Israel-Hamas war updates: Gaza death toll at 17,700, says Hamas-run health ministry

In the past week, the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian Territories said it has recorded at least 13 strikes on or in the vicinities of schools in northern Gaza and Gaza City.

"These schools are sheltering thousands of displaced civilians, and in some instances, these strikes have killed or injured them," the office said.

Over 17,000 Palestinians, including 7,000 children since Oct 7 have been killed in Gaza, Hamas-run health ministry said.

Over 1.7m of Gaza's 2.3m people have been displaced, it added.

Identified as Sahar Baruch, 25, an electrical engineering student at Ben-Gurion University was killed in Gaza Strip.

Hamas released a video earlier depicting Baruch with his hair shaven, saying he had been held hostage for 40 days.

The video then showed his battered body covered in blood.

Hamas has claimed Baruch’s death was caused by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The US State Department has approved the potential sale of tank cartridges and related equipment to Israel for an estimated $106.5 million, the Pentagon said on Saturday (Dec 9).

The sale will reportedly consist of 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer (MPAT) tank cartridges and related equipment, the Pentagon statement added.

More than 60 per cent of Gaza's housing as it existed before October 7, 2023 stands destroyed or damaged, and 85 per cent of the Gazan population has been forced from their homes, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank on Saturday (Dec 9) and another succumbed to his wounds from an Israeli raid the day before, the Associated Press reported.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the 25-year-old man who succumbed to his wounds today had been shot during an arrest raid in the Faraa refugee camp on Friday.

Seven had been killed in this raid, among them a local commander of the so-called Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

A total of 274 Palestinians have been killed in West Bank since the start of the conflict on October 7.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the UN security council to be reformed, following the US vetoing a ceasefire proposal for Gaza despite the the 15-member council voting 13-1 for the resolution, Reuters reported.

"The United Nations Security Council demand for ceasefire is rejected only by U.S. veto. Is this justice?," Erdoğan said in a human rights conference in Istanbul.

"The UN security council needs to be reformed," he added, while describing the UNSC as 'Israel protection council'

Israeli media report that 2,000 wounded Israeli soldiers have been recognised as disabled by the defence ministry, and 5,000 soldiers have been wounded since the beginning of the war.

At least two people died and several others injured in an Israeli forces bombing on the Abasan al-Kabira area, in the southern city of Khan Younis, reported Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, deaths and injuries were also reported in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in the Al-Satar Al-Gharbi area.

The news of the death of Israeli soldier Sa’ar Baruch was confirmed by the commission of families of Israeli captives in Gaza.

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, announced on Friday that the 25-year-old was killed in an unsuccessful operation carried out by the Israeli army in an attempt to recover him.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday that the United States was "responsible for the bloodshed" of children in the Gaza Strip after it vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory at a special meeting of the UN Security Council.

"The president has described the American position as aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip," said a statement from Abbas's office.

(With inputs from agencies)

A Palestinian teen was killed in Israeli raids on West Bank on Saturday as IDF continued deadly raids across the region. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has said at least 273 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7.

Israeli warplanes raided Gaza Strip overnight, targeting areas which had been earmarked as safe zones where residents could flee to. The strikes came a day after US vetoed a UNSC resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, despite it being backed by the vast majority of Security Council members and many other nations.

Gunfire heard and flashes of light are seen in the town of Al Zawaida in the Gaza Strip, as Israel presses its offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Thousands of people have been killed and vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble with the UN saying about 80 percent of the population is now displaced, and dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.

Iran warned Saturday of the threat of an "uncontrollable explosion" of the situation in the Middle East, after the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the top diplomat of the Islamic republic, also appealed for the immediate opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to enable humanitarian aid to be sent into the Gaza Strip.

There has been continued bombings seen in Gaza's Khan Younis area with non-stop artillery shelling on the eastern and central side.

The Israeli military vehicles kept pushing to the centre of the city, very close to the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, Al Jazeera reported.
 

As the Israel-Hamas war has entered the third month, tensions continue to simmer.

Smoke was seen rising and explosions were heard early Saturday (Dec 9) over the Gaza Strip. UN warned that its aid operation in the enclave was "in tatters," media reports said. 

Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said on Friday that the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip was caused by Hamas, not Israel.  He added that Israel would continue its military operation in Gaza until Hamas lost its military capability.

Israel continued with its offensive against Hamas on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire.

An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry said.

