Multiple air attacks reported across Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen: Ambrey

UK security firm Ambrey says it has received reports of ongoing air attacks across Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen including the port of Ras Isa, Yemen’s main oil export terminal.

Earlier, the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah broadcaster said the US-British coalition launched 12 air attacks, targeting the Harf Sufyan district of Yemen’s northern Amran province, while six air strikes hit the Hodeidah port on the western coast of Yemen.

The broadcaster did not provide further details regarding casualties or damage from the attacks. There was no immediate comment from US and UK officials on the reported air attacks.

The Houthi group has controlled Amran since 2014. The province lies about 50km (31 miles) north of Yemen’s capital Sanaa.

Israeli army confirms striking power station, two ports in Yemen

The Israeli army has issued a statement saying it struck targets in the Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen, including the Hezyaz power station near the capital Sanaa, and the Hodeidah and Ras Isa ports on the western coast.

The army claimed that the power plant served “as a central source of energy for the Houthi terrorist regime in its military activities”.

“The State of Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself,” the statement added.

Yemen’s Houthis have launched multiple drone and missile attacks towards Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Yemen’s rebel group has also launched attacks on shipping vessels it deemed to be affiliated with Israel as they passed through the Red Sea.

Shin Bet chief wants ‘reality-changing move’ in occupied West Bank

The head of Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet has urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to greenlight a major military offensive in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli media outlets report that Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar called for the army operation at a meeting with Netanyahu, ministers and security officials after a shooting incident on Monday. Three Israelis were killed and eight others wounded near the illegal West Bank settlement of Kedumim.

“Israel should learn from October 7 and not allow the intensification of these terrorist elements,” Bar was quoted as saying in a Channel 12 news report.

“Therefore, a broad, reality-changing move must be initiated that will collapse and eliminate the phenomenon of the armed Palestinian battalions … in order to ensure our freedom of operation there.”

Israel’s defence minister asks army for plan to completely ‘defeat’ Hamas: Report

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz says he has told the army to present a plan “for the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza”, in case a captives deal is not agreed upon by the time US President-elect Donald Trump comes into power, The Times of Israel newspaper reports.

“We must not be drawn into a war of attrition that will cost us heavily and not lead to victory and the complete strategic defeat of Hamas and the end of the war in Gaza,” Katz said in a statement issued by his office.

In the statement, Katz “emphasised that the issue of releasing the hostages has been the top priority of the defence establishment since he took office and that everything must be done to bring them home”.

He added that a political solution to the war was “not relevant” to the plan because “no Arab or other party will take responsibility for managing civilian life in Gaza as long as Hamas is not completely crushed.”

‘Hard to question’ Gaza deaths after The Lancet report

Israel’s longstanding claim that the death toll tallied by Gaza’s Hamas-led Health Ministry is inflated will be hard to uphold after a study published by The Lancet concluded the number of casualties was underreported, according to Tamer Qarmout, associate professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

“The fact that this is a report by The Lancet and that its methodology is so rigorous sends a message,” Qarmout has told Al Jazeera. “It’s really hard to question this study.”

The peer-reviewed statistical analysis published by one of the world’s most renowned academic journals conducted by Yale University and other institutions estimated the death toll at 64,260, while the official figure stood at 37,877.

It concluded that the toll was likely undercounted by 41 percent in the first nine months of the conflict.

Qarmout said that once the war stops and forensic experts gain access to Gaza, “the reality will be grim and we will learn about a lot more losses”.

‘Indifference and apathy’: Israelis don’t care about Gaza death toll

Earlier we reported on a new study that says the number of deaths in Gaza during Israel’s war is likely substantially higher than official statistics.

Menachem Klein, a professor at Bar-Ilan University, says the Israeli public will unlikely be moved by the research.

“The brain of the Israeli public is washed by the government and the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the genocide operation and the criminal acts in Gaza are made by ordinary people, and it’s very difficult for ordinary people to accept that they, their relatives, and their neighbours are criminals,” Klein told Al Jazeera.

“The self-perception is ‘we fight terrorism so we’re doing a good job, we’re not the bad guys, they are the bad guys’. All this combined builds up Israeli apathy and indifference to the death toll in Gaza.”

Israeli military flattening neighbourhoods in north Gaza with bulldozers

The scale of Israel’s attacks continues to escalate across different geographical locations in Gaza. But the concentration pretty much during the past 24 hours has been on Gaza City.

The Israeli military is still broadening its attacks on residential areas. One of the latest has struck a school sheltering dozens of Palestinians in Jabalia town.

Reports coming from witnesses suggest that the skyline of northern Gaza is overwhelmed and covered with thick black smoke coming from buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahiya that were burned by Israeli ground forces.

Medical teams in al-Awda Hospital continue to report that the Israeli army is going on with bulldozing all residential homes in the vicinity of the hospital amid more deterioration taking place among medical cases left there, and it could be a sign of further Israeli escalation taking place within the coming days.

