Christians in Gaza face sombre Christmas as Israeli strikes kill 27

Five people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood, medics said early on Thursday.

A Palestinian man has been shot and killed by Israeli forces in the town of Qaffin, north of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

Security sources quoted by the Wafa news agency said 25-year-old Ahmed Mahmoud Khaled Amarneh was killed as his house in the area of Jabal Amarneh was raided.

With the killing of Amarneh, the number of Palestinians killed in Tulkarem since the ongoing aggression began at dawn on Tuesday has risen to nine.

Syria's new interior minister said Wednesday that 14 personnel were killed by "remnants" of toppled leader Bashar al-Assad's "regime" in Tartus province after a war monitor reported deadly clashes in the region.

Interior Minister Mohammed Abdel Rahman said in a statement that "14 interior ministry personnel were killed and 10 others wounded after... a treacherous ambush by remnants of the criminal regime" in Tartus province "while performing their tasks of maintaining security and safety".

A Palestinian man has been shot and killed by Israeli forces in the town of Qaffin, north of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

Security sources quoted by the Wafa news agency said 25-year-old Ahmed Mahmoud Khaled Amarneh was killed as his house in the area of Jabal Amarneh was raided.

With the killing of Amarneh, the number of Palestinians killed in Tulkarem since the ongoing aggression began at dawn on Tuesday has risen to nine.

A Syria war monitor said nine people were killed on Wednesday in clashes in Tartus province after security forces sought to arrest an officer under deposed leader Bashar al-Assad who was linked to a notorious prison.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "six members of the General Security force" of Syria's new authorities were killed, along with "three armed men" in Khirbet al-Maaza, after forces sought to arrest an officer who was among "those responsible for the crimes of the Saydnaya prison".

An HTS official confirmed to AFP that clashes erupted between the new authorities' security forces and supporters of the former government in Tartus province - a stronghold of Assad's Alawite minority - without commenting on the reason for the clashes.

Yemen’s Houthi group has claimed an attack on the Israeli industrial zone in the Ashkelon area.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the group said they had carried out another operation against a “sensitive enemy target” in the Jaffa area.

The Israeli army is preparing to possibly stay in southern Lebanon after the 60 days agreed upon in the ceasefire agreement, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported.

The report said that the army would stay in the area if the Lebanese army did not fulfil its agreements and achieve full control of southern Lebanon.

In that scenario, the army would remain in the territory until the Lebanese army took over.

Thursday marks 30 days since the ceasefire was announced. During that time, Israel and Hezbollah have traded blame for several ceasefire violations.

A Syria war monitor said one protester was killed and five others wounded in central Syria after security forces opened fire to disperse demonstrators protesting an attack on an Alawite shrine.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that "one demonstrator was killed and five others wounded after security forces in the city of Homs opened fire to disperse those demonstrating against the attack on the shrine", after video footage of the incident emerged earlier in the day.

A baby girl froze to death overnight in Gaza.

The 3-week-old baby was the third to die from the cold in Gaza's tent camps in recent days, doctors said, deaths that underscore the squalid conditions, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into often ramshackle tents after fleeing Israeli offensives.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children.

At least 25 people have been detained by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank since Tuesday night, the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said.

The groups said the detentions were accompanied by assaults and threats against detainees and their families.

They added that Israeli forces continued to storm the city of Tulkarem and soldiers carried out field investigations and detained dozens of citizens in the Amari camp south of Ramallah who were later released.

Since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, more than 12,100 Palestinians have been detained from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, according to local authorities.

Israeli President Issac Herzog has called on Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire to return the captives held in Gaza.

"The lives of the hostages are in danger, so I call on the leadership to make a deal, as this is your role," Herzog said.

President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday urged Israeli leaders to use all their "power and means" to secure a deal for the release of hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.

"I call on our leadership to act with all its power and with all the means at our disposal to bring about a deal," Herzog, whose role is largely symbolic, said in a statement.

Syria's new authorities said Wednesday that video footage of an attack on an Alawite shrine was "old" and that "unknown groups" were behind the incident, after protests erupted in the minority community's heartland.

The footage showing "the storming and attack" of the shrine in Aleppo is "old and dates to the time of the liberation" of the northern Syrian city by rebels earlier this month, an interior ministry statement said, adding that the attack was carried out by "unknown groups" and that "republishing" the video served to "stir up strife among the Syrian people at this sensitive stage".

An Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people in Gaza City has left at least three dead, according to civil defense teams.

Several others were wounded in the attack, with rescue efforts ongoing.

Israeli forces have demolished a park in the town of Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, according to Wafa news agency.

The park, located in the Khallet al-Daliya area, included a swimming pool, restaurant, cafe, and other facilities.

Israeli authorities claimed it was built without a permit.

Witnesses reported that the area was sealed off, and the park's owner was barred from salvaging its contents.

Tear gas and sound bombs were used to deter anyone from approaching the site. This follows the demolition of three houses and agricultural facilities in Nahalin’s Qarnat al-Damas area three weeks ago.

