‘No other agency’ can match UNRWA: WHO chief

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, says no other aid agency can “match” the level of support the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, provides to people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“With about 1,000 health workers, UNRWA handles over 16,000 medical consultations per day, including for childhood vaccinations, maternal health services, malnutrition screening and mental health support. No other agency can match this scale,” Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

“Banning UNRWA will only deepen the suffering of the people in need of lifesaving care,” he added.

At the end of January, Israel’s ban on UNRWA is expected to come into effect and stop the organisation from operating in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Aid groups struggling to bring in winter clothes for Gaza’s children

The UN’s humanitarian agency, in its weekly update, noted that an eighth infant has died in Gaza due to the cold, but says child protection agencies in the enclave are facing “severe challenges” in bringing in winter clothing kits for children.

“These include delays in approvals by the Israeli authorities, complex procedures and customs clearance processes in Jordan, Egypt and Israel, and armed looting of aid supplies,” it said.

“For instance, for over a month, about 13,000 children’s clothing kits have been awaiting entry into Gaza from the West Bank and more than 11,000 children’s clothing kits have already been lost due to looting … As a result, only 19,000 children’s clothing kits out of a total of 220,000 procured kits have so far entered Gaza,” it said.

These were given to vulnerable children, including newborn babies in hospitals and children in residential care, it added.

Lives of 15 newborns in incubators at risk amid fuel shortages, says MSF

The group says there are 15 newborns in incubators at the facility’s neonatal intensive care unit, who are all dependent on electricity provided by fuel generators.

“Without fuel, these newborns are at risk of losing their lives,” said Pascale Coissard, MSF’s emergency coordinator.

“The babies in incubators rely on constant electricity for the ventilators that are keeping them alive. They are already in an extremely vulnerable state, and any transfer to other hospitals would directly endanger their lives,” she continued. “Putting the lives of children at risk like this is unacceptable and is a consequence of Israel’s ongoing blockade and continuous criminal looting of lifesaving supplies.”

As we’ve been reporting, authorities in Gaza say the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and European Hospitals in the enclave are facing imminent closure due to a severe fuel shortage. MSF said it has now transferred some fuel to Nasser and Al-Aqsa, to help them continue to serve the most critical patients for the next 36 to 48 hours.

MSF said it and other groups have been warning for over a year that the woefully inadequate supply of aid is threatening the lives of people in Gaza. “We have now reached a tipping point where one of the last specialised hospitals in the south of Gaza risks being out of order because of lack of fuel,” it added.

Death toll from Israel’s attack on Nuseirat rises to four

We have been covering Israel’s assault on the Abu Kharouf family in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The Wafa news agency is reporting that the death toll has risen to four. They are Bassam Abu Kharouf and his three children. The agency said several other people are missing under the rubble.

Gaza death toll rises

At least 70 Palestinians have been killed and 104 injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. The latest deaths bring the total since October 7, 2023 to 46,006, the ministry added. Israel’s war on Gaza also injured 109,378 people, it added in a statement on Telegram.

_{A Palestinian man carries a lifeless body of a child after Israeli airstrike in Deir el-Balah on Thursday}

Palestinians queue in long lines for desperately needed flour

About 500,000 people across the besieged Palestinian territory face ‘catastrophic food insecurity’, according to the United Nations.

_{Women jostle to receive flour at an UNRWA centre in Nuseirat refugee camp in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, on Thursday}

Israel claims to have facilitated transfer of aid to some hospitals in Gaza

Israel’s liaison to the Palestinians, COGAT, claims that over the past three days it has facilitated the transfer of 6,750 litres (1,783 gallons) of fuel, 10,000 litres (2,640 gallons) of water, dozens of food crates and nearly 300 boxes of medical supplies.

It said in a statement that on Monday, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, supplies were delivered to al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, including 291 boxes of medical equipment, along with food supplies, and that water supplies totalling 10,000 litres and food crates were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital.

We have reported earlier that Hisham Mhanna, a communications officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross, said “the entire population [of Gaza] is in desperate need of everything, every day, for over 15 months now.”