The military operation has no sign of stopping or abating in northern Gaza, where different border towns and villages have been decimated completely as part of that Israeli military operation that has been justified as a sort of dismantling of the military capabilities of Palestinian armed groups in the north of the Strip.

Israeli settlers burn Palestinian crops in occupied West Bank: Report

Israeli settlers have burned crops and scrawled racist graffiti on the walls of a Palestinian village north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources, reports that a group of settlers attacked a farm on the outskirts of Khirbet Abu Falah where they burned a shed and left racist graffiti on the walls in Hebrew.

Footage published online by the Quds News Network was said to show the arson attack. No injuries were reported in the raid and Palestinian civil defence crews are working to extinguish the blaze.

Wafa said the town of Khirbet Abu Falah, the town of Turmus Aya, and the village of al-Mughayyir, all northeast of Ramallah, have been subject to repeated raids by Israeli settlers.

Israeli military carries out raids across occupied West Bank

The Palestinian news agency Wafa and local news organisations report Israeli military raids in the following areas overnight:

Video shows Israeli forces use commercial vehicle to snatch man in occupied West Bank

CCTV footage has captured the moment an Israeli special forces unit snatched a Palestinian man in the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem.

The footage published by the Palestinian Media Center shows soldiers jumping out of what looks like a delivery van and dragging Salah Faraj out of a car.

Such tactics have become increasingly common in the occupied West Bank.

In what a UN expert described as a flagrant violation of international law, Israeli special forces last week used an ambulance during a raid in Nablus, where they killed an elderly Palestinian woman and a man.

Last year, Israeli special forces infamously disguised themselves as medical staff and civilians during a raid on a hospital in Jenin, where they shot and killed three Palestinians, one of whom was a patient.

Main events from January 10th

NYU issues one-year suspensions to students over peaceful Gaza sit-ins

New York University (NYU) has suspended nearly a dozen students for a year for participating in Gaza antiwar sit-in protests in December, a group of pro-Palestine staff members have said.

The notices went out on Wednesday, suspending 11 students until January 2026, in what the NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine group called “a draconian case of collective punishment”.

“Those suspended thus far include students who participated in a sit-in in front of the administration offices on the 12th floor of Bobst Library and those who simply sat in the lobby of the library in solidarity,” a statement from the group read.

“The sit-in was to demand a meeting with administration officials regarding disclosure of and divestment from institutional investments in Israel,” it added.

Two NYU faculty members were also arrested during December’s sit-ins, despite the American Association of University Professors saying they were only there to ensure the student demonstrators’ safety.


_{A banner is placed on the ground as students and Palestine supporters protest outside New York University on December 12}

Columbia law professor retires, cites pressure over her pro-Palestine activism

Professor Katherine Franke said in a statement that she had reached an agreement with Columbia University to leave her post, stating the institution had become a “toxic and hostile environment”.

Franke, a tenured law professor at the university, was being investigated in relation to her support for pro-Palestinian students following the outbreak of antiwar protests on campus in spring 2024.

Franke was also one of several faculty members the university was investigating over allegations of anti-Semitism, following comments she made about students who had served in the Israeli military on a radio programme.

She described her departure as a “termination dressed up in more palatable terms”.

The nonprofit legal advocacy organisation, the Center for Constitutional Rights, labelled the decision an “egregious attack on both academic freedom and Palestinian rights advocacy”.

In response, a university spokesperson said it was “committed to being a community that is welcoming to all and our policies prohibit discrimination and harassment”.

Israeli mother tells Trump that Netanyahu ‘sabotaging every deal’ to free captives

The family of an Israeli captive held in Gaza has filmed a video message for US President-elect Donald Trump accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging efforts to negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas.

The family also call on Trump to intervene and end the conflict.

“We still see that our Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sabotaging every deal and refuses to stop the war, which will bring our son back home,” said Viki Cohen, the mother of Nimrod Cohen – an Israeli soldier stationed on the border near Gaza, who was taken captive on October 7.

“Please Mr President Trump, sir, we put our trust in you and feel that you are the only one that can stop all this nightmare,” Cohen said.

“Please pressure Netanyahu to stop the war and seal the deal that will bring all the hostages back home.”

This is the last phase of Zionism’: Israeli historian

Ilan Pappe, the Israeli historian, political scientist and former politician, told Al Jazeera he believes Zionism could be in its final stage.

“I am willing to say with some caution that this is the last phase of Zionism. Historically, such development in ideological movements – whether they are colonialists, or empires, it doesn’t matter – it’s usually the final chapter. The ruthless one, the most ambitious one, and then it’s too much – and then they fall and collapse,” Pappe said.

He added, however, that the last stage, from a historical point of view, is “a long process”. “It’s not an immediate process. It’s not a question of if it will happen, but when will it happen.”

He was speaking in Copenhagen, where dozens of academics, officials, activists and writers are gathering for the European Palestinian Network’s conference under the banner: “Together for Humanity, Freedom, Rights and Justice.”

Pappe also told Al Jazeera he believes the genocide in Gaza will continue for at least months under US President-elect Donald Trump, but that ultimately, economic woes in the US may see the conflict scale down.