Israel escalates strikes across Gaza after recovery of Palestinian fighters bodies

TNA’s live coverage of the latest from the war on Gaza concludes for today.

Join us again tomorrow at 0800 GMT for updates from the besieged Palestinian enclave.
 

Israeli warplanes carried out multiple airstrikes northeast of the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, located east of Gaza City, according to The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister outlet, al-Araby al-Jadeed.

Dublin City Council has approved a resolution to rename Herzog Park, which was originally dedicated to Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president, who spent his childhood in Dublin after being born in Belfast.

A proposal submitted in June 2024 called for the park to be renamed after Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces on 29 January 2024 along with six relatives.

Deputy Lord Mayor John Stephens said he supported the debate, stressing the importance of holding an open and transparent discussion.

His party colleague Rory Hogan also backed the change, arguing that it would highlight the severity of the suffering of Palestinians and that the current name was no longer suitable.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that 10 Palestinians were injured on Saturday in clashes with Israeli settlers near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

"Ten injuries during settler attacks in the Khala'il al-Luz area south of Bethlehem, including one injury from live ammunition, and nine injuries from beatings," the rescue service said in a statement.

The Israeli army said in a joint statement with the police that its forces "were dispatched to the outskirts of Bethlehem, following a report of a violent confrontation between Israeli civilians and Palestinians".

The clashes involved "stone hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene, as well as gunfire in the area toward the Palestinians," the statement said.

To halt the clashes, Israeli forces employed "crowd dispersal methods" and declared a "closed military zone in the area", the military said.

"Several Israeli civilians were injured but refused medical treatment," the statement added.

Thousands of Israelis, including hostages families, gather at Hostage Square for Saturday night rally.

The Israeli military has designated an area near the West Bank city of Bethlehem as a closed military zone after a settler attack that injured several Palestinians.

According to the army, soldiers and police were deployed to the outskirts of Bethlehem following reports that settlers had assaulted Palestinians.

The Palestine Red Crescent said 10 Palestinians were injured in the incident, including one who was shot.

The military added that troops used riot dispersal methods and had "declared a closed military zone in the area", a measure that will likely restrict movement for Palestinians living there.

Israeli police said the incident is under investigation.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem welcomed on Friday Pope Leo XIV's upcoming visit to Lebanon, saying he has tasked members of the Iran-backed group with delivering a letter to the pontiff.

"I welcome the Pope's visit to Lebanon," Qassem said in a televised speech, adding that he "tasked members of our political council with visiting the Papal Embassy and presenting a letter from Hezbollah to the Pope, which will also be published in the media".

After visiting Turkey, Leo is due to arrive in Lebanon on Sunday for a three-day trip that includes an open-air mass at Beirut's waterfront that organisers expect to draw 120,000 people, as well as an interreligious meeting in the city centre.

"We welcome this visit at this pivotal moment, and we pray that the Holy Father will contribute to spreading peace in Lebanon, liberating it, ending the (Israeli) aggression, and standing by it and by the oppressed, as we have always known him to do," Qassem said.

A 16-year-old boy was seriously injured in a shooting on Saturday in the coastal Palestinian village of Jisr al-Zarqa, according to police. Two other men sustained minor injuries.

Magen David Adom said the teenager and the two others were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Israel Police stated that the incident appears to be criminal in nature and confirmed that an investigation is under way.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that two people have been killed and 11 injured in the past 48 hours, bringing the reported death toll since the start of the war to 70,100.

Since the ceasefire began on 11 October, a further 354 people have been killed and 906 wounded, according to the ministry.

Israeli warplanes carried out heavy airstrikes on areas east of Rafah, as well as on Al-Qarara and Bani Suheila, located east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

No casualties were reported so far.

The Israeli military said it had worked with police to foil an alleged attempted weapons smuggling operation from Jordan.

According to the statement, one suspect was arrested and two firearms were confiscated during the incident.

The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that 50 countries and international organisations are now represented at the Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMC), which was set up by Washington in southern Israel to oversee the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

In a post on X, CENTCOM said: “One month after reaching full operational capability, the U.S.-led CMC is expanding to include representatives from 50 partner nations and international organisations.”

https://t.co/yFWTngvsVb

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) November 28, 2025

The new United States ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, said on Thursday that Israel "does not require the permission of the United States" to defend itself.

“Israel assesses its own security needs and will take whatever measures it deems necessary to protect its citizens,” Issa told Israeli news publication Haaretz.

