Under the cover of Christmas
Hundreds of casualties reported in central Gaza
At least 250 people were killed and 500 others were injured over the past 24 hours in the areas of Bureij, Nuseirat and Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said Monday, adding the death toll across the enclave since October 7 is now 20,674. CNN previously reported at least 70 people were killed in an attack on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp alone.
Netanyahu vows a "long fight" in Israel-Hamas war after he visits Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Gaza for the second time since he declared war on Hamas following the group's attack in Israel on October 7.
“It will be a long fight and it is not close to ending,” Netanyahu said in a statement published by his Likud party.
Netanyahu told his fellow party members that he just returned from a trip to Gaza and met with Israeli soldiers there. They told him to continue the military operation. “We don't stop, we keep fighting and we deepen the fighting in the coming day,” he said in the statement.
Pope's Christmas Day message
Pope Francis used his Christmas Day message to reiterate his call for a ceasefire and issue a plea for the end of the war between Israel and Hamas. “Let us pray for peace in Palestine and Israel,” said the 87-year-old pontiff, describing war as “an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly” in his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” message.
During his remarks, the Pope described the children “devastated” by war as the "little Jesuses" of today, lamenting the number of “innocents” being “slaughtered in the world” including those in “their mothers’ wombs” and others who are “in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope.”
The Pope also appealed for peace in conflicts across the world, including in Ukraine, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
He reiterated his criticism on arms trade, which he labeled "the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war" and lamented that "arms production, sales and trade are on the rise."
US sends 230 planes, 20 ships loaded with weapons to Israel: Report
The United States has sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships loaded with weapons and military equipment to Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, according to an Israeli media report.
The US military assistance includes artillery shells, armoured vehicles and basic combat equipment, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.
The newspaper, citing an Israeli Ministry of Defense official, said the army has used most of the ammunition it had stored since the beginning of the war. “But Israel managed to refill its warehouses in preparation for a possible large-scale war with the Lebanese Hezbollah group,” it added.
Israel’s Defense Ministry estimated the cost of the current war on the Gaza Strip at about 65 billion shekels ($17bn).
Palestinian official says Israeli forces raid 200 homes in Burqa in West Bank
Ghassan Daghlas, acting governor of Nablus, says he is among residents who are under siege in the village of Burqa in the occupied West Bank.
An ongoing raid on the town northwest of Nablus has lasted about 20 hours. Late on Sunday, the Israeli army stormed the village, closed all its entrances and searched homes. Israeli forces raided about 200 homes and carried out widespread arrests, Daghlas told Al Jazeera. Many houses have been badly damaged, he added.
“I am currently inspecting the homes that were raided. What I see in the house that I am now in is disaster and massive destruction,” he said. “The house’s features from the inside have completely disappeared.”
Dozens of Palestinians have been arrested and interrogated, he said, adding that some have now been released.
Situation at flashpoint hospital reflects "nightmare playing out across Gaza," WHO chief says
World Health Organization officials witnessed "acute hunger" and "rising desperation" during a visit to a heavily damaged hospital in the north of the besieged enclave, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday.
A WHO team delivered supplies to the flashpoint Al-Shifa hospital on Saturday with humanitarian partners including the United Nations and World Central Kitchen. "Al-Shifa is a microcosm of the nightmare playing out across Gaza, where drastic shortages of medicines, food, power, water and – above all – safety imperil the population," Tedros said on X, formerly Twitter.
The joint mission Saturday delivered 19,200 liters of generator fuel to Al-Shifa, where hospital authorities say 50,000 displaced people are taking refuge, according to Tedros. He said his colleagues saw Al Shifa's surgery wing "overflowing with Gazans" who were seeking safety and shelter.
Tedros emphasized that the risk of famine is high across Gaza, with people desperately searching for food. "I can only imagine the torment that would drive people to such lengths," Tedros said, of people who have resorted to grabbing supplies from delivery trucks during the joint mission.
Merry Christmas :/
NYC at Rockefeller plaza now in front of the largest Christmas tree in New York City; with the Madonna and child now a Palestinian mother with a dead child in her lap because if Jesus were to be born today in the birthplace of Christianity, he would be born in the rubble or under Israeli shelling.
Last edited by SvennoJ - on 25 December 2023
