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 800th day.)
Another Palestinian infant, one-month-old Saeed Asaad Abideen, died Thursday in the Gaza Strip after exposure to extreme cold weather. His death brings to 13 the known number of people who have died from the extreme weather in recent days.
A Palestinian child was also killed after an unexploded ordnance detonated.
Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 395 Palestinians. Among the dead are at least 136 children. At least 1,088 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative. More statistics below.
Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 813 times in 70 days.
GAZA NEWS:
(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.)
UN warns 1.6 million in Gaza face acute hunger, aid blocked
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has warned that Gaza remains caught in a “man-made hunger crisis,” despite some improvements since a ceasefire began in October.
A new report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) revealed that Gaza is no longer formally classified as being in famine, but also highlighted how fragile recent gains have been, as 1.6 million people across the territory continue to face “high levels of acute food insecurity.”
Lazzarini emphasized that the crisis can only end if Israel allows aid into Gaza “at scale” and humanitarian organizations can operate without restrictions.
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Gaza doctors use 3D tech to save limbs shattered by Israel from amputation
Doctors in Gaza battling the odds after the enclave’s medical infrastructure was obliterated by Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave have found an ingenious way of saving Palestinians from losing fractured limbs.
With hospitals struggling to function under frequent electricity blackouts, the territory’s resourceful medics are harnessing the power of the sun to power 3D printers creating medical devices for the kinds of complex fractures that have become commonplace under relentless Israeli bombing.
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Tel Al-Zaatar in northern Gaza as you’ve never seen it before. The video shows Israeli tanks positioned on the ruins of Al-Awda Hospital after it was demolished. pic.twitter.com/rOUmXNOy7W
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) December 17, 2025
GAZA HEADLINES:
‘Every border lasts until the next war’: Israel’s settlers gather to ‘raise flag’ in Gaza
OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM 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.)
Palestine: Israel hands evacuation orders, seizes homes in Silwan
Israeli occupation authorities issued evacuation orders on Wednesday to Jerusalem residents, requiring them to leave their homes by the fifth of next month. The orders were issued in favor of the settler organization Ateret Cohanim, which claims the land as “Jewish-owned,” part of a policy aimed at removing Palestinian residents from the neighborhood to allow for settlement expansion.
Local sources said eight members of the family, including children, live in the two homes. The step is There are real fears that the family will be displaced and lose their right to housing (continue reading here).
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Israel approves new illegal settlement in occupied East Jerusalem
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved a plan to establish a new illegal Jewish settlement with 3,600 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, media reports said Thursday.
The settlement will serve as “a strategic base to protect Jerusalem from the east” and is part of Israel’s policy to reinforce control over the area (continue reading here).
*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.
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WEST BANK HEADLINES:
Israeli Violations In West Bank, Thursday
NEWS & HEADLINES ABOUT ISRAEL:
(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.)
Trump, Netanyahu ‘quietly planned’ Iran war since February: Report
According to an article in the Washington Post , Netanyahu met Trump in February and gave him four options for how an attack on Iran could happen.
“The Israeli prime minister first showed Trump what the operation would look like if Israel attacked alone. The second option was for Israel to take the lead, with minimal US support. The third was full collaboration between the two allies. The last option was for the US to take the lead,” the report said (continue reading here).
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Israel uneasy after JD Vance said criticizing Israel is not same as antisemitism*
JD Vance wrote in a post on X that “There is a difference between not liking Israel, or disagreeing with a given Israeli policy, and antisemitism,” a remark that led to questions in Tel Aviv about the direction of US policy and whether Israeli and American interests could clash in the near future.
Anna Barsky, Israeli political reporter spoke about it in a radio interview: “This is a major warning sign for Israel…These are not just passing remarks. When they come from the Vice President of the United States, they should be taken seriously,” she said (continue reading here).
*NOTE: Thanks to a yearslong program of indoctrination by pro-Israel organizations, the word “antisemitism” has taken on a distorted connotation that can include nearly all criticism of Israel – in other words, disapproval of the self-proclaimed “Jewish State” may be incorrectly labeled antisemitic. This has been a major factor in Israel’s achievement of almost total impunity in the global community.
Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian rights have been exposing this folly for years. JD Vance’s apparent departure from this view is refreshing.
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Nvidia to build $1.5B AI campus in Israel, calls it “second home”
The multiyear project represents an investment of several billion shekels and is anticipated to have a substantial impact on local employment, housing, and regional growth.
