Israeli strikes have killed at least 7 children in the southern Gaza, in what the army said was an attack targeting participants in the 7 October attacks.
At least five strikes targeted parts of Khan Yunis, including one in the Al-Mawasi area where thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in tents along the coast.
Four children were killed when a drone strike hit their tent in the Al-Mawasi area, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry reported.
A witness told AFP that several tents caught fire from the strike, which also wounded more than 20 people.
Five people, including three children, were killed and several wounded in a strike on a house in Khan Yunis, Gaza's civil defence agency said.
Two people were killed when a strike hit a car in Khan Yunis, while another two were killed when an apartment was hit.
Hamas is recruiting new fighters and has used unexploded Israeli bombs against invading forces in northern Gaza, Israel's Army Radio reported on Tuesday, citing military sources.
At least three Israeli soldiers were killed in northern Gaza in the last 24 hours, with 43 having been killed in the area in the last three months.
The head of Syria's new administration Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Damascus International Airport following its re-opening for flights on Tuesday, state news agency SANA reported.
The first flight to arrive at the airport since deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad's departure on 8 December arrived from Qatar carrying Syrian expats and other Arab nationals.
Israel will do everything it can to ensure that aid agencies replace UNRWA in the Palestinian territories, an Israeli official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying.
Hamas does not object to handing over control of Gaza to a national unity government, senior official Osama Hamdan said in a press conference in Beirut on Tuesday.
Hamdan said the group's negotiating team in Doha is working for a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, the release of thousands of Palestinian detainees and unrestricted reconstruction of Gaza.
Regarding the appointment of a successor to slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hamdan said:
"We have nothing to hide in this matter. There is an internal arrangement that will soon lead to the announcement of the movement's leadership."
President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday he hopes to have good things to report about Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza by the time Trump is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.
Witkoff, at a press conference held by Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, said: "I'm really hopeful that by the inaugural we'll have some good things to announce on behalf of the President."
Republican Trump said of the Israeli captives taken by Hamas in the Oct. 7 2024 attack on Israel: "If the hostages are not back by the time I'm in office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone."
Germany is leading efforts for the European Union to ease sanctions imposed on Syria during the rule of President Bashar al-Assad who was ousted last month, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
German officials circulated two proposal documents among EU capitals shortly before Christmas outlining suggestions for the main areas where the bloc's sanctions on Syria could be eased, the report said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Gaza health officials said a wave of Israeli strikes hit the territory's southern district of Khan Yunis on Tuesday evening, killing a dozen people, seven of them children.
At least five strikes targeted parts of Khan Yunis, including one in the Al-Mawasi area where thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in tents along the coast.
Four children were killed when a drone strike hit their tent in the Al-Mawasi area, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry reported.
A witness told AFP that several tents caught fire from the strike, which also wounded more than 20 people.
Turkey threatened Tuesday to launch military operations against Kurdish forces in Syria unless they accepted Ankara's conditions for a "bloodless" transition after the fall of strongman president Bashar al-Assad.
"We will do what's necessary" if the People's Protection Units (YPG) fail to meet Ankara's demands, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told CNNTurk television. Asked what that might entail, he said: "Military operation".
Qatar is planning to help finance a massive boost in public sector wages promised by Syria's new government, a US official and a senior diplomat told Reuters, vital assistance to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus a month after they toppled Bashar al-Assad.
The support for the new Syrian administration has been made possible by a US sanctions exemption issued by Washington on Monday, allowing for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months.
An Arab official said talks on Qatar funding Syrian government salaries were under way and nothing had been finalised, adding that other countries including Saudi Arabia may join in the effort.
Read more here.
Israel has killed 31 people in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the local health authority said Tuesday.
This takes the overall death toll to 45,885 as the war entered its 16th month.
The Health Ministry also said in a statement that at least 109,196 people had been wounded since the conflict began on 7 October 2023.
Talks aimed at cementing a truce in Gaza between Hamas and Israel are ongoing, with "technical meetings" taking place between the parties, Qatar's foreign ministry said Tuesday.
"The technical meetings are still happening between both sides," ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said, referring to meetings with lower-level officials on the details of an agreement. "There are no principal meetings taking place at the moment."
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of talks between Israel and Hamas that have failed to end Israel's assault on Gaza, which human rights organisations have called a genocidal campaign.
Read more here.
