Live: At least 137 people killed by Israel recovered from rubble in Rafah

The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, has revealed that only 446 patients, including 266 children, have been evacuated for medical treatment outside Gaza since Israeli forces closed the Rafah crossing in May last year.

Since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, just over 5,000 people have been evacuated, a figure critics say highlights Israel’s stranglehold on vital humanitarian aid.

An estimated 12,000 Palestinians are in urgent need of medical evacuation abroad, with aid groups warning of catastrophic consequences as hospitals struggle to function amid relentless bombardments and dwindling resources.

Israeli forces have unleashed a series of brutal air strikes on the Gaza Strip since early morning, leaving at least 22 Palestinians dead, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Among the attacks, the Israeli military targeted a school in northern Gaza City, killing at least seven people. Another strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, claiming at least three more lives.

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

Here are some of the latest updates on Israel's war on Gaza:

• Israeli forces intensified their assault on Gaza, killing four Palestinians in Rafah, three in the Bureij refugee camp, and seven at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.

• Despite these attacks, mediators claim a ceasefire agreement is closer than ever, with details of a draft deal revealing that Hamas will release 33 captives in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners during the initial six weeks of the truce.

• Thousands protested in Tel Aviv, demanding a deal, while hundreds in Jerusalem urged Netanyahu to reject it.

• The UN's humanitarian agency, OCHA, warned that Gaza’s hospitals, water, and sanitation systems are on the brink of collapse due to the worsening fuel crisis.

• Save the Children condemned Israel's use of explosive weapons, reporting that such attacks left an average of 475 children in Gaza disabled each month last year—15 children every day—with potentially lifelong consequences.

Our liveblog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- Medical sources in Gaza have told Aljazeera that 63 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids on multiple areas in Gaza since dawn on Tuesday. This raises the death toll in Gaza to well past 45,700. 

- The White House's readout of the Tuesday call between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said the two leaders plan to "remain in close coordination directly and through their teams over the coming hours" toward a Gaza ceasefire, suggesting that an announcement may indeed be imminent. 

- A Hamas official said on Tuesday that the group had not yet issued a formal response to the ceasefire deal because Israel has not supplied the maps showing precisely where its troops will withdraw from in Gaza, the Reuters news agency reported. 

- Israeli news site Ynet reported on Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families of the Gaza captives that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump "will change the rules, and every violation will be met with a harsh response". 

- Speaking at The Atlantic Council in Washington in his final days as the US top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington envisioned a reformed Palestinian Authority leading Gaza and inviting international partners to help establish and run an interim administration for the enclave. A security force would be formed from forces from partner nations and vetted Palestinian personnel, Blinken said during his speech, which was interrupted by a protester who accused him of supporting genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel denies.

- US Senator Peter Welch shared a letter on X on Tuesday, signed by eight other Democratic lawmakers from both chambers of Congress, demanding answers from the Biden administration on Israel's killing of Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi last year. "Detailed statements of international, Israeli, and Palestinian eyewitnesses, as well as a Washington Post inquiry that included interviewing 13 eyewitnesses and reviewing more than 50 videos and photographs, describe a significantly different sequence of events" than the Israelis, the letter said.

- The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan has called on judges to reject Israeli objections to arrest warrants issued to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes committed in Gaza. Khan submitted his formal response to an appeal by Israel over the Hague-based court's jurisdiction after judges issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

Medical sources in Gaza have told Aljazeera that 63 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids on multiple areas in Gaza since dawn on Tuesday. 

Israel faces a “generational” problem as future American policymakers will be shaped by the destruction of the war in Gaza, the US outgoing ambassador to Israel said.

Speaking at length to the Times of Israel this week, US ambassador Jack Lew said that American public opinion “is still largely pro-Israel” but that could shift in the next decades as a result of the war in Gaza.

“What I’ve told people here that they have to worry about when this war is over is that the generational memory doesn’t go back to the founding of the state or the Six Day War, or the Yom Kippur War, or to the intifada even,” Lew said, referring to Israel’s creation in 1948 in what Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe), and the 1967 and 1973 Wars.

“It starts with this war, and you can’t ignore the impact of this war on future policymakers - not the people making the decisions today, but the people who are 25, 35, 45 today and who will be the leaders for the next 30 years, 40 years,” he said.

