Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Israeli airstrikes have killed 101 Palestinians since Wednesday’s announcement of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, according to an official tally on Friday. The dead include 31 women and 27 children.
UPDATE: Israeli security cabinet approves Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal
Netanyahu delays approval of ceasefire deal, blames Hamas for ‘backtracking’
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on 16 January that his cabinet will not convene to approve the ceasefire deal for Gaza as was scheduled, accusing Hamas of backtracking from the agreement one day after it was announced by Qatar and the US.
In response, Hamas political bureau member Izzat al-Rishq said the resistance movement is “committed” to the ceasefire that was announced on Wednesday.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as national security adviser said late Wednesday that the incoming administration will support future Israeli attacks on Gaza even as Trump hailed the tenuous new cease-fire and hostage-release agreement as a signal “to the entire world that my administration would seek peace.”
In an appearance on Fox News late Wednesday after the agreement was announced, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said that “we’ve made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in [to Gaza], we’re with them.”
“Hamas is not going to continue as a military entity and it’s certainly not going to govern Gaza,” Waltz added.
The national security adviser nominee expressed a similar position in a podcast appearance prior to the announcement of the cease-fire deal, which is currently in jeopardy as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Hamas of reneging on the terms of the agreement—a claim Hamas has rejected.
Asked whether a cease-fire agreement would mean “the war is over,” Waltz said, “Hamas would like to believe that.”
“But we’ve been clear that Gaza has to be fully demilitarized, Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute, and that Israel has every right to fully protect itself,” he added. “All of those objectives are still very much in place.”
“We need to get our people out,” Waltz continued, “and then we need to achieve those objectives in this war.”
‘As we were celebrating, the Israeli warplanes took us by surprise’
Despite negotiators from Hamas and Israel agreeing on a ceasefire to take effect on Sunday, Israeli forces have still been pummeling Gaza with attacks that have killed dozens of people in the past 24 hours.
One deadly Israeli attack following the announcement of the ceasefire deal killed 20 Palestinians in Jabaliya, northern Gaza.
“As we were celebrating the ceasefire announcement, the Israeli warplanes took us by surprise. I woke up to find myself lying in hospital with head injuries,” a boy with a bandaged head told Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili at the site of the attack.
“All my brothers and my aunts were killed. I miraculously survived as a civil defense member pulled me from under the rubble.”
RELATED: Five Journalists in Gaza Reflect on Ceasefire Announcement
Hamas Spokesman: Israel Targeted Captive after Agreement Announcement
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, have warned that Israeli airstrikes targeting Gaza could jeopardize the safety of Israeli detainees ahead of the implementation of the prisoner exchange deal set to begin on Sunday.
Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, stated on Thursday via Telegram that the Israeli army targeted a location where one of the female prisoners included in the deal’s first phase was being held.
“Any aggression and bombing at this stage by the enemy could turn the freedom of a prisoner into a tragedy,” he cautioned.
The fate of the prisoner following the reported attack remains unclear.
Human Rights Watch calls for ‘end to systematic repression’
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, has welcomed the news of a ceasefire deal and also called for Israel “to lift its blockade, allow in humanitarian aid at scale necessary to meet urgent needs, and ensure basic services like electricity and water are restored”.
“Otherwise, people will continue to die, ceasefire or not,” he said in a statement. He added that the “heinous crimes” committed should not go unpunished.
“Those responsible should be held to account, including at the International Criminal Court, and states need to address root causes, including Israel’s apartheid against the Palestinians,” Shakir said.
“To avoid further mass atrocities, there must be an end to systematic repression and respect for the rights of all people in Israel and Palestine,” he added.
‘Why aren’t you in the Hague?’ Blinken’s final press briefing descends into chaos
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press conference was interrupted on Thursday by two journalists who blasted him over the US’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza before they were forcibly removed from the State Department’s press briefing room.
The journalists repeatedly interrupted Blinken within the first 15 minutes of his hour-long press conference. The outgoing Secretary of State asked both men to hold their questions until later, but they persisted until security guards came to take them away.
“Why did you keep the bombs flowing?” Max Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone, an online news site, shouted at Blinken from the back of the press room. “Why did you sacrifice the rules-based order on the mantle of your commitment to Zionism?”
As Blumenthal was escorted out of the room by security, he continued to accost Blinken.