Israel has killed eight Palestinians in Gaza in attacks east of Gaza City in the north of the enclave, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Five civilians were killed by Israeli gunfire in the Al-Shaghaf neighbourhood and three died in shelling in the Al-Tuffah district.
Israel has killed at least 45,885 Palestinians and wounded 109,196 during the 15-month conflict.
Hamas has denounced comments by Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who suggested that the occupied West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin should be treated like Jabalia in northern Gaza, almost three-quarters of which has been destroyed.
The remarks are "an explicit call to expand the fascist war of extermination practised by the terrorist [Israeli] occupation army in the Gaza Strip" and to extend "ongoing ethnic cleansing and forced displacement operations in northern Gaza to towns and [refugee] camps in the occupied West Bank", the group said in a statement posted on Telegram.
Smotrich's remarks came in response to a shooting in the West Bank village of al-Funduq on 6 January, which left three Israelis dead.
Hamas has called for intensified attacks across the occupied West Bank following a shooting attack that killed three Israelis.
"We stress the need to increase the pace of heroic operations throughout the West Bank in response to the occupation's crimes against our people, resistance and national symbols," the group said in a post shared on Telegram.
The group also criticised the Palestinian Authority (PA) over an incident in northern Tulkarem where PA security forces reportedly wounded three Palestinian fighters(see update at 8:47 am), calling the shootinga "shocking and dangerous escalation".
Israel has extended the closure of Al Jazeera's office in the occupied West Bank by another 45 days.
The move was justified by the Israeli military by accusing the network of “incitement and support for acts of terrorism," Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
Israeli authorities raided Al Jazeera's office in Ramallah in September and issued it a temporary closure order which has now been renewed.
This comes less than a week after the Palestinian Authority suspended the Qatari state broadcaster's coverage for four months following critical reporting of its crackdown on Palestinian militants in Jenin.
The United States will impose sanctions on Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been locked in a devastating war with the Sudanese army for control of the country, two diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.
The US determined that the RSF perpetrated genocide during the war, the sources said, having previously determined it perpetrated ethnic cleansing in West Darfur in 2023.
Syria's new authorities are to set up an inclusive committee to prepare for a "national dialogue conference" to discuss the future of the country, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said on Tuesday.
Since toppling president Bashar al-Assad nearly a month ago, Syria's Islamist-led rulers have spoken of a "national dialogue conference" to map out the transition, without specifying a date.
On a visit to Jordan, Shaibani said that the interim authorities had initially intended to hold the conference in early January, but instead, "we chose to form an expanded preparation committee" that would meet at an unspecified date.
The committee would "include men and women... able to fully represent the Syrian people" across "all segments of Syrian society and provinces", the foreign minister said.
Syria's new foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani has vowed to work with Jordan to strengthen security on the border during his first visit to the kingdom.
Talks in Amman on Tuesday saw the two countries agree to set up a joint committee to secure the border, crack down on drug and weapons smuggling, and combat terrorism.
"We discussed securing the borders, especially the threat of arms and drugs smuggling and the resurgence of Islamic State. Our security is one, we will coordinate together to combat these mutual challenges," Jordan's top diplomat Ayman Safadi told a joint press conference with al-Shaibani.
Foreign ministers from Italy, France, Germany, Britain and the United States will meet this week over the situation in Syria, Italy said Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani will preside over the meeting Thursday with his European and US counterparts, the ministry wrote in a statement.
The US Department of State had announced on Monday that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken would meet European counterparts, calling it an occasion "to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition".
Italy's foreign ministry said Tajani sought the meeting "to take stock of the situation in Syria one month after the fall of the Assad regime".
On the agenda is the work of Syria's transitional government and the challenges posed by an upcoming national dialogue conference, it said.
Turkey is working to ensure that Syria's transformation over the last month will not bring new instabilities to the region, President Tayyip Erdogan told the Iraqi Kurdish prime minister, Erdogan's office said on Tuesday.
Erdogan met Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of neighbouring Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, in Ankara and the presidency published a photo of the pair shaking hands.
The visit comes as Turkey has repeatedly said there is no place in Syria's future for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its extensions, after a rebellion last month ousted former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Erdogan repeated that message in the meeting and also "stated that Turkey attaches importance to the preservation of Iraq's stability and security, especially in light of the developments in Syria," the readout from his office said.
