Live: Major clashes break out near Bethlehem after Israeli raid

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was detained by UK police on Tuesday after holding up a placard reading "I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide".

Thunberg was partaking in a demonstration outside the offices of Aspen Insurance in central London at the time.

According to organisers, she was arrested under the terrorism act for holding the placard. 

Palestine Action, a direct action group, has been proscribed by the UK government since July. Hundreds of people in the UK have been arrested since then for expressing support for the group.

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The Gaza health director on Tuesday said that some 320,000 children under the age of five in the strip are at risk of acute malnutrition as a result of the Israeli blockade, Arab48 reported. 

The report also quoted the director general of pharmacy at the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, who said that a severe medicine shortage is worsening the health crisis in Gaza. 

More than 62 percent of the medicines needed to serve about a quarter of a million people who frequent primary healthcare facilities are not available in Gaza, the official said. 

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) on Tuesday said that Palestinians continue to endure severe shortages and widespread destruction. 

“In Gaza, conditions remain dire, and humanitarian needs are overwhelming. Families continue to endure severe shortages and widespread destruction,” the agency said in a statement on X.

The statement said that 1.6 million people face acute food insecurity in the enclave, citing the latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). 

“Gaza remains in a man-made hunger crisis,” Unrwa said, quoting the commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini.

Settlers in the occupied West Bank injured at least three Palestinians and killed several farm animals late on Monday, amid a surge of Israeli attacks across the territory. 

Residents of the agricultural town of Samu, south of Hebron, were attacked by a number of masked settlers from the nearby Susya settlement.

The home of the Daghameen family was stormed by the settlers, with several family members assaulted, local media reported.

Three of the family members were transferred to a nearby medical centre for their wounds.

Footage of the aftermath shows smashed windows and doors, with household items toppled over one another. 

Read more: Israeli settlers beat sheep to death and wound Palestinian farmers in Hebron attack

The United States and its allies are set to hold an international conference on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, Bloomberg News reported.  

The report stated that Washington is being considered as a possible location to host the conference at the beginning of next month. 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said that Israel will establish settlement outposts in the northern Gaza Strip, which he described as "Nahal nuclei". 

"When the time is right," Katz said, "Israel will establish Garinei Nahal in northern Gaza," referring to a military programme in which groups of Israelis enlist together and later form civilian communities.

"We are deep inside Gaza and we will never leave all of Gaza - there will be no such thing. We are here to protect and prevent what happened," the defence minister said. 

He added that the Israeli army is also "inside Lebanon, inside Syria, at the peak of Mount Hermon in the security zone and inside the terrorist camps in the West Bank".

"The IDF is and will be cutting off between jihadist enemies and our communities and residents. We don't trust anyone, and no one will come and tell us - there will be no agreement, we won't move a millimetre in Syria," he said. 

A senior Azerbaijani official has expressed Baku's doubts about joining an international force to be deployed in Gaza.

Hikmet Hajiyev, a senior Azerbaijani presidential adviser, said that it would be difficult for Baku to participate in a force to be deployed as part of a US-brokered ceasefire plan, citing issues about the scope of the mandate. 

In remarks to Nikkei, the official said that Washington had approached Baku to include Azerbaijani forces in what it calls "the International Stabilization Force". 

"No final decision has been made yet," Hajiyev said.  

The UN Security Council last month approved a resolution to create the force, securing official support from Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Jordan.

Read more: Azerbaijan expresses doubts about joining Gaza international force

Israeli forces on Tuesday raided the town of al-Ram, north of occupied Jerusalem, where they fired tear gas canisters in the direction of residents' homes, Palestinian media reported. 

Wafa news agency reported that several Palestinians suffered from suffocation as the Israeli forces stormed the town and fired smoke bombs. 

The Israeli army on Tuesday carried out mass arrests across the occupied Palestinian territories and detained more than 43 Palestinians, local media reported. 

Wafa news reported that in Bethlehem alone, nine Palestinians were detained in the town of Tuqu', southeast of the city, after Israeli forces carried out widespread raids, including searches and vandalism of homes.

