Israel-Palestine live: Israel’s response to South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ ends

The heads of mental health centres around the country warned last week that "Israel's mental health system is close to complete collapse", according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

Dozens of psychiatrists working in Israel's public mental health system have left recently for Britain, Haaretz reported. 

Many psychiatrists expect their workload to massively increase, as Israeli society comes to terms with its war on Gaza. 

Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir has instructed prison services not to provide meat to Palestinian prisoners detained over alleged involvement in the 7 October attacks, according to a report in Ynet. 

The detainees currently receive three meals a day, and receive one meat based meal four days a week, the report stated. That includes hot dogs, turkey breast or chicken schnitzel, it added. 

"Our hostages in Gaza are suffering from hunger. We heard testimonies of half a pita, and here the [7 October] prisoners receive hearty meals. From my perspective, they can receive the minimum that we are obligated to give them," Ben Gvir said.

A statement from the far-right minister's office claimed that the conduct of outgoing Israeli prison service commissioner Katy Perry "crossed every possible line". 

"Even before the war, the prison service commissioner ignored the minister's instructions to make the conditions more severe and end the security prisoners' summer camp," it said.

Read more: Ben Gvir orders meat ban for Palestinians detained over 7 October attacks

Israeli forces have killed at least 156 Palestinians in air strikes across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Monday. 

This brings the death toll since 7 October to at least 21,978 with 57,697 wounded and 7,000 missing who are believed to be dead and buried under rubble. 

Overall, around four percent of Gaza's population have been killed, wounded or gone missing in less than three months of bombardment. 

The majority of victims are children and women, according to health officials.

British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said his country's armed forces are ready to join the US and potentially go to war in Yemen. 

In a newspaper article for the Daily Telegraph, Shapps said the UK was "willing to take direct action" against the Houthi movement after the US said its navy sank three boats over the weekend for allegedly targeting a container ship in the Red Sea.

“The situation in the Red Sea is incredibly serious, and although it is thousands of miles away, it has an impact on everyone in Britain,” said Shapps. 

Read more: UK 'willing to take direct action' on Houthis in Yemen amid Red Sea attacks 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) urged former British PM Tony Blair to avoid taking a role in a an Israeli initiative that reportedly aims to push Palestinians out of Gaza.

Israel media reported Sunday that Blair was tapped to head a scheme seeking to encourage other countries to take in Palestinians fleeing Israel’s bombardment of the besieged enclave. 

Blair's office denied the reports.  

The Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement it was following the reports with "great interest". 

According to the official Wafa news agency, the ministry said it "hopes that Tony Blair will not be involved in committing this crime, which falls within the framework of the Israeli government's plans to intensify genocide and forced displacement of the Palestinians".

It added that the step would be considered "hostile to the Palestinian people and their rights in their homeland, a flagrant violation of international law, and hostile to humanity".

Iran's Alborz warship has passed through the Bab al-Mandab Strait and entered the Red Sea, the country's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday.

Iranian warships have been operating in the region "to secure shipping lanes since 2009", Tasnim said.

Reporting by Reuters.

Heavy Israeli shelling has continued on New Year's Eve and into Monday morning, killing and wounding many Palestinians, and flattening homes across Gaza. 

Israel is withdrawing some forces from Gaza to shift to more targeted operations against Hamas, an Israeli official has told Reuters. 

The official said the war will continue in the Palestinian enclave until Hamas is toppled, adding that some of the troops withdrawn will prepare for a possible second front in Lebanon. 

With tanks and troops having now destroyed much of the Gaza Strip, the military is moving to another stage of the war, said the official, who could not be identified by name given the sensitivity of the issue.

"This will take six months at least, and involve intense mopping-up missions against the terrorists. No one is talking about doves of peace being flown from Shajaia," the official told Reuters, referring to a Gaza district ravaged by fighting.

Israel drafted 300,000 reservists for the war - an estimated 10 to 15 percent of its workforce. Some were quickly discharged, but government sources have said between 200,000 and 250,000 were still serving and absent from jobs or universities.

The official said the withdrawal was focused on reservists and designed to "re-energise the Israeli economy".

But the official said some of the troops pulled out of Gaza in the south would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon, whose Hezbollah members have been exchanging fire with Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Israel has warned that, if Hezbollah does not back down, a full-on Lebanon war looms. 

"The situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue. This coming six-month period is a critical moment," the official said, adding that Israel would convey a similar message to a US envoy conducting shuttle missions to Beirut.

The Israeli military announced on Saturday it was sending some reservists home as part of what top commander Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi has deemed a "reconfiguration" of forces.

