17 Dec 2024
- Staff at north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital say that shrapnel from Israeli attacks has wounded patients seeking treatment, as an Israeli attack on a nearby home kills at least eight people.
- Hamas calls Gaza ceasefire talks held in Qatar serious and positive and says reaching a deal is possible if Israel stops setting new conditions.
- The Palestinian Ministry of Education says more than 12,799 students have been killed and at least 20,942 wounded in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the war.
- World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus describes conditions at the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital as “appalling” and calls “for this hell to stop”.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 45,059 Palestinians and wounded 107,041 since October 7, 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day, and more than 200 were taken captive.
UN says Israel violating disengagement agreement with Syria
The United Nations says Israel violated the ceasefire with Syria after it captured a demilitarised buffer zone following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“The presence of the Israeli Defence Forces in the buffer zone is a violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Dujarric added that the agreement “needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation — whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation.”
Earlier, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced that troops would remain on the border for the foreseeable future until an alternative arises.
One killed, five wounded in Israeli attack on al-Mawasi
Wafa news agency reports that the victim was a displaced Palestinian woman, who was sheltering in al-Mawasi, which Isreal has designated in the past as a “humanitarian safe zone”.
According to Wafa’s sources, Israel bombed a tent sheltering displaced people in al-Mawasi, causing the death and the wounding of children.