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

It's just after 11 am in Palestine and Israel. Here are the latest developments:

• Israeli attacks continued across all provinces of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning, killing civilians in their homes, cars markets and farmland.

• An Israeli MP from Netanyahu's party repeated his call to "burn Gaza", saying there were no innocent people there. 

• Hamas condemned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his "attempt to justify the genocide" committed by Israel after claiming fighters hide among civilians. 

• Israeli forces raided several cities across the occupied West Bank, arresting citizens and destroying infrastructure. 

• The Israeli army said a soldier was killed in Gaza on Tuesday, bringing the death toll among troops to 520. 

Several Palestinians were killed and wounded on Wednesday morning in various Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip. 

In the northern Jabalia refugee camp, two homes were hit by air strikes, leaving many casualties, mostly children and women, according to Al Jazeera. 

In Gaza City, one person was killed and others wounded in shelling that hit a car. 

Three bodies were recovered elsewhere in the city, Al Araby TV reported.

In the central Nuseirat refugee camp, drone strikes hit a market, wounding several shoppers. 

Further south in Khan Younis, medics found the bodies of four people killed by Israeli snipers on Tuesday. 

In Rafah, three farmers were killed after being targeted with artillery. 

An Israeli lawmaker from the ruling Likud party doubled down on comments he made last month that Gaza should be "burned now", saying that there are no innocent people left there. 

According to Haaretz, Nissim Vaturi said he doesn't see anything wrong in his words and that he stands behind what he said. 

"It is better to burn, to bring down buildings than for soldiers to be hurt," Vaturi said during an interview with Kol Barama radio on Wednesday. 

He claimed that everyone in the northern Gaza Strip had been evacuated in an "orderly" fashion. 

Since the early days of the war, Israel has forcibly displaced nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza. Many were shot and killed while raising white flags and fleeing on roads designated by Israel as safe. 

"I don't think there are any innocents there now, not now and not when I said those things," Vaturi said. 

"We also saw a disabled person with crutches who entered [Israel, on 7 October] and robbed, and kidnapped and beat Jews, there were many involved… I have no pity for such people, certainly not in war when soldiers fall to defend the homeland. It is impossible for us to be nice at home and say 'Oh, there are innocent people there.'

"A 100,000 remain [in northern Gaza], if there is an innocent there, we would know about them. Whoever stays there should be eliminated, period. I don't even have a doubt."

At least 15 Palestinians, including children, were killed overnight in Israeli air strikes that hit a home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

Hamas condemned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday for his "attempt to justify the genocide" committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians.

In a statement, the group criticised Blinken for claiming that Palestinian fighters hide behind civilians during a press conference from Tel Aviv on Tuesday. 

"These are miserable attempts to wash the hands of the criminal occupation of the blood of the children, women and elders of Gaza, whose number exceeded 30,000 martyrs, which reflects the extent of American involvement in these crimes and the widespread violations of all international laws committed by the fascist Zionist army in the Gaza Strip," the group said.

"We reject the fallacies and misleading narrative that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken still insists on repeating, 96 days after the barbaric Zionist aggression against Palestinian civilians, which continues with the full support of President Biden’s administration."

Israeli fighter jets bombed a home in Rafah late on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding others, according to medical sources. 

Rafah, the southernmost city in the besieged Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, has been previously designated as a "safe" area by Israeli forces. 

It currently shelters over one million people displaced from other areas in the Palestinian enclave. 

The border town has come under increasing air strikes in recent days. 

Israeli forces raided cities across the occupied West Bank after midnight on Tuesday, arresting citizens and destroying infrastructure. 

Troops were reported storming Nablus, Jenin, Jericho, Hebron and other cities and towns. 

Exchanges of fire and explosions were heard in some areas, indicating possible clashes between forces and local Palestinian fighters. 

There have been no reports of casualties. 

The US military's Central Command said US and UK forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by the Yemen-based Houthi movement on Tuesday into the southern Red Sea towards "international shipping lanes".

No injuries or damage were reported, according to the US Central Command.

There was no immediate from the Houthis.

The Yemeni group has stepped up attacks on Israeli-linked and Israeli-bound commercial vessels in the Red Sea in protest against the war in Gaza.

US Central Command said 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile were shot down by US and British forces.

Reporting by Reuters.

Good evening Middle East Eye readers,

Israeli forces have killed at least 126 Palestinians in air strikes and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Tuesday. 

This brings the death toll since 7 October to at least 23,210 with 59,167 wounded and more than 7,000 missing who are believed to be dead and buried under rubble. 

