, an official with the Palestinian militant group has said. Osama Hamdan, at a press conference on Thursday, said Hamas is not interested in a “partial or temporary cessation of aggression”, adding that the remaining hostages held in Gaza would only be released after a permanent ceasefire is implemented.
-
Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled a war cabinet meeting that was scheduled for Thursday night to discuss Israel’s plan for Gaza after the war with Hamas ends. The Israeli prime minister has reportedly refused requests from security officials to make plans for control of Gaza after the war with Hamas ends.
-
The main focus of fighting in Gaza is now in central areas, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out over the past several days as their tanks advance. Tens of thousands of people fleeing the huge Nusseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts were heading south or west on Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents.
-
A total of 21,320 Palestinians have been killed and 55,603 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, a spokesperson from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Thursday.
-
At least 20 people were killed and 55 wounded by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to a Gaza health ministry spokesperson. The incident occurred near the Kuwaiti hospital, Al Jazeera reported, adding that it had “completely flattened” a residential full of displaced people. The report has not been verified.
-
The number of children who have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has reached an “unprecedented” level, the UN children’s fund (Unicef) has warned on Thursday. About 83 children have been killed in the West Bank in the past 12 weeks, Unicef said in a statement. A separate UN report published on Thursday deplored what it said was a “rapid deterioration” of human rights in the West Bank and urged Israeli authorities to end violence against the Palestinian population there. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) said about 4,785 Palestinians had been detained and 300 killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
-
Israeli airstrikes hit near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and in the country’s south on Thursday, Syria’s defence ministry and state media has said. The strikes are believed to have targeted a Syrian army air defence base and a radar station in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province in south-western Syria, according to sources.
-
Joe Biden has said he is “devastated” to learn of the death of Judith (also known as Judih or Judy) Weinstein, a US-Israeli-Canadian woman, during the Hamas attacks on 7 October. The kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on Thursday said Weinstein, 70, was “fatally wounded” during the attacks alongside her Israeli-American husband, Gadi Haggai, 73. It said the bodies of the couple “remain held in captivity by Hamas”.
-
The Israeli military has said it “regrets the harm” caused by an Israeli strike that killed dozens of people in the Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza earlier this week. About 86 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike in the Maghazi camp, east of Deir al-Balah, late on Sunday, according to figures by the UN human rights office. “The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage that could have been avoided,” an Israeli military official told Kan news on Thursday.
-
The Israel Defense Forces (DF) has admitted it “failed in its mission” after its soldiers mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza earlier this month. In a report of its final findings of an investigation into the 15 December killing, the IDF’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi said it had “failed in the mission of rescuing the abductees” and that the shooting “did not match the risk and the situation”.
-
Israel has given preliminary approval to Cyprus to set up a maritime humanitarian aid corridor to Gaza, Israels’s foreign ministry has said. The proposal, which has been in the works for more than a month, aims to deliver large quantities of aid to Palestinians in Gaza. It comes after the UN security council last week passed a resolution calling for “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale” into Gaza.
-
Italy has objected to Israel’s intention to nominate the mayor of one of the main West Bank settlements as ambassador to Rome, Agence France-Presse is reporting – citing a diplomatic source.
-
The Palestinian Freedom Theatre in the occupied West Bank will welcome actors back this weekend, just over a fortnight after an Israeli raid on the centre, Agence France Presse reports. Soon after the raid on 13 December a Freedom Theatre appeal for the release of its staff won international support, with demonstrations in the streets of New York and Paris and playwrights, actors and directors from Britain to Mexico expressing their support.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
