Live: Major clashes break out near Bethlehem after Israeli raid

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

• Gaza's health ministry is reporting that nine Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours. The figure includes five previously unrecorded victims and four newly confirmed deaths. Another 45 people have been wounded, it added.

• The latest figures bring the overall toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since October 2023 to 70,663.

• Since the fragile ceasefire came into effect on 11 October 2025, Israeli forces have killed a total of 391 people, with another 1,063 wounded. Emergency teams have recovered 632 bodies.

• Following an earlier report that Israeli forces had shot and wounded a young Palestinian man in north Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, it has been confirmed by the Palestinian health ministry that he has died.

• Israel's assassination of a senior Hamas commander threatens the viability of the Gaza ceasefire, the chief negotiator of the group said on Sunday, calling on US President Donald Trump to demand Israel comply with the terms of the truce.

• Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian near the so-called Yellow Line, the boundary marking Israeli-occupied areas around Gaza, in the latest deadly attacks along the besieged enclave’s perimeter.

• Israeli air strikes targeting areas in southern Lebanon have killed three people, Wafa news agency is reporting.

• Israeli occupation forces shot and wounded a child on Sunday evening during a raid on Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

• Israeli settlers staged a provocative march along a bypass road east of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Sunday evening, triggering the closure of several Palestinian neighbourhoods as Israeli occupation soldiers blocked residents from accessing their own streets.

Israeli occupation forces shot and wounded a child on Sunday evening during a raid on Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

Local sources told Wafa that Israeli troops opened fire as they stormed the camp, triggering clashes with residents. A child was hit by live ammunition amid the confrontation.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its annual round-up on 9 December, documenting 67 journalists killed worldwide over the past year.

Gaza accounted for nearly half of them.

RSF reports that 43 percent of all journalists slain in 2025 were Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli forces in targeted attacks, a scale the organisation says is "unprecedented in recent history".

Since October 2023, Israel has killed close to 220 journalists, leading the press freedom watchdog to describe it as "the worst enemy of journalists".

Yet, despite the severity of these findings, major western news outlets that sanctimoniously champion press freedom and human rights found little space for the deadliest year in RSF's records, much less that the overwhelming majority of those journalists were Palestinian.

Read more:  The New York Times discovers its conscience when the murdered journalist isn't Palestinian

Israeli settlers staged a provocative march along a bypass road east of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Sunday evening, triggering the closure of several Palestinian neighbourhoods as Israeli occupation soldiers blocked residents from accessing their own streets.

Local sources speaking to Wafa said dozens of extremist settlers marched out from the Kiryat Arba settlement and moved towards the Ras and Harat al-Ja’bari areas. Israeli forces sealed off roads to Palestinians, citing Jewish celebrations, effectively placing entire neighbourhoods under lockdown.

The settler mobilisation coincided with a tightened Israeli military siege across parts of Hebron’s Old City and the surrounding area of the Ibrahimi Mosque. Soldiers imposed movement restrictions, disrupted daily life and heightened tensions across the city.

Such marches, routinely protected by Israeli forces, form part of a wider pattern in which settlers roam Palestinian areas with military backing, while residents face closures, intimidation and collective punishment in their own communities.

Israeli forces say they carried out a third lethal strike in Lebanon on the same day in a further violation of the truce.

The Israeli military confirmed that its latest attack targeted Zakaria Yahya al-Hajj, whom it described as a “senior terrorist” in Hezbollah, claiming the operation was another “successful” assassination.

In a statement, the army alleged that al-Hajj “activated agents within Lebanon’s security systems” and “acted to suppress criticism by opponents of Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

Israeli occupation soldiers have issued a new military order to demolish 25 recently built homes in the Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarm, escalating pressure on Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.

The order, issued on Sunday, prompted an urgent warning from Tulkarm Governor Abdullah Kamil, who appealed to the international community, human rights organisations, diplomatic missions and embassies to intervene immediately to halt the demolitions.

Kamil said the decision reflects “a continuation of Israeli arrogance and the occupation’s crimes against our people in the Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps,” describing it as part of a broader, systematic campaign of destruction targeting civilians and their property. He warned the measures were driving the forced displacement of Palestinians from both camps.

He added that the demolitions amount to a “flagrant violation of international law, international norms and conventions, human rights laws and international humanitarian law,” renewing calls for immediate action to stop what he described as ongoing aggression across the Tulkarm Governorate, including its camps, villages and towns.

Israel routinely uses military orders and planning regulations to justify home demolitions in the occupied West Bank, a practice widely condemned by rights groups as collective punishment and a tool of dispossession.

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian near the so-called Yellow Line, the boundary marking Israeli-occupied areas around Gaza, in the latest deadly attacks along the besieged enclave’s perimeter.

Israel's assassination of a senior Hamas commander threatens the viability of the Gaza ceasefire, the chief negotiator of the group said on Sunday, calling on US President Donald Trump to demand Israel comply with the terms of the truce.