He added that Washington remains in full contact with the Lebanese government and is “strongly urging them to implement their own historic decision to disarm Hezbollah.”

According to Issa, the U.S. commitment to this position “is essential for restoring the authority of the Lebanese state and safeguarding the country’s future.”

Israeli fire killed two Palestinian children in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, a hospital reported, marking the latest deaths of Palestinians as a shaky ceasefire with Hamas held.

The two brothers, aged 11 and 8, died when an Israeli drone struck close to a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Beni Suhaila, according to staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the killings.

At least 352 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on October 10, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Hamas once again called mediators on Saturday to pressure Israel to stop what it called ceasefire violations in Gaza following the killing of the two children.

Israeli forces have also pushed forward on a number of other fronts in recent weeks.

A young Palestinian woman was shot in the thigh by Israeli settlers in the West Bank village of Khaliel al-Louza, near Bethlehem, on Saturday morning, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which also reported that she had been beaten.

A new draft law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose support is crucial for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, has sparked uproar in Israel, with the opposition denouncing it as a special privilege for "draft-dodgers".

Under a ruling established at the time of Israel's creation in 1948, men who devote themselves full-time to studying sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto pass from mandatory military service.

But this exemption has come under mounting scrutiny from the rest of Israeli society -- particularly when tens of thousands of conscripts and reservists are mobilised on several fronts, despite the fragile truce halting the war in Gaza.

The ultra-Orthodox make up 14 percent of Israel's Jewish population.

Keeping ultra-Orthodox parties on board is key to the survival of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, and their opposition to mandatory military service proposals sparked a mass rally in Jerusalem in October.

Two ultra-Orthodox parties rejected a draft bill in July that would have seen an increasing number of ultra-Orthodox men enlisted each year, and financial penalties for those who refuse to comply.

On Thursday, a new draft was put forward by Boaz Bismuth, the chairman of parliament's cross-party foreign affairs and defence committee, which rolls back significantly from the previous text.

The UN Committee against Torture has voiced alarm over “widespread allegations” that Israel subjects Palestinian prisoners and detainees to torture.

In a report published on Friday, the committee expressed deep concern that Israel is violating its obligations under the Convention against Torture, to which it is a signatory.

The findings draw on information from multiple sources, including Palestinian testimony, submissions from the Israeli government, and reports from both international and Israeli organisations.

According to the committee, Palestinian detainees face conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

These include sexual abuse and “sexualized forms of torture”, unsanitary living conditions, and the systematic denial of medical care.

The report also concludes that the Israeli justice system is failing to meet its obligations to investigate and prosecute individuals suspected of committing torture.

Israeli forces have continued their assault on the West Bank city of Tubas for the fourth consecutive day.

Troops carried out further incursions into Tubas, as well as the nearby towns of Tayasir and Aqaba in the Tubas and northern Jordan Valley governorates, conducting raids, arrests and converting civilian homes into military outposts.

The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister site al-Araby al-Jadeed, citing local sources, confirmed that Israeli forces withdrew from the Far'a refugee camp, south of Tubas, early on Saturday morning. This followed a 24-hour military operation involving raids, searches, field interrogations and arrests. The occupation forces also demolished a room inside the camp on Friday evening.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces persisted with raids across Tubas and the towns of Tayasir and Aqaba, continuing to turn homes into military barracks.

Al-Araby al-Jadeed reported that the army is carrying out arrests, searches and field interrogations, in addition to closing roads and imposing a siege on the targeted areas.

According to its sources, the number of arrests in the Tubas and northern Jordan Valley governorates since the beginning of the offensive has reached around 250, most of whom were later released after field interrogations.

Hezbollah's leader on Friday said the group had the right to respond to Israel's assassination of its top military chief in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs days ago.

In a televised speech, Naim Qassem called the killing of Haytham Ali Tabtabai "a blatant aggression and a heinous crime", adding that his group had "the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that".

Qassem insisted that the Iran-backed group has respected the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities with Israel, calling for an end to persistent Israeli strikes on the country.

"Do you expect there to be a war later? It's possible at some point, yes, that possibility exists," Qassem said, referring to increased fears in Lebanon of a renewed, broader war.

He noted, hoever, that a wider conflict may still be avoided "because Israel is weighing its options, and America is weighing its options as well".

Tabtabai was in a meeting with four of his aides "to prepare for future actions" when he was struck, Qassem said.

He was the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since the truce, during which Israel has kept up strikes and said it has targeted numerous members of the group.