Israel-Hamas war top developments: Sirens in north Israel after suspicion of Israeli airspace breach

If reports are to be believed, the pro-Iranian terror outfits have once again struck the US military base of Kharab al-Jir in Syria. The attack comes in the backdrop of the US military carrying out retaliatory attacks in Iraq after three American soldiers were wounded in a drone attack on December 26 by Iran-aligned militants. 

Federal prosecutors in New York on Friday said a New Jersey man, motivated by the Oct 7 attacks, attempted to wage violent jihad against America and its allies. The man has been identified as Karrem Nasr, 23, who was arrested in Kenya earlier this month and brought to New York to face charges.

Iranian judiciary's Mizan website has said that the country has hung three men and a woman for carrying out sabotage for Israel. These persons were charged with “waging war against God”, and “corruption on Earth” through their “collaboration with the Zionist regime”.

As Israel bombards north and central parts of Gaza Strip, tens of thousands are fleeing to the southernmost tip of Gaza Strip. The United Nations officials have been quoted as saying that people are coming to Rafah in trucks, cars, other vehicles and even on foot.

"People are using any empty space to build shacks,” said Juliette Touma, director of communications at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “Some are sleeping in their cars, and others are sleeping in the open.”

Touma was quoted by The Guardian.

Sirens were sounded across north Israel as it was suspected that a hostile aircraft was suspected to have breached Isralei airspace, reported Jerusalem Post.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah meanwhile, are trading blows.

On X, the Israeli military announced conducting a substantial operation in southern Lebanon in response to attacks on Israeli territory. Fighter jets targeted various Hezbollah sites, including launch positions, a military compound, and other infrastructure. Additionally, artillery fire was used to counter launches from Lebanese territory that trespassed into Israel, with three incidents occurring in the past hour.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported the killing of a young boy by Israeli forces at the Wadi al-Shajna entrance, located east of Dura city near Hebron in the West Bank under occupation.

The Israeli military said a Palestinian rammed a car into people in the West Bank on Friday (Dec 29). A total of four medics were wounded.

Soldiers "neutralised" the driver at the scene near a military post south of the city of Hebron, AFP reported.

Thomas White, the director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, accused Israel of firing on an aid convoy.

In a social media post, he said "Israeli soldiers fired at an aid convoy as it returned from northern Gaza along a route designated by the Israeli army – our international convoy leader and his team were not injured but one vehicle sustained damage."
 

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that at least 21,507 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel broke out on October 7.

News agency AFP reported that the figure includes 187 fatalities over the past 24 hours.

The ministry added that 55,915 people have been wounded in Gaza during the war so far. 

An Islamic Jihad militant, who was captured in the Gaza Strip, admitted that his squad committed rape and murdered victims during Hamas Oct 7 attack, a report by The Jerusalem Post said early Friday (Dec 29) citing KAN- an Israeli state-owned publication. Read more

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Thursday that Israeli shelling over two days near the Al-Amal hospital in southern Gaza's main city Khan Yunis killed 41 people. 

The casualties include "displaced persons seeking shelter" at Red Crescent premises, the Red Crescent said. 

Israel has given preliminary approval to  Cyprus for a maritime humanitarian corridor to ship aid to Gaza. According to the Israeli foreign ministry, the proposal would allow badly needed international aid to be checked "with Israeli supervision" in Cyprus before delivery. 

A delegation of Hamas is due in Cairo on Friday to look at Egypt's ceasefire proposal in the Gaza Strip. Last week, Egypt had pitched the proposal to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. 

The IDF said that 688 reservists, who are candidates in the municipal elections to be held nationwide scheduled for the end of January, will not be be released from their service for participating in the elections.

The IDF said that there are nearly 4,000 reserve soldiers, who are candidates in the municipal elections. However, the IDF said that only 1,141 out of 1,829 active reserve can be released from operational duty.

IDF said that several missiles were fired towards areas close to northern communities of Dovev and Bar’am from southern Lebanon. The army said that they are shelling the source of the fire with artillery.

No injuries were reported in the attacks carried out. Meanwhile, the IDF said that drone infiltration sirens which sounded in Kiryat Shmona were a false alarm.

“This is a false identification. There is no fear of a security incident,” said the IDF.

The death toll in Nuseirat, Maghazi refugee camps has hit at least 35, Al Jazeera reported. “The vast majority of them are women and children,” the outlet said adding, “Those who sustained injuries are likely to die because of the improper, insufficient medical intervention as there is a lack of medical supplies.”

Smoke rises after early morning strikes on Gaza's southern city Rafah as fighting raged Friday between Israel and Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian militant group's unprecedented attack nearly 12 weeks ago, media reports said. 

A US warship on Thursday (Dec 28) shot down a drone and an anti-ship ballistic projectile fired by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the US military said in a statement.

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Amid the ongoing war in Gaza, India on Thursday released the second tranche of 2.5 million US dollars to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), fulfilling its annual commitment of 5 million US dollars for the year 2023-24.

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Judith Weinstein Haggai, a 70-year-old US-Israeli, who was earlier believed to be the oldest woman held captive by Hamas, was actually killed by the Palestinian militant group on Oct 7, the day it launched a massive attack against Israel.

While sharing the tragic development, US President Joe Biden said that he was utterly "devastated" by Weinstein's passing and that Washington will "not stop working" with its ally Israel to bring the remaining hostages home.

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Amid the horrors of war in Gaza, a woman pregnant with quadruplets had to walk five kilometres in search of shelter for her unborn babies. The Gazan woman, 28-year-old Iman al-Masry, has now given birth to her premature children, one of whom was too weak to leave the hospital.

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Iran executed four "saboteurs" linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence service, the Mizan news agency affiliated to the judiciary said on Friday.

"Four members of a sabotage team associated with the Zionist regime, who had committed extensive actions against the country's security under the guidance of Mossad officers, were executed this morning following legal procedures," it said.

Israeli soldiers failed to heed the cries for "help" of three hostages when they entered a building in Gaza just days before they were killed by the troops by mistake, revealed a military investigation which was published on Thursday (Dec 28).

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Palestinians forced to leave their homes due to Israeli relentless bombardment since October 7 are struggling to get food and other daily needs.

Some of them were displaced twice and three times, from Gaza City to central the strip until they arrived to Deir al-Balah, like Um Hamdi who described the October 7 a day of "Global Exodus".

She added, "We suffered a lot, we had whole night without shelter, under rain and it was cold, we were with our kids and elderly woman, we didn't have blankets or mattresses. I was suffering to get what we need, until now we live in suffer."

Lebanon's Hezbollah accused Israel on Thursday of hacking into CCTV cameras installed outside homes and shops in southern Lebanon and urged residents there to take the device offline.

The powerful Iran-backed armed group accused Israel of using the footage to target its fighters and urged Lebanese citizens to "disconnect the private cameras... from the Internet".

Israeli forces attacked areas of the central and southern Gaza Strip where residents have been expecting a renewed ground offensive in areas crammed with tens of thousands of Palestinians already displaced by the Israeli-Hamas war.

Clouds of smoke and flares covered the skyline over the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, as Israeli strikes across the besieged enclave kill dozens of Palestinians.

The Israeli-Hamas war has already driven around 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes, leveling the northern part of the territory and heightening fears about a similar fate for the south as Israel's air and ground offensive widens.

More than 20,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.

Hamas has put up steep resistance despite Israel's vow to dismantle the militant group.

About 1,200 people were killed after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, with around 240 people taken hostage.