In first Christmas sermon, Pope Leo decries conditions for Palestinians in Gaza

Pope Leo decried conditions ‍for Palestinians in ‍Gaza in his Christmas sermon, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Leo, the first American ⁠pope, said the story of Jesus being born in a stable showed that God ​had “pitched his fragile tent” among the people of the world.

“How, then, ‍can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?” he asked.

Leo, celebrating his first Christmas after being elected in May by the ‍world’s cardinals to ⁠succeed the late Pope Francis, has a more quiet, diplomatic style than his predecessor and usually refrains from making political references in his sermons.

But the new pope has also lamented the conditions for Palestinians in Gaza several times recently and told journalists last month that the only solution in the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people must include a Palestinian state.

_{Pope Leo XIV performs a Christmas mass at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on December 25}

Christmas under occupation: Israeli attacks against Palestinian Christians

Once a thriving community, the number of Christians living in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is now fewer than 50,000, according to the 2017 census, making up about 1 percent of the population.

In the early 20th century, Christians made up about 12 percent of the population.

However, Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank has squeezed communities, created economic hardships, and deprived them of the conditions needed to exist on their land, pushing many families to seek a more stable life abroad.

Most of Palestine’s Christians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, totalling approximately 47,000 to 50,000, with an additional 1,000 in Gaza before the war.

Palestinian doctors graduate in ruins of Gaza’s destroyed al-Shifa Hospital



A cohort of 168 Palestinian doctors have received their advanced medical certifications in Gaza amid the rubble of what was once the Palestinian territory’s largest hospital.

The graduation took place in front of the destroyed facade of the al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City on Thursday. It was a symbolic act of resilience as the doctors, calling themselves the “Humanity Cohort”, completed their Palestinian Board certifications under extraordinary circumstances after two years of Israel’s war.

The graduates had studied and sat for examinations while working nonstop inside Gaza’s hospitals during two years of starvation, displacement and genocide. Some were also injured, arrested or had family members killed.

Gaza Health Ministry official Youssef Abu al-Reish described the ceremony as graduation from “the womb of suffering, under bombardment, among rubble and rivers of blood”. Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, al-Shifa’s medical director, said Israel sought to destroy Palestine’s human capital throughout its attacks on healthcare facilities, “but it failed in that”.

Dr Ahmed Basil, one of the graduates, said earning advanced degrees in the most difficult of times inside a destroyed building sent a message that Palestinians love life and remain committed to scientific advancement.

The ceremony included empty chairs displaying photographs of healthcare workers killed during the war.

_{Palestinian doctors who lost their lives in Israeli attacks were commemorated during the graduation ceremony held at al-Shifa Hospital}

‘Systemic Targeting of Children' - American Doctor on What He Saw in Gaza

“I cared for patients with new shrapnel injuries, new gunshot wounds every day.”

US reconstructive surgeon Dr. Irfan Galaria tells Mehdi how the bleak conditions in Gaza have continued under Donald Trump’s ‘peace deal.’

Dr. Galaria also recounts stories from his time caring for children at the Al-Shifa hospital in November – his second trip to Gaza since October 7 – as Palestinians faced daily Israeli attacks, restricted aid, and no shelter. It all amounts to, in Dr. Galaria’s words, a “systemic effort to target children” by Israel.

LOWKEY's New Song for Palestine

New track by Lowkey featuring Mai Khalil in support of the prisoners for Palestine in UK jails.

Two people dead in stabbing, car-ramming attack in Israel

Two people have died in a stabbing and car-ramming attack in northern Israel, officials say.

Israeli police and emergency workers said a Palestinian from the Israeli-occupied West Bank attacked and killed a man and a woman on Friday before he was shot and wounded.

The attack came a day after an Israeli military reservist dressed in civilian clothes rammed his vehicle into a Palestinian man who was praying on a roadside in the West Bank after earlier firing shots in the area.

“Footage was ⁠received of an armed individual running over a Palestinian ​individual,” the Israeli military said in a statement about Thursday’s attack, adding ‍that the Israeli reservist’s military service had been terminated. The Palestinian man went to hospital for checks after the attack before returning ​home.

In Friday’s incident, Israeli police said the attacker first crashed his vehicle into people in the northern city of Beisan (Beit Shean), killing a 68-year-old man, and then sped onto a highway.

Later, he fatally stabbed a 20-year-old woman near the highway, “and the suspect was ultimately engaged with gunfire near Maonot Junction in Afula following intervention by a civilian bystander,” police said, adding that the attacker was taken to a hospital.

Both the victims were pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, Israel’s rescue services said. A teenage boy was hospitalised with minor wounds sustained in the car-ramming, according to bystanders.

The Israeli military said the attacker had “infiltrated into Israeli territory several days ago”.