Mhanna told Al Jazeera that “a trickle of aid must be turned into a safe flow of aid with security guarantees and arrangements for humanitarian workers so they can deliver it to everyone in need – everywhere in the Gaza Strip.”

Israeli military storms West Bank town, orders families to flee

The Israeli military is conducting an intense military operation in the occupied West Bank town of Azzun, east of Qalqilya, according to the Palestinian Information Center.

Israeli forces have instructed families to evacuate their homes in the Khallet al-Darbeh area of the town, while they’ve also called for reinforcements, the same outlet reports.

Israeli raids have been reported in several other locations across the occupied West Bank over recent hours, including:

14 children among 35 Palestinians killed by Israel last year in Jerusalem alone: Governorate

The occupied East Jerusalem governorate says in its annual report that during the past year, Israel has killed at least 35 Palestinians there, including 14 children.

At least 168 people were also injured in the governorate by live and rubber-coated metal bullets, severe beatings and tear gas attacks, the report said. It added that Israeli settlers carried out about 159 attacks in the governorate in 2024, including 19 attacks involving physical harm.

CNN is getting more critical, although still mostly ignoring the genocide

Israel’s military releases interrogation video in bid to defend assault on Gaza hospitals

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/middleeast/israel-military-kamal-adwan-gaza-interrogation-video-intl/index.html

The Israeli military, in an effort to defend its devastating assaults on Gaza’s hospitals, this week released an edited interrogation video that it said bolstered its case that Hamas uses medical facilities as cover for military activity.

In the footage, a man who is said to be a staff member of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, says he joined Hamas’ military wing in 2021, and that the organization and its ally, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, base themselves at hospitals because they believe the Israeli military will not target them there.

Speaking while in Israeli detention, the man appears to be under direct or implied duress. The Geneva Conventions, a set of treaties that set humanitarian rules for war, protecting civilians and soldiers, say that images of prisoners of war (POW) should not be exposed to “public curiosity.” The International Committee of the Red Cross says that that extends to videotaped interrogations: “Even if POWs appear to make voluntary public statements or willingly participate in the recording of images, disclosure to the public remains unlawful,” because “their wellbeing depends entirely on an enemy power.”

Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), which has visited some of the more than 130 Gazan medical professionals in Israeli detention, says those detained have routinely been subjected to torture – something the Israeli government denies.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have repeatedly targeted Gaza hospitals with armed drones and ground raids, alleging that Hamas uses the facilities as “command and control” centers. The military has regularly released interrogation videos with healthcare personnel detained in those raids as well as photos of small arms allegedly found at hospitals, and videos of militants operating in the vicinity of hospitals – but it has not presented conclusive evidence about a single command center located within a hospital complex.

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The US State Department says it agrees with Israel’s assessment about Hamas using hospitals as “command and control” centers. Israel’s most forceful accusation came early in the war, when it said that there was a bunker facility under Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital. When CNN was taken to the facility under IDF escort, journalists were shown a shaft at the hospital complex, but no evidence to suggest that there was a command-and-control facility.

This is not the first time the Israeli government has released a video with an interrogation of a Kamal Adwan staff member. In December 2023, Israel’s Internal Security Agency, known as Shin Bet, released an interrogation video of Ahmed Al-Kahlot, then the director of the hospital. He said that the Hamas political leadership used the hospital in the early days of the war because they felt they would not be targeted there. Dr. Al Kahlot, who was arrested in December 2023, remains in Israeli detention.

Early in the war, the Israeli military released videos that it said showed Hamas’ presence at Al-Shifa hospital, presenting security camera footage that appeared to show hostages being brought through the hospital. CNN could not independently verify the content of the videos.

The IDF has also regularly released videos of, and shown journalists, caches of small arms allegedly found at hospitals, though CNN analysis has shown that some of those weapons may have been moved or placed there prior to journalists’ visits.

US-backed army chief elected Lebanon’s president, ending years-long stalemate

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/middleeast/joseph-aoun-elected-lebanon-president-intl/index.html


_{Former army chief Joseph Aoun after being elected as Lebanon's president at the parliament building in Beirut on January 9}

Lebanon’s parliament has elected the US-backed army chief to be the country’s new president, ending a years-long political stalemate and presidential vacuum.

