Middle East crisis live: hopes for Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal rise as officials express cautious optimism | Israel-Gaza war
Summary of the day so far…
The US, joined by Arab mediators, is seeking to conclude a long-negotiated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. A Palestinian official told Reuters earlier today that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses. He said Israel, however, had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.
Turkish rescue workers have ended their search for survivors in the notorious Sednaya prison – a facility for political prisoners nicknamed the “human slaughterhouse” on the outskirts of Damascus – after finding no detainees languishing in any hidden cells.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops will occupy a recently seized buffer zone in Syria for the foreseeable future. Israeli troops occupied the positions on the mountain when they moved into a demilitarised zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after the collapse earlier this month of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.
At least 45,097 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,244 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said. Of those, 38 Palestinians were killed and 203 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
A World Health Organization official said that Israeli attacks on northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital has left the facility without surgical or maternal care capacity. “The fear endured by the hospital’s staff and patients in recent days is indescribable – and unacceptable,” she wrote on X.
Key events
German diplomats, led by the country’s Middle East commissioner Tobias Tunkel, yesterday held talks with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) leader, Ahmed al Sharaa, its foreign affairs representative Zaid al-Attar and the transition government’s education minister.
At Tuesday’s meeting in Damascus the two sides discussed the political transition in Syria and human rights, Germany’s foreign office said. The German delegation spoke with civil society and religious organisations and inspected Germany’s embassy building in Damascus.
On Wednesday, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said the delegation meeting with members of the Syrian interim government was a good opportunity to make contact with the country’s new de facto rulers.
“This was the first good opportunity to get in touch with HTS and the de facto guardians in Damascus,” the spokesperson said, referring to HTS, the Islamist group left in charge following the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.
Summary of the day so far…
The US, joined by Arab mediators, is seeking to conclude a long-negotiated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. A Palestinian official told Reuters earlier today that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses. He said Israel, however, had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.
Turkish rescue workers have ended their search for survivors in the notorious Sednaya prison – a facility for political prisoners nicknamed the “human slaughterhouse” on the outskirts of Damascus – after finding no detainees languishing in any hidden cells.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops will occupy a recently seized buffer zone in Syria for the foreseeable future. Israeli troops occupied the positions on the mountain when they moved into a demilitarised zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after the collapse earlier this month of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.
At least 45,097 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,244 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said. Of those, 38 Palestinians were killed and 203 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
A World Health Organization official said that Israeli attacks on northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital has left the facility without surgical or maternal care capacity. “The fear endured by the hospital’s staff and patients in recent days is indescribable – and unacceptable,” she wrote on X.
After months of deadlock, Israel and Hamas appear to be moving closer toward a ceasefire to end Israel’s 14-month-old war on Gaza.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations told Reuters earlier today that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses. He said Israel had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.
Qatar, along with the US and Egypt, has been involved in months of behind-the-scenes negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release. In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met Adam Boehler, US President-elect Donald Trump’s designated envoy for hostage affairs. Trump has threatened that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release its hostages by 20 January, the day Trump returns to office.
CIA Director William Burns was due in Doha on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on bridging remaining gaps in the truce talks.
Hamas and other Palestinian militia now reportedly appear to be more open and flexible over a slower, phased end to the fighting with talks focused on the number of hostages to be released in any first phase.
As my colleague Peter Beaumont notes in this story, sticking points that torpedoed previous rounds of talks, including the presence of Israel troops in the so-called Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors inside Gaza, appear to have been sidelined for now, although a continuing issue is understood to be the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes in the strip’s north.
Israeli forces have detained at least 15 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since last night, the Palestinian Authority’s Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said.
According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, the detentions were carried out in Jericho, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Jerusalem.
These detentions were accompanied by assaults, threats against detainees and their families and the destruction of property, Wafa reported.
It is estimated that over 12,100 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.
They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
Israeli soldiers removed a small far-right group of Israeli civilians who had crossed into Lebanon, appearing to put up a tent settlement, in what the military has said was a serious incident now under investigation.
The Times of Israel reported 10 days ago that the group, advocating the annexation and settlement of southern Lebanon, said they had crossed the border and established an outpost. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said they had been promptly removed.
A statement from the IDF read:
The preliminary investigation indicates that the civilians indeed crossed the blue line by a few metres, and after being identified by IDF forces, they were removed from the area.
Any attempt to approach or cross the border into Lebanese territory without coordination poses a life-threatening risk and interferes with the IDF’s ability to operate in the area and carry out its mission.
The Times of Israel said the area the group claimed to have entered was under Israeli military control as part of a ceasefire deal signed last month between Israel and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. Under the terms of the 26 November ceasefire, Israeli forces may remain in Lebanon for 60 days. Israel has not established settlements in southern Lebanon, including when its military occupied the area from 1982-2000.