“You helped destroy our religion Judaism by associating it with fascism…your father-in-law was an Israel lobbyist, your grandfather was an Israel lobbyist…Why did you allow the holocaust of our time to happen? How does it feel to let your legacy be genocide?”
As Blumenthal reached the door, he appeared to direct his screams at Matthew Miller, the outgoing spokesman for the US State Department. “You too Matt,” he shouted. “You smirked through the whole thing every day. You smirked through a genocide.”
Asked by one reporter if he had any regrets about not enforcing red lines on Israel, Blinken said the Biden administration’s policies “were basically supported by an overwhelming majority of Israelis after the trauma of October 7”.
MORE NEWS:
IMEMC Daily Reports
The Intercept: MIT Shuts Down Internal Grant Database After It Was Used to Research School’s Israel Ties
Anadolu Agency: 50 Columbia law faculty urge probe into professor’s treatment over pro-Palestinian remarks
Anadolu Agency: PM Netanyahu uses health issues to avoid corruption trial for 3rd week in a row
Palestine Chronicle: The Price of Impunity in Gaza: Is This Israel’s Day of Reckoning?
Middle East Monitor: Rome’s chief Rabbi criticizes Pope Francis over Israel remarks
Israel Intensifies attacks on Gaza as ceasefire is agreed
Israel carries out airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip as Palestinians celebrate the announcement of a ceasefire deal. The agreement that will see the cessation of fighting is set to begin on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/nPIVRycoFc
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) January 16, 2025
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STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – JANUARY 16, 2025:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 16, 2025: at least 47,734* – 46,876 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 858 Palestinians (~176 of them children).
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.
According to a report in the Lancet, by multiplying the reported deaths by five, it is possible to reach a conservative estimate of total deaths (including indirect causes like starvation and lack of medicine). Using the latest figure from AFP (46,876), it is reasonable to estimate at least 234,380 total deaths in Gaza since October 7th, 2023.
According to a recent report by the UN Human Rights Office of identified fatalities in Gaza, about 44% were children. It is reasonable to estimate that 20,625 of known direct deaths and 103,127 of the total deaths are children.
(Gaza’s health ministry has used the estimate of 18,000 of the known deaths to be children since at least September 2024; total deaths since then have risen by about 5,000, which would add about 2,200 to the children’s death estimate. This indicates that the estimate of 20,587 is fairly accurate.)
Palestinian injuries from October 7, 2023 – January 16, 2025: at least 117,642 (including at least 110,642 in Gaza and 7,000 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 16, 2025: ~1,616 (or 1,590) (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 431*** (or 405) military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Jan. 11, 2025); 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
ADDITIONAL STATISTICS: Since October 7th, 2023:
- At least 54 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (at least 35 of them from Gaza).
- At least 43 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition (at least 37 of them children)**.
- About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are currently displaced.
- About 345,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
*The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.
Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
**Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.
***The figure does not include the reportedly 59 Israeli soldiers – nearly 17% of the total Israeli military deaths – killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents.
† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza
- The Ceasefire Charade
- Israel destroyed Gaza and the world remained silent
- WATCH: 60 Minutes Report on Gaza (Jan 13, 2025)
- Trump’s Mideast Envoy Forced Netanyahu to Accept a Gaza Plan He Repeatedly Rejected
- WATCH: How Pro-Israel Neocons Pushed for War in Iraq (Alison Weir)
- Scorched-Earth: Making Gaza Uninhabitable for Generations to Come
- Meta’s staunch support for Israel shines amidst genocide in Gaza
- From Gaza to California: the flames that connect us all
- Israel must be added to UN’s sexual violence blacklist
- Dr Abu Safiya symbolized humanity in Gaza, as it is destroyed
- Gaza death toll may be 41% higher than official figures: study
- NYTimes rejects Quaker ad for calling Israel’s actions “genocide”
- Blinken Declares Genocide in Sudan But Refuses to Acknowledge Genocide in Gaza
- Blood Splattered Madness
- Knesset members urge IDF to destroy Gaza’s food, water and power
- ‘No Civilians’: IDF Soldiers Reveal Killings, Lawlessness in Gaza
- Israel’s Judaization Policy Replaces Arab Towns with Synagogues
- Gaza is Now ‘Hell on Earth’—Exactly as Intended