Reporting by Reuters.

Israel plans to bring in around 70,000 foreign workers from China, India and elsewhere to boost its construction sector, which has been largely frozen since the war began, a newspaper reported on Monday, citing a government official.

Yehuda Morgenstern, director general of the Construction and Housing ministry, told the Calcalist financial daily that a plan to increase the quota of foreign construction workers to 70,000 from 50,000 would be approved by the government in the coming days.

The quota in November was boosted to 50,000 from 30,000 to help the housing sector, which is suffering from labour shortages since around 80,000 Palestinian construction workers were barred from entering Israel in the wake of the Hamas attack on 7 October.

"There's a shortage in the manpower sector. That's why the pace of construction per building in Israel has risen to 34 months from 30 in 2021 and 27 months in 2014," said Morgenstern.

About 20,000 foreign workers, Morgenstern said, would be brought in without bilateral agreements with homeland countries.

In all, workers will come from China, India, Sri Lanka and Moldova, he said, with around 10,000 expected to arrive in the first quarter.

Morgenstern added that even if the 80,000 Palestinian workers now absent come back, it would be beneficial to the housing sector to have the additional foreign workers since the time to build homes continues to rise.

The ministry, he said, has also recommended the admission of about 10,000 Palestinians for infrastructure projects outside Israeli cities and in coordination with the mayors.

Reporting by Reuters.

Israeli air strikes hit a school in Gaza's Deir al-Balah on Sunday, killing at least six people. 

A resident who survived the attack recalled the horrifying moment the bomb hit.

"We were charging our phones in the yard when out of nowhere, a bomb was dropped on us," the man, who did not give a name, told Middle East Eye.

"This is a school full of children and elderly people. They told us to move to Deir al-Balah and that's why we came here. They said this school is safe. Is this what safety looks like?

"Not a single man was in the room that was hit, only women and children and we recovered them as dismembered corpses. Where are the people of conscience? Wake up."

Reporting by Mohammed al-Homs from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. 

Thousands of people marched in Turkey's Istanbul Monday morning calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

In a series of targeted strikes during its ongoing bombardment of Gaza, the Israeli army laid waste to dozens of mosques, including the iconic Al-Omari Mosque, renowned for its historical and archaeological significance.

The destruction has left Palestinians, both in Gaza and in the diaspora, mourning the loss of a mosque with a unique heritage.

Since 7 October, Israeli forces have completely or partially destroyed more than 300 mosques and three churches. As a consequence, the affected neighbourhoods now suffer a void during prayer times, missing the soul-stirring call to prayer that once echoed throughout the city.

"We no longer hear the call to prayer in our neighbourhood due to the complete destruction of the eastern area in the city, including the mosques," said Khaled Abu Jame, a 25-year-old resident of the southern city of Khan Younis.

"Residents here now follow the call to prayer through their phones. This war has been unlike anything we've experienced before. Mosques, a symbol of our faith, have been targeted indiscriminately."

Read more: 'We no longer hear the call to prayer': Israel's war on Gaza silences its mosques

Israeli officials are concerned the International Court of Justice (ICJ) could charge the state with genocide in Gaza, Haaretz reported on Monday. 

According to the Israeli daily, a senior legal expert dealing with the case has warned the military leadership that there is a "real danger" the court will issue an injunction calling on Israel to halt its military action in Gaza. 

The military and the state attorney's office are now preparing to deal with the complaint filed by South Africa on Friday. A hearing will take place Monday at the foreign ministry. 

South Africa launched a case for the ICJ to declare that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in its military campaign in Gaza.

The submission from Cape Town, which says that Israel is in breach of its obligations under the Genocide Convention, calls for a halt to Israel's military operations in the besieged enclave. It said such an order is "necessary in this case to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people".

"Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza," South Africa's application said.

It said it had requested that the ICJ declare "on an urgent basis that Israel is in breach of its obligations in terms of the Genocide Convention, should immediately cease all acts and measures in breach of those obligations and take a number of related actions".

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

It's just over 8 am in Palestine and Israel on the 87th day of the war on Gaza. 

The new year began in the besieged Palestinian enclave with Israeli bombing as the death toll near the 22,000 mark. 

Here are the major developments from the last few hours: 

• Heavy tank shelling was reported Monday morning in refugee camps in the central and northern Gaza Strip.

• Several people were killed and wounded in air strikes on Khan Younis, according to medics. 

• Palestinians across the West Bank marked the new year with rallies calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

• Israeli forces raided West Bank cities and arrested several people, local media reported. 

• An armed drone was shot down over Iraq’s Ain al-Assad air base, which houses US forces.