Live: Israel kills nearly half of journalists worldwide, says report

The Palestinian Civil Defence has recovered the bodies of at least 15 Palestinians from the al-Shifa Hospital courtyard area in Gaza City.

The discovery comes as part of work to retrieve Palestinians killed by Israel and buried in what Gaza’s Government Media Office said was a "mass grave" discovered in May 2024. 

The total number of bodies recovered from Gaza’s largest medical facility is now 113, underscoring the scope of Israeli killing in the area. 

“Several bodies remain missing on the hospital grounds, as work is still ongoing to retrieve them,” the Palestinian Civil Defence said. 

It added that four of the bodies had not been identified.

At least one Palestinian was killed and another injured by Israeli fire on Tuesday evening, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing medical sources.

An Israeli army sniper killed a 35-year-old Palestinian man in the al-Atatra area in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, a minor was injured when Israeli soldiers opened fire at tents housing displaced people in the area of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. 

The United Nations has condemned Israel for trying to divide the Gaza Strip.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric was responding to Israeli Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir’s assertion that the so-called “yellow line” that currently divides the Gaza Strip is the “new border” with Israel.

Israeli soldiers now occupy roughly 58 percent of Gaza. US and Israeli officials have discussed rebuilding this largely empty area, while leaving the portion of Gaza controlled by Hamas unreconstructed. 

Dujarric said the idea of dividing Gaza “seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of the Trump peace plan”.

“We firmly stand against any change of the borders of Gaza and Israel,” he added. 

Malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip is having a "devastating domino effect" on thousands of newborns, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.

Unicef, the UN children's agency, flagged an alarming surge in the number of babies born weighing less than 2.5 kilogrammes (5.5 pounds) in the Palestinian territory.

"Malnourished mothers" give birth to underweight or premature babies, who either "die... or survive, only to face malnutrition themselves or potential lifelong medical complications", Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram told a press briefing in Geneva, speaking from central Gaza.

She added that low birth weight infants were about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight.

The Israeli military is demolishing buildings in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, according to a report by Al Jazeera Arabic. 

Israel has reduced the vast majority of Gaza to rubble since 7 October 2023. 

There has been no movement on reconstruction despite a ceasefire being signed in October 2025. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has violated the ceasefire in at least 700 attacks. 

Hamas has told mediators that it is prepared to freeze all offensive operations against Israel from Gaza for up to a decade, and it is prepared to bury its weapons, if Israeli forces fully withdraw from the enclave, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the discussions told Middle East Eye in an exclusive report. 

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the offer was presented to Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo last week.

The offer represents what he described as a substantive move by Hamas intended to give momentum to the next phase of the ceasefire negotiations.

"The proposal is clear," the official said.

"Hamas is offering a guarantee that no weapon will be fired from Gaza against Israel, and it will do that by burying the weapons. It offered to establish a hudna (a term used in Islamic tradition to describe a long-term truce) for seven to ten years between Gaza and Israel, and Hamas will not use the weapons," the official added. 

Read More: Hamas proposes long-term ceasefire if Israel fully withdraws from Gaza

At least three recently released Palestinian detainees were injured at a checkpoint in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. 

The three detainees were injured by Israeli soldiers at al-Jib checkpoint, according to a report by Al Jazeera Arabic. 

The UK's Foreign Office announced on Tuesday that it will host a conference next year to help establish an International Peace Fund for Israel and Palestine.

A Foreign Office press release said the meeting will be held at Lancaster House and will rely on “peacebuilding expertise from Northern Ireland and ongoing Western Balkans work to support Middle East efforts”.

It will gather civil society leaders and intends to set up a fund to financially support “peacebuilding efforts to deliver genuine change".

For 24 years, every time Intisar visited her son Habis Bayyoud in an Israeli prison, he told her the same thing: “My freedom will be the day I can hug you outside these walls.”

The former Palestinian prisoner thought that day had finally come in October, when he was released and deported to Egypt under the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner-swap deal between Israel and Hamas.

In the West Bank village of al-Mazra’a al-Gharbiya near Ramallah, Intisar, 78, was overjoyed when she saw his name on the release list.

Even when an Israeli intelligence officer told her he would be sent to Egypt rather than home, she tried to console herself: “It doesn’t matter, as long as he’s free.

