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 816th day.)
At least three Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Sunday, including a 15-year-old boy, a fisherman, and a man shot dead east of Khan Younis.
Israeli forces also shot and killed a Palestinian man in a Bedouin village in southern Israel (details below).
Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 420 Palestinians. At least 1,184 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative.
Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 969 times in 87 days. 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.)
Israel begins revoking licenses* of 37 international orgs delivering aid to Gaza
Israel on Sunday began revoking the operating licenses of 37 international organizations delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, saying they failed to meet requirements under new registration rules, according to the Israeli broadcasting authority KAN.
However, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Israel’s decision in November to revoke the licenses of international relief organizations is rooted in purely political reasons.
*NOTE: Ha’aretz reported recently: Israel has introduced sweeping criteria for disqualifying organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank. An organization could lose its license if it was deemed to promote “delegitimization of the State of Israel,” if one of its employees had called for a boycott of Israel in the past seven years, or if it supported legal action against Israelis in foreign or international courts.
Organizations were also required to submit lists of their Palestinian employees to Israeli authorities – a demand some groups warned could violate privacy laws and expose them to legal risk in their home countries.
RELATED: Once Again, the New York Times Sells Israel’s Genocide in Gaza as Law Enforcement
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Israel has killed at least 232 fishermen in Gaza since start of war, devastating sector
Israeli gunboats reportedly opened fire Sunday on fishermen who were working near the seashore off Khan Younis, killing one man identified as Abdul Rahman Abdul Hadi al-Qan, and wounding another.
Around 67 of the 232 fishermen killed since October 2023 were targeted while fishing, with their boats directly hit, according to local media.
The attacks have destroyed over 95 percent of the enclave’s fishing sector (continue reading here).
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‘It Feels Like Someone Is Always There‘: In Gaza, IDF Drones Infiltrate Every Moment of Palestinians’ Lives
They follow people, moving back and forth through the streets and constantly humming, creating a new soundtrack that means one thing to Gazans: You are being watched. Palestinians in Gaza tell Haaretz what it’s like to live under a watchful and potentially lethal eye.
WATCH: Intrusive Israeli drones chase Palestinians:
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.)
Over 12,000 Palestinian children ‘remain forcibly displaced’ in West Bank: UN agency
Since Jan. 21, 2025, the Israeli army has been carrying out a military campaign in the northern West Bank, which began in the Jenin refugee camp and later expanded to the Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps.
Israeli forces have imposed a siege on the three camps, accompanied by widespread destruction of infrastructure, homes and shops, leading to the displacement of around 50,000 Palestinians, according to official figures, including over 12,000 school-aged children.
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This is how Israeli settlers, backed by the military, erased a Palestinian village from existence last week
My last visit to the village of Yanoun was about two years ago, when I reported on the only school that remained in the beleaguered hamlet in the northern occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers and the army had been continuously harassing the residents of the Palestinian village in an attempt to force them to leave.
“Look closely at the village and examine it carefully,” a local representative, Rashid Murrar, told me at the time. “You may not see it next time.”
He was right. Khirbet Yanoun, a small rural Hamlet southeast of Nablus known for its agricultural production, no longer exists (continue reading here).
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Palestinian press union reports 80 Israeli violations against West Bank journalists in December
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate recorded in December 48 cases of detention and prevention from media coverage, 15 assaults involving tear gas and stun grenades while journalists were working, two attempted deliberate car ramming attacks against journalists, nine incidents of weapons being brandished and journalists threatened, and six cases of direct verbal threats.
The report said that in Gaza, one journalist was killed while performing field duties, two journalists were seriously injured as a result of shelling and direct targeting, and two relatives of journalists were killed (continue reading here).
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Palestinian press syndicate says journalist’s life at risk due to medical neglect in Israeli jail
Journalist Ali Samoudi’s life is at risk and could die imminently in Israeli jail, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate warned on Sunday. Israeli courts recently extended his administrative detention for the third time, with no trial or charges.
The syndicate called the move a blatant violation of human and international rights, and stated that Samoudi had lost around 40kg of weight and, due to deliberate medical neglect, now suffers from multiple conditions, including scabies, diabetes, high blood pressure, and stomach ulcers.
WEST BANK HEADLINES:
Israeli Forces Invade Multiple Areas Across West Bank
ISRAEL NEWS & 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.)
Israeli police kill Palestinian citizen, father of 7, in Negev raid
Israeli police shot dead a Palestinian from the Bedouin village of Al-Tarabin in the Negev early Sunday, local media reported. Al-Tarabin is an unrecognized Palestinian Bedouin village located in the Negev Desert in southern Israel.
National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said on X that he supported the police’s conduct in Al-Tarabin village, claiming that “Mohammed Tarabin” was a “dangerous criminal,” who had allegedly been involved in acts of vandalism of property in nearby Israeli settlements. Palestinian citizens of Israel accuse Ben-Gvir of inciting violence and using provocative raids in the town to bolster his electoral support.
Tarabin’s 11-year-old son, who witnessed the killing, said: “They knocked on the door. I was awake. My father opened it, and immediately they shot him in the chest” (continue reading here).
*NOTE: Tens of thousands of Bedouins live in dozens of unrecognized villages in the Negev, a desert in southern Israel, with Israeli authorities denying them access to water, electricity, infrastructure, schools and medical clinics. About 20% of Israel’s population are Palestinians, descendants of the native residents of Palestine who were not expelled during the 1948 Nakba, when Zionist gangs expelled most Palestinians from their homeland to create of the state of Israel.