Thousands of Hamas supporters rallied in central Gaza City at a funeral for senior commander Raad Saaf and three others killed alongside him on Saturday.

The mourners chanted "Martyrs are dear to God" and carried the bodies in coffins draped in green Hamas flags.

In a televised address, Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who lives in exile, confirmed the killing of Saad, the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since the truce.

"The continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement... and latest assassinations that targeted Saed and others threaten the viability of the agreement," Hayya said. 

"We call on mediators, and especially the main guarantor, the U.S. administration and President Donald Trump, to work on obliging Israel to respect the ceasefire and commit to it."

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli air strikes targeting areas in southern Lebanon have killed three people, Wafa news agency is reporting.

According to the report, one person was killed and another wounded in a strike targeting a motorcycle in the town of Yater, in the Bint Jbeil area. Another was killed in an attack on a car travelling between the towns of Safad al-Batikh and Barashit.

Meanwhile, a member of the municipal council in the town of Jouaya, in the Tyre area, was killed in another Israeli attack.

Israeli war planes also bombarded two excavators in the southern Lebanese town of Shebaa this morning, while local sources reported that an Israeli drone dropped explosive devices on a house to the south of the town of Aitroun.

Following an earlier report that Israeli forces had shot and wounded a young Palestinian man in north Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, it has been confirmed by the Palestinian health ministry that he has died.

In a statement, the health ministry said that 23-year-old Mohammad Wael al-Sharouf had been shot by Israeli soldiers in the head and left to bleed to death.

It added that his body had been seized by Israeli forces.

Wafa reported earlier that Israeli soldiers had barred ambulance teams from reached Sharouf, and that they had sealed off all entrances to the city following the shooting.

Gaza's health ministry is reporting that nine Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours. The figure includes five previously unrecorded victims and four newly confirmed deaths. Another 45 people have been wounded, it added.

The latest figures bring the overall toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since October 2023 to 70,663.

Since the fragile ceasefire came into effect on 11 October 2025, Israeli forces have killed a total of 391 people, with another 1,063 wounded. Emergency teams have recovered 632 bodies.

Israeli naval forces have detained four Palestinian fishermen while they were fishing off the coast of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Wafa news agency is reporting, citing local sources.

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers, here are the latest updates:

• Hamas's Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, confirmed that the group's senior commander Raad Saad was among the five people killed in an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle near Gaza City. Saad's killing is the highest profile assassination targeting the group since the ceasefire was implemented in October.

• Gaza's health ministry also reported that a senior Hamas internal security officer, Ahmed Zamzam, was shot and killed in central Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp this morning. The statement says the officer was killed by “armed [people]”, but does not identify them.

• Meanwhile, Israeli forces launched air strikes across Gaza, targeting Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.

• In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot and wounded a young Palestinian man in the city of Hebron, Wafa news agency is reporting. Palestinian security sources reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire on the victim, striking him in the head and leaving him to bleed on the spot.

• Israeli forces also closed all the main entrances to the city, detaining at least 25 Palestinians in raids on the city and the nearby town of Halhul, according to Wafa.

• A Palestinian detainee, Sakhr Ahmad Zaoul, has died in Israel's Ofer prison, Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups are reporting. According to the report, 26-year-old Zaoul was held under administrative detention at the facility, without charges or trial, since 11 June 2025.

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

• Gaza's health ministry has reported that three bodies were transferred to hospital in the last 24 hours, boosting the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israel since October 2023 to 70,654 people.

• The bodies belonged to two people killed by Israeli fire, while another was recovered by emergency teams from a previous attack.

• A Palestinian man has died from wounds sustained in an Israeli attack on a tent weeks ago in al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Wafa news agency is reporting, citing medical sources.

• Israeli media is reporting that Israeli forces killed senior Hamas commander Raad Saad, along with at least four other people, in a strike on Gaza on Saturday.

• The Israeli army says it killed a Palestinian near the so-called yellow line in northern Gaza, an area where Israeli forces have redeployed under the ceasefire agreement.

• A senior Palestinian official has condemned comments by the US ambassador to Israel that appeared to justify Israeli approval for 19 new settlements, calling the stance a clear breach of international law and a dangerous attempt to legitimise illegal land grabs.

• Jordan's foreign ministry says it “strongly condemns the Israeli government’s ratification of the establishment and legalisation of 19 illegal colonial settlements in the occupied West Bank”.

• Israeli forces arrested four Palestinians in a fresh wave of raids across the occupied West Bank this morning, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office (ASRA) is reporting.

• Six Palestinian families have left their homes in the at-Taawon neighbourhood of Nablus after Israel’s High Court ordered the buildings to be demolished by the end of the year, according to the Wafa news agency.

• The head of the World Health Organization says Israeli restrictions continue to obstruct the entry of laboratory and diagnostic equipment into Gaza, hampering urgent medical response efforts.

The Israeli military says its forces killed a Palestinian during a patrol in the Silat al-Khartiyat area of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.

The military said no Israeli soldiers were injured in the incident.