Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
(While a “ceasefire” is ostensibly in place, Israel has continued its assault on Gaza without interruption. If Americans Knew considers the war to be ongoing, and in its 821st day.)
Israeli forces renewed their artillery and aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least three Palestinians, in the latest breach of the ceasefire.
Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 442 Palestinians. At least 1,236 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative.
Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 969 times (as of Dec. 28, 2025). More statistics below.
GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:
(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.)
A seven-day-old infant, Mahmoud Al Aqraa, died Saturday in Deir el Balah due to the extreme cold in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli blockade of vital necessities worsens the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave.
Mahmoud died during a powerful storm that swept through the enclave, bringing heavy rain, strong winds, and freezing temperatures. The family had been sheltering in a makeshift tent. “He started shaking badly,” al-Aqraa said. “We tried everything we could, but there was no heat, no safe shelter, nothing to protect him from the cold.”
Official data indicate that four children have died from cold exposure inside displacement tents across the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians living in makeshift tents have little protection from strong winds and rain, as most shelters are made of thin canvas and plastic sheeting. Many tents have been set up on the beach due to the lack of available space inside the cities as a result of the extensive Israeli destruction.
*NOTE: The law of armed conflict obligates Israel, as de facto occupier of Gaza, to provide accommodations for people temporarily evacuated from their homes, ensure that the civilian population is provided with supplies essential to their survival, including basic food and medical supplies as well as clothing, bedding, and means of shelter.
Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly stated that they have large quantities of sheltering materials, food, and medical supplies waiting just outside the border, but Israel does not allow them into the Strip.
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Israel’s Yellow Line scheme has grabbed another 7% of Gaza’s land
According to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, citing data from the Gaza Centre for Human Rights, the areas controlled by Israel in Gaza have increased over the past three weeks, from 53 percent to over 60 percent.
OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM NEWS & HEADLINES:
(Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)
Illegal settlers* steal 200 sheep, a vehicle amid attack in occupied West Bank
A group of settlers raided a farm owned by Palestinian resident Thaer al-Nabbali in the town of Kobar, where they assaulted the farm’s guard, tied his hands, and briefly detained him. They then seized around 200 sheep along with a vehicle parked near the farm before fleeing the area.
The incident comes amid a surge in illegal settler violence against Palestinians and their property across the West Bank.
NOTE: Israel has illegally built around 280 settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers. Some settler groups have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces (a phenomenon that has grown significantly worse since October 7th, 2023.
In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
RELATED: They Tortured Lambs In The West Bank
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WEST BANK HEADLINES:
West Bank Invasions and Abductions Amid Escalating Violations
ISRAEL HEADLINES:
(Israel is a tiny country, about the size of New Jersey, with a population smaller than the US state of Georgia – about 10 million (of which about 20 percent are Palestinians), yet it is in the news constantly. As has been demonstrated again and again, however, mainstream media rarely covers Israel accurately. IAK passes along only factual reporting.)
How Israel is Manufacturing Civil Unrest in Iran as a Path to War – Analysis
What Israel Has to Do with the US Overthrow of Venezuela’s Government
NEWS (WITH NOTES) FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:
(You can learn a lot about a country from its headlines. Get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions that receives $63 million a day from America.)
Israel planning new Gaza City op* in March, but will need okay from Trump — officials
The Israel Defense Forces has reportedly drawn up plans to launch renewed intensive military operations in Gaza in March, with an offensive targeting Gaza City aimed at pushing the Yellow Line west, further expanding the IDF’s control of the territory.
The operation will not be able to go forward without the support of the US, which is still trying to advance the fragile ceasefire reached in October to a second phase that includes Hamas’s disarmament.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not believe that efforts to disarm Hamas will be successful, and has accordingly directed the IDF to prepare for a contingency plan (continue reading here).
