Israel to withdraw some troops from Gaza to shift to more targeted operations – officialIsrael is withdrawing some troops from Gaza to shift to more targeted operations against Hamas, an Israeli official has said.
The official said the withdrawal was focused on reservists – of which Israel drafted 300,000 for the war – and designed to “re-energise the Israeli economy”.
But the official told Reuters that some of the troops pulled out of Gaza in the south would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah militants have been exchanging fire with Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel has warned that if Hezbollah does not back down a full-on Lebanon war looms.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, whose militant allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have also been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.
“The situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue. This coming six-month period is a critical moment,” the official said.
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The family of Maya Puder, a 25-year old aspiring actor and film-maker who was found dead four days after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, continues to mourn her loss.
The Guardian’s Emine Sinmaz reports:
When Maya Puder went missing from the Supernova music festival in Israel on 7 October, her family prayed she was in hiding somewhere or had been kidnapped.
The 25-year-old aspiring actor and film-maker last messaged her parents at 8.01am to say she was sheltering from Hamas rockets.
But her family’s hopes were shattered four days later when they were told Maya had been found dead 20 metres away from a shelter.
“It was devastating, all our hopes were crushed,” said Maya’s mother, Ayala Puder. “I’d never in my worst imagination thought about a situation where I’d have to bury my daughter, and to bury her under those circumstances of her being murdered so brutally. It’s beyond devastating.”
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Palestine Red Crescent Society establishes first organized camp in Khan Younis for displaced PalestiniansThe Palestine Red Crescent Society has collaborated with the Egyptian Red Crescent to establish the first organized camp in Khan Younis for Palestinians displaced by Israeli strikes across Gaza.
The camp is initially set to hold 300 families from PRCS medical, ambulance and relief teams, with its capacity set to expand later to 1,000 tents, the PRCS said.
Since October 7, 1.9 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced by Israeli strikes across Gaza which have killed nearly 22,000 Palestinians.
A displaced Palestinian woman gave birth to quadruplets in Gaza amid Israeli bombardment and severe shortages in fuel and medical supplies.
Eman al-Masri was pregnant when she had to move from northern Gaza to Jabalia refugee camp before finally sheltering in central Gaza, where she gave birth to quadruplets.
Her young family now resides in a former school classroom with 50 other families.
She said: “The entire place is not suitable for children, and there is no money even to buy diapers, milk, or anything.” She added: ‘All of this had an impact on me, on the children who were in my womb, and on my young children.”
Displaced woman gives birth to quadruplets in central Gaza – videoIsrael is withdrawing some of its troops from Gaza as a senior Israeli official said it plans to continue its war across the strip – which has killed nearly 22,000 Palestinians – for “six months at least”.
The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison reports:
There is growing international pressure to curb an offensive that has so far killed nearly 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. Even Israel’s staunchest ally, the US, which rejects calls for a ceasefire, has started pushing the government to scale back the ferocity of its attacks.
Plans to send some reservists home from Gaza, confirmed on New Year’s Eve, mark the start of a new stage in the war, a senior official told Reuters, and may be presented as a partial response to those demands.
But Israel still expects heavy fighting in Gaza for much of 2024 as it hunts for senior Hamas leaders, even if there are fewer troops on the ground.
“This will take six months at least, and involve intense mopping-up missions against the terrorists. No one is talking about doves of peace being flown from Shejaiya,” the official said, referring to a Gaza district that has been the scene of heavy battles. Reuters did not identify him by name.
Not all of those returned from Gaza will go home. Some would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon, amid fears of a wider escalation of the conflict, the official told Reuters.
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Here are some images coming through the newswires of pro-Palestine rallies held around the world in recent days, in which thousands of protesters called for a ceasefire in Gaza, where nearly 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes:
An aerial view of the Galata Bridge after tens of thousands of participants gathered in mosques for morning prayers and march for the event in support of Palestinians, on 1 January 2024 in Istanbul, Turkiye. Photograph: Ali Atmaca/Getty ImagesPeople attend a gathering of Edmonton’s Palestinian community and its supporters at a protest rally organised on Whyte Avenue and its surroundings, on 31 December 2023, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesPeople carry placards during a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in Karachi, Pakistan, on 31 December 2023. Photograph: Shahzaib Akber/EPAPro-Palestinian demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags and banners gather at a rally in Chicago, US on 31 December 2023. Demonstrators demanded a halt to US aid to Israel. Photograph: Jacek Boczarski/Getty ImagesPro-Palestinian demonstrators gather at Thomas Circle and hold a rally with Palestinian flags and banners, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on 31 December in Washington DC, District of Columbia, United State. Photograph: Probal Rashid/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/ShutterstockHundreds of people carrying Palestinian flags demonstrate during a massive rally in the Plaza de Arriaga in Bilbao, Vizcaya, Spain under the slogan ‘Stop the genocide in Gaza’ on 30 December 2023. Photograph: Luis Soto/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/ShutterstockIsraeli defense minister: Some of evacuated Israeli communities north of Gaza strip can return soonSome of the Israeli communities north of the Gaza Strip that were evacuated in the wake of the 7 October attack by Hamas will be able to go back in the near future as military operations progress, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Monday.
According to published remarks from a briefing, Gallant said that some of the evacuated communities in areas within a range of four to seven kilometers north of the territory would be able to return soon.
Israel’s supreme court has ruled against a key component of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s judicial overhaul, which challenged the powers of the judiciary.
Reuters reports:
A supreme court statement said eight of 15 justices had ruled against an amendment passed by parliament in July which scraps the “reasonableness” clause, used by the court to overturn government decisions which are deemed unconstitutional.
“This is due to the severe and unprecedented damage to the basic characteristics of the State of Israel as a democratic state,” the statement said.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had argued the sweeping judicial reform package presented a year ago was necessary to rebalance powers between judges and politicians.
But his detractors warn the multi-pronged package paved the way for authoritarian rule and could be used by Netanyahu to quash possible convictions against him, an accusation the premier denies.
Disabled Palestinians are facing life-threatening challenges across the Gaza strip amid deadly Israeli bombardment.
In a video posted onto X on Monday by the World Health Organization, Muhammad Muharram, an internally displaced Palestinian and wheelchair user, speaks of his experiences navigating the war:
The war started and the area where we are staying at got bombed, my house too. We fled to schools like everyone else but the school we fled to was also bombed. During this time, I was terrified because I couldn’t flee like everyone else. I am in a wheelchair. Everyone fled the school and I did too. It was extremely tough for me …
When we got displaced and had to go from Gaza city to the south, [it] was extremely difficult. I almost had a mental breakdown because of the fear I had. I sleep and wake up in the wheelchair. Bathrooms are unusable, pure disaster. The same goes for food and drinking water, it’s a misery. The same goes for treatment. Everything we are going through here is a life of misery.”
Muhammad Muharram is a wheelchair user living in #Gaza. He speaks about the terrors of daily life.
During conflict, people with disabilities face life-threatening challenges—difficulty in evacuating, shelters out of reach, and little access to healthcare and even food, water,… pic.twitter.com/rJ8ZFokXzo
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) January 1, 2024Unicef has repeated its calls for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed nearly 22,000 Palestinians since 7 October, including more than 8,000 children.
In a post on X on Monday, Unicef wrote: “Unicef continues to call for a humanitarian ceasefire,” citing a 12-year old boy in Gaza who said: “I miss life before the war, when I would go to school and meet my friends, and when I would play football in the neighbourhood.”