Above photo: Relatives of the Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on Nuseirat refugee camp, mourn as the funeral prayers is held for the bodies at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Dair al-Balah in central of Gaza strip, on December 12, 2024. Omar Ashtawy/apaimages.
As a ceasefire deal appears to be inching closer in Gaza, Israel continues to carry out massacres in the Strip.
Killing at least 26 Palestinians in one attack. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers continue to attack Palestinian towns.
Casualties
- 44,835 + killed* and at least 106,356 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children, and elderly.
- 811+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
- 3,962 Lebanese killed and more than 16,520 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.
- Israel recognizes the death of 890 Israeli soldiers, policemen and intelligence officers and the injury of at least 5,065 others since October 7.****
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on December 12, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of December 12, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on December 9, 2024. The counting is based on the Lebanese official date for the beginning of “the Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” when Israel began airstrikes on Lebanese territory after the beginning of Hezbollah’s “support front” for Gaza.
**** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on August 4, 2024, that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7 and as of June 18.
Key Developments
Gaza
- Israel kills 70 Palestinians since the early hours of Thursday in air and artillery strikes across the Gaza Strip, including 57 in the center and south of the strip.
- Israel kills 26 Palestinians in a single strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday.
- Israel continues to besiege the north of Gaza for the 70th day in a row.
- Palestinian medical sources say that 12,000 Palestinians have been wounded or injured by Israeli forces in the north of Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s siege on the area in early October.
- Israeli forces bomb several areas and residential buildings in the Sabra and Sheikh Radwan neighborhoods in Gaza City.
- The mayor of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, says that Israel is trying to make Rafah an uninhabitable city, noting that it has destroyed many residential buildings and water and electricity networks in the city since the beginning of its attack on the city last May.
- The U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan says that he will go to Cairo and Doha to breach the final gaps in the Gaza ceasefire talks.
- The families of Israeli captives in Gaza say that Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
- The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an unconditional release of all captives.
- The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution calling to continue to support the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.
Syria
- Israel invades new Syrian territory, including nine Syrian towns in the Golan and forces inhabitants to leave their homes.
- The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken affirms support for Israel’s invasion of Syrian territory, saying it aims to prevent armed groups from filling the vacuum created by the collapse of the Syrian army, and indicates that the U.S. will make sure that Israel’s presence inside Syria will “remain temporary.”
- The Israeli army says it conducted more than 300 air strikes in Syria, destroying the country’s military assets and scientific research center.
- The UN says it will maintain its peacekeeping forces in Syria and says that Israel’s actions are a breach of signed agreements between the two countries.
- The head of the Syrian rebel forces, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, known as “Abu Mohammad Al-Joulani,” says that “the Syrian people are exhausted” and that “Syria will not go into a new war.”
West Bank
- Israel demolishes 11 Palestinian properties, including homes and livestock stables in the Palestinian hamlet of Twayil, and two homes in the village of Zaatara in eastern Nablus.
- Israel kills two Palestinians aged 25 in raids on Qalqilya and in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus.
- Israeli forces seal off Bethlehem and raid several surrounding towns following a shooting attack that killed a 12-year-old Israeli child. The Israeli army said that the shooter is a 28-year-old Palestinian from the village of Beit Awa near Hebron, and that shooter handed himself over to Israeli forces.
- Israeli settlers assault a Palestinian family inside their house in Silwan, in Jerusalem, and throw their belongings outside of the house in an attempt to take over the home. Israeli police arrest the father of the Palestinian family.
- Israeli settlers storm the village of Ain Al-Hilwa in the northern Jordan Valley and throw stones at houses.
- The Israeli army set fire to a farm structure and destroyed a water well belonging to Palestinian farmers in the northern Jordan valley.
- Israeli settlers attack Palestinian vehicles on a public road outside of the town of Tuqu’, south of Bethlehem.
Israel Occupies New Territory In Syria, Tanks Reach Closer To Damascus
Israeli forces continued their offensive inside Syria, which began following the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime last Sunday. Israeli troops breached the demilitarized buffer zone established in 1974 between Syrian-held and Israeli-occupied Syrian territory in the Golan, and occupied new positions in the Golan heights and on Mount Al-Sheikh.
Israel’s new advances according to reports included the occupation of nine Syrian towns in the Golan, where Israeli forces forced inhabitants to leave their homes and move deeper into Syria. Israeli tanks continued to advance, reaching up to 18 kilometers inside Syria, approaching the Damascus-Beirut international highway, at no more than 23 kilometers from the Syrian capital.
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes conducted at least 300 airstrikes on Syrian military positions, including air defenses, radars, missile positions and arms warehouses according to the Israeli army. Israel also bombed the Syrian public scientific research center in the outskirts of Damascus.