Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Israeli strikes killed at least 31 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 24 hours, medical sources report.
Israel kills Gaza grandfather who moved the world
An Israeli strike has killed Khaled Nabhan, a Palestinian grandfather known for his emotional goodbye to his three-year-old granddaughter, Reem, who was killed in an Israeli attack in November of 2023.
A video of Nabhan cradling the lifeless body of Reem and calling her the “soul of my soul” garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media and was covered by international news outlets.
His grief was seen as emblematic of the pain Israeli bombardment was inflicting on the besieged territory.
Nearly 13 months later, his own killing shows the toll of Israel’s war on Gaza and the absence of safety anywhere in the territory.
RECOMMENDED READING: Paralyzed in a hospital under siege
Nearly 1 million Palestinians in Gaza face winter without shelter
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Shelter Cluster estimated in September that 2,000 trucks of tents or 200 trucks of sealing-off kits were urgently needed to provide basic winter protection for 1.13 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
By late November, only 285,000 displaced people had received essential shelter materials. Since early October, Israel’s offensive and siege on North Gaza have displaced an additional 100,000 Palestinians, and in total 945,000 people are now in need of shelter assistance.
The entry of shelter materials into Gaza has decreased as flour, essential to address growing starvation, is being prioritized for transport through Gate 96 along the Fence Road, the most secure route for aid convoys. The Shelter Cluster urges donor governments to press Israel to allow the entry of weather-proofing materials and ensure safe access for humanitarian workers to reach vulnerable Palestinians throughout Gaza.
“We’ve received only a fraction of the aid required to address the shelter crisis,” said Jeroen Quanjer, Shelter Cluster chair in Palestine. “Hundreds of thousands of displaced families are enduring the winter cold and rain without meaningful protection. Israeli authorities’ repeated denial of essential shelter materials prevents us from scaling up our response to build emergency shelters that can withstand Gaza’s winter conditions.”
Charities set up tents for 700 displaced families in Gaza
Low Formula Milk Supply – Lives of over 8,500 Gaza Infants at Risk
The lives of more than 8,500 infants in Gaza are at risk as milk supplies are “nowhere near enough” in the besieged enclave, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned.
“One of our only functioning health centers has just 6 boxes to distribute – the first delivery in 3 months,” UNRWA said on Sunday.
With over 200,000 people relying on this clinic for primary health care, dire shortages leave many, including babies and children, at high risk,” the UN agency emphasized.
It said “immediate aid” and a ceasefire “are vital to save lives.”
In the past four months alone, nearly 19,000 children were hospitalized due to acute malnutrition – nearly double the cases in the first half of the year, UNRWA said.
First month of Gaza war ‘most destructive’ for civilians this century
The first month of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza inflicted the greatest toll on civilians of any conflict in the 21st century, according to Airwars research.
More than 5,100 civilian deaths were recorded during the first month of Israel’s war on Gaza, the conflict monitor said in its latest report published last week, adding that it was by far the most devastating period for civilians it had ever recorded.
The number was almost four times that of civilian deaths recorded in March 2017 during the battle against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq’s Mosul, which before the current war in Gaza was the deadliest month for civilians monitored by Airwars.
“By almost every metric, the harm to civilians from the first month of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is incomparable with any 21st-century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented,” the report said.
The data used for the report encompasses the 25-day period between 7 October and 1 November and is based on the analysis of more than 600 incidents of civilian harm.
Some of the missiles used by the Israeli military are reportedly packed with nails and little pieces of metal, and when they explode, they fly at high speed, cut through the flesh and cause severe bleeding.
West Bank: Israeli Forces Kill a Palestinian Teen Near Nablus
West Bank: Israel demolishes dozens of Palestinian structures
Israeli authorities demolished dozens of Palestinian structures, including residential apartments, in the occupied West Bank on Monday, a local official and witnesses said.
“Israeli forces razed 40 shops and a 400-square-meter house in al-Ramadin town” in the southern West Bank, municipal chief Anis al-Zaghah told Anadolu.
He said Israeli authorities cited the lack of building permits for demolishing the structures.
“The structures were built on private land and were vital for local families’ livelihoods,” he added.
