Thousands of demonstrators around the world rallied on Saturday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, while children joined a pro-Palestinian march through central London as part of a global day of action against Israeli atrocities.
More than 23,000 casualties have been reported in Gaza since the war erupted on 7 October. Israel's relentless airstrikes and a ground offensive have resulted in unparalleled destruction, leveling entire neighborhoods. This offensive has led to the displacement of the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, the closure of over half of the territory's hospitals, and widespread hunger, according to UN monitors.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees Philippe Lazzarini said, during a visit to the Gaza Strip on Saturday, "The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity."
After the Hague-based International Court of Justice heard arguments this week that accused Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted no court or military foe could stop Israel from achieving its aim of destroying Hamas.
The families of captives held in Gaza kicked off a 24-hour rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night, calling on the government to bring their loved ones home after 100 days spent in captivity.
Some protesters called for Netanyahu's resignation, amid growing tension in both war and minister cabinets over the captives deal and fighting plans in Gaza.
22:00 A video journalist from the Cairo-based television channel Al Ghad was killed in Gaza on Sunday in a strike that the channel blamed on the Israeli occupation army.
Dozens of journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on October 7.
"It is with a heavy heart that we announce that Al Ghad video-journalist Yazan al-Zwaidi has been murdered by Israeli fire," the station announced in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Alongside Zwaidi, at least 82 other journalists and media professionals, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed since the start of the Israel war on Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The United Nations on Monday said it was "very concerned by the high death toll of media workers".
On Tuesday, the International Criminal Court said it was investigating potential crimes against journalists since the outbreak of war.
21:00 Many of the captives held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are likely to have been killed, a spokesman for the group's armed wing said Sunday, blaming the Israeli leadership for their fate.
"The fate of many of the enemy's captives and detainees has become unknown in recent weeks, and the rest have all entered the tunnel of the unknown due to the Zionist aggression," Abu Obeida said in a televised statement.
"Most likely, many of them were killed recently, the rest are in great danger every hour and the enemy's leadership and army bear full responsibility."
Abu Obeida said the group's allies from the "axis of resistance" had informed Hamas they would "expand their attacks" against Israeli troops in the coming days.
"After 100 days of battle... this is the enemy's leadership, gulping down pain and wading through the mud of failure and setback," he said.
Abu Obeida also accused Israeli forces of launching a "religious war" by destroying mosques in the Gaza Strip.
"The Zionist enemy, within 100 days, destroyed most of the mosques in the Gaza Strip," he said.
"He desecrated, burned, and bulldozed those that his vehicles reached on the ground, and stopped the call to prayer... in a clear religious war."
20:00 Gaza Government Media Office: The most important statistics of the genocidal war waged by the “Israeli” occupation on the Gaza Strip:
- (100) days since the genocidal war.
- (1,993) massacres committed by the occupation army.
- (30,843) martyrs and missing persons.
- (23,843) martyrs who arrived in hospitals.
- (10,400) child martyrs.
- (7,100) women martyrs.
- (337) martyrs of medical teams.
- (45) martyrs from the Civil Defense.
- (117) martyred journalists.
- (7,000) missing, 70% of whom are children and women.
- (60,317) injured.
- (6,200) injured people need to travel for treatment to save a life.
- (707) wounded, only those who traveled for treatment.
- (10,000) cancer patients face the risk of death.
- (99) cases of arrest of health personnel.
- (10) detained journalists.
- (2) million displaced people in the Gaza Strip.
- (400,000) infected with infectious diseases as a result of displacement.
- (134) government headquarters destroyed by the occupation.
- (95) schools and universities were completely destroyed by the occupation.
- (295) schools and universities that were partially destroyed by the occupation.
- (145) mosques were completely destroyed by the occupation.
- (243) mosques partially destroyed by the occupation.
- (3) Churches targeted and destroyed by the occupation.
- (69,300) housing units were completely destroyed by the occupation.
- (290,000) housing units partially destroyed by the occupation.
- (65,000) tons of explosives dropped by the occupation on Gaza.
- (30) Hospitals taken out of service by the occupation.
- (53) health centers that the occupation put out of service.
- (150) health institutions were partially targeted by the occupation.
- (121) ambulances destroyed by the occupation army.
- (200) archaeological and heritage sites destroyed by the occupation.
19:00 The head of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said on Sunday that Israel had failed to achieve its objectives in Gaza and this will force it to negotiate.
"What has the enemy achieved in 100 days, other than killing?" Hassan Nasrallah asked in a televised speech.
"It has not achieved any real victory or semblance of victory. It has failed in achieving its declared, half-declared and implicit objectives," he added, on the 100th day of the Israel war on Gaza.
Nasrallah's speech commemorated the death of a senior Hezbollah commander, Wissam Tawil, killed by Israel in southern Lebanon on January 8.
"If this path continues, be it in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq, the enemy government will have no other choice but to accept the conditions of the resistance in Gaza, thereby putting an end to the aggression against Gaza and entering into negotiations," said Nasrallah, whose organisation is sanctioned as a "terrorist" group by the United States.
The Hezbollah leader also denounced air strikes by the US and Britain, which on Friday hit scores of rebel targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis' attacks on shipping.
"What the Americans did in the Red