At least one Palestinian shot dead by Israeli forces in northern Gaza
Israeli forces have shot at Palestinians in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area in and around their deployment areas, killing at least one person and injuring several others.
That’s according to the enclave’s Ambulance and Emergency Services, quoted by our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.
Displaced Palestinian Salah al-Mabhouh, 40, sits by a fire with his son, Abdul-Razzaq, eight, beside their tent in the Bureij camp, the central Gaza Strip, on December 24
Gaza’s al-Awda Hospital suspends most services due to severe fuel shortage amid Israeli blockade
Raafat al-Majdalawi, the head of the al-Awda health and community association, says the hospital in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp has been forced to partly shut down after months of struggling to manage meagre fuel supplies.
He told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that the suspension affects a comprehensive range of life-saving care, including general and specialised surgery, emergency response and maternity wards.
Since the start of its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has maintained a tight stranglehold on the entry of fuel, food and medicine into the enclave.
International legal experts and human rights groups have argued that this blockade, combined with the destruction of medical infrastructure, constitutes a deliberate effort to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the population.
Al-Majdalawi detailed the stark insufficiency of the supplies that do trickle through. While the Nuseirat facility requires a daily minimum of 2,600 litres (686 gallons) of diesel to function, it receives, at best, only 1,000 litres (264 gallons).
An interior view of al-Awda Hospital, which has suspended medical services due to running out of fuel needed to operate its electric generators in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Deir el-Balah, Gaza
‘We used to celebrate together’: Gaza Christians mourn amid loss
For the first time in two years, Christmas services at the Holy Family Church – Gaza’s only Catholic church – are taking place without the sounds of shelling and gunfire. For many, the day is marked by grief as much as faith.
Nouzod Terzi, a displaced Palestinian Christian, said she cannot bring herself to celebrate. Her daughter was killed in an Israeli air attack a year ago.
“We used to celebrate together – we would decorate the Christmas tree at home, bake cakes together, visit loved ones, and attend the celebrations at church,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Now, I’m going through a very difficult time.”
The church sustained damage during months of Israeli bombardment but continues to serve as a shelter for families displaced by the war.