Hamas on Friday accused Israel of a "heinous crime against innocent civilians" after images of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear surfaced on social media. 

Senior Hamas official Izzat El-Reshiq urged international human rights organisations to intervene to show what happened to the men and help secure their release.

Israel, meanwhile, said that those in the images were individuals who were arrested in Jabalia and Shejaiya (in Gaza city), Hamas strongholds and centres of gravity.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday urged Israel to protect humanitarian workers in the Gaza Strip. Over a dozen WHO member states submitted a draft resolution, expressing their grave concerns about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip.

They called for Israel  to "respect and protect" medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations hailed US for “standing steadfastly” with Israel.

“A little light rejected a lot of darkness,” Ambassador Gilad Erdan says in a statement, alluding to Hanukkah.

“It is shocking that when Hamas is firing rockets at Gush Dan from population centers in southern Gaza, the UN is busy with a disconnected deliberation about a distorted resolution that is directed at the wrong side and does not even condemn Hamas,” the ambassador added.

“A ceasefire is possible, only with the return of all the hostages and destruction of Hamas,” he said.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, denounced the Security Council after failing on Friday to pass a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza and vowed to continue fighting to help the Palestinian people.

A group claiming to represent Jewish students said they paid for a plane to fly over Harvard University's campus in Cambridge trailing a banner with a provocative message about antisemitism.

The deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday that "the humanitarian operation is collapsing" in Gaza as Palestinians in the south crowded into an ever-shrinking area.

Footage released by the World Food Programme show Palestinians receiving boxes of food supplies at a distribution centre in Rafah, southern Gaza. Vast areas of the territory have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of its population has been displaced and now faces shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine.

Dozens of organizations rally in New York to call for the end of US funding to Israel and for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas releases footage of what it says shows its Al-Quds Brigades fighters attacking Israeli military vehicles in Gaza. Israeli forces maintained a relentless bombardment and ground invasion across Gaza two months after Hamas's deadly attack sparked a war that has decimated the Palestinian territory and triggered an extraordinary UN bid for a ceasefire on Friday.

The United States on Friday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate ceasefire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The United States' deputy representative at the UN, Robert Wood, said the resolution was "divorced from reality" and "would have not moved the needle forward on the ground."

In a statement, the army said "two IDF soldiers were severely injured during an operation to rescue hostages held by Hamas".

"During the operation, numerous terrorists who took part in the abducting and holding of hostages were killed," it said. 

"No hostages were rescued in this activity," it added.

Earlier, Hamas said its fighters had "succeeded in foiling an Israeli attempt to free an Israeli captive".

"A fierce gunfight broke out between the Al-Qassam fighters and the Israeli special force, leaving many soldiers wounded while the captive Israeli... was announced killed," Hamas said in an English-language statement.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Friday the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has risen to at least 17,487 in the Palestinian territory.

Announcing the new figure, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said: "Every day we are losing dozens of wounded due to a lack of care and delay in getting them out of Gaza."

The United States told a UN Security Council meeting on Friday that it opposed an immediate ceasefire in the fighting raging in Gaza.

"While the United States strongly supports the durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire," said Deputy US Ambassador Robert Wood.

"This would only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace to see a two state solution," Wood added.

Thousands of Yemenis in the Houthi rebel-controlled capital of Sanaa demonstrated on Friday in a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel has designated a safe zone in southern Gaza, but its widening air and ground offensive has left Palestinians packed together in dire humanitarian conditions.

Israeli airstrike on a residential building in central Gaza, killed at least 20 people on Friday as Israeli tanks continued to rumble into southern Gaza. The Abu Shaweesh family were sheltering in their house when the strike hit on Friday morning.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres seeks a vote on a "humanitarian ceasefire" during a Security Council meeting on Gaza, as he takes the unprecedented step of invoking the UN Charter's Article 99, allowing him to convene the council for "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security."

The Israeli army releases video it says shows its troops fighting in a school in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. Israeli forces are maintaining a relentless bombardment and ground invasion across Gaza, two months after Hamas's deadly attack sparked a war that has killed thousands and decimated the Palestinian territory.

Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is engaged in deadly fighting with Israel, called on Friday for the United Nations Security Council to end the "brutal war" in the Gaza Strip.

"We call on the Security Council, the international community and all countries around the world to end this brutal war and save the Gaza Strip before it is too late," the Hamas government's media office in the Palestinian territory said, as the Security Council prepared to vote on a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire.