We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
LAST UPDATE | 24 Dec 2023
THE HEALTH MINISTRY in Gaza said today that at least 20,424 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war with Israel.
The toll included 166 deaths in the past 24 hours, it said, as fighting continued in the war that broke out when Hamas launched its 7 October attack on southern Israel.
Despite growing calls for restraint and for more aid to reach war-stricken Palestinians, Israel showed little sign of modulating its 11-week-old “Operation Swords of Iron” – which aims to rout Hamas.
Fighting is now centred on Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Yunis, both considered Hamas strongholds.
After reports of heavy Israeli shelling, grey and black smoke rose over the north of the coastal territory and in Khan Yunis.
The refugee camp-turned-city is the birthplace of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza and the man Israel holds most responsible for the October attacks.
The Israeli Army chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, visited troops on the ground in Khan Yunis, telling them that the operation had been “very impressive, truly very impressive, both the attack here and carrying out the operation in a secure manner”.
Outside a morgue at the city’s Nasser Hospital, grieving relatives prayed, wept and stared vacantly as they tried to process incalculable loss.
Hamas authorities said the death toll from this war has now surged beyond 20,000.
“This is a genocide,” said resident Rafat Al Aydi.
Israel denies directly targeting civilians and says the war against Hamas is vital to ensure the October raids on farms, villages and kibbutzim that killed an estimated 1,140 people can never be repeated.
In Washington, President Joe Biden said he had another “long talk” with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House said the discussion focused on the “objectives and phasing” of Israel’s military operation, as well as “the critical need to protect the civilian population including those supporting the humanitarian aid operations”.
Israeli officials gave a terse readout of the call, saying “the Prime Minister made it clear that Israel would continue the war until all of its goals have been achieved”.
A total of 153 Israeli troops have been killed since the ground offensive began almost a month ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that the Gaza war was exacting a “very heavy price” as the toll of soldiers killed in fighting with Hamas mounted.
“This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza,” he said after the army announced 14 soldiers had been killed in the Palestinian territory since Friday.
“The war is exacting a very heavy price… but we have no choice but to keep fighting,” he added in a statement.
“We are continuing with full force until the end, until victory, until we achieve all of our goals: the destruction of Hamas, the return of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to the State of Israel.”
He added: “Let it be clear: This will be a long war… (until) Hamas is eliminated and we restore security in both the north and the south.”
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has had testy relations with a string of US presidents. But disagreements over how the Gaza war is being prosecuted, when it will end, and what happens the day after, have strained ties ever further.
On Friday, the United States allowed the passage of a UN Security Council resolution that effectively called on Israel to allow “immediate, safe and unhindered” deliveries of life-saving aid to Gaza “at scale”.
World powers had wrangled for days over the wording, and at Washington’s insistence toned down some provisions – including removing a call for a ceasefire.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has accused Israel of “creating massive obstacles” for aid deliveries.
For Palestinians in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, the prospect of aid alone was not enough.
“We don’t want food, we want a ceasefire,” said Mahmud al-Shaer.
Ahmad al-Burawi, who was displaced from Beit Lahia further north, added: “We just want to return to our lands, that’s all. We want a solution” to end the war. “People are dying,” he said.
The war has displaced about 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.4 million population, according to UN estimates.
Protesters marched today through Morocco’s capital in support of Palestinians, calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war which has killed thousands in the Gaza Strip.
The crowd in Rabat of about 10,000 people denounced what protest leaders called a “war of extermination” as well as the normalisation of relations between Morocco and Israel.
Israelis, including friends and relatives of the 129 captives still believed held in Gaza, demonstrated again on Saturday in Tel Aviv.
Hamas’s armed wing said it “lost contact” with militants tasked with guarding five of the hostages, including three elderly men who appeared in a hostage video the group released this week.
“We believe that those hostages have been killed” in Israeli strikes, said spokesman Abu Obeida without providing evidence.
Talks aimed at resuscitating a truce and prisoner swap appeared to be stalled.
An earlier truce allowed 80 Israeli hostages to be released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, but ended after one week.
Far from Gaza, a new attack on shipping yesterdat showed the war is already spilling over into the broader region.
Maritime agencies said a drone strike damaged a chemical tanker in waters off Veraval, India.
There was no claim of responsibility, but the Pentagon said it was a “one-way attack drone fired from Iran”.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels have repeatedly fired drones and missiles at ships in the Red Sea, saying they are targeting Israeli-linked vessels in solidarity with Gaza.
Iranian deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri on Saturday said the Huthis act on their “own decisions and capabilities”.
There also have been cross-border skirmishes between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement which, like Hamas, is backed by Iran.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say