What she never expected was that the Israeli military would bar the entire family from leaving the occupied West Bank, leaving Habis alone in Egypt.

'This is revenge’: Israel deports Palestinian prisoners then bars families from visiting

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that three civilians were wounded on Tuesday by Israeli gunfire, after troops advanced and set up a checkpoint close to the entrance of a town in al-Quneitra, south of Damascus.

Israeli forces fired live ammunition at Syrian residents, who were protesting against the persistent violations and advances of Israeli forces in their territory.

Such violations have continued since December 2024, when Israel occupied the United Nations designated buffer zone - the strategic heights of Mount Hermon - which overlooks Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

SOHR also reported that Israeli forces on Tuesday had blocked roads to civilians and halted traffic to allow for the passage of their convoy.

Israeli military vehicles stormed Al-Amarai refugee camp near Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on Tuesday. 

The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that Israeli troops wounded two Palestinians, one of them 13-years-old, with live ammunition.

Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, has told AFP that as long as Israel continues to evade its commitments, it won't be possible to implement the ceasefire's second phase. 

Badran, according to Haaretz, also rejected Israel's recent comments concerning the Israeli imposed "Yellow Line" in Gaza. 

On Sunday, Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir said that the line - which demarcates the area Israeli troops are still occupying - would become the Gaza Strip's new border. Such a move would half Gaza’s current territory. 

According to Al Jazeera, the Israeli military has violated the ceasefire agreement at least 738 times, killing over 370 people since the ceasefire began on 10 October.

Following US pressure, Israel is set to reopen the only border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, after it had been closed in September when a Jordanian aid truck driver fatally shot two Israeli soldiers. 

A week after the incident, the border was reopened for passenger use only. 

Jordan investigated the case, and said it would implement stricter security and screening procedures for drivers and cargo.

The Allenby Bridge crossing, called the King Hussein Bridge in Jordan, is jointly handled by the Israel Airports Authority and Jordan's Public Security Directorate. It is the only exit and entry point for Palestinians from the West Bank, and is a key trade route for cargo between Jordan and occupied Palestine.

Haaretz reported that 21 percent of aid deliveries reaching Gaza rely on the Allenby Bridge crossing.

Reporters Without Borders reported on Tuesday that Israeli forces were responsible for almost half of all journalist deaths worldwide this year, with 29 Palestinian reporters killed in Gaza alone.

The Paris-based media freedom group recorded 67 journalist fatalities globally from December 2024 to November 2025, marking a slight rise from 66 in 2024. RSF said Israel accounted for 43 percent of the total, describing its military as “the worst enemy of journalists.”

The deadliest single attack occurred on 25 August, when a so-called “double-tap” strike hit a hospital in southern Gaza, killing five journalists, including contributors to Reuters and the Associated Press.

Since the October 2023 war in Gaza, following the Hamas attack on Israel, nearly 220 journalists have been killed, making Israel the leading global killer of media workers for three consecutive years, RSF data shows.

The Gaza Media Office says 257 journalists have been killed since October 2023. Mahmoud Wadi was the latest to be killed on 2 December in an Israeli air strike on Khan Younis.

Access to Gaza remains heavily restricted, with foreign journalists allowed only on controlled tours organised by the Israeli army despite calls for unrestricted press coverage.

In a time of deep Palestinian anguish, the national football team's successive victories in the Arab Cup, currently taking place in Qatar, have ignited a rare and precious sense of unity.

This joy begins in the rain-soaked tents of displaced families in Gaza, stretches to refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and ripples across Palestinian communities worldwide.

From Rafah comes Ihab Abu Jazar, the team's coach, whose family home was destroyed and whose mother was moved to a tent in the Mawasi area. He becomes, suddenly, a beacon of hope.

For a fleeting moment, his squad delivers triumph on the green pitch, qualifying for the next round and dedicating the victory first to Gaza and then to Palestinians everywhere.

Behind the Fida'i, the team's nickname meaning fighter, a collective spirit emerges. It transcends sport, reflecting a profound yearning among Palestinians to reclaim an unfragmented identity, free from the suffocating grip of political division and despair.

Read more: At the Arab Cup, Palestinian football is uniting what politics has divided