Read more: Jack Lew says US public's pro-Israel views could change in coming years, with Israel facing a 'generational' problem

An Israeli air strike on Gaza's Deir al-Balah killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded others, medics told Reuters on Tuesday.

In a separate strike on a house in Rafah, five people, including a woman, were killed, and four others were injured, medics said.

Reporting by Reuters

The White House's readout of the Tuesday call between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said the two leaders plan to "remain in close coordination directly and through their teams over the coming hours" toward a Gaza ceasefire, suggesting that an announcement may indeed be imminent. 

"The two leaders discussed the negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal based on the arrangement described by President Biden last year and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council. The President thanked President Sisi for his leadership and praised the mediating role of Egypt throughout the process," the readout said.

"He emphasized that this deal would never have been possible without Egypt’s essential and historic role in the Middle East and commitment to diplomacy for resolving conflicts. Both leaders emphasized the urgent need for a deal to be implemented to bring immediate relief to the people of Gaza through a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by the ceasefire together with the return of hostages to their families."

US Senator Peter Welch shared a letter on X on Tuesday, signed by eight other Democratic lawmakers from both chambers of Congress, demanding answers from the Biden administration on Israel's killing of Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi last year. 

The letter is dated 3 January. 

"Detailed statements of international, Israeli, and Palestinian eyewitnesses, as well as a Washington Post inquiry that included interviewing 13 eyewitnesses and reviewing more than 50 videos and photographs, describe a significantly different sequence of events" than the Israelis, the letter said.

"This case is disturbingly like the fatal shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh by an Israeli soldier located nearly 200 meters away. Shireen and Aysenur each died from a single gunshot
wound to the head." 

The lawmakers list questions about what instigated the shooting, what possible threat Eygi could have caused, and what the US Department of Justice has done about it, if at all. 

The Biden administration is only in office for another 5 days. 

Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a U.S.-Turkish citizen, was killed by Israeli forces while attending a peaceful protest in the West Bank.

There's no evidence to suggest that she was a threat.

I'm leading my colleagues in demanding answers from the State Department. pic.twitter.com/RVdnYMxFhp

— Senator Peter Welch (@SenPeterWelch) January 14, 2025

Speaking at The Atlantic Council in Washington in his final days as the US top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington envisioned a reformed Palestinian Authority leading Gaza and inviting international partners to help establish and run an interim administration for the enclave.

A security force would be formed from forces from partner nations and vetted Palestinian personnel, Blinken said during his speech, which was interrupted by a protester who accused him of supporting genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel denies.

"For many months, we've been working intensely with our partners to develop a detailed post-conflict plan that would allow Israel to fully withdraw from Gaza, prevent Hamas from filling back in, and provide for Gaza's governance, security and reconstruction," Blinken said.

US President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming team have not said whether they would implement the plan.

Blinken said a post-conflict plan and a "credible political horizon for Palestinians" were needed to ensure that Hamas does not re-emerge.

The United States had repeatedly warned Israel that Hamas could not be defeated by a military campaign alone, he said. "We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost. That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war."

Reporting by Reuters

A Hamas official said on Tuesday that the group had not yet issued a formal response to the ceasefire deal because Israel has not supplied the maps showing precisely where its troops will withdraw from in Gaza, the Reuters news agency reported. 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and US President Joe Biden discussed in a phone call on Tuesday the ongoing mediation efforts by Cairo, Doha and Washington to reach a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza.

They also discussed a hostages-for-prisoners exchange deal, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli news site Ynet reported on Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families of the Gaza captives that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump "will change the rules, and every violation will be met with a harsh response". 

He also said that a ceasefire deal was days or even hours away and that Hamas had not yet accepted the terms despite multiple reports to the contrary. 

Al Jazeera is reporting that multiple people have been killed and wounded on Tuesday after Israel bombed a home at the Abd al-Aal intersection on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City. 

Palestinians have pointed to an increase in casualties via Israeli air strikes ahead of what may be an imminent ceasefire announcement. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding an emergency meeting with top officials on Tuesday as a Gaza ceasefire deal appears to be imminent - or at least the closest its been to fruition in at least a year. 

Israeli media is reporting that Netanyahu is still trying to overcome opposition to the deal from within his own far-right coalition. 

The Israeli paper Haaretz said it was Steven Witcoff, US President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, who showed up in person at Netanyahu's office on the Sabbath to push him to accept the deal. Witcoff later conveyed to negotiators in Doha that Netanyahu was on board.