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

The latest death toll from Israel's strike on al-Mawasi has now reached at least 20 Palestinians, with dozens of others wounded. That number also includes several children, according to Gaza's civil defence.

The massacre in Mawasi, which Israel had designated a humanitarian zone, comes two months after Israel struck the same area in September. That strike killed dozens of Palestinians.

Al-Mawasi, located on the coast of the southern Gaza Strip, is currently made up of tent encampments of displaced Palestinians from different areas of Gaza.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club announced on Wednesday that a Palestinian prisoner, who was detained by Israel several days ago, died while in Israeli detention.

The prisoner, Muhammad Walid Hussein Ali, 45, was from the Nour Shams refugee camp in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The organisation did not say how he died but added that he had previously spent a stint of 20 years in Israel's prisons before his latest detention.

The death toll from the Israeli strike on the humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi on Wednesday has now risen to at least 10 Palestinians.

Following the strike, tents could be seen on fire in the encampment, where displaced Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip have been pushed into.

An Israeli strike on Wednesday on a tent encampment of displaced Palestinians has killed and wounded several people in al-Mawasi, an area that was designated a humanitarian zone by Israel's military.

The latest reporting on the death toll differs, with some reports saying at least four people were killed while others are reporting at least six people were killed.

Tents now in Mawasi Khan Younis. pic.twitter.com/se2nylbMla

— Mosab Abu Toha (@MosabAbuToha) December 4, 2024

US. President-elect Donald Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz, will meet with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Waltz and Dermer are expected to discuss the efforts to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal and the Iranian threat, a reporter for Axios, which earlier reported the meeting, said on X, citing a source familiar with the meeting.

The meeting comes just weeks before Trump takes office on Jan. 20 following campaign promises to end the wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, though he has offered scant details on how he plans to proceed.

On Monday, Trump vowed there would be "hell to pay" in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip were not released prior to his inauguration.

"Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America," he wrote on Truth Social.

Reporting by Reuters

Hamas said it had information that Israel intended to carry out a hostage rescue operation similar to one conducted in Gaza's Nuseirat camp in June and threatened to "neutralise" the captives if any such action took place, according to an internal statement seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

In the statement dated 22 November, Hamas told its operatives not to consider what the repercussions of following the instructions might be and said it held Israel responsible for the fate of the captives.

The statement, which a senior Hamas source told Reuters was circulated to its factions by the intelligence unit of the group's military wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, did not say when any Israeli operation was expected to take place.

Israel's Nuseirat rescue operation on 9 June saw Israeli forces free four captives, who had been held by Hamas since October 2023, in a raid Palestinian officials said killed more than 200 people, making it one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults of the war.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, announced on Tuesday that it has sold all its shares in Israel’s largest telecoms group, Bezeq, as it provides telecommunication services to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The decision comes after the fund’s ethics watchdog adopted a tougher interpretation of ethics standards for businesses that support Israel’s actions in occupied Palestinian territories.

The fund's ethics council, says that though Bezeq provides telecom services to Palestinians in the West Bank as well, it does not “outweigh the fact that the company, through its physical presence and provision of telecom services to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, is helping to facilitate the maintenance and expansion of these settlements.

“By doing so, the company is itself contributing to the violation of international law.”

READ MORE: Norway's wealth fund divests from Israel's Bezeq over services in the occupied West Bank

Spekaing during a visit to Israel's Tel Nof airbase, Israeli Defence Minsiter Israel Katz said that "there is a chance that this time we can really advance a hostage deal" with Hamas.

"The most important thing today in the war is to bring the hostages home. This is the supreme goal that stands before us and we are working in every way to make this happen," he said, according t0 his office.

"The intensity of the pressure on this monstrous organisation called Hamas is increasing and there is a chance that this time we can really advance a hostage deal."

A number of British charities have been referred to the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, over allegedly "aiding and abetting international crimes against Palestinians".

These include both the University of Cambridge's Trinity College and Jewish National Fund UK, a charity which has former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as honorary patrons.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a UK-based rights group, announced on Monday that it had answered Albanese's call for evidenceahead of a report to the UN Human Rights Council on "how the private sector has contributed to establishing and maintain Israel’s presence" in the occupied territories.

The ICJP said its submission explains the case studies of four charities, including Trinity College Cambridge and the UK arm of the Jewish National Fund.

READ MORE: British charities referred to UN for 'aiding crimes against Palestinians'

Gaza's health ministry said that 44,532 Palestinians have been killed and 105,538 injured in Israel's war on Gaza.

The ministry adds that Israeli forces killed 30 Palestinians and injured 84 in the last 24 hours.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the ceasefire in Lebanon was "holding" despite a series of incidents between Israel and Hezbollah.

"The ceasefire is holding, and we're using the mechanism that was established when any concerns have arisen about any alleged or purported violations," Blinken told journalists on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels.

Both Israel and Hezbollah face accusations of having  breached the truce that took effect last Wednesday to end a war that has killed thousands in Lebanon and sparked mass displacements on both sides.

A source from the UN's peacekeeping forces in Lebanon earlier this week that Israel had violated the ceasefire about 100 times.

"I think fundamentally, both parties, that is to say Israel and Hezbollah, through the Lebanese government, wanted and continue to want the cease fire," said Blinken.

"But we have to make sure that it's upheld. And we're determined to do that," he added.

Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surrounding area in northern Gaza have been hit by multiple Israeli airstrikes, with videos verified by Al Jazeera's Sanad agency showing smoke rising from the hospital after the latest attack.

The assault also saw Israeli quadcopters firing tear gas into the hospital's yard and building.

Another video captured an Israeli drone bombing people trying to flee Beit Lahia, also in northern Gaza. Local sources reported that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians as they attempted to evacuate the area.

An Israeli court has upheld the government’s decision to keep Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah closed for an additional 60 days.

The closure, initially enforced on 22 September, followed a raid by Israeli forces who banned the broadcaster for 45 days under a military order.

During the raid, equipment and documents were seized, employees were barred from using their vehicles, and the channel’s broadcast was halted.

Since the initial ban, Israel has repeatedly extended the order, further restricting Al Jazeera's operations in the occupied West Bank.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that oxygen supplies to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza, have completely stopped following an Israeli attack on the facility.

Three medical staff members were wounded when explosive bombs, dropped from Quadcopter drones, struck the hospital.

Al Jazeera's correspondent confirmed that the hospital remains under relentless artillery shelling and gunfire from Israeli forces, further endangering patients and staff.

Thirty-six members of the European Parliament have called on President Roberta Metsola to block Israeli Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi from speaking at an upcoming conference expected to be held in Brussels.

The MEPs highlighted Halevi’s controversial social media posts advocating for the annexation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, arguing that such views contradict the principles upheld by the Parliament.

While expressing support for freedom of speech, the MEPs stressed the need for boundaries in cases promoting occupation and annexation.

“We also reached out to the organizer [of the conference] but received no concrete reaction as to the possible change of the participants of the event,” the group stated.