Israel-Hamas war live: ‘Relentless artillery shelling’ in Khan Younis

“We would like to announce the gradual restoration of telecom services in the central and southern areas of Gaza Strip after a blackout caused by the ongoing aggression,” Palestine Telecommunications Company said in a post on X.

On Tuesday, the company said there was a “complete interruption” of telecom services in the enclave.

Humanitarian agencies and emergency responders have warned that communication blackouts further limit their already constrained life-saving assistance efforts in the war-torn territory.

The settlers are angry that the Israeli military has begun detaining some in their community and confiscating guns issued without authorisation, reports Israel’s Channel 12.

Some settlers have reportedly suggested the Israeli commander responsible for the operations – Major General Yehuda Fox – can be targeted by invoking a din roder, which is a Jewish religious principle that permits the extrajudicial killing of individuals who imperil others, according to the Israel media.

This “may create a concrete threat to the general’s life and allow him to be harmed”, warned the chief of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar, in a letter to government leaders.

Sharjah, the UAE’s third-largest emirate by size and population, has banned New Year’s Eve fireworks this year as an expression of solidarity with the people of Gaza.

The decision was announced in a Facebook post by Sharjah police, who said the ban was “a sincere expression of solidarity and humanitarian cooperation with our siblings in the Gaza Strip”.

They also warned that legal measures would be taken against those violating the ban.

A Palestinian family’s home has been destroyed by Israeli forces in the village of Masafer Yatta in Hebron.

In video footage shared online and verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking team Sanad, bulldozers can be seen demolishing the house of the Alaa al-Nawaja family, which housed seven people.

Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank have been reported across the territory today, including in Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Israel’s deputy attorney general has accused the National Security Ministry of unlawfully issuing weapons permits to Israeli citizens en masse, reports Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The claim follows reports that the ministry delegated unauthorised people, including cronies and employees of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, to issue conditional permits. Within weeks, these “temporary licensing clerks” issued hundreds of thousands of permits, including to Israelis who do not qualify to be gun-owners, said Haaretz.

“This behavior is a recipe for disaster,” said one senior security official cited by Haaretz. “They’re handing out guns like candy.

Reporting from Nur Shams in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan has more on the deadly overnight drone strike that took place during an Israeli raid.

The strike reportedly hit six men, aged between 16 and 29 years old, who were standing, watching the raid.

“The drone came from above, and the men simply didn’t stand a chance. This was a deliberate kill shot,” Khan said.

“People tried to help them, but for at least an hour and a half, the Israelis wouldn’t allow ambulances to get in. Eventually, they had to pick up the bodies and take them down to where the ambulances were. Of course, at that stage. It was too late. These people were dead.”

Al Jazeera also spoke to sources at the local hospital who said an Israeli soldier went into an ambulance and stabbed a man in the neck. He is now being treated in an intensive care unit.

Jordanian King Abdullah II is on his way to Egypt to meet President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Royal Hashemite Court announced on X.

The pair are also expected to discuss the situation in Gaza and the path towards a ceasefire.

On Monday, Egypt announced what is described as a plan to end the war in Gaza, which would see Israel entirely withdraw from the enclave, all captives held by Hamas released, many Palestinian prisoners freed, and a united technocratic Palestinian government installed.

At least 12 people have been detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in overnight raids, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club said in a statement.

The raids took place across the occupied West Bank, including Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Tulkarem, the prisoner rights groups said.

The total number of arrests made by Israeli forces since October 7 stands at 4,795, the statement added.

This is the first time Bint Jbeil has been hit since 2006. But seven other southern Lebanese towns are being hit on a daily basis by Israeli warplanes.

It’s a war zone. Literally a war zone.

Speaking to Dubai-based news outlet Al Arabiya late on Tuesday, Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila has said only eight hospitals are partially operating in the southern Gaza Strip.

Last week, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) decried the “decimation” of Gaza’s health system as a “tragedy”.

A Hezbollah fighter was among the three people killed in an Israeli strike on the town of Bint Jbeil late last night, Hezbollah has announced.

The other two victims were the fighter’s brother and sister-in-law, according to Lebanese state media.

The fighter’s brother, named as Ibrahim Bazzi, had arrived in Lebanon just days ago from Australia, where he had lived for years. He had returned to reunite with his wife and travel back with her to Australia.

The strike that killed the family members also wounded another one of their relatives, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

It’s day 82 of the war, and this is where things stand:

• At least 241 people have been killed and 382 were injured in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said
• The Government Media Office in Gaza says bodies had been delivered “mutilated” and accused the Israelis of removing “vital organs from them”.
• Six Palestinians have been killed during Israeli drone attacks in Nur Shams in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reported.
• Palestine’s representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, wrote to the president of the UNSC that Israel’s attacks have only intensified since the UN resolution passed.
• Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer reportedly met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington, where they discussed the remaining captives.

The spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ramazan Sharif, has vowed to take revenge for the killing of IRGC commander Sayyed Razi Mousavi in Syria on Monday.

He said that Mousavi’s assassination broke international laws as he was an advisor of a country that is a UN member and called on all international institutions to condemn the strikes.

Sharif said the reason that Israel decided to assassinate Mousavi now is due to the success of Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 and Israel’s failure to defeat “the resistance” in more than 80 days of war.

Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/27/israel-hamas-war-live-israel-vows-to-intensify-gaza-fighting