Live: At least 74 children killed in Gaza in first week of 2025

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest updates from Israel's war on Gaza:  ​​​​​

• Overnight Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed at least 17 people in separate attacks in the northern and central parts of the enclave

• Omar al-Diraoui, a journalist whose home in az-Zawayda, central Gaza, was bombed, has been identified among the victims. He is the second Palestinian journalist killed in the area within 24 hours

• The Israeli military intercepted a missile launched from Yemen as it entered Israeli airspace. The resulting explosion scattered shrapnel over central Israel, but no injuries have been reported

• Israeli authorities are detaining Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to a military statement reported by ABC News

• UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has urged “medical professionals worldwide” to sever ties with Israel in solidarity with over 1,000 colleagues killed in Gaza

Our liveblog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- Medical personnel in Gaza have told Al Jazeera that there are now at least 90 known dead since dawn on Thursday as a result of Israeli attacks on the enclave. That raises the total number of known deaths in Gaza to well past 45,600. 

- Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, citing the Gaza civil defence spokesperson, says first responders no longer have the capacity to respond to emergencies because of the scale and scope of the Israeli attacks.

- Israel ignored pleas from the World Health Organization (WHO) to stop attacking medical facilities in northern Gaza, with a medical worker telling Middle East Eye on Thursday that heavy shelling and gunfire from unmanned quadcopters was taking place in the direction of the war-battered Indonesian Hospital.

- According to Israeli news outlet Channel 12, an Israeli negotiation team is headed to Doha, Qatar, on Friday to resume Gaza ceasefire talks. Channel 12 cited recent "progress" in the discussions, which was conveyed by an Israeli official.

- The Times of Israel on Thursday said extremist Israeli settlers who have been trying to cross into Gaza have become a distraction for Israeli troops in northern Gaza. "Over the past day, IDF surveillance soldiers have reportedly been forced to deprioritize their efforts to track potential terror operatives in Gaza in order to thwart attempts by far-right Israeli extremists who have been trying to cross Israel’s border with the Strip to establish settlements there," the Times of Israel reported. 

- The Palestinian human rights non-profit organisation Al-Haq has published a new report pointing out how "evacuation orders" and alleged "safe zones" determined by Israel are only furthering the act of genocide across Gaza. Al-Haq pointed to "mass atrocities... taking place amidst regular evacuation orders instructing the entire population of the North to move south immediately so [Israel] can resettle the area."

- Eight members of the Israeli Knesset have signed a letter demanding a more intensified siege on northern Gaza, as they also pointed out that Israel has not achieved any military victories in the enclave. 

An Israeli air strike has targeted military facilities at Safira in Aleppo, according to Syrian state television reporting in the early hours of Friday, local time. 

The Times of Israel on Thursday said extremist Israeli settlers who have been trying to cross into Gaza have become a distraction for Israeli troops in northern Gaza. 

"Over the past day, IDF surveillance soldiers have reportedly been forced to deprioritize their efforts to track potential terror operatives in Gaza in order to thwart attempts by far-right Israeli extremists who have been trying to cross Israel’s border with the Strip to establish settlements there," the Times of Israel reported. 

"The result is a game of cat and mouse between the IDF and the settlers that has been going on for hours...  The surveillance trackers who are taking part in the effort are being pulled away from their typical task of helping ground troops identify and eliminate terrorists in northern Gaza."

Medical personnel in Gaza have told Al Jazeera that there are now at least 90 known dead since dawn on Thursday as a result of Israeli attacks on the enclave.

According to Israeli news outlet Channel 12, an Israeli negotiation team is headed to Doha, Qatar, on Friday to resume Gaza ceasefire talks. 

Channel 12 cited recent "progress" in the discussions, which was conveyed by an Israeli official.

The Palestinian human rights non-profit organisation Al-Haq has published a new report pointing out how "evacuation orders" and alleged "safe zones" determined by Israel are only furthering the act of genocide across Gaza.

Entitled How to "Hide a Genocide: The Role of Evacuation Orders and Safe Zones in Israel's Genocidal Campaign in Gaza," Al-Haq pointed to "mass atrocities... taking place amidst regular evacuation orders instructing the entire population of the North to move south immediately so [Israel] can resettle the area."

"Since the very first week of its genocide, Israel has methodically cleared vast stretches of the Gaza Strip of its inhabitants through its unlawful issuance of evacuation orders. These are presented to the public as proof of its efforts to minimise civilian casualties and to support its alleged compliance with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law (IHL)," the report said.

"However, they achieve the direct opposite," it added. 

"Despite being unilaterally established by Israel, the Israeli military routinely targets both the [safe] zones themselves as well as the routes it has instructed forcibly displaced Palestinians to use as they flee in search of ever-evasive safety. Crowded together with no place of refuge, Palestinians are either killed by Israeli strikes, severely physically and mentally injured by the IOF’s physical and psychological warfare, or subjected to a slow death from the environment of total deprivation into which they have been plunged."  

