EXPLAINER
Son of Al Jazeera journalist was killed by an Israeli missile and Al-Aqsa Hospital was evacuated. Here’s the latest.
Here’s how things stand on Friday, January 8, 2024:
Latest updates
- Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza was partially evacuated as a result of increasing Israeli military activity. World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X on Sunday that about 600 patients and medical staff were forced to leave and their location is unknown.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government is grappling with a “plague of leaks” and proposed that ministers who attend security meetings should undergo a polygraph test.
- There are rising divisions within the Israeli government. Three ministers from the National Unity Party, including Benny Gantz, have boycotted a meeting, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported.
- Israel has signalled that it is ready to end its bombardment of northern Gaza, saying it has “dismantled” Hamas in that part of the Gaza Strip. However, intense military operations look set to continue in the rest of the enclave.
- WHO cancelled a mission to northern Gaza’s al-Awda Hospital for the fourth time since December 26 after the UN agency failed to receive security guarantees.
Today, @WHO cancelled a planned mission to Al-Awda hospital and the central drug store in northern #Gaza for the fourth time since 26 Dec because we did not receive deconfliction and safety guarantees.
The mission planned to move urgently needed medical supplies to sustain the… pic.twitter.com/6v09rPbBb1
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) January 7, 2024
Human impact and fighting
- As many as 73 Palestinian people were killed and 99 wounded in attacks by Israel on Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
- Palestinian media reported that at least eight people were killed after an Israeli air attack hit a house in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
- Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was killed by an Israeli missile attack on a vehicle in Khan Younis.
- Journalist Mustafa Thuraya was also killed in the attack. The missile hit the vehicle near al-Mawasi, a supposedly safe area towards the southwest.
- UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said on Sunday that 142 of its employees have been killed by ongoing Israeli air raids on Gaza since the war broke out on October 7.
Diplomacy
- A large group of people gathered outside the US embassy in Stockholm on Sunday to protest against Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza.
- In a diplomatic visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met leaders from Qatar and Jordan.
- The Jordan Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it has agreed with the US on rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, a proposal repeatedly laid out by Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
- Former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness told Al Jazeera that an International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision could put “huge pressure on the Americans to bring about a proper ceasefire” as Israel and South Africa head to The Hague later this week.
- Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri criticised Arab and Islamic countries which have not yet expressed official support for South Africa’s call for genocide proceedings against Israel at the ICJ.
- German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in Israel on Sunday for meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
Foreign Minister @ABaerbock has arrived for her 4th visit to Israel since the Hamas terror attacks. She has come to meet President @Isaac_Herzog and her colleague minister @Israel_katz, hostage families, and experts on the sexual crimes committed on 7/10. pic.twitter.com/yFGyocz2HP
— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) January 7, 2024
West Bank raids
- There are reports of ongoing raids in Bethlehem’s Dheisheh camp, Arroub camp, north of Hebron, Dura and Yatta, south of Hebron and Qabalan, south of Nablus.
- Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues have reported that Israeli forces arrested a doctor and a nurse as they raided several locations in the adjacent cities of Ramallah and el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank on Sunday night.
- An Israeli settler attack on Sunday injured a man in the northern Jordan Valley region, just northeast of the occupied West Bank. local sources told Palestinian news agency Wafa.