Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli military pushes deeper into southern Gaza as UN warns ‘even

Israel’s military has issued its latest situational update in which it describes operating against what it claims are “Hamas strongholds” in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

It writes:

IDF troops are operating in the area of Jabalya, after completing the encirclement of the Jabalya camp. Over the past day, IDF troops operated in Hamas strongholds and destroyed terrorist infrastructure in the area. During the activity, the IDF took control of key military posts from which attacks on IDF troops have been carried out. The troops struck terrorist infrastructure, located weapons and launchers in civilian compounds, and directed aerial forces to strike numerous terrorists.

It also claims in the update to have “struck buildings used by ‘Nukhba’ terrorists for military activity and eliminated other Hamas terrorists” and to have conducted “a targeted raid on a Hamas internal security forces command and control centre in Jabalya where they located observation and control materials, weapons, and maps.”

The claims have not been independently verified.

To date, during Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-led health ministry has said more than 15,000 people have been killed, 70% of which are women and children.

The Israeli campaign in Gaza followed the surprise 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel which killed at least 1,200 people, and during which more than 200 people were seized and taken to be held hostage. Israel believes that Hamas retains more than 130 hostages within the Gaza Strip that were abducted on 7 October.

Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Khan Younis for Al Jazeera, has said that Palestinians there faced “a very, very tough night”.

He wrote:

Since early yesterday evening, there has been nonstop heavy artillery shelling, relentless airstrikes, and mass bombardment. The vast majority of residential homes and public facilities – schools, hospitals, medical centres and shops – in the eastern side of Khan Younis, have been completely destroyed.

As ambulances tried to get to the eastern side … where people were stranded and caught under the heavy bombardment, they were shot at and could not evacuate any of the injured or bring out any of those who were killed overnight.

Turkey’s state-run news agency says Turkish intelligence officials have warned their Israeli counterparts of “serious consequences” if they attempt to target members of Hamas on Turkish soil.

The warning, reported by the Anadolu Agency late Monday, came after Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet, said in an audio recording that his organization is prepared to destroy Hamas “in every place,” including in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar.

Associated Press, citing the Anadolu Agency, quoted unnamed Turkish intelligence officials who said “necessary warnings were made” to Israeli officials who were told their actions would “have serious consequences.”

The agency also quoted the officials as saying that Turkey had prevented “illegal activities” by foreign operatives in the past and that no foreign intelligence agency would be allowed to carry out operations on Turkish territory.

In 2018 Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.

Dennis Francis, the president of the UN general assembly, has reiterated his call for a ceasefire, saying he is “deeply alarmed and saddened by the resumption of hostilities”.

It’s just past 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here are some key recent developments:

• Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said that “an even more hellish scenario” looms in Gaza in which humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” Hastings said. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go.” The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) gave an update on Monday on aid coming into Gaza. The organisation said that 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza on Monday. “About the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November.”

• Israel’s military expanded ground operations deeper into southern Gaza, with dozens of Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers entering the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis. Witnesses said Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”. The Israeli military issued fresh orders to Palestinians in about 20 areas of central Gaza to move further south, posting maps online.

• The Israeli army has denied telling the World Health Organization to empty an aid warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours before ground operations in the area render it unusable. The Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, COGAT said on X: “The truth is that we didn’t ask you to evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear (and in writing) to the relevant UN representatives”. The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on X on Monday: “Today, WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use … We appeal to Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities,” he wrote.

• The White House said Hamas broke an agreement to release more female hostages, and its refusal to do so was the cause of the collapse of the week-long truce with Israel on Friday. In a briefing at the White House on Monday afternoon, the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said: “It is that refusal by Hamas that has caused the end of the hostage agreement, and therefore the end of the pause in hostilities.” He it was “too soon” to judge if Israel provided enough notice, or had done enough to inform Palestinian civilians where it would be safe as it moved into southern Gaza, but said the US warned Israel civilians must be protected.

• Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said Hamas continued to hold female Israeli hostages because it did not want them to reveal what they experienced in captivity. Hamas fighters committed widespread “gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” during the 7 October attacks according to Israeli police who say they have evidence of more than 1,500 incidents. “The fact [Hamas] continue to hold women hostages, the fact that they continue to hold children hostages … and the reason this pause fell apart, is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” Miller told a media briefing.

• Gaza’s health ministry issued new casualty figures, saying that 15,899 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since 7 October. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, says that 70% of those who have been killed are women and children. It does not distinguish in the figures between civilians and combatants. The number of deaths is probably under-counted, as the collapse of the health system in Gaza has made it difficult for statistics to be gathered, and there are more than 6,000 Palestinians considered missing within the territory.

Here are some of the latest images coming out of Gaza, as Palestinians flee the fighting in Khan Yunis.

Several thousand people gathered on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, on Monday, demonstrating in support of Israel and calling for an end to antisemitic violence.

“It’s so important that diverse parts of our country come together and stand up for the Jewish people … and stand together against hatred of Jews,” Sara Lefton of United Jewish Appeal, one of the groups sponsoring the rally, told Agence France-Presse.

Jewish schools, synagogues and a Jewish community centre have been the target of gunfire and molotov cocktails in Montreal in recent weeks.

Israel has changed the threat level for multiple countries as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

Israel’s national security council says in an online statement:

The threat level for many countries in Western Europe (including the UK, France and Germany), South America (including Brazil and Argentina), as well as Australia and Russia, has been raised to level 2, with the recommendation to exercise increased precaution.

The threat level for countries in Africa (including South Africa and Eritrea) and Central Asia (including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan) has been raised to level 3, with the recommendation to reconsider non-essential travel to these countries.

The statement also warns Israeli citizens to stay “away from demonstrations and protests” and to avoid “openly displaying your Israeli and Jewish identities and any relevant symbols and, and staying away from Israeli and Jewish gatherings.”

Israel has been urged by UN and US officials to avoid a repeat of the devastating impact that its operations in northern Gaza had on civilians as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) expanded its ground offensive against Hamas further south to the city of Khan Younis.

Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza (UNRWA), said on Monday the expansion of military operations in southern Gaza was “repeating horrors from past weeks” by displacing people who had already been displaced, overcrowding hospitals and further “strangling the humanitarian operation” due to limited supplies.

The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) gave an update Monday on aid coming into Gaza. The organisation said that 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza on Monday. “About the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November.”

Read our full report here for more:

The IDF has said in two posts on Telegram this hour that “Sirens [have] sounded in the city of Be-er Sheva, southern Israel” and “in communities near the Gaza Strip”. The Times of Israel reports the rocket warning sirens were near a kibbutz and an airbase.

The White House said Monday that the US might establish a naval taskforce to escort commercial ships in the Red Sea.

It’s a day after three vessels were struck by missiles fired by Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US has been in active conversations with allies about setting up the escorts though nothing is finalised, describing it as a “natural” response to that sort of incident, Associated Press reports.

On Sunday, ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck three commercial ships, while a U.S. warship shot down three drones in self-defence during an hours-long assault, the U.S. military said. It marked an escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war. Jake Sullivan told reporters:

We are in talks with other countries about a maritime taskforce of sorts involving the ships from partner nations alongside the United States in ensuring safe passage

He noted similar task forces are used to protect commercial shipping elsewhere, including off the coast of Somalia.

Israeli military pushes deeper into southern Gaza as UN warns ‘even more hellish scenario’ looms

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