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No surprise*, Israel applauds US strikes and Maduro’s capture in Venezuela
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday conveyed the support of his “entire government” for U.S. President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela and capture of President Nicolás Maduro, and praised Trump’s effort to “restore freedom and justice to this region of the world.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed that Trump is acting as “the leader of the free world,” and that Israel stands with the “suffering Venezuelan people,”
*NOTE: Israel had previously criticized Maduro and welcomed the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has openly supported Israel and has close ties with the Netanyahu government.
In October 2024, President Maduro reportedly described Netanyahu as a “monster created by the European Union and the US Empire,” and compared Netanyahu to Hitler, adding that even Hitler did not dare to do what the Israeli Prime Minister is currently doing.
Earlier, Maduro said what is happening in the Middle East “is not a conflict, but a colonial project by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe aimed at controlling the region.”
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2 killed in Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon* despite ceasefire
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says the drone strike hit a vehicle in Bint Jbeil district (*NOTE: Israel has attacked Lebanon almost every day since the ceasefire was reached on 27 November 2024. committing over 10,000 air and ground violations).
NEWS & HEADLINES 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.)
Netanyahu, allies using armies of bots to influence social media discourse – report
About half of the politically active accounts on Israeli social media are not real people but rather bots, including many of those boosting posts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his right-wing coalition, according to an investigation by Channel 12 news.
The report, which aired on Friday night, found that Netanyahu and his allies use bots to “like” and share their posts almost immediately after the content is uploaded, in order to convince the platforms’ algorithms to recommend it to other users.
RELATED:
Israel’s covert info bots targeting America met with hypocritical silence
Netanyahu has a new, well-paid army to fight for Israel on social media
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Israeli Media’s Roast of Angelina Jolie’s Rafah Border Visit Redefines Ignorance
Pundits on Israel’s popular Friday night newscast ‘debated’ whether Angelina Jolie’s visit to the Gaza-Egypt border was fueled by ‘antisemitism or ignorance.’ To them, no Gazan is innocent, and anyone she met was personally liable for the hostages’ horrors.
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We Must Take the Next Election Seriously, It May Be Israel’s Last
No one in the government is behaving as if there is a real threat to their seat. Rebuilding voter confidence, including that of their supporters, is not a goal. This is not the behavior of a leadership that plans to win an election fairly.
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Ben Gvir’s dismissal ‘will not happen,’ vows Netanyahu, bucking AG’s pressure
In tense cabinet meeting, deputy AG trades barbs with far-right minister, warns he is eroding police independence by interfering in investigations.
OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:
Trump delays Gaza ‘Peace Council*’ amid Maduro abduction
US President Donald Trump has postponed an announcement that was due this week on the establishment of a “Gaza Peace Council” and the presentation of its composition, following developments in Venezuela, according to Israel’s Maariv newspaper.
The newspaper reported on Sunday, citing senior political officials, that the delay came after the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and their transfer to New York.
Despite the postponement, the same officials stressed that the delay was “purely technical”, noting that a decision on the Peace Council had already been taken (continue reading here).
*NOTE: The so-called Peace Council is deeply problematic. Trump’s proposal (passed by the UN Security Council) to establish a Peace Council headed by a political figure, Trump himself, constitutes an unprecedented arrangement that undermines the principle of neutrality. The US is not considered a neutral party by Palestinians, but a strong ally of Israel. The resolution was crafted in coordination with Israel, the occupying power in Gaza, to impose an administration on occupied territory without the consent of the Palestinian people and without a UN mandate, introduced instead under the guise of a resolution to end the war (continue reading the critique here).
The Council, which has now supposedly been selected, was promised by Trump to be “one of the most legendary councils ever…the candidates now include kings, presidents and prime ministers. They all want to be on the Peace Council.”
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Trump says Iran will ‘get hit very hard’ if it continues killing protesters
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump said.
ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
Shadowy Israel-linked org is draining Gaza of medical personnel
In Area B, Settlers* Show No Mercy to the Sheep, Not Even the Lambs
Israeli Soldiers Detain, Intimidate Palestinian Toddler in Hebron
Venezuelan VP: US attack capturing Maduro has ‘Zionist overtones’
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – JANUARY 4, 2026*:
- At least 72,489 Palestinians killed, 182,264 injured – including:
- At least 71,386 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
- At least 1,103 killed in the West Bank (~229 children)
- At least 171,264 injured in Gaza
- About11,000 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 4, 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 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 And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society
- ADL’s J7: Biweekly Jewish Nationalism Think Tank
- Israel gives war profiteers sole control of life-saving Gaza aid: Report
- Once Again, the New York Times Sells Israel’s Genocide in Gaza as Law Enforcement
- Israel Accuses Zohran Mamdani of Antisemitism for Reversing Orders Adams Gave Under Indictment
- Controlled Dissent: The Hidden System That Broke Charlie Kirk
- Four major dynamics in Gaza War that will impact 2026
- Stunning Victories and Rising Repression: a look back at the global student movement for Palestine in 2025
- Ha’aretz: Israel Blocked 37 Aid Groups From Gaza – and Then Claimed Credit for Their Work
- In occupied West Bank, Israel is seizing Palestinian homes and transforming them into military outposts
- World Council of Churches calls for sanctions on Israel
- Tikvah Fund Secures $10.4M Grant From Trump, Pushes for Censorship to Advance Zionism
- Did Netanyahu just ask Trump for another war — and get it?
- Israel suspends operations of multiple humanitarian organizations in Gaza, including Doctors Without Borders