Army chief Joseph Aoun was voted president after two rounds of voting. This came after a robust efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United States to rally support for Aoun, who is close to Washington and Riyadh.

After he was declared president, Aoun effectively stepped down as army chief. He arrived in parliament to be sworn in dressed in civilian clothing.

In his acceptance speech, Aoun hailed the dawn of a “new era” in Lebanon, vowing to disentangle the country from its myriad economic and political crises. He also made a rare promise to “monopolize weapons” under the mandate of the state, a clear allusion to the arsenal of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

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“The Lebanese state – I repeat the Lebanese state – will get rid of the Israeli occupation,” Aoun said his speech. The new president also raised the specter of a Lebanese “defensive strategy” against Israel – officially classified as an enemy state – without Hezbollah. The armed group was long considered the de facto military force tasked with fighting Israel.

“My era will include the discussion of our defensive strategy to enable the Lebanese state to get rid of the Israeli occupation and to retaliate against its aggression,” said Aoun.

Syrians mark a month since al-Assad’s overthrow with concert in capital



It’s been a month since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, ending more than five decades of his family’s rule in Syria and almost 14 years of civil war. Al-Assad escaped to Russia on December 8 and has not been seen since.

On Wednesday night, thousands attended a concert in the capital Damascus to celebrate the uprising, a day which some Syrians thought would never come.

Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays said people gathered at a basketball centre in the heart of the city for the celebratory concert, marking one month of relative calm and stability.

“There is a real feeling of exuberance here exactly one month after the fall of al-Assad,” he said.

“Outside this stadium you actually have a large poster of al-Assad but now you can just see his hair and forehead. The rest of it has been ripped away as his regime, his army and the whole apparatus … was ripped away exactly one month ago,” he added.

Bays said the proceeds from the concert will go to prominent NGOs, including the White Helmets – the civil defence force that operated during the al-Assad regime to rescue people from the rubble when there was bombardment by the Syrian air force and the Russians.

UK Police BAN BBC Palestine Protest

This is a scandal: the Metropolitan police are trying to ban protesters against Israel's genocide from gathering outside the BBC - and holding it accountable for its disgraceful coverage.

Zuckerberg Goes "Full MAGA" as Meta Ends Fact-Checking in U.S. & Paves Way for More Hate Speech

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced major changes to what content is allowed on his company's social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and Threads, scrapping the system of independent fact-checkers in favor of "community notes" from volunteer users. Zuckerberg also loosened moderation rules around offensive speech, which will allow hateful content targeting women, LGBTQ people and other groups.

Meta's changes have been widely interpreted as a gift to Donald Trump and other Republicans, who have long argued against the policing of hate speech and disinformation online. The company has also donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and recently added Trump ally Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, to its corporate board — part of a larger shift in Silicon Valley toward Trump and his MAGA movement.

For more on these changes, we speak with media scholars Siva Vaidhyanathan and Marc Owen Jones, as well as Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, whose media company Rappler has been at the forefront of battling disinformation and hate speech on social media. "As of last year, 71% of the world is under authoritarian rule. We are electing illiberal leaders democratically, partly because our public information ecosystem … is corrupting our individual communications with each other," says Ressa.

Israel's Real Plan For Gaza Revealed

Ryan and Emily are joined by Amed Khan to discuss his efforts to deliver aid to Gaza and what Israel's real plan is under Trump.

The House passed a bill on Thursday to sanction International Criminal Court officials – in response to the court issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The legislation calls for the warrants against the Israeli officials to be “condemned in the strongest possible terms.” And, according to the legislative text, the measure would impose sanctions with respect to the court over “any effort to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.” The sanctions include prohibiting US property transactions and blocking and revoking visas.

The House passed the ICC sanctions bill in the last session of Congress by a vote of 247 to 155, with 42 Democrats joining Republicans in support, but it was not brought to a vote in the Senate, which was then under Democratic control. Congressional Republicans are bringing it back up now that they control both the House and the Senate.

House Passes International Criminal Court Sanctions Bill in Response to Netanyahu Warrant | CNN Politics

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