Live: Arab and Muslim countries urge Israel to allow 'permanent' shelter into Gaza as weather worsens

53 International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) released a statement warning that “Israel’s recent registration measures threaten to halt INGO operations at a time when civilians face acute and widespread humanitarian need, despite the ceasefire in Gaza,” according to a press release published on ReliefWeb.

The statement was issued in response to the Israeli government’s decision to deregister 37 humanitarian organizations working in occupied Palestine, halting their operations after a 60-day period. 

On Thursday, Israeli authorities stated that the specified organizations had not met the necessary standards of “security and transparency” by failing to disclose information about Palestinian staff members.

According to the Friday statement, “INGOs deliver more than half of all food assistance in Gaza, run or support 60 per cent of field hospitals, implement nearly three-quarters of shelter and non-food item activities, and provide all treatment for children with severe acute malnutrition.”

The statement added that the removal of the 37 organizations "would close health facilities, halt food distributions, collapse shelter pipelines, and cut off life-saving care” in Gaza, while preventing support to communities facing displacement and settler violence in the West Bank.

Signing organizations called on the Israeli government to “immediately halt deregistration proceedings and lift measures obstructing humanitarian assistance” and urged donor governments to apply pressure against the deregistration decisions.

An activist held on remand on charges linked to the direct action group Palestine Action in UK prison has been hospitalised for the fifth time after going on hunger strike for more than 50 days.

Kamran Ahmed is one of eight pro-Palestine activists who began a hunger strike last year after Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, failed to respond to a letter setting out concerns over their treatment.

The group’s demands include immediate bail, an end to interference with their personal communications in prison, and the de-proscription of Palestine Action, which accuses the UK government of complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Ahmed’s sister, Shamina Alam, confirmed that his health has deteriorated in recent days.

Read more: Palestine Action-linked hunger striker hospitalised for fifth time

Israeli forces stormed the town of Kafr Ni’ma, west of Ramallah, arresting a young man during the raid, Wafa news agency reported. 

This comes after the military detained dozens of Palestinians during raids across the occupied West Bank yesterday, including a number of towns and villages surrounding Ramallah.

Israeli forces shot and killed a young man in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis, Wafa news agency reported. 

According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israeli forces violated the October ceasefire at least 969 times between October 10 and December 28. 

Al Jazeera reported that the Israeli military has killed at least 414 Palestinians in Gaza as of December 31.

In recent days, 168 Palestinians were certified as medical doctors next to the ruins of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital; 500 were celebrated at al-Shati camp for the extraordinary feat of memorising the Quran; and thousands came to Khan Younis to watch more than 50 couples declare their marriage vows in a public ceremony. 

Meanwhile, in Haifa, Israeli police found time to beat and arrest a Palestinian dressed up as Santa Claus. Israeli TV - touting it as an accomplishment and from a firing soldier’s point of view - broadcast the total devastation of Jabalia. 

A bill advocating the death penalty for “terrorists”, which would only be applied to Palestinians who kill Israeli Jews, advanced in parliament. Israeli occupation forces put Qabatiya and other West Bank towns and villages under siege, killing residents, taking captives to torture camps, seizing land, cutting down olive trees, killing livestock and demolishing homes. 

Infants freeze to death because Israel continues to mock all terms of the supposed Gaza “ceasefire” agreement, with more than 400 Palestinians killed in hundreds of Israeli violations of the truce. Further testimonies have emerged from Palestinian civilians raped by dogs after being detained without charges by occupation forces. 

Read more:  Gaza is an early warning. Will the world heed it?

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian residents in the Tel Samadi area of Jiftlik, north of Jericho, on Friday, in another incident of settler violence across the occupied Jordan Valley.

Eid Brahmeh, director of the Prisoner Club in Jericho and the Jordan Valley, told Wafa that settlers assaulted members of the Kaabneh family, severely beating them before Israeli occupation forces moved into the area. Soldiers then arrested Hassan Salem Kaabneh and Musa Awda Kaabneh, targeting the victims rather than those who carried out the attack.

Separately, Israeli forces issued demolition notices to residents in Jiftlik, signalling further displacement. Those notified include Amer Muhammad Hassan Jahalin, Bahaa Hassan Muhammad Jahalin and Bassam Mahmoud Ali Masa’id.

The combined use of settler violence, military arrests and home demolitions reflects Israel’s entrenched policy of coercion in the Jordan Valley, aimed at forcing Palestinians from their land and entrenching illegal settlement expansion.

Israeli settlers stormed a mosque in the town of Deir Ballut, west of Salfit, on Friday, as attacks on Palestinian communities and places of worship continue to escalate under Israeli occupation in the occupied West Bank.

Local sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that settlers broke into al-Salam Mosque, vandalised its interior and disrupted daily life by blocking roads and preventing vehicles from reaching the town’s main junction.

Residents said the assault fits a wider pattern of settler violence across Salfit governorate, where attacks on Palestinian property and religious sites have intensified, often carried out with impunity and under the protection of Israeli forces.

In a related incident, groups of settlers also spread out around Palestinian homes and agricultural land in the village of Farkha, south of Salfit. While no physical assaults were reported there, residents described the move as an act of intimidation designed to instil fear and tighten control over Palestinian land.