_{Israeli security forces inspect the scene where a vehicle was used by assailant in a suspected ramming and stabbing attack that killed two people in northern Israel according to Israeli authorities, in Afula, Israel December 26}

Israeli forces kill Palestinian in Gaza, carry out raids across West Bank

Israeli forces have fatally shot a Palestinian man east of Gaza City as they continue their ceasefire violations and carry out sweeping raids across the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian news service Wafa reported on Friday that Israeli forces opened fire on Uday al-Maqadma while he was sitting near the entrance of a school in Gaza. He was taken to hospital in critical condition and died of his injuries at the hospital.


Attacks by Israeli settlers and raids by Israeli soldiers have intensified in the occupied West Bank, as well.

Wafa reported that a Palestinian municipal worker was injured after being attacked by a group of settlers outside of Nablus on Friday, while Palestinian farmers trying to work on their land were detained by Israeli forces east of Tubas.

Several Palestinians were also detained during Israeli raids targeting the communities of Yatta and Beit Ummar near Hebron, including a woman, four children, and an elderly man, who Palestinian activists say was arrested after settlers damaged the fence around his home.

Additionally to the violence against Palestinians, Israel has also been carrying our near daily attacks in Lebanon in violation of the ceasefire there.

United Nations peacekeeping forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Friday that they again came under “heavy machinegun fire” from Israeli positions in southern Lebanon. The UN forces said that live ammunition and a grenade made impact “close” to a patrol inspecting a roadblock in the village of Bastara.

“UNIFIL had informed the [Israeli military] about the activities in those areas in advance, following usual practice for patrols in sensitive areas near the Blue Line,” the UN forces said in a statement.

“Attacks on or near peacekeepers are serious violations of Security Council resolution 1701. We reiterate call to the [Israeli military] to cease aggressive behaviour and attacks on or near peacekeepers working for peace and stability along the Blue Line.”

Israel attacks press as ‘silencing’ policy: Palestinian journalists union

Israel’s systematic campaign of violence against Palestinian journalists since October 2023 has peaked in 2025 with the targeting of dozens of members of the press, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says.

In a statement released on Friday, the Freedoms Committee of the syndicate said Israel is implementing a policy of “silencing the press through killing, injury and permanent disability”.

“The Israeli occupation shifted from a policy of restricting journalistic work to a policy of neutralising the press through deadly force, with the aim of silencing witnesses, preventing the documentation of crimes, and undermining the Palestinian narrative on the ground,” the statement said.

By the end of November 2025, at least 76 Palestinian journalists had been killed and wounded by Israel, a figure the committee described as a “dangerous indicator of the escalating targeting policy” pursued by Israeli authorities. “Journalists are no longer merely ‘potential targets’, but rather confirmed and frequent targets,” the committee said.

Over the past year, Israel killed several journalists in Gaza in targeted assassinations – most notably Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif – falsely claiming that they are members of Hamas.

Press freedom groups have been condemning the Israeli attacks on journalists, but the killings have proceeded with impunity. Israel has never arrested or charged any of its troops for killing journalists.

Silencing witnesses

The report described 2025 as “a year of repeated mass targeting, particularly in tents, hospitals, and press gatherings”, warning that Palestine had become one of the most dangerous places in the world to practise journalism.

Several Al Jazeera journalists have been among those killed, in some cases alongside members of their families.

In August, Israeli attacks killed al-Sharif and three other Al Jazeera journalists. They are among nearly 300 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza during the war over 26 months – an average of about 12 journalists a month – according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Abu Akleh.

Beyond fatalities, the committee documented a sharp rise in life-altering injuries. Many journalists suffered amputations, paralysis or blindness after strikes to the head, neck, chest and abdomen. The dangers did not come solely from the Israeli army, the report said, but also from settlers.

April and May marked what the committee called a phase of deliberate media massacres. On April 7 and 8, Israeli strikes hit a journalists’ tent at Nasser Hospital, wounding nine reporters and destroying equipment. Several died of their injuries later.

This documented and recurring incident occurred and involved the use of heavy weaponry, “amounting to a complex war crime and a collective targeting of the press”, the committee said.

By mid-2025, patterns of permanent disability had emerged. Journalist Akram Dalloul lost his sight, Jamal Badah had his leg amputated, and Muhammad Fayeq was left paralysed.

The committee stressed that most attacks occurred while journalists were clearly identifiable, wearing protective gear and press badges, and working in locations long recognised as media gathering points. Many were targeted repeatedly, it added, underscoring what it described as Israel’s sustained assault on the Palestinian press.

A year on, Israel still holds Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safia without charge


_{Dr Hussam Abu Safia in an undated photo on Gaza's beach}

Dr Hussam Abu Safia, 52, remains in an Israeli prison a year after Israel detained him without charges or trial.

His family and supporters are demanding his release as his health deteriorates amid reports of the inhumane conditions under which he is being held.