Eight members of the Israeli Knesset have signed a letter demanding a more intensified siege on northern Gaza, as they also pointed out that Israel has not achieved any military victories in the enclave.

8 members of Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee penned a letter to defense minister calling for even more aggressive siege on northern Gaza including stopping all water, food and energy. But the real story here is their assertion that Israel is failing /1 pic.twitter.com/0MOTHrQ67x

— Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין (@MairavZ) January 2, 2025

In the letter, dated 31 December 2024 but surfacing on Thursday, the parliamentarians argued that Israel has failed to destroy Hamas in Gaza “despite it being a small territory with an enemy without the tools of a modern army" and called for what would essentially be a choking off of the northern third of Gaza.

The north has already been under a devastating siege for three months. 

The Israeli public broadcaster said on Thursday that the defence minister has convened a subcommittee meeting of the cabinet to discuss destroying Hamas's governance capabilities in Gaza.

This comes just hours after Israeli air strikes killed the Gaza chief of police as well as his deputy in al-Mawasi, a supposed "safe zone" for Palestinians in the south. 

The defence minister's meeting involved steps to prevent Hamas from continuing to manage the military and civil operation in Gaza, the public broadcaster said. 

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, citing the Gaza civil defence spokesperson, says first responders no longer have the capacity to respond to emergencies because of the scale and scope of the Israeli attacks.

"What is happening now in the Gaza Strip, and specifically in Gaza City, is clear madness on the part of the Israeli occupation forces," the spokesperson said on Thursday. "We are no longer able to respond to all the distress calls in light of the continuous bombing and non-stop targeting."

Israeli air strikes on the s0-called "safe zone" in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday killed at least 12 displaced Palestinians, including several children and the enclave's police chief, in the latest targeting of the local civil authority. 

Major General Mahmoud Salah, director general of police in the Gaza Strip, and Major General Hussam Shahwan, a member of the Police Command Council, were killed in the attack on Khan Younis's al-Mawasi, which Israel had designated a “humanitarian zone”, the Gaza-based government media office said. 

"The occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the strip and deepening the human suffering of citizens," the office said in a statement. 

"It is ignoring all international and humanitarian laws, which consider police a civil protection force that plays a humanitarian role in helping citizens and providing services to them in light of the tragic circumstances they are suffering," it added. 

Read more: Israeli bombing in 'safe zone' kills Gaza police chief

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been released from hospital after undergoing a prostate removal surgery, according to a statement issued by his office.

At least two people have been killed an Israeli attack on a group of people in the Shujayea neighbourhood east of Gaza City, Al Jazeera reports

It added that at least four others have died in Israeli bombardment at al-Barbari station on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City.

Israel ignored pleas from the World Health Organization (WHO) to stop attacking medical facilities in northern Gaza, with a medical worker telling Middle East Eye on Thursday that heavy shelling and gunfire from unmanned quadcopters was taking place in the direction of the war-battered Indonesian Hospital.

Dr Rawia Tambour told MEE that Israeli forces were firing heavy artillery shells in the vicinity of the facility in Beit Lahia, while quadcopters shot at anything that moved.

"Israeli military vehicles are advancing towards the hospital," Tambour said in an audio message, as the sounds of blasts echoed in the background.

The Indonesian Hospital, one the biggest health facilities in northern Gaza, has been out of service for weeks due to ongoing Israeli attacks and a debilitating siege put in place since early October.

Read more: Israel ignores WHO appeals and attacks another hospital in northern Gaza

A number of Palestinian detainees have spoken about brutal and systematic torture they faced while being held in Israel's Naqab prison, in new testimonials.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) and the Palestinian Authority's Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs have shared the new accounts, which all confirm the extreme violence and dehumanisation faced by Gazan detainees in Naqab prison.

One of the detainees, known only by his initials MR, recalled his horrific experience as being subjected to relentless torture since his detention in Sheikh Zayed city in March 2024.

He said he was shackled, blindfolded and banned from movement for days. He recounted being subjected to physical abuse and forced into signing a made-up confession.

As many others, MR was unable to sleep due to the intense itching and rashes resulting from his infection with scabies, which continues to torment the prisoners in Israeli cells.

A similar testimony was shared by MH, another detainee, who was detained at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza. He said he was subjected to humiliating treatment, which includes being drenched in sewage and urine.

He was kept shackled, blindfolded and kneeling, describing being detained in Naqab prison as “living death”.

Hot water torture was also mentioned by detainee HR, who was later transferred to the Negev Prison.

All detainees, who shared their accounts, had their bodies covered in sores and boils due to their infection with scabies.

The PPS and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs confirm that these testimonials are merely one part of a larger set of accounts from other detainees, which reflect the pattern of violent abuse faced by them whilst in the hands of Israeli prison guards.