Israel-Hamas war: ‘The largest displacement of the Palestinian people since 1948,’ says UN

The UN agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees shared a video encapsulating 100 days of conflict in Gaza within a span of 100 seconds.

In a statement posted on X, UNRWA said: “An entire generation of children is traumatised, thousands have been killed, maimed, and orphaned. People live through the unliveable.”

Two Palestinians carried out coordinated car-rammings in central Israel on Monday (Jan 15), killing a woman and injuring 12 other people, police and medical officials said, as tensions soared over the more than three-month-old war in the Gaza Strip.

Police described the incident in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, as a terrorist attack and said two suspects were under arrest. The two are from the same family in Hebron, a city in the occupied West Bank, and entered Israel illegally, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A hundred days after the kidnapping of hundreds of people, among them Israelis, by the Gaza-based Hamas militant group, families of several Israeli-German hostages gather in Berlin to renew their request for support and "bring them back home".

A woman was killed in a suspected car ramming in central Israel, medics said, as police arrested two Palestinians over the reported attack.

"A wounded woman who arrived in a critical condition after having been hit by a vehicle has died of her injuries despite our efforts to save her," said a statement from Meir hospital, near Raanana where the incident took place.

Israeli forces patrol the site of a suspected ramming attack that injured at least 13 in central Israel's Raanana, near Tel Aviv.

Israeli police said Monday a suspected car ramming attack injured at least 13 people in the central city of Raanana.

"A suspect in a stolen vehicle ran over a number of people, injuring 13," the force said in a statement, with medics reporting one of them was in critical condition.

Images released by the Israeli army show what it says are military operations in the Gaza Strip. The war, sparked by Palestinian attacks on Israel, has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.4 million people in the besieged strip, the United Nations and aid groups warn, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.

"For almost a month now are living without flour, we are only eating rice" says a Palestinian as hundreds flock to an aid truck in Gaza City's al-Rimal neighbourhood. The war, sparked by Palestinian attacks on Israel, has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.4 million people in the besieged strip, the United Nations and aid groups warn, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the UK was waiting to see how Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen would respond to weekend strikes by the UK and the US aimed at protecting shipping in the Red Sea.

The health ministry in Gaza said on Monday that the death toll in the war-torn region has climbed to 24,100.

In a statement, the ministry said that the total deaths included 132 fatalities over the past 24 hours. Around 60,834 have been injured since the conflict started on Oct 7 last year. 

The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Monday that over 60 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli military strikes across the territory overnight.

Separately, Hamas' media office said that dozens of people were also wounded in what it described  as "intense" Israeli strikes and artillery bombardments across Gaza. 

British PM Rishi Sunak on Monday (Jan 15) will address members of the UK parliament and inform them about the strikes on Houthis in Yemen. UK alongside US and other allies started airstrikes on Yemen last week as retaliation for the Houthis clogging the shipping routes. 

Amid increased pressure from all quarters to halt the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to continue the military campaign. 

"We must conduct this war, and it will yet take many months," he said during his weekly cabinet meeting.

According to an Al Jazeera report, Israel has arrested 25 students from the An-Najah University, located in the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank for staging a sit-in protest over the high tuition fees. 

White House has reportedly told Israel to ease down on its offensive in the Gaza Strip against Hamas terrorists. 

"We believe it’s the right time for that transition. And we’re talking to them about doing that," White House national security council spokesman, John Kirby, told the US network CBS. 

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Monday, called for a "sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza as she left for a Middle East tour which includes a visit to the occupied West Bank and meeting with with the families of Israeli hostages.

Wong said during her visit to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) she would advocate for a pathway out of the current conflict and a lasting peace in the form of a two-state solution.

"Our position is that we want to see a sustainable ceasefire and that we see an international humanitarian, immediate humanitarian ceasefire as a step towards that," said Wong ahead of her departure.

She added, "No ceasefire can be one sided and no ceasefire can be unconditional."

Canberra would also use its voice to push for more humanitarian assistance, greater protection of civilians and a de-escalation of regional tensions, said the Australian FM. 

Australia supported Israel's right to defend itself in response to "terrorism" but "the way it does so, matters," said Wong, adding that the country also calls for an unconditional release of all hostages.

The Australian FM will begin her Middle East tour in Israel where she will meet Israeli officials and families of hostages and survivors of the October 7 attack. She will then travel to Jordan before visiting the West Bank. 

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took to X, and said that the United States will not rest until all hostages, including six Americans held by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza are "reunited with their loved ones."

"100 days of captivity in Gaza is far too long. The United States will not rest until all remaining hostages, including six Americans, are reunited with their loved ones," said Blinken, in a post on X. 

A US fighter aircraft shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired from Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist areas of Yemen toward the USS Laboon, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday (Jan 14). 

There were no injuries or damage reported as of the last update.

"On Jan. 14 at approximately 4:45 p.m. (Sanaa time), an anti-ship cruise missile was fired from Iranian-backed Houthi militant areas of Yemen toward USS Laboon (DDG 58), which was operating in the Southern Red Sea," read the statement by CENTCOM posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

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Hamas, on Sunday, released a video showing three Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza in which they urged their Israeli government to stop the offensive against the Palestinian militant group and secure their release. 

The undated 37-second video of Noa Argamani, 26, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, ended with the chyron: "Tomorrow we will inform you of their fate."

It was unclear when the footage was filmed.

Amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, China has called for a larger-scale, more authoritative and effective international peace conference. 

China Foreign Minister Wang Yi also called for the formulation of a concrete timetable to implement a two-state solution while talking to reporters following his meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo. 

China's top diplomat, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry, shared his views about the ongoing war in Gaza. 

"It is necessary to insist on the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign state of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital," said Wang in a press conference with Shoukry. 

Both ministers called for "an international summit for peace to find a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause by ending the occupation and establishing an independent, contiguous Palestinian state."

Many of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are likely to have been killed, a spokesman for the group's armed wing said Sunday, blaming the Israeli leadership for their fate.

"The fate of many of the enemy's hostages and detainees has become unknown in recent weeks and the rest have all entered the tunnel of the unknown due to the Zionist aggression," Abu Obeida said in a televised statement.

"Most likely, many of them were killed recently, the rest are in great danger every hour and the enemy's leadership and army bear full responsibility."

Abu Obeida said the group's allies from the "axis of resistance" had informed Hamas they would "expand their attacks" against Israeli troops in the coming days.

"After 100 days of battle... this is the enemy's leadership, gulping down pain and wading through the mud of failure and setback," he said.

Abu Obeida also accused Israeli forces of launching a "religious war" by destroying mosques in the Gaza Strip.

"The Zionist enemy, within 100 days, destroyed most of the mosques in the Gaza Strip," he said.

"He desecrated, burned, and bulldozed those that his vehicles reached on the ground, and stopped the call to prayer... in a clear religious war."

Source: AFP