The Israeli occupation forces demolish a park in Nahalin village, west of Bethlehem. pic.twitter.com/70442Sy5WW

— Eye on Palestine (@EyeonPalestine) December 25, 2024

Supporters of the ousted Syrian regime reportedly fired at civilian homes in Homs before security forces stepped in, according to al-Araby al-Jadeed, The New Arab's Arabic-language news outlet.

Israel refuted Hamas allegations that it was delaying a hostage release and ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip, saying it was the Palestinian group that was creating "new obstacles" to an agreement.

"The terrorist organisation Hamas is once again lying, reneging on understandings already reached, and continuing to create new obstacles in the negotiations," said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A key Syrian rescue group and an activist told news agency AFP on Wednesday a burial site outside Damascus was likely a mass grave for detainees held under former president Bashar al-Assad and fighters killed in the civil war.

In a vast walled area located near the Baghdad Bridge, some 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the capital, AFP reported visiting the site saw a long row of graves more than one metre deep, mostly covered with cement slabs.

Several of the slabs had been moved and inside, white bags could be seen stacked over each other with names and numbers written on them.

One of the bags contained a human skull and bones.

"We think this is a mass grave -- we found an open grave with seven bags filled with bones," said Abdel Rahman Mawas from the White Helmets rescue group, which visited the site several days earlier.

He told AFP by telephone that the bags, six of which bore names, were "taken to a secure location", adding that "necessary procedures were begun for DNA testing".

He said if additional graves had been exposed it meant other people may have been searching the site, warning people to "stay away from graves and let the relevant authorities handle them".

The site, near the Adra industrial area northeast of the capital, is less than 20 kilometres from the Saydnaya prison.

Diab Serriya, from the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison, said the site was first identified in 2019 through "testimony of an intelligence personnel member who had deserted".

 The director general of Israel's Finance Ministry, Shlomi Heisler, will step down following the 2025 state budget next month after two years in the post, citing "urgent personal reasons", the ministry said on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich appointed Heisler, an attorney, as the Treasury's most senior civil servant in January 2023. A successor has not yet been named.

Heisler, who had medical issues a few months ago but recovered to start working on the 2025 budget, said the past two years has been among the most challenging in Israel's history, especially after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

"After two years, after the intense fighting in the war has ended, residents can return to their homes in the north and south, and after the budget ... passes the Knesset (parliament), due to personal circumstances, I asked the Finance Minister to end my position," Heisler said in a statement.

"I have worked with the Finance Minister hand in hand and I am very sorry to be forced to end my role now," he added.

Israeli media reported that Heisler had opposed a number of Smotrich's policies.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, reported on Wednesday that one child is killed every hour in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire.

"These are not just numbers. These are lives cut short," said UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini.

In October, the Israeli parliament passed two laws banning UNRWA operations in Israel and occupied Palestine, despite international calls to halt the ban.

UNRWA is a key provider of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in both Palestine and neighboring refugee-hosting countries.

In #Gaza, "one child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short."

— @UNLazzarini

Every child needs a #CeasefireNow. pic.twitter.com/S4uOkZr5l3

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 25, 2024

Ismail al-Thawabta, spokesperson for Gaza’s Government Media Office, told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) that Israeli attacks on the Christian community in Gaza are part of a "systematic policy" to erase the region's diverse human and historical presence.

He stated that Israeli forces have killed 3% of Gaza’s Christian population during the conflict and destroyed three churches, calling the attacks a "flagrant violation" of international laws protecting places of worship.

Hamas said Wednesday that "new conditions" imposed by Israel had delayed the finalisation of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, but acknowledged that negotiations were still proceeding.

"The ceasefire and prisoner exchange negotiations are continuing in Doha under the mediation of Qatar and Egypt in a serious manner... but the occupation has set new conditions concerning withdrawal (of troops), the ceasefire, prisoners, and the return of displaced people, which has delayed reaching an agreement," the Palestinian group said in a statement.

Syria's new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, two security officials told news agency AFP, including one million pills of the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon, whose industrial-scale production flourished under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

"We found a large quantity of captagon, around one million pills," said a member of the security forces, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Osama.

According to AFP, forces were reported to be pouring fuel over and set fire to a cache of cannabis, the painkiller tramadol and around 50 bags of pink captagon pills in the capital's security compound.

More than 45,361 Palestinians have been killed and 107,803 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Kurdish militants in Syria will either lay down their weapons or "be buried", amid hostilities between Turkey-backed Syrian fighters and the militants since the fall of Bashar al-Assad this month.

Following Assad's departure, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia must disband, asserting that the group has no place in Syria's future. The change in Syria's leadership has left the country's main Kurdish factions on the back foot.

"The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons," Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in parliament.

"We will eradicate the terrorist organisation that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish siblings," he added.

Turkey views the Kurdish YPG militia - the main component of the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militia, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Ankara has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Washington and others to stop supporting the YPG.

Earlier, Turkey's defence ministry said the armed forces had killed 21 YPG-PKK militants in northern Syria and Iraq.

In a Reuters interview last week, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped battle Islamic State and would return home if a total ceasefire was agreed with Turkey, a core demand from Ankara.

He denied any organisational ties with the PKK.

