Gaza Live: Israeli air strike takes out 25 members of same family

The death toll from an Israeli strike on a residential building in Beit Lahiya this moning has risen to 12, Al Jazeera is reporting.

According to the report, the rise in casualties is due to a lack of proper medical care at the hospitals.

The wounded were reportedly transported by foot, civilian vehicles or carts pulled by animals.

Four Palestinians have been killed and others injured in Israeli strikes in Gaza City and the town of Jabalia, Wafa news agency is reporting citing local sources.

According to the sources, one person was killed in Israeli shelling targeting al-Jalaa street, while another was killed in a drone strike near a school in the north of the city.

Meanwhile a separate attack on Jabalia killed two more people.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, has appeared publicly in Beirut for the first time since a mid-September attack in which an exploding pager left him with severe injuries to his face and hands.

Amani visited the site in southern Beirut where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed on 27 September in an Israeli air strike that also destroyed six buildings. Amani condemned Israel’s actions, stating it should receive “the highest medal for sabotage, terrorism, blood, and killing civilians.”

The pager attack, which targeted Hezbollah, involved the detonation of approximately 3,000 devices, killing and injuring many members of the group. A day later, a similar assault on walkie-talkies caused further devastation. In total, these coordinated explosions left at least 37 dead and more than 3,000 wounded, many of them civilians.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed last month that Netanyahu personally approved the pager attack. This admission has drawn condemnation for its indiscriminate targeting of civilians and its flagrant disregard for international laws meant to protect non-combatants.

Lebanese officials have called on the United States and France to pressure Israel into respecting a ceasefire, following repeated Israeli military operations that Beirut considers flagrant breaches of the agreement. Two senior Lebanese political sources revealed the appeals to Reuters on Tuesday.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally who negotiated Lebanon’s part of the deal, expressed alarm over the deteriorating ceasefire during discussions with White House and French officials late Monday.

The Lebanese leadership voiced frustration over Israel's continued violations and the lack of enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance.

Despite these concerns, responses from Washington and Paris have been tepid. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot merely emphasized the importance of adherence to the ceasefire during a conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday. Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry has issued a substantive statement on the matter.

Meanwhile, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller downplayed the situation, asserting that the ceasefire “is holding” while acknowledging the likelihood of violations.

Beirut’s pleas underscore the growing urgency to address Israel's violations and the broader consequences of failing to uphold agreements meant to ensure regional stability.

The Palestine Laboratory, a podcast by investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein available on Drop Site News, is an essential listen. 

Based on Loewenstein’s book of the same name, the podcast explores how Israel’s military and technological advancements are used to sustain the oppression of Palestinians, while simultaneously being commercialised for profit globally. 

This grim intersection of occupation, surveillance and profit is dissected across four episodes: "Start-Up Nation", "How to Make Friends", "Privatising the Occupation" and "After October 7". They offer a deeply researched perspective on the commodification of military rule.

At the heart of the podcast lies a powerful argument: Palestinians are not only dehumanised and dominated by Israel’s political and military establishment, but their oppression is also turned into a profit-making venture. 

Israel has effectively exported its occupation, marketing its supposed military innovations - developed and tested on Palestinians - to a global audience. This point resonates throughout the series, painting a sobering picture of how apartheid and economics are terrifyingly intertwined.

Read more: The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel profits from oppression

Al Jazeera Arabic revealed that Israeli forces stormed the Turkish Hospital in Tubas, located in the occupied northern West Bank, and arrested several Palestinians, including a doctor.

Reports indicate that Israeli gunfire erupted inside the hospital's emergency department, further endangering staff and patients. The attack underscores Israel's ongoing disregard for international norms protecting medical facilities and personnel.

The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that Israeli assaults over the past 24 hours have killed at least 36 Palestinians and wounded 96 others.

These latest fatalities bring the total death toll in the besieged enclave to a staggering 44,502 since October last year, the ministry stated.

Israel's relentless war on Gaza has left 105,454 people wounded, further devastating a population enduring severe humanitarian crises.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that two people were killed and another injured after the Israeli army targeted a car near the village of Aqqaba in the northeastern occupied West Bank.

According to the ministry’s statement, the injured individual suffered wounds to their lower extremities and was transported, along with the bodies of the deceased, to Tubas Governmental Hospital.

In a provocative statement, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Israel would no longer distinguish between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state if the ceasefire collapses, effectively holding an entire country accountable for the actions of one group.

Katz claimed Israel would use "maximum response and zero tolerance" to enforce the ceasefire, issuing a thinly veiled threat of expanded military aggression.

According to the UN, Israel has committed more than 100 ceasefire violations since there was a pause in hostilities between the two sides last week. Hezbollah has largely abided by the ceasefire.

Blaming Lebanon for Hezbollah’s presence, Katz demanded that the Lebanese army “keep Hezbollah beyond the Litani River and dismantle their infrastructure.” If Lebanon fails, he warned, “there will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon.”

This shift in policy, Katz suggested, means Israel would treat Lebanon and Hezbollah as a single target, threatening to strike Beirut just as it has attacked Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.

The remarks reveal a disturbing intent to escalate violence and inflict collective punishment on Lebanon if the ceasefire collapses.

Syrian state news agency Sana reported that Israeli forces targeted a car on the road leading to Damascus airport.

The agency did not specify casualties, but Syria's Halab Today TV confirmed that at least one person was killed in the attack, which occurred near the Aqraba town bridge.

The Israeli military announced it carried out an attack on what it claimed was a “terrorist” cell in the village of Aaqbeh in Lebanon’s Bekaa province.

“Details to follow,” the military stated.

Updates on the situation will be provided as more information becomes available.

According to the UN, Israel has committed more than 100 ceasefire violations since there was a pause in hostilities between the two sides last week. 

At least nine people were killed by Israeli strikes on two southern Lebanese villages, according to the country's public health ministry.

US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Massad Boulos as his senior advisor on the Middle East, catapulting his Lebanese-American in-law to the centre of his foreign policy in the region as it grapples with multiple crises. 

Boulos’ son, Michael, is married to Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany. Boulos led the Trump campaign’s successful outreach to Arab-American voters.

Tiffany met Michael in 2018 at the Lindsey Lohan Beach Club in Mykonos, Greece. 

The billionaire businessman’s nomination suggests he will continue to play a key role once Trump returns to the White House in January.

Bringing Boulos on board as an advisor will inject a new personality into Trump’s inner circle, which has mainly been dominated by pro-Israel Jewish Americans, like his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and evangelical Christians, including Michael Huckabee, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel.

Read more: Massad Boulos: Christian-Lebanese billionaire and Trump in-law who could shape Middle East policy

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressed gratitude to US President-elect Donald Trump for his “refreshing” and “morally sound statements” regarding the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. Trump warned there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if Israeli captives held in Gaza were not released before his January 20 inauguration.

In a post on X, Smotrich said Trump’s remarks “do not create a false equivalence or call for addressing ‘both sides,’ but rather clarify who are the good and who are the bad” in the ongoing conflict.

He further stated, “This is the way to bring back the hostages: by increasing the pressure and the costs for Hamas and its supporters, and defeating them, rather than giving in to their absurd demands.”