Turkey has been calling for the YPG militia in northeast Syria to disband since Assad's fall. It regards YPG as an extension of the PKK, which is deemed a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Israel's extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for "extensive operations" in the West Bank in response to the killing of three Israelis at the weekend, and said that the matter will be discussed at a cabinet meeting today.
"In Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank], as in other arenas, we must move from defense to offense and launch extensive operations within the terrorist nests until the weapons and terrorists are completely destroyed," he wrote in a post on X.
Israel has launched several attacks across the West Bank in recent hours after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis close to the illegal settlement of Kedumim.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and four others were seriously wounded in clashes in northern Gaza on Monday, the Israeli military said Tuesday, without providing details on the incident.
This brings the total death toll for Israeli soldiers during the 15-month war to 397. Thousands more have been injured.
Qatar's Foreign Ministry has welcomed the US' decision to partially suspend sanctions on Syria but called for the economic restrictions to be lifted permanently.
"We welcome the suspension of some sanctions on Syria. This is a partial step and we hope that sanctions will be lifted permanently," the ministry's spokesperson said.
The US said Monday it would allow fuel and electricity donations to Syria for six months to ease access to basic services after Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad last month.
The spokesperson also denied media speculation that Qatar plans to send gas shipments to Syria, saying that the country's focus remains on providing humanitarian relief.
The head of Syria's state electricity company said Tuesday that Qatar and Turkey were sending two power ships to help provide electricity to the country's grid (see update at 11:02).
Syria's electricity chief said Tuesday that two power ships were being sent from Turkey and Qatar to increase supply after the United States eased sanctions following Bashar al-Assad's fall.
Khaled Abu Dayy, head of the national electricity company, told state news agency SANA that "two power generating ships from Turkey and Qatar are heading to Syria".
They would generate "800 megawatts, which is equivalent to half of what is being produced at the moment", he said.
"Work is ongoing to secure power lines to transport the electricity from the docking location of the two ships," Abu Dayy added, without stating where that would be.
The first international commercial flight since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad landed Tuesday at the Damascus airport, arriving from Qatar.
Jordanian state-run Petra news agency also reported that a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane departed heading to Damascus on a test flight.
This came a few days after Syria’s new foreign minister met his Qatari counterpart and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha.
An Israeli military spokesperson said that Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and arrested 18 others in attacks in the occupied West Bank last night.
Two "armed terrorists" were killed in an airstrike in Tammun (see update at 09:03am) and another fighter was shot and killed in Taluza.
This came hours after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis near the illegal settlement of Kedumim.
International efforts to provide humanitarian relief to Palestinians in Gaza are "at breaking point" because of Israel's targeting of aid workers and a breakdown in order, the UN's relief chief said Monday.
"The reality is that despite our determination to deliver food, water, and medicine to survivors, our efforts to save lives are at breaking point," Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN's relief agency, said.
"There is no meaningful civil order. Israeli forces are unable or unwilling to ensure the safety of our convoys. Statements by Israeli authorities vilify our aid workers even as the military attacks them. Community volunteers who accompany our convoys are being targeted."
Israel launched airstrikes and a ground assault on the town of Tammun in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis near the illegal settlement of Kedumim.
Local media are reporting that at least one person was killed in the attack and that Israeli forces are blocking ambulances from treating people at the scene.
Palestinian security forces wounded three fighters in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to Al-Jazeera Arabic.
The three men were injured when security forces opened fire on their vehicle north of Tulkarem.
Among the wounded is one of the founders of the Tulkarem Battalion, Yousef Muhanna, who is reportedly in critical condition.
A Palestinian man has been killed by Israeli security forces in a town near Nablus, according to local media.
The man, identified as former prisoner Jaafar Dababseh, was reportedly assassinated outside of his house in Talluza.
This comes less than 24 hours after armed Palestinians killed three Israelis near the illegal settlement of Kedumim.
عاجل| مصادر محلية: قوة خاصة من جيش الاحتلال تغتال الأسير المحرر جعفر أحمد دبابسة أمام منزله في واد الباذان شمال شرق نابلس
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn)
Israel has killed dozens of Palestinians across Gaza over the past 24 hours as it continues its bombardment of the strip.
The attacks killed at least 28 Palestinians on Monday, in a series of airstrikes that targeted northern Gaza, the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, and Rafah in the south of the enclave, according to local medical sources.
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