Settler violence remains a central pillar of Israel’s occupation, used to pressure communities and entrench illegal settlement expansion across the West Bank.

Israeli occupation forces bulldozed Palestinian land and tore up dozens of olive trees in the town of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, on Friday, escalating an ongoing campaign of land seizure.

Local sources said Israeli forces pushed into the area around the home of the Abu Awad family, where bulldozers levelled farmland and uprooted long-standing olive trees, a key source of livelihood for local residents.

Residents said the destruction did not begin on Friday. Israeli authorities have been carrying out sustained land bulldozing in Turmus Ayya for around three months, during which soldiers and machinery have uprooted an estimated 4,000 olive trees and ploughed through hundreds of hectares of agricultural land.

The cleared land, locals say, serves the expansion of a newly established illegal settler outpost to the west of the town, part of Israel’s broader policy of settlement expansion and forced displacement in the occupied West Bank.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned Israel’s decision to strip the Hebron Municipality of planning and construction powers at the Ibrahimi Mosque.

The ministry’s spokesperson, Ambassador Fouad Majali, said Jordan rejects Israel’s continued illegal and unilateral actions in the occupied West Bank, warning that the latest measures target one of Palestine’s most significant religious sites.

He said the move violates international law, the 1954 Hague Convention and United Nations resolutions, including Unesco’s 2017 decision to place Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque on the World Heritage in Danger list.

Majali urged the international community to act, calling on Israel to halt its violations, protect the mosque’s cultural and religious status and respect Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israel’s decision to strip Hebron Municipality of its authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque saying that it marks a dangerous escalation and a direct assault on the site’s legal and historical status.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the ministry slammed Israel’s move to revoke Palestinian planning and construction powers at the mosque and hand them to the occupation authorities. It also criticised Israel’s unilateral approval of a project to roof the mosque’s courtyard, calling it a clear breach of international law and Israel’s obligations as an occupying power.

The ministry said the seizure of authority from the municipality and the Islamic Waqf exposes Israel’s real aim: tightening control over the mosque and forcibly altering the long-standing status quo as part of wider Judaization policies in the occupied West Bank.

It pointed to Unesco’s 2017 decision to list Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque as World Heritage in Danger under the State of Palestine, underlining that Israel has no sovereignty over the site.

The ministry said the decision lacks any legal legitimacy and pledged continued diplomatic and legal action to protect the mosque from unilateral Israeli measures.

The Israeli military has seized municipal powers over Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque from Palestinians in a move widely seen as undermining Islamic administration of the site.

On Wednesday, the Israeli Civil Administration, a military body overseeing the occupied West Bank, announced it had transferred planning powers from the Palestinian Authority-run Hebron Municipality to its own Supreme Planning Council. 

The move was followed by the granting of permission to construct a roof over the mosque's internal courtyard, despite fierce Palestinian opposition.

Hebron Municipality condemned the decision, calling it a "serious and illegal violation" and part of a systemic attack on the status quo at the mosque and the powers of Palestinian authorities tasked with its management.

“This is a clear violation of international law and existing agreements,” the municipality said, accusing Israel of stripping Palestinian institutions of their planning and construction rights in favour of the Israeli Civil Administration.

Read more: Israel seizes planning powers over Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque from Palestinians

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers.

Here are the latest updates from Gaza, where Israel continues to violate the ceasefire more than two months after it came into effect:

• Israeli occupation soldiers detained a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance on Thursday evening at the entrance of Martyr Khalil Suleiman Governmental Hospital in Jenin. The ambulance was transporting a patient when soldiers stopped it, once again obstructing urgent medical care in the occupied West Bank.

• A woman and her child were killed after a fire broke out inside a tent sheltering displaced families at Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City. Five others suffered burn injuries. The blaze adds to the mounting toll faced by families forced to live in unsafe, overcrowded conditions under Israel’s siege.

• Separately, infant Malak Rami Ghneim, just three weeks old, died in a displacement tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The child succumbed to severe cold as a low-pressure weather system swept the Strip, highlighting the lethal consequences of Israel’s blockade and the absence of adequate shelter.

• The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said Israel continued throughout 2025 to systematically target Palestinian journalists through arrests, administrative detention, beatings, abuse, deportation and equipment confiscation. The syndicate documented 42 arrests across the West Bank, occupied Jerusalem and areas inside the 1948 territories, including at checkpoints, during field reporting and in home raids.

• Armed Israeli settlers demolished and looted two agricultural structures in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron. Settlers from nearby illegal outposts also chased residents and attempted further attacks in Beit Ummar. The destroyed facilities belonged to Ismail Makhamra and his son Hassan, underscoring the ongoing settler violence aimed at driving Palestinians off their land

   

Scottish pro-Palestine activists broke into the factory of an aircraft parts manufacturer on Thursday and sabotaged the company's equipment. 

The activists targeted the Bruntons Aero Products factory in Musselburgh because it supplies parts to Leonardo, an arms manufacturer company that supplies military equipment and training aircraft to Israel.

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The Israeli military shot and killed a Palestinian child in northern Gaza on Thursday. 

The child's name is Youssef Ahmed al-Shandagli and he was killed in the Jabalia al-Nazla area.