*NOTE: The parallels between this planned Gaza City operation and Israel’s attack on Rafah in 2024 are noteworthy. Netanyahu’s demand for disarmament was also the excuse for the invasion of Rafah: to dismantle alleged smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border. After 12 months of systematically leveling the city, Israeli forces failed to uncover a single operational tunnel. Yet as Israel’s own former defense minister recently revealed, that didn’t stop the government from fabricating a tunnel discovery specifically to sabotage ceasefire efforts.
Critically, Hamas has made clear that it will not surrender its weapons as long as the occupation remains in place – a fact that Netanyahu and Trump seem to be ignoring.
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Did IDF make a mistake*? (shades of Minneapolis?)
The Jerusalem Post reported an incident as follows:
A terrorist** attempted to ram Nahal Brigade soldiers who were on patrol in the Harat al-Sheikh area of the West Bank, near Hebron, on Saturday.
The soldiers responded with gunfire and killed him at the scene.
No injuries to IDF troops were reported.
The Times of Israel later reported:
The IDF says an initial probe of an incident Saturday night in which troops shot a suspected assailant who [allegedly] accelerated his car toward them in the West Bank’s Hebron hasn’t yielded clear evidence that it was a deliberate attempted ramming attack.
The military said earlier that forces had shot and ‘neutralized’ an assailant who attempted to ram soldiers in the Haret al-Sheikh neighborhood of Hebron.
Now, the army says the initial probe has found the soldiers opened fire because they felt an immediate threat.
*NOTE: It is standard practice for Israel to shoot to kill the alleged perpetrator (as in this case), and to label the Palestinian a “terrorist**” immediately, including when there are no Israeli casualties (as in this case). Israel often announces an investigation, but rarely finds its military to have made a mistake. Here, the military managed to change their story from “car ramming” to vague “immediate threat.”
Most often, Israel’s self-investigations will whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators, and tend to focus on individuals and individual incidents, ignoring the dangerous, far-reaching policies and assumptions rampant in Israeli thinking: impunity, lethality, and dehumanization.
Human rights groups have documented Israel’s lack of integrity when reporting on its own behavior toward Palestinians. Israeli sources, including the government itself, have a long track record of lying.
**NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for an individual or group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance. Additionally, Israel regularly labels Palestinians they have killed as “terrorists” to rationalize their deaths, whether they did anything threatening or not.
ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
150 arrests reported in West Bank, Jerusalem during first week of 2026
From Palestine to Minneapolis, ICE and Israel use the same violent playbook
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – JANUARY 10, 2026*:
- At least 72,515 Palestinians killed, 182,314 injured – including:
- At least 71,412 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
- At least 1,103 killed in the West Bank (~229 children)
- At least 171,314 injured in Gaza
- About 11,000 injured in the West Bank
*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 10,000 more are still buried under rubble. Additionally, the numbers of injured and starved are very conservative estimates. Only the dead who are brought to hospitals are included in the official fatality count.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 10, 2026: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 471 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians (by one count, there have been 59 victims) in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 275 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 215 and 328 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).
**NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- Israel is quietly erasing Palestinian refugee camps from existence in the West Bank
- The “Zionist tint” to the Maduro abduction, if not operational, then normative
- Press association condemns Israel’s continued ban on media access to Gaza
- Israeli Indifference to Palestinian Suffering Is Fertile Ground for the Growth of Sadism
- Israel Targeted Churches, Mosques, and Markets during the Genocide.
- ‘We Saved the Child From Drowning’: In Gaza, Winter Storm Makes Displacement Even Deadlier
- Palestinian church committee urges churches worldwide to protect aid work in Gaza
- BlackNest: Inside Canary Mission’s Secret Web of Unlisted Sites
- Israel’s role in Trump’s attacks on Venezuela
- This is how Israeli settlers, backed by the military, erased a Palestinian village from existence last week
- Israel is waging a reproductive genocide against Palestinian mothers in Gaza
- With Their Breadwinners Killed, Gaza’s Children Turn to Begging to Survive
- Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society
- ADL’s J7: Biweekly Jewish Nationalism Think Tank
