Occupied Al-Quds: The Ministry of Health in Gaza says 390 Palestinians have been killed and another 734 people have been injured in the past 48 hours while communications were suspended, Al Jazeera reported.
Gaza’s civil defence workers and civilian volunteers worked through the night to recover bodies and look for survivors, after another Israeli strike on the southern city of Rafah.
According to a post on the Palestinian civil defence’s Facebook page, which was verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit, Sanad, Israeli forces struck the residential buildings belonging to the Dhair family, northwest of Rafah, and the Kurdish family in Rafah’s Yabna refugee camp.
The post on Facebook reads: “Civil defence teams retrieve several bodies and rescue several injured after the Israeli occupation forces targeted the house of Dhair family northwest of Rafah. Several people were also rescued from the rubble of the Kurd family residence in Yabna refugee camp.”
The credibility and power of Hamas have increased significantly in the two months since the October 7 terror assault and the start of Israel’s military assault in the Middle East and abroad, according to a rush of fresh assessments from US intelligence agencies.
The assessments suggest that Hamas has emerged as the sole armed group fighting against Israel’s relentless air campaign in Gaza, claiming to be a defender of the Palestinian cause and an effective fighter against Israel, as thousands of civilians have been killed.
Officials have varying assessments of the group’s effectiveness.
Hamas has also been credited with negotiating the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel in exchange for some of the hostages it holds from the October 7 attack on southern Israel, according to sources.
Additionally, Hamas videos, portraying the group as moral fighters following Islamic teachings, coupled with a flood of devastating images of civilian suffering inside Gaza, have gone viral on Arab social media.
Before October 7, a senior administration official said, “Hamas [was] not a wildly popular organisation. Today it’s more popular.”
However, the US intelligence agencies have raised concerns that the conflict may do more to boost Hamas’ influence outside of Gaza than within it, where years of poor governance have bred mistrust.
Israel’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire has Canada and its allies “increasingly concerned” that Tel Aviv is damaging chances for a long-term peace, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said.
In the long run, it may even erode support for Israel, Trudeau said in a year-end interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), released on Thursday.
“The voices from Israel’s strongest friends, like Canada, like Australia, especially like the United States are becoming increasingly concerned that the short-term actions being taken by Israel are actually putting at risk the long-term safety and even support for a Jewish state into the future,” he said.
Trudeau’s words were similar to those made by US President Joe Biden, who warned last week that Israel is “starting to lose that (allies) support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
The casualties since Hamas hit Israel with a surprise attack on Oct. 7 are appalling.
The Palestinian Health Ministry, run by Hamas, said nearly 20,000 Palestinians have died and 1.9 million displaced through Israeli land and air assaults.
Canada joined other nations earlier in December and voted for a UN non-binding resolution calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire. “
Canada’s call for the cease-fire is a policy change since it normally votes in support of Israel.
“We’ve changed how we’ve articulated our position. But the position itself hasn’t changed,” Trudeau said. “We’ve always said that Israel has a right to defend itself per international law. We have always called for the protection of civilians.”
During the interview, Trudeau also repeated Canada’s backing for a two-state solution.
Fourteen Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in three separate attacks on Thursday in northern, central and southern Gaza Strip, medics said. Medics and Gazan media said the director of the police station in Khan Younis was killed along with members of his family in a strike on their house.
An Israeli air strike targeted the house of Dr Munir Al-Bursh, the director of Gaza Health Ministry, medics said. Bursh was wounded and one of his daughters was killed, the medics said.
For journalists, the first 10 weeks of the war have been the deadliest recorded, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CP) said in a report on Thursday. Most of the journalists and media workers killed — 61 out of 68 — were Palestinian, it said.
UN Security Council (UNSC) diplomats delayed until Friday a vote on a resolution to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza and another round of talks took place in Egypt to try to get warring Israel and Hamas to agree on a new truce so hostages can be released.
The UN vote was delayed despite the United States saying it can now support an amended proposal that would demand that Israel and Hamas allow the use of “all available routes” for humanitarian deliveries.
Even as diplomatic efforts continued, fighting in the Gaza Strip intensified with Israeli bombardments in the north and south of the 41 km (25 mile)-long Palestinian territory and Hamas firing rockets on Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv, officials said on Thursday.
A latest UN report revealed that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are at “imminent risk of famine” as Israel continues its attack relentlessly.
Gazans are becoming the population with the “highest share of people facing levels of acute food insecurity ever classified” by IPC, which is an international classification system used by aid agencies and governments.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Israeli forces reportedly forced Palestinian families out of their homes in the al-Nazla area in Jabalia and set households on fire on Wednesday.