The Palestinian Prisoners' Society announced that Israel has detained at least 5,755 Palestinians since the start of the war.

The figure includes around 190 women and 335 children, the organisation said. Journalists are also among those detained. 

In other developments: 

• The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) fears that hospitals in the southern and central Gaza Strip will collapse the way they did in the north. 
• Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that steps taken by Israel are aimed at displacing Palestinians. 
• An Israeli air strike targeted a car near the home of Wissam al-Tawil on Tuesday, a senior Hezbollah commander who was killed on Monday in an air strike in southern Lebanon.  
• Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources.  
• Air France stated that it will resume flights to Israel from 24 January, according to an airline spokesperson. 
• Jordan's King Abdullah is set to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday at a summit to address the "serious developments" occurring in the Gaza Strip.
• Over a dozen Senate Democrats announced their intention to oppose US President Joe Biden’s proposal to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.

Yemen's Houthi group, Ansarullah, attacked a ship in the Red Sea, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) received a report earlier on Tuesday about an incident occurring approximately 50 nautical miles west of Hodeidah, Yemen, in the Red Sea.

Yemen's Houthi group, supported by Iran, has intensified its assaults on commercial ships in the Red Sea as a form of protest against Israel's military actions in Gaza. As a result, several shipping companies have halted their Red Sea operations, opting for lengthier routes around Africa.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah denies Israel’s claim of killing a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday.

This comes hours after Israel announced the death of Hezbollah’s aerial unit commander Ali Hussein Barji in southern Lebanon through an air strike on Tuesday, shortly after accusing him of orchestrating an attack on a northern Israeli army headquarters base.

Hezbollah later denied those claims, saying “the commander was never subjected to any assassination attempt as the enemy claimed”, in a statement on Tuesday.

The Israeli military reported on Tuesday that an additional nine soldiers were killed in Gaza, marking one of the highest 24-hour fatality rates in the war in Gaza, bringing the total number of Israeli military deaths in the region to 187.

During a televised press conference on Tuesday, chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari reported that six soldiers were killed and 14 injured due to an accidental explosion on Monday while they were engaged in operations to dismantle Hamas infrastructure.

“Yesterday, we exposed the largest Hamas rocket and weapons production site in Al-Bureij. During the operational activity to destroy the underground infrastructure of the weapons production site, an explosion was caused as a result of tank fire identifying an enemy target. It appears that a tank shell hit a nearby power pole, triggering the charge,” Hagari said.

The recent casualties primarily involved engineering units targeting Hamas tunnels in the southern and central regions of Gaza.

Over a dozen Senate Democrats announced on Tuesday their intention to oppose US President Joe Biden’s proposal to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.

Spearheaded by Senator Tim Kaine, this move reflects growing discontent within the Democratic Party, prompted by the significant civilian casualties from Israel’s military actions in Gaza, The Washington Post reported.

“I have strongly supported US aid necessary for Israel’s defence,” Kaine said in a statement, “but all nations should be subject to the same standard”.

Currently, legislators are deliberating on Biden’s proposal for over $10bn in extra military aid for Israel, which is a portion of a larger $106bn supplementary budget request aimed at funding various national security projects.

Biden’s request, according to bill text released by the Senate Appropriations Committee, included a provision saying “any congressional notification requirement applicable to funds made available … for Israel may be waived if the Secretary of State determines that to do so is in the national security interest of the United States."

Israel announced that it killed the commander of Hezbollah's aerial unit in southern Lebanon in an air strike on Tuesday.

This followed their statement that he orchestrated an attack on an Israeli army headquarters base in northern Israel earlier that day.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesperson for the Israeli military, said Ali Hussein Barji was responsible for numerous drone attacks on Israel. This comes as Israel and Hezbollah are engaged in their most intense conflict in 17 years.

An analysis by The Intercept of major media coverage, including that of The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, reveals a persistent bias against Palestinians in their reporting on Israel's conflict in Gaza.

The print media outlets, which significantly affect perceptions of the war in Gaza, largely overlooked the unprecedented effects of Israel's blockade and bombing campaign on children and journalists in the Gaza Strip, the analysis found.

Pro-Palestinian advocates have criticised leading newspapers for displaying a pro-Israel slant, highlighted by protests at the New York Times headquarters in Manhattan over its Gaza coverage- a claim that The Intercept says its analysis supports. 

Major US newspapers showed a bias in their coverage of the war by focusing more on Israeli casualties; using more emotional terms for Israeli fatalities compared to Palestinian deaths; and giving extensive coverage to antisemitic incidents in the US, while largely overlooking anti-Muslim racism following 7 October.