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

The Islamic Waqf Department in Jerusalem has revealed that more than 53,000 extremist settlers stormed the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque over the past year, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

These frequent raids are part of Israel’s ongoing disregard for religious sites in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Waqf said.

France has admitted to launching missile strikes in Syria last weekend, targeting what it claimed were "Islamic State sites", French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu revealed on Tuesday.

"On Sunday, French air forces carried out targeted strikes against Islamic State sites based on Syrian territory," Lecornu posted on X, the social media platform. France's claim could not be independently verified. 

The French attack came in the wake of a US air strike in Syria that Washington claimed was aimed at eliminating two Islamic State group operatives.

A scathing report from the UN Human Rights Office has condemned Israel for providing “insufficient information” to justify its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, which are protected under international law.

Israel’s assertions that Palestinian groups were using medical facilities for military purposes were dismissed as “vague and broad” and, in some instances, “contradicted by publicly available information”.

The report exposes the catastrophic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system between 12 October 2023 and 30 June 2024, detailing 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 medical facilities.

These attacks killed doctors, nurses, medics and civilians, with the deliberate targeting of hospitals potentially constituting a war crime.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned the assaults, stating: “The one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap.” He stressed that hospitals must remain protected “at all times”.

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation has reported that Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, has officially taken responsibility for the assassination of prominent Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon.

Arouri, who served as Hamas' second-in-command and deputy head of its political bureau, was killed on 2 January 2024.

An Israeli drone strike targeted him in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, taking his life along with six others.

A dewdrop fell from the roof of a tent on to Yahya Muhammed al-Batran’s nose, waking him to the news that his newborn son, one half of a pair of twin brothers, had frozen to death overnight on Sunday.

Originally from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, Batran’s wife had given birth a month earlier. The children’s first home was a makeshift tent for the displaced, patched over with blankets, in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

The rudimentary protection from the winter cold and the lack of appropriate clothing meant the boys were at risk from the outset.

Recalling the discovery that his child had died, Batran said: “My wife was awake. I asked her what was wrong, and she pointed to Jumaa and shook her head. 

“She said: ‘Ali seems half alive. But Jumaa, I’ve been trying to wake him for a while, and he won’t wake up.’

Read more: Born in the heat of war, dead from the cold: Gaza's children are freezing to death

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has revealed that at least 136 Israeli air strikes targeted 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities in Gaza, suggesting grave violations of international law.

The UN stated that this relentless assault on healthcare infrastructure appears to follow a disturbing pattern, raising alarm over potential war crimes. "Intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and civilians is a war crime," the organisation warned.

Disturbing reports have also emerged of torture and abuse at Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza, adding to the mounting evidence of human rights violations by Israel.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has warned that Gaza’s economy has completely collapsed, while the West Bank faces a severe economic downturn in 2024 due to Israel’s relentless assault.

Ola Awad, the president of the organisation, told Wafa that Gaza’s GDP has contracted by a staggering 82 percent, a result of total economic paralysis and skyrocketing unemployment, which has now reached 80 percent.

Meanwhile, the West Bank’s economy has shrunk by over 19 percent, with unemployment soaring to 35 percent.

A damning Palestinian report published today confirms that Gaza’s population has plummeted by 6 percent by the end of 2024, a direct consequence of Israel’s ongoing brutal assault on the Strip.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the war has left 45,541 Palestinians dead, some 11,000 are missing and believed to be under the rubble and at least 100,000 have been forced to flee Gaza as Israel’s campaign of destruction continues to devastate the enclave.

 In the West Bank, Israeli attacks killed 835 Palestinians and injured 6,450 others. 

According to the 2024 data released by PCBS, the estimated population of the State of Palestine at the end of 2024 is 5.5 million Palestinians: 3.4 million in the West Bank, while the estimated population of Gaza Strip decreased to 2.1 million.

Hossam Madhoun worked for 30 years as a theatre-maker and writer in Gaza City before Israel began its devastating onslaught on the Palestinian enclave in October 2023.

"The theatre movement in Gaza is deprived of exchanging with the world, especially in the last 17 years with the Israeli blockade," he tells Middle East Eye from Cairo, where he now lives with his family.

Before the Israeli blockade in 2006, Theatre for Everybody - the company Madhoun co-founded with his friend and co-artistic director Jamal al-Rozzi - toured Europe, staging productions for adults and children in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and elsewhere. 

Since then, it has been more challenging, but the show went on: in 2009, he began collaborating with Az Theatre, a company based in London and run by Jonathan Chadwick, launching workshops and productions together.

Even then, Madhoun could not sustain himself purely as a playwright and many of his theatre projects now lie neglected as the war rages on.

Read more: Gaza theatre-maker Hossam Madhoun navigates transient new life in Egypt

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, has sharply criticised the international community’s failure to intervene as “horrors continue unabated” in Gaza, 15 months into Israel’s ongoing military assault.

Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, 258 staff members from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees have lost their lives, and at least 650 attacks on Unrwa facilities have been recorded. Additionally, 20 Unrwa workers have been abducted by Israel.

Lazzarini condemned the ongoing violence, stating, “This cannot become the new standard, and impunity cannot become the new norm.” His remarks highlight the growing frustration over the global community’s lack of action in halting Israel’s aggression which has been widely described by human rights organisation as genocidal.

Five Palestinians from Gaza died in Israeli custody within the past day after being abducted by Israeli forces, a monitoring group said.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club on Monday confirmed the deaths of five Palestinians taken from Gaza and held in Israeli prisons.

The prisoners were identified as Ashraf Abu Warda, Mohammed al-Akka, Samir al-Kahlout, Zuhair al-Sharif and Mohammed Labad.

These deaths follow warnings from two Palestinian monitoring groups about "catastrophic conditions" in Israeli jails after the deaths of two other prisoners.

Read more: Palestinians from Gaza die within day of abduction by Israeli army

Israel has announced a dramatic expansion of its "hasbara" (propaganda) efforts in its 2025 budget, with the foreign ministry set to receive an additional $150m.

This marks a staggering 20-fold increase in funding for "consciousness warfare" compared to previous years, with the goal of reshaping global perceptions about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The funds will primarily target American college campuses, social media platforms, and the international press, with coordination from Jewish organisations in the US and the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.

In recent months, Israel's attacks on medical facilities in northern Gaza have intensified, further escalating global condemnation of its actions. 

A Houthi military spokesperson has announced that the group conducted two retaliatory operations targeting Israeli infrastructure, including Ben Gurion airport and a power station in southern occupied East Jerusalem.

The claims were delivered during a televised press conference, where the Yemeni de facto ruling group detailed its latest actions against Israel.

These attacks are part of an ongoing escalation in regional tensions, with the Houthis positioning themselves as active participants in the resistance against Israeli aggression.