“Thank you, US [taxpayers], for enabling us to wage war” with another $8B – Day 456

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“Thank you, US [taxpayers], for enabling us to wage war” with another $8B – Day 456
Over a thousand pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered at Union Square in San Francisco, California on Saturday to protest US support for Israel’s war on Gaza. The protest took place amid reports the White House is planning another $8bn weapons shipment to Israel (Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

On Sunday, Israel continued to attack the Gaza Strip with at least 23 people killed by Israeli strikes, according to rescuers.

Lapid thanks Biden for allowing Israel to ‘wage war’

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has lauded the Biden administration’s $8bn boost in military aid as a genocide is under way in Gaza.

“The support of the United States over the past 15 months has enabled us to defend ourselves and wage war,” Lapid said in a post on X.

“This is an opportunity to thank President Biden and his administration for their support.”

Hamas says it has approved Israeli list of 34 hostages for possible deal

Palestinian militant group Hamas has approved a list of 34 hostages presented by Israel to be exchanged in a possible ceasefire deal, a group official told Reuters on Sunday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, also reiterated that any deal is contingent upon reaching an agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire.

Israel destroyed more than 800 Gaza mosques in 2024, Ministry of Awqaf says

In 2024, Israeli forces destroyed 815 mosques and partially damaged another 151, the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs has said in a report.

According to the report, 19 cemeteries were also destroyed, with graves desecrated and bodies exhumed, the Wafa news agency reported.

Three churches in Gaza City were also hit and destroyed in the Israeli attacks.

A view of heavily damaged Taiba Mosque in Rafah, southern Gaza on July 05, 2024
A view of heavily damaged Taiba Mosque in Rafah, southern Gaza on July 05, 2024 (Salma Kaddoumi – Anadolu Agency)

West Bank: Israel kills Palestinian man, Palestinian youth

On Sunday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian child in the Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, and shot six young men in Nablus city.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian child, on Sunday evening, after invading the Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus.

In a statement, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that the child, Moataz Ahmad Abdel Wahab Madani, 17, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the bullets in Askar camp.

Also on Sunday, Israeli forces assassinated a Palestinian man, after besieging his home in the town of Meithalun, south of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.

Media sources said that occupation forces executed the citizen, Hassan Ali Hassan Rabaya, 37, after opening heavy live fire at him in town of Meithalun.

Sources added that an undercover Israeli unit (Musta’ribeen) infiltrated the town of Meithalun on Sunday morning, and surrounded the family home of the slain Rabaya, demanding that he surrender himself.

It is important to mention that the slain Rabaya, an officer in the Preventive Security Service, is the father of 15-year-old child, Ali Hassan Ali Rabay’a, whom Israeli soldiers shot and killed on July 11, 2024.

Since the beginning of the Israeli military onslaught against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 838 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 172 children, and injured 6,500.

Hassan Ali Hassan Rabaya and Moataz Ahmad Abdel Wahab Madani, killed by Israel on Sunday, Jan 5
Hassan Ali Hassan Rabaya and Moataz Ahmad Abdel Wahab Madani, killed by Israel on Sunday, Jan 5 (IMEMC)

Israel condemned for using ambulance in deadly raid in West Bank

Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency reveals the moment Israeli special forces infiltrated the Balata refugee camp using an ambulance on December 19, resulting in the deaths of two Palestinians, including a woman.

Nicola Perugini, an international relations professor at the University of Edinburgh, pointed out the hypocrisy of the move, noting that Israel’s military continues to accuse Hamas of using medical facilities for military purposes in Gaza—a claim that remains largely unsubstantiated.

UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, also condemned the Israeli actions, labelling the use of ambulances for military operations as a clear violation of international law.

“Misusing the protected status of medical vehicles and personnel is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and may constitute a crime of perfidy,” she wrote on X. “By systemically disregarding IHL, Israel has rendered the legal frameworks meant to protect civilians completely meaningless.”

This latest raid highlights Israel’s ongoing use of controversial and aggressive tactics, further inflaming tensions in the region and prompting calls for accountability.

Three Israelis killed in occupied West Bank bus shooting

An attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed three people on Monday, with Israeli ministers calling for an end to cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.

The attack, which wounded seven others, occurred in the village of Al-Funduq, east of the city of Qalqilya and near the Israeli settlement of Kedumim, according to Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom.

Of the three victims, two were women, both in their 60s, and one a man in his 40s, the service added.

The Israeli army said that two armed Palestinian men opened fire on the bus, according to Haaretz, which added that Israeli forces were searching for them, closing checkpoints in the eastern areas of Qalqilya and southern Nablus.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the erasure of Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank like that in Gaza, saying on X that “Funduq, Nablus and Jenin should look like Jabalya”.

Far-right minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir called for an end to cooperation with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

“Remember that the PA supports terror, stop all cooperation with it, place as many checkpoints as possible and close roads [because] the settler’ right to life outweighs PA residents’ freedom of movement,” he said.

Lebanon reports nine more Israeli violations despite ceasefire

The Israeli army has committed nine violations of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, bringing the total to 392 breaches since the agreement took effect on November 27, 2024, Lebanon’s government has said.

Israeli bulldozers carried out operations inside Lebanese territory on the outskirts of the border town of ad-Dhahira in the Tyre district of the South Governorate, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

So far, Israel has withdrawn from just two of the dozens of towns it holds in southern Lebanon, according to The Associated Press news agency, and has continued near-daily air raids on the country. Naim Qassem, the Hezbollah chief, said on Saturday that his group is ready to respond to Israeli ceasefire violations.

Israel reportedly plans to occupy certain locations across the northern border in Lebanon indefinitely, sparking fresh controversy over its territorial ambitions.

Channel 13 revealed that during a meeting led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s political leadership expressed its intention to remain in areas of southern Lebanon.

An alliance of grassroots environmental groups could lose $60 million in federal funding after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) was named one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “grantmakers” more than a year ago, putting it in charge of distributing subgrants for locally led environmental projects. But out of 11 of the EPA’s grantmakers, the CJA is the only one that has yet to receive any funding. The group has faced a barrage of attacks for publicly opposing the Israel-Hamas war, and some EPA staffers say the group has been singled out as a result.

“We have been deeply disappointed to witness EPA’s current withholding of $60 million to the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), the only one of the eleven grantees that courageously spoke out against the environmental toll and human rights violations in Palestine,” a group of anonymous EPA and Department of Energy employees wrote in an open letter in December.

The money could disappear if it isn’t dispersed before President-elect Donald Trump steps into office. Trump has said he would rescind unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that set aside money for the grants. And if his second term is anything like his first, he’s likely to gut the EPA and roll back environmental protections (continue reading here).

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports
The New Arab: Same tactic, new pretext: Israel uses ‘archaeology’ to justify demolishing Palestinian homes

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – JANUARY 5, 2025:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 5, 2025: at least 46,693* – 45,854 in Gaza; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 839 Palestinians (~172 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 (45,854), it is reasonable to estimate at least 229,270 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 20,176 of known direct deaths and 100,879 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.

Palestinian injuries from October 7, 2023 – January 5, 2025: at least 115,356 (including at least 109,139 in Gaza and 6,500 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 5, 2025: ~1,595 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 417*** (or 391) military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Dec. 17); 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 50 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (at least 30 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.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

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