RELATED: What Google’s largest-ever acquisition of an Israeli software company tells us about Big Tech’s complicity in genocide
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ISRAEL HEADLINES:
Death penalty bill to include Palestinians imprisoned for 7 October, Ben Gvir says
Palestinians face violence on the streets of Israel as racist attacks spread
UAE named as buyer behind Elbit Systems’ ‘largest ever’ arms deal
UAE-backed militia in Yemen reaches out to Israel for alliance against ‘common foes’
Israeli forces raid village in southern Syria again*
*NOTE: The Israeli army has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes and 400 cross-border raids on Syria since December 2024.
HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:
(Get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions that receives $63 million a day from America.)
Israeli civilians run over Palestinian pedestrian after illegally entering Nablus, IDF confirms
Several Israelis illegally entered the city of Nablus and ran over a Palestinian pedestrian on Thursday night, the IDF confirmed.
The injured Palestinian was rushed to a hospital; according to Arab media, he had fractures on both of his legs.
The civilians fled the scene on foot, with several of them being detained later by the IDF and taken to the police.
“We emphasize that entry of Israeli citizens into Area A is dangerous* and prohibited by law,” said the IDF statement.
*NOTE: Israel has placed signs at entrances to Palestinian-controlled Area A regions, suggesting that Israelis will be attacked there. In reality, Israeli forces enter these areas all the time to kill Palestinians and, as this story shows, Palestinians are endangered by the entry of Israeli civilians too.
The vast majority of the roughly 2,000 Palestinians killed in the West Bank (~227 children) since October 7th, 2023 have been in Area A.
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OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:
UK police arrest four people for pro-Palestine ‘Intifada*’ calls
London’s Metropolitan Police posted on X late on Wednesday that it had made four arrests at pro-Palestinian protests held outside the Ministry of Justice in Westminster, “all involving the alleged shouting or chanting of slogans involving calls for intifada”.
The arrests were made at a demonstration that had been called in support of eight imprisoned hunger strikers, whose lives are in peril. They were jailed over connections to the Palestine Action group, just hours after the Metropolitan (Met) and Greater Manchester Police (GMT) said they would be “more assertive” in policing pro-Palestine protests to counter alleged anti-Semitism (continue reading here).
*NOTE: Mondoweiss explains: At its core, “globalize the intifada” captures the idea that the Palestinian Intifada — the term Palestinians popularized during their grassroots uprising against the occupation back in 1987, and which means to “shake off” and “rise up.” They revealed how ordinary people could resist a system of domination with nothing but their own bodies, voices, and determination.
The uprising was carried on the shoulders of civilians, workers, farmers, mothers, children, and teachers. All of them transformed resistance into a daily practice.
To globalize the Intifada means to recognize that this form of resistance — decentralized, popular, and rooted in everyday life — carries lessons for oppressed peoples everywhere (continue reading here).
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MORE HEADLINES:
US sanctions 2 ICC judges over rejecting Israel’s appeal of war crimes arrest warrants
In new change, main Wikipedia ‘Israel’ entry says Jewish state committing ‘genocide’
‘Flagrant Attack’: ICC Warns US Sanctions Endanger International Legal Order
Is Committee to Protect Journalists scared of its pro-Israel donors?
ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
Beneath the Plastic Sheets: A Day in the Life of Gaza’s Displaced
3 in 4 Republicans Under 45 Say They Prefer US Fund Health Care Over Israel
Oscars shortlist features three films centered on Palestinian stories
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – DECEMBER 18, 2025*:
- At least 71,767 Palestinians killed, 182,165 injured – including:
- At least 70,669 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
- At least 1,098 killed in the West Bank (~227 children)
- At least 171,165 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 – December 18, 2025: ~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
- Amnesty: ‘Utterly preventable’ Gaza flood tragedy must mobilize global action to end Israel’s genocide
- Israel Propagandists Are Uniformly Spouting The Exact Same Line About The Bondi Beach Shooting
- Ha’aretz: Free the Palestinian Activist Who Dared to Document Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank
- Garbage Is Poisoning Gaza
- Palestinian journalist recounts rape and torture in Israeli prison
- Australians Being Massacred Shouldn’t Bother Us More Than Palestinians Being Massacred
- Pro-Israel billionaire Miriam Adelson green-lights a Trump 3rd term
- The Zionist Billionaire Circle Hiding in Plain Sight
- Israel’s all-seeing eye is the stealthiest cruelty of all in Gaza
- Poll: Younger Republicans Break with GOP Orthodoxy on Israel
- The lobby is milking the Bondi Beach attack to silence critics of Israel’s genocide
- Stop The Hate UK: The Shadowy Israel-Aligned Group Targeting MintPress staff & anti-genocide organizers
- CAIR designation: As MAGA turns against Zionism, Israel First right stokes Islamophobia
- Meet the U.S. Donors Funding ELNET, the AIPAC of Europe