Staff at northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital describe night of ‘horror’ as Israeli attacks continue
Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, has said that Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan hospital, located inside the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, has left the facility without surgical or maternal care capacity.
In a post on X, Balkhy wrote:
Who and partners were recently able to deliver 5,000 liters of fuel, medical supplies, and food, and transfer 3 patients with 6 companions to al-Shifa hospital after multiple arbitrarily denied missions.
Despite these efforts, an international medical team urgently needed for Kamal Adwan hospital has not been permitted to deploy.
The fear endured by the hospital’s staff and patients in recent days is indescribable—and unacceptable. Peace in Gaza is now long overdue.
Gaza’s health ministry has said the three main hospitals in northern Gaza – of which Kamal Adwan is one – are barely functioning and have been under repeated attack since Israel sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and nearby Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in October. The Israeli military claims the aim of the renewed assault on the north, launched in October, is to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there. But the IDF has attacked hospitals and shelters, with many civilians being killed by Israeli forces amid relentless attacks.
Eid Sabbah, the director of nursing at Kamal Adwan Hospital, described a night “full of horror”, with Israeli quadcopter drones reportedly having fired at the medical compound and surrounding buildings.
“They targeted the Battah family home in the vicinity of the hospital. Fifteen bodies arrived at the hospital including six people from the Battah family,” Sabbah told Al Jazeera. “Many have been wounded and many are still under the rubble.” Sabbah said centralised oxygen is unavailable. Elsewhere, Muhammad Saleh, director of al-Awda hospital in Jabalia, said Israeli shelling in the vicinity damaged the facility, injuring seven medics and one patient inside the hospital.
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza reaches 45,097, says health ministry
At least 45,097 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,244 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Of those, 38 Palestinians were killed and 203 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory..
Hadi al-Bahra, head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), has said Syria’s transitional government should be credible and not exclude any Syrian party or be based on sectarianism.
The SNC is an alliance of opposition groups formed in exile following the 2011 uprising against former Syrian president Bashar-al Assad.
Syria’s 13-year civil war took on sectarian dimensions as Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, mobilised regional Shi’ite allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to help fight Sunni rebels.
His rhetoric struck a chord with many in Syria’s minority groups – including Christians, Druze and Shiites – as well as some Sunnis who feared the prospect of rule by Sunni extremists even more than they disliked Assad’s authoritarian rule.
The Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that toppled the Assad regime are now the de facto rulers of Syria. They have promised to respect minority rights but many are suspicious if this vow will hold in the long-term.
Netanyahu says Israel will occupy Syria buffer zone for foreseeable future
As we mentioned in a previous post, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said yesterday that Israeli forces will stay in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, despite growing calls to withdraw from the newly captured territory.
Netanyahu made the comments from the summit of Mount Hermon, inside Syria, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
My colleague, Peter Beaumont, has written this about Netanyahu’s comments (you can read his full story here):
Israeli troops occupied the positions on the mountain when they moved into a demilitarised zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria this month.
While officials have previously described the move as a limited and temporary measure to ensure the security of Israel’s borders, they have given no indication of when their troops might be withdrawn.
The Israel defence minister, Israel Katz, last week ordered Israeli troops to prepare to remain on Mount Hermon over the winter.
Netanyahu, in a statement issued by his office, said: “We are holding this assessment in order to decide on the deployment of the IDF in this important place until another arrangement is found that ensures Israel’s security.”
“It makes me nostalgic,” he added. “I was here 53 years ago with my soldiers in a patrol of the Israel Defense Forces. The place hasn’t changed, it’s the same place, but its importance to Israel’s security has only grown in recent years, and especially in recent weeks with the dramatic events that are happening here below us in Syria.”
Israel captured a significant part of Syria’s Golan Heights during the six day war in 1967, with that territory being regarded as being occupied by most countries.
The new positions seized by the IDF comprise a demilitarised buffer zone in Syria created following the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
Rescue workers end search for survivors in Sednaya prison
The Assad regime left prisoners to rot for decades in the notorious Sednaya prison, called a “human slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International, on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital (you can read more about the prison here).
During Assad’s rule and particularly after the 2011 pro-democracy protests began, any hint of dissent could land someone in Sednaya. The prison became inaccessible to journalists and independent observers. In 2017, Amnesty International estimated that 10,000-20,000 people were being held there at the time “from every sector of society”. It said they were effectively marked for “extermination”.
Since the fall of the Assad regime early this month, thousands of people released from prisons have been reunited with their families, but tens of thousands of others remain unaccounted for, leaving families desperate for closure. Turkish rescue workers have now ended their search for survivors in the Sednaya prison, after finding no detainees languishing in any hidden cells.
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