Erdogan also said Turkey would soon open its consulate in Aleppo, and added Ankara expected an increase in traffic at its borders in the summer of next year, as some of the millions of Syrian migrants it hosts begin returning.

Pope Francis denounced the "extremely grave" humanitarian situation in Gaza and appealed for the freeing of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in his traditional Christmas address in Rome.

"I think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave. May there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war," he said on Wednesday.

Am’ari Refugee Camp:

Israeli forces injured three Palestinians during a raid on the Am’ari refugee camp, south of Ramallah, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported treating a young man shot in the foot, another run over by a military vehicle, and a third assaulted.

Israeli forces also conducted mass arrests, targeting Palestinians from Gaza and detaining Palestine TV driver Shadi Kifaya. Witnesses allege that detainee Firas Jaber was handcuffed and used as a human shield during the operation.

Tammun:
In a separate incident, a 17-year-old Palestinian succumbed to injuries sustained in a drone strike during an overnight raid on the town of Tammun in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reports.

The attack targeted a group of young men, further escalating tensions in the region.

Lebanon's state media said an Israeli air strike targeted the Baalbek region in the east of the country before dawn on Wednesday, branding it a "violation" of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The truce went into effect on November 27 after more than a year of hostilities that began with the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Both sides have since accused the other of breaching the ceasefire.

Wednesday's strike near the town of Tarya did not result in casualties, the state-run National News Agency said, calling the attack the "first violation of the ceasefire agreement" in the Baalbek area.

A Lebanese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strike targeted "warehouses believed to belong to Hezbollah".

Hezbollah has for decades held sway in south Beirut, and the south and east of the country.

At least 27 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since dawn, with the death toll expected to rise as many remain trapped beneath rubble, reports Al Jazeera English.

Five fatalities were reported, as a drone strike on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed one individual instantly, while another drone attack in Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza claimed four more lives.

The casualties also include nine members of a single family killed overnight in Jabalia, along with others across Khan Younis, Gaza City, and the central areas.

Health officials have identified and registered the victims who have reached hospitals, but the numbers remain conservative as many bodies are yet to be recovered from under the rubble.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that a commander was moderately injured after his vehicle was hit by an explosive device during a "counter-terrorism" operation in the area of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. 

Iran on Tuesday denounced what it termed Israel's "brazen admission" of having killed former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year, accusing the country of having carried out a "heinous crime" and defending its missile-strike response.

"This brazen admission marks the first time the Israeli regime has openly confessed to its responsibility for this heinous crime," said Iran's ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani in a letter addressed to the UN secretary-general.

On Monday, Israel's defense minister Israel Katz acknowledged his country was responsible for the killing, the first time an official admission had been made.

Haniyeh, who was seen as leading Hamas's negotiation efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, was killed in a guesthouse in Tehran on July 31, reportedly by an explosive device that had been placed by Israeli operatives weeks before.

Until Monday, Israel had never admitted to killing Haniyeh, but Iran and Hamas had attributed the Hamas political leader's death to the nation.

On Tuesday, Iranian UN Ambassador Iravani termed Israel's killing of Haniyeh a "heinous terrorist act," adding that Katz's statement showed Iran was justified in striking Israel in retaliation.

"It also reaffirms the legitimacy and legality of Iran's defensive response on 1 October 2024, as well as Iran's consistent position that the occupying and terrorist regime of Israel remains the most serious threat to regional and international peace and security."

Yemen's Houthi rebels said Wednesday that they had fired a ballistic missile at central Israel, with Israeli forces saying they intercepted the attack.

The missile was aimed at the Tel Aviv area, the Iran-backed Houthis said. The Israelis reported it was shot down before it entered Israeli territory.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces targeted a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of Yaffa (Tel Aviv) using a hypersonic ballistic missile, type Palestine 2," a Huthi military statement said.

"The operation has successfully achieved its objectives," it added.

In the latest attack, air raid sirens sounded over a wide swathe of central Israel as a precaution against falling debris.

But the army said it had shot down the projectile before it entered Israel. No injuries were reported, according to Israel's emergency medical services.

"A missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory," the Israeli army wrote on Telegram.

Christians across the world celebrated Christmas Wednesday, with the mood darkened by wars and a massive Christmas morning attack on Ukraine by Russia and a plane crash in Kazakhstan.

With the war in Gaza also showing no signs of ending, Pope Francis was also expected to call for peace in the Middle East during his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) speech at midday in Rome.

Francis used his Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican to urge Christians to think of "the wars, of the machine-gunned children, of the bombs on schools or hospitals" after another year of raging conflicts.

Since the war in Gaza began, Bethlehem has done away with its giant Christmas tree and the elaborate decorations that normally draw throngs of tourists, settling for just a few festive lights.

Israeli airstrikes killed 13 Palestinians during predawn attacks on Gaza, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

In southern Khan Younis, at least 10 people lost their lives, and several others were injured when a house was bombed in the Maen area.

Separately, a man and his wife were killed in a strike on a residential building near the Ain Jalut Towers in the central Nuseirat refugee camp.

Another casualty was reported in Deir el-Balah, where a young man was killed during a raid on his home.