Live: Major clashes break out near Bethlehem after Israeli raid

The president of an Israeli military court today ordered the attorney general's office to respond within three days to a request to drop an indictment against five reserve soldiers accused of brutally abusing a Palestinian detainee in Sde Teiman detention center in 2024.

The footage, which was broadcast last August, shows Israeli soldiers at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel pulling a detainee aside, surrounding him with riot shields to block visibility while he was beaten and stabbed in the rectum with a sharp object.

The detainee was treated for severe injuries.

The five reserve soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm to the detainee, but denied the charges.

Military Advocate General of the Israeli military Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi took responsibility for the leak and resigned at the end of October following outrage in Israel over the leak. 

 Her successor, Itay Offir, former legal adviser to the Defense Ministry, took office at the end of November.

The soldiers' lawyers filed a request to dismiss the indictment in November.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian who crossed the 'Yellow Line', according to a statement the Israeli military made on Thursday, Haaretz reported. 

The Israeli military have taken over 50 per cent of the Gaza Strip, demarcated by the 'Yellow Line',  which remains largely unmarked on the ground. Israeli soldiers have been killing people who are crossing the 'Yellow Line'.

Pope Leo denounced the suffering of Palestinians during his Christmas address from St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Thursday, 

The pontiff said that Jesus identified with those "who have nothing left and lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza”.

The pontiff asked the thousands of worshippers in attendance to “think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold” during mass.

With most of Gaza's infrastructure destroyed, Palestinians are living in tents or in destroyed buildings with unexploded ordinances.

The pople prayed for “justice, peace and stability" in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria.

The pope also spoke of the plight of the homeless across the globe and the destruction caused by war more generally in places like Sudan, Mali, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia, and Ukraine, among others.

"Fragile is the flesh of defenceless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds," said the pope.

Israel's Attorney General (AG) has requested to delay a decision over whether to remove Itamar Ben-Gvir from his post as Minister of National Security until 1 January, Haaretz reported on Thursday. 

AG Gali Baharav-Miara's decision is in response to the Supreme Court petitions demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remove Ben-Gvir because of his interference in police work. 

The AG informed in November Netanyahu that Ben-Gvir had violated an agreement in April preventing him from interfering in operational police decisions.

The bodies of 25 Palestinians have been recovered from the rubble of a home in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip nearly two years after they were bombed by Israel, Safa news agency reported on Thursday.

Gaza's Civil Defence team said the remains retrieved included the bodies of journalist Hiba al-Abadleh and her mother, and 15 members of the al-Astal family - all of whom were killed in January 2024. 

Quds news network said that 59 people were originally killed in the bombing, with most people being trapped under the rubble.

The bodies were officially buried after being retrieved.

An Israeli military reserve soldier was caught him on camera running over a Palestinian man praying on the side of the road on Thursday in Deir Jarir village, near Ramallah in the West Bank.

The same soldier had earlier fired his gun at in the area of Dayr Jarir, near Ramallah, the military said in a statement.

Haaretz said that a security officer said the the incident is under investigation, and the reservists's gun had been removed from him.

The victim is said to have sustained injuries to both his legs after he was hit by the ATV, according to AFP. 

Masked settlers are reported to have raided the same village, firing live rounds and throwing stones at the villagers the same day. 

A Hamas delegation finished a series of meeting with Iraqi politicians in Baghdad on Thursday,  Safa news agency reported.

The meetings were about the current ceasefire agreement and humanitarian situation in Gaza, the ongoing attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank as well as interegional relations.

Senior Hamas officials such as Osama Hamdan and Taher al-Nono attended the . 

Israeli forces on Thursday stormed the Al-Deir area on the outskirts of Al-Dhahiriya, sealed it off, and seized a house belonging to a Palestinian citizen, local media reported. 

After turning the house into a military post, Israeli forces began constructing a road on privately owned Palestinian land in the town, Wafa news reported. 

The report said that residents were barred from the area as bulldozers began carving a road through their lands.

The Israeli military on Thursday said it killed Hussein Mahmoud Marshad al-Jawhari, an officer of the Quds Force, the overseas military force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, in the Ansariyah area of Lebanon. 

