Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Israeli forces killed at least 110 people in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.
Israeli army forces killed least 43 civilians in an attack on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza.
At least 20 civilians, including children, were killed in an Israeli attack targeting another school-turned-shelter in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Other victims included Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, two other Palestinian journalists, and five members of the Palestinian Civil Defense.
The military also killed at least five, including a child, in a home in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and at least six in a home in Gaza City in the north.
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 (45,028), it is reasonable to estimate at least 225,140 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 19,812 of known direct deaths and 99,062 of the total deaths are children.
Israel massacres, expels displaced Palestinians sheltering in north Gaza school
Israeli army forces stormed a school housing displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza on 15 December, opening fire and killing at least 43 civilians, while forcing dozens to flee.
All the men who were sheltering in the Khalil Oweida school in Beit Hanoun were abducted, while the rest were forced to evacuate at gunpoint. Several others were injured in the attack on the school.
According to WAFA news agency, the displaced women and children were forced to head to an Israeli checkpoint on the Salah al-Din axis leading to Gaza City.
Anadolu Agency (AA) reported, citing eyewitnesses, that the bodies of the victims were spread out across the Khalil Oweida schoolyard and nearby streets.
“The terrorist occupation army’s storming of Khalil Awida School in Beit Hanoun … and committing a massacre against the displaced people there, by direct shooting … and then arresting all the displaced youths, is a reinforcement of the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement operations taking place in the northern Gaza Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
Israeli forces in Gaza have repeatedly targeted schools packed with displaced civilians.
Israel to deploy remotely operated machine guns against Palestinians in occupied West Bank
The Israeli army is preparing to deploy automated, remotely monitored machine guns to protect illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Army Radio reported on 15 December.
The automated weapons, developed by Rafael Combat Systems, will be installed on watch towers around dozens of settlements and near their entrances. They will be controlled remotely from command centers “to prevent armed attacks and infiltration operations.”
The same system was installed on the Gaza border in 2008 and operated by spotters in bases. However, it failed to prevent fighters from the Islamic Resistance movement, Hamas, from approaching and breaching the barrier fence to attack settlements and Israeli military bases on 7 October 2023.
During Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Qassam Brigades fighters reportedly used attack drones to disable the automated weapons during the first hours of the operation.
The army will first deploy the weapons in locations it defines as ‘high-risk,’ and expand their deployment over time to include additional locations.
Israel strikes Syria as Netanyahu approves plan to expand Golan Heights settlement
Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel.
Jolani’s comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday that he had approved a plan to expand settlement building in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and following a statement by Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon.
Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre used by Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Syrian state media: “Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
Netanyahu announced plans to expand Israeli settlements in the part of the Golan Heights the country initially occupied in 1973 “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria” and a desire to double the Israeli population in the area.
“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the state of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, cause it to blossom and settle in it,” he said in the statement.
NOTE: Israeli settlements and settlers on Syrian land are a violation of international law.
Israel to close Dublin embassy after Ireland supports ICJ genocide petition
Israel has announced it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s decision last week to support a petition at the international court of justice accusing Israel of genocide.
The move was announced by the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, who said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policies”, noting its decision to join the ICJ petition last week.
The Irish prime minister, Simon Harris, said on X: “This is a deeply regrettable decision from the Netanyahu government. I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law.
“Ireland wants a two-state solution and for Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Ireland will always speak up for human rights and international law. Nothing will distract from that.”
Israel has not applied similar measures to other countries, including Egypt, Spain, and Mexico, that joined the petition.
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I resigned from CNN over its pro-Israel bias
Developing as a young journalist without jeopardizing your morals has become incredibly difficult.
While independent journalism is evolving, offering alternative narratives to those spread by the mainstream media machine, the status of the newsroom retains a certain appeal. With bills to pay and personal aspirations to meet, we are discouraged from questioning the ramifications of our words.
It is easy enough to convince yourself that being on the inside is the only way to change things but, as Palestinian journalist Mohammed El-Kurd so incisively wrote: “Once we have protection, we’ll want to stay protected. And once we get some money, we’ll want more and more wealth.
“When we go back to ourselves after a long career and look deep in our closets for the skin we once wore, we find it shriveled and discarded, foreign to us as we are foreign to it. One could say it is a strategy but we know what the master’s tools will not do.”
Such thoughts had been brewing during my short time as an intern-turned-freelancer at CNN International (CNNi). When I finally resigned, in October last year, they had engulfed me entirely.
On 11 October 2023, just before I left, CNN Anchor and Senior National Correspondent Sara Sidner misreported the baseless and now disproven story, “confirmed by the [Israeli] Prime Minister’s Office,” that Hamas beheaded babies on 7 October. CNN reporter Hadas Gold contributed on air, suggesting that the contemporary “rhetoric” of the Israeli government and military was the product of such “atrocities.”
Those beheadings never occurred, but by the time Sidner issued her apology, the story had already spread (continue reading here).
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Displaced girls scream and cry to receive their share from the charity kitchen. The scene is no longer just tragic, absurd, or painful it is beyond description, expression, or even endurance. Famine is devastating the children of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/HdSiHMnc5V
— Eye on Palestine (@EyeonPalestine) December 13, 2024
This morning, invading Israeli forces stormed and besieged the Khalil Oweida school housing displaced Palestinians in besieged north Gaza’s Beit Hanoun. Israeli soldiers opened fire on civilians, killing at least 15 people and injuring others. Local sources reported that all the… pic.twitter.com/35KtCibrIq
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) December 15, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – DECEMBER 15, 2024:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – December 15, 2024: at least 45,841* – 45,028 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 813 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 (45,028), it is reasonable to estimate at least 225,140 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 19,812 of known direct deaths and 99,062 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 15, 2024: at least 113,412 (including at least 106,962 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 15, 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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