Abu Safia, known for his steadfast presence as director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, has become central in international discussions on the protection of medical personnel in armed conflicts.

He insisted on staying at the hospital, along with several medical staff, despite continuous Israeli attacks on the facility. Israel eventually surrounded the hospital and forced everyone to evacuate. Since then, Abu Safia has been in detention, and the hospital has been out of service.

He was transferred between Israeli prisons, from the notorious Sde Teiman holding facility to Ofer Prison, being mistreated continuously.

No charges have been brought against Abu Safia, who is held under the “unlawful combatant” law, which allows detention without a standard criminal trial and denies detainees access to the evidence against them.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/27/a-year-on-israel-still-holds-gaza-doctor-hussam-abu-safia-without-charge

Why is Israel Splitting in Two? Historian Ilan Pappé Explains the Internal War Nobody Talks About

Western media often shows Israel as a united society standing behind the Gaza war. Ilan Pappé says that picture is already breaking apart.

In this Voices of War clip, the Israeli historian explains how October 7 briefly united Jewish Israelis around a “common enemy”, but only for a few months. Beneath the surface, he argues, two rival projects are now in a cold civil war: the “State of Judea” – a religious‑settler, ethnonational vision that has no need for democracy or restraint in dealing with Palestinians – and the old “State of Israel”, which tried and failed to mix democracy and liberal values with an ethnic state.

Pappé links this internal fracture to the fate of Gaza hostages, rising emigration of liberal Israelis, and a judicial system that has become the last bastion not yet captured by the State of Judea.

Pro-Israel Media Using Bondi Beach To Push For MORE Control

The after effects of the Bondi Beach event are becoming clear, as pro-Israel media is already using this an excuse for more censorship and pro-Israel messaging. Peter Hager and Jen Perelman respond to this insanity.

Palestinians suffer flooded tents and debris as cold and rain lash Gaza


_{Palestinians struggle with flooding after heavy rain hits the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza City earlier this month}

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, surrounded by tents and debris, are suffering through more winter rains after two years of Israeli bombardment destroyed much of the Strip.

A polar low-pressure system accompanied by heavy rain and strong winds swept across the Gaza Strip on Saturday. It is the third polar low to affect the Palestinian territory this winter, with a fourth low-pressure system forecast to hit the area starting on Monday, meteorologist Laith al-Allami told the Anadolu news agency.

Many families have been living in tents since late 2023, for most of the duration of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The enclave is imminently facing freezing temperatures, rain and strong winds, as the authorities warn the downpour could intensify into a full-blown storm.

So far in December, at least 15 people, including three babies, died from hypothermia following rains and plunging temperatures, with several buildings collapsing, according to the authorities in Gaza. Aid organisations have called for Israel to allow more shelters and other humanitarian aid into the territory.

Ibrahim Abu al-Reesh, head of field operations for the Civil Defence in the Gaza Port area, said that his teams responded to various distress calls as weather conditions got harsher in places where displaced people set up fragile tents.

“We worked hard to cover some of these damaged tents with plastic sheets after they were flooded by rainwater,” he told Al Jazeera.

Gaza storm kills Palestinian woman as Israeli curbs on aid compound misery

_{A displaced Palestinian woman adjusts the canvas of the family tent shelter as the region experiences rain and cold winter conditions, in Gaza City, on December 28}

A Palestinian woman in Gaza has died as a winter storm threatens the lives of nearly 900,000 Palestinians living in tents across the devastated coastal enclave.

The 30-year-old, identified as Alaa Marwan Juha, died on Sunday when a wall collapsed onto her tent in the Remal neighbourhood to the west of Gaza City, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

The incident occurred amid heavy rain and strong winds that have battered the Gaza Strip since Saturday evening, flooding and blowing away thousands of tents sheltering the forcibly displaced Palestinians.

Al Jazeera Arabic, citing witnesses, reported that the partially destroyed wall gave way under the force of the wind, crashing down on the tent beside it. The wall collapse also injured several members of Juha’s family, the network reported.

‘Disaster area’


_{A displaced Palestinian woman adjusts the canvas of the family tent shelter as the region experiences rain and cold winter conditions, in Gaza City, on December 28}

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), told Al Jazeera Arabic that the severe weather conditions are exacerbating an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.

“This low-pressure system will complicate matters further … and poses a danger to the lives of citizens,” Shawa said.

He said the tents offer no real protection against flooding and called for an urgent entry of mobile homes, or caravans, and equipment to repair destroyed sewage networks.

“Tents represent neither a choice nor a solution,” he said, noting that agreed humanitarian protocols stipulate the provision of adequate shelter.

Shawa urged the international community to pressure Israel to lift restrictions on life-saving aid, describing the entire Gaza Strip as a “disaster area”.