Isa Al-Rwashdeh, the owner of one of the demolished businesses, said the targeted shops sold produce, building materials, and agricultural tools. He added that the demolition was followed by the burning of remnants on-site.
The Israeli forces also razed 11 other structures, including nine residential apartments, in Al-Bustan neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, witnesses said.
According to the witnesses, the apartments were inhabited by 31 families, including children, with Israeli forces citing lack of a building permit for the demolitions.
NOTE: Israel admits that its construction permit system is highly discriminatory. Between 2016 and 2020, 99.1 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits were rejected, according to data provided by the IDF’s Civil Administration.
RECOMMENDED READING: Israel demolishes over 1,500 Palestinian structures in occupied West Bank in 2024
Israeli drone strike injures 3 Lebanese despite cease-fire
Three people were injured on Monday in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon, in the latest violation of a cease-fire deal, the Health Ministry said.
A ministry statement reported the injuries in a strike targeting the town of An-Najjariyah in Sidon district.
Lebanese authorities have reported around 228 Israeli violations since the cease-fire deal between Israel and Lebanon came into force on Nov. 27.
An OCHA report issued Monday on the situation in Lebanon between 6-12 December said 902,717 Lebanese civilians have returned to their homes while 178,817 people are still displaced.
Israeli warplanes target Syrian coast with ‘most violent strikes ever’
Israeli warplanes carried out the most violent and intense round of airstrikes on Syria yet, coming as Tel Aviv continues to attack Syrian military capabilities and deepen its occupation in the country.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on 16 December that the late-night and early-morning attacks on Syria were the most “violent round … ever since the beginning of airstrikes in Syrian territory in 2012.”
Loud explosions were heard, and massive explosions can be seen in video footage of the attacks. Israeli warplanes also targeted the city of Masyaf.
According to SOHR, the blasts could be heard until the early hours of Monday. Al Mayadeen reported that several people were killed in the Israeli strikes, which caused “earthquake-like” tremors.
SOHR adds that the number of Israeli strikes on Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government on 8 December has risen to 473.
Family of Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces expresses frustration after meeting Blinken
Family of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, said it was “frustrating to hear the same things” without meaningful action after meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.
“Secretary was attentive in listening to us, and unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing, who is also a Washington State resident, like my wife. It’s frustrating to hear the same things again,” her husband Hamid Ali told reporters after the meeting at the State Department.
“We hope that things will be different this time around. But as I said, our expectations are what they are,” he said, repeating the family’s call for a US-led investigation into her killing.
Ozden Bennet, Eygi’s sister, said the US is still awaiting for an Israeli investigation, which she said the family does not find “credible”.
“He listened to our frustrations, which were long, and at this point we did leave asking the Secretary of State Blinken to push publicly and put pressure on the Israeli government to at the very least to finish their investigation into my sister’s killing before the change-over in the administration,” she said.
Bennett noted that prior to Monday’s meeting at the State Department, no one from the White House or the Biden administration had reached out to the family to offer condolences when asked about any such contact.
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In #Gaza, over 8,500 babies have received formula milk through UNRWA, but supplies are nowhere near enough. One of our only functioning health centres has just 6 boxes to distribute – the first delivery in 3 months.
With over 200,000 people relying on this clinic for primary… pic.twitter.com/7o5Z7plCe0
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 15, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – DECEMBER 16, 2024:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – December 16, 2024: at least 45,873* – 45,059 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 814 Palestinians (~169 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 (45,059), it is reasonable to estimate at least 225,295 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 19,826 of known direct deaths and 99,130 of the total deaths are children.
Since Israel launched an extermination campaign in northern Gaza in early October, over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed or are missing and another 12,000 wounded.
[*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.]Since October 7th, 2023:
- At least 49 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (at least 30 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.
Palestinian injuries from October 7, 2023 – December 16, 2024: at least 113,491 (including at least 107,041 in Gaza and 6,450 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 – December 16, 2024: ~1,593 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 415*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Dec 11); 39 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.
The death toll in Lebanon since October 8, 2023 is at least 4,047, of which 3,961 were killed in the final months before the ceasefire; most of the 16,638 injuries also occurred toward the end of the war.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*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.
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