Hamas releases video claiming to show living captive
In the video a man who introduces himself as Matan Zangauker, 24, can be seen pleading with the Israeli leaders to make a deal that would bring captives being held by Hamas in Gaza back to Israel.
Mediating countries, including Qatar, see increased momentum for a possible deal that could allow the 100 captives being held in Gaza to be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, after Israel signed a landmark ceasefire deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon last month.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has travelled to Qatar and Israel to try to kick-start the US president-elect’s diplomatic push for a Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal before he takes office on January 20, a source briefed on the talks told the Reuters news agency.
Hamas has released several videos of captives begging to be released over the course of the war as it enters its 15th month, but Israeli officials have dismissed the short, edited clips as psychological propaganda meant to put pressure on the government.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the family members of captives, called the video “proof of life” and said that it “provides further evidence that after more than 420 days in captivity, there are hostages still alive and enduring severe suffering”.
Power cut off at the critical Kamal Adwan hospital by latest Israeli attack
Electricity has been cut off at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza due after Israeli gunfire caused its generators to catch fire, the director-general of the healthy ministry in Gaza, Munir al-Bursh, has told Al Jazeera.
“We are awaiting the announcement of the deaths of children and patients who rely on oxygen following the power outage at Kamal Adwan hospital after the latest attack on the hospital’s generators,” he said.
Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya is one of the few hospitals still partially operating in the Gaza’s northernmost province, where Israeli forces are pressing an offensive that has almost completely sealed off the area from humanitarian aid for two months.
At least 29 people were killed, including four medical staff, when Israeli attacks pummelled the area around the hospital on Friday.
Four injured in Israeli attack on northern Gaza hospital
Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safia says the Israeli army targeted sections of the hospital during the day, resulting in four Palestinians being wounded. Among those wounded were three children, Abu Safia said, adding that Israeli forces also targeted the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Israeli army says soldier killed in southern Gaza
The Israeli army says a 24-year-old platoon commander in the 46th Battalion was killed in southern Gaza. The military did not provide details of how he was killed.
Two Israeli soldiers injured by car ramming in Hebron
Two Israeli soldiers were injured, one critically, when an unknown person rammed his vehicle into Israeli security forces near the city of Hebron in the south of the occupied southern West Bank and sped away.
The Israeli army said in a statement that a car-ramming attack “took place in the Fawwar area in the southern West Bank, and the perpetrator fled the scene, with forces now pursuing him”.
The Israeli army medical teams treated a man in his 30s with serious limb injuries and evacuated a 45-year-old man with “shrapnel injuries” Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported, citing Israel’s national emergency service official Magen David Adom.
Separately, witnesses told the Anadolu news agency that the Israeli army stormed the town of Dura, southwest of Hebron, shortly after the car-ramming attack at its eastern entrance.
According to the witnesses, “Israeli forces raided neighbourhoods in the town centre, searched one of the houses, and closed both the eastern and southern entrances of the town, as well as the entrances to several nearby villages to the south”.
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