In a statement issued on Telegram, the military said Hussein worked with the Operational Unit of the Quds Force (Unit 840) and accused him of being involved in advancing plots against Israel from Syria and Lebanon. 

"Hussein operated under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and was involved in terror activities, directed by Iran, against the State of Israel and its security forces," the Israeli statement said. 

"Unit 840, the operational unit of the Quds Force, headed by Asghar Baqeri and his deputy Mohammad Reza Ansari, is the unit responsible for directing and overseeing Iranian terror activity against the State of Israel," the statement added. 

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone hit a car in the vicinity of the village of Hoch al-Sayyed Ali in eastern Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley area, killing two people. 

The archbishop of the Church of England, Stephen Cottrell, on Thursday said that he was "intimidated by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land" this year.

Cottrell, the archbishop of York, said in a sermon that he was stopped at checkpoints and told by militias that he could not visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank, Hareetz reported.

"It was sobering for me to see this wall for real on my visit to the Holy Land, and we were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn't visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank," he said. 

"But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I'm also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps, most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves," he added. 

Earlier on Thursday, Pope Leo, in his Christmas sermon, decried the conditions Palestinians in Gaza are living under due to the Israeli war and the blockade on essential supplies.

Father Issa Thaljieh, a Greek Orthodox parish priest at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, said Muslim visitors come to the church and light candles for peace and to show respect for the place Jesus was born in.

Father Issa Thaljieh, a Greek Orthodox parish priest at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, said Muslim visitors come to the church and light candles for peace and to show respect for the place Jesus was born in. pic.twitter.com/JdEBCATjy2

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 25, 2025

A Palestinian grassroots body has warned that recent political and administrative decisions by the Palestinian Authority (PA) risk deepening internal divisions at a moment of “existential challenges” for Palestinians across Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the diaspora.

In a statement on 23 December, the Palestinian National Popular Action Forum said it was monitoring an ongoing “war of genocide, destruction, and starvation” in Gaza, alongside an intensification of settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank.

The group pointed in particular to Israel’s latest plans for 19 new settlements and the displacement of northern refugee camps as part of what it characterised as a broader strategy to dismantle the UN’s refugee agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) and erase the refugee question.

“In the face of these existential challenges, which require genuine national unity grounded in confronting the crimes of the occupation and its liquidation projects, the official leadership, under Israeli and external pressure, continues to issue decrees, measures, and decisions that starkly contradict the popular will, lack any national or popular consensus and further deepen divisions within the Palestinian arena,” the forum said.

The group added that it was concerned about the PA's suspension of payments to the families of "martyrs, wounded Palestinians and prisoners" earlier this year. These payments, the forum said, are not discretionary welfare measures but a “national, moral, and popular duty” rooted in Palestinian law and collective obligation. 

Read more: PA accused of failing Palestinians at a time of genocide

Israeli forces on Thursday abducted writer and political researcher Sari Orabi after raiding his home at dawn in the town of Rafat, north of occupied Jerusalem, local media reported. 

The report said that Israeli forces launched a large-scale arrest campaign in several areas of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that many young men and released prisoners were targeted in the campaign.

After raiding their homes, Israeli forces also searched their belongings. 

The Israeli army said on Thursday that it conducted two separate air strikes in Ansariyah and al-Jumayjimah areas of Lebanon, despite a ceasefire agreement in place since late last year.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone hit a car in the vicinity of the village of Hoch al-Sayyed Ali in eastern Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley area, killing two people. 

The Israeli military says it targeted an alleged Hezbollah member in al-Jumayjimah but did not share details about Ansariyah. 

Despite a ceasefire that came into force in November last year, Israel continues to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon.  

On 30 October, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun instructed the commander of the army to "confront any Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon" after Israeli forces crossed the border, entered a municipal building in the southern town of Blida and killed an employee. 

Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli police and soldiers on Thursday stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

Wafa news agency reported that some 568 settlers stormed the mosque in groups and carried out provocative tours in the courtyards and performed Talmudic rituals.