The report said that in Hebron, Israeli forces arrested 22 Palestinians from the town of Dura, the village of al-Tabaqa, and al-Fawwar refugee camp in the southern West Bank. 

Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, said in an interview with the Times of Israel that Riyadh will only pursue normalisation with Tel Aviv when Israel begins acting like a normal country and accepting international law. 

“Saudi Arabia is not considering a normalisation deal with Israel. Should Israel become a normal country with normal acceptance of international law, then Saudi Arabia will consider normalisation,” he said.

“Normalising ties with Israel was conditioned by reaching that final and fair solution to the Palestinian cause. Therefore, Saudi statements on a ‘pathway’ mean the need for a reliable peaceful process that leads to [that] final solution, with the understanding that such a process requires involvement of many international and regional countries, including Saudi Arabia, to engage in such a process.” 

The Israeli Knesset on Tuesday approved in its second and third readings the extension of the emergency law known as the Al Jazeera Law for two years, under which the Al Jazeera network’s office was closed and its work in Jerusalem and Israel was banned on May 5, 2024.

The Knesset also approved the law's conversion into a permanent law. 

The law allows the communications minister and the prime minister to decide to close foreign channels and confiscate their equipment at any time, without a court order.

Twenty-two MPs voted in favour of the law, while 10 opposed it, including nine Arab members of parliament. 
 

Israel on Tuesday continued to violate the ceasefire agreement, bombarding Gaza with artillery, Palestinian media reported. 

Israeli warplanes opened fire on the eastern areas of Gaza City and the Tuffah neighbourhood, Wafa news agency reported. 

The report added that Israeli fighter jets also launched air strikes east of Deir al-Balah and east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Since the ceasefire on 10 October 2025, a total of 405 Palestinians have been killed, while 1,115 others were reported wounded, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said on Monday.

According to a statement issued by the ministry on Telegram, a total of 70,937 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on 7 October 2023, while 171,192 others were wounded. 

Nearly 50 House Democrats in a letter to US President Donald Trump said that Israeli actions in Gaza threatened the ceasefire framework and that America must hold the Netanyahu government accountable for the continued killing of civilians. 

"Given the longstanding relationship between the U.S. and Israel, it's imperative that we hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions," wrote the lawmakers, led by Representatives Mark Pocan and Madeleine Dean.

"We strongly urge your administration to exert maximum diplomatic pressure on the Israeli government, including by leveraging U.S. assistance, to ensure full compliance with the terms of the framework and an end to the continued acts of violence and destruction that undermine this fragile agreement and threaten the prospect of lasting peace in the region."

The letter said that the US must leverage its assistance to "bring an end to the near-daily attacks on civilians, including children, destruction of civilian property, and insufficient delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid".

American right-wing organisation Turning Point USA (TPUSA) released findings from its poll which revealed that 13.3 percent of its supporters said Israel is "not an ally" of the US.

According to the straw poll, of the nearly 87 percent who deemed Israel an ally, 53.4 percent described Israel as "one of many" allies, while 33.3 percent described it as "top ally".

TPUSA is an American nonprofit organisation that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college, and university campuses. 

"The poll asked a question about how attendees view Israel. Despite a lot of noise online (and some on-stage), only 13 percent believe that Israel is not an ally of the United States," said Blake Neff, a producer on TPUSA's Charlie Kirk Show. 

A video posted online shows Israeli forces and settlers assaulting a Palestinian man during the demolition of a residential building in the Silwan neighbourhood near the Old City of Jerusalem under the pretext of lacking a permit, resulting in the displacement of 13 Palestinian families, around 100 people.

The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs on Monday called on the international community to urgently intervene to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes in the city.

The ministry added that Israeli forces have demolished more than 464 structures and buildings in the Jerusalem governorate since the start of the year, including 229 inside the city.

A video posted online shows Israeli forces and settlers assaulting a Palestinian man, during the demolition of a residential building in the Silwan neighbourhood near the Old City of Jerusalem under the pretext of lacking a permit, resulting in the displacement of 13 Palestinian… pic.twitter.com/qH59avA9n4

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 22, 2025