Ceasefire talks

Separately on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Tel Aviv for the United States, as negotiators and others discuss the second stage of the ceasefire, the first phase of which took effect on October 10.

The progress in the peace process has been slow. Challenges in phase two of the ceasefire include the deployment of an international stabilisation force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the proposed disarmament of Hamas and further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.

Israel continues to violate the ceasefire agreement and block desperately needed humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged coastal enclave, even though these are stipulated in the first phase of the agreement.

A 20-point plan proposed by US President Donald Trump in September called for an initial truce followed by steps towards a wider peace. So far, as part of the first phase, there has been the exchange of captives held by Hamas in Gaza and prisoners in Israeli jails, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.

However, Israeli attacks continue. Since the truce went into effect, more than 414 Palestinians have been killed and 1,142 wounded in ceasefire violations, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 71,266 Palestinians and wounded 171,219 since October 2023.

Israel kills over 700 relatives of Palestinian journalists in Gaza: Report

Israel has killed at least 706 family members of Palestinian journalists since the start of its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

The syndicate’s Freedoms Committee said in a report released late on Saturday that Israeli forces are systematically targeting the families of journalists as part of what it called a war aimed at silencing Palestinian reporting.

The report said the attacks represent a deliberate strategy rather than deaths as a result of war.

Israeli violence against journalists has “evolved to take on a more dangerous and brutal dimension, represented by targeting the families and relatives of journalists, in a clear attempt to turn journalistic work into an existential burden for which sons, wives, fathers, and mothers pay the price”, the union said.

Muhammad al-Lahham, head of the Freedoms Committee, said the pattern of attacks from 2023 to 2025 exposes Israel’s intent to crush independent reporting in Gaza.

Targeting journalists’ families, he said, “reveals that the Israeli occupation is waging a comprehensive war on the truth, making no distinction between the camera and the child, nor between the pen and the home”.

“The blood of the journalists’ families will remain a living witness to the crime of trying to silence the Palestinian voice,” al-Lahham added.

Witnesses to family killings

The committee said Israeli forces killed 436 relatives of journalists in 2023, 203 in 2024 and at least 67 this year. The deaths continued even after many families were forcibly displaced and sought shelter in tents and makeshift camps, it said.

The syndicate cited a recent case near Khan Younis, where the bodies of journalist Hiba al-Abadla, her mother and about 15 members of the al-Astal family were recovered nearly two years after Israeli aircraft bombed their home west of the city.

“Hundreds of children, women and the elderly were killed because of a family member’s professional connection to journalism, in flagrant violation of all humanitarian and legal norms,” the committee said.

According to the findings, Israeli attacks have repeatedly struck journalists’ homes, places of displacement and areas known to house media workers and their relatives. In some cases, entire families have been wiped out, leaving journalists alive to bear witness to their annihilation.

The committee described this as a “qualitative shift” in Israel’s behaviour, moving from individual targeting to collective punishment. By turning families into targets, it said, Israel aims to intimidate society itself and “dry up the environment that nurtures the media”.

Israeli forces take over homes, impose lockdown on West Bank’s Qabatiya


_{Military vehicles operate during an Israeli raid in Qabatiya, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank}

Israeli forces have carried out mass arrests and forced dozens of families from their homes in the town of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank, on the second day of a sweeping military operation ordered by Israel’s defence minister.

Israeli forces sealed off entrances to Qabatiya while rounding up and interrogating dozens of residents on Saturday, local sources told Al Jazeera. They converted several homes into military interrogation centres, displacing their occupants, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

The Israeli army confirmed the operation on Saturday, with Defence Minister Israel Katz saying in a statement that they had imposed “a lockdown and a complete cordon” around Qabatiya.

Earlier Israel’s Army Radio reported that the town is subject to a “full curfew”.

The crackdown follows an order by Katz ​to “act forcefully … against the village of Qabatiya”, where he claims a Palestinian alleged of carrying out a stabbing and car-ramming attack in northern Israel hails from.

In a statement on Friday, Israel’s military said it had deployed troops from multiple divisions, along with border police and members of the Shin Bet security service, into Qabatiya. It said forces had raided the attack suspect’s home and were preparing to demolish it.

Rights groups have long condemned Israel’s practice of demolishing the family homes of Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis, describing it as an illegal form of collective punishment.

Israel’s military claimed its forces would “scan additional locations in the village” and “work to arrest wanted individuals and locate weapons”.

How Israel Decapitated Its Enemies & How We Can Fight Back

Netanyahu’s plan to checkmate Gulf rivals via Somaliland with Trump’s blessing

Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to recognise Somaliland has been rejected by the global fraternity even though Donald Trump has not reacted to this extraordinary development. Rifat Jawaid looks at the strategic goal of Netanyahu behind this recognition as he argues that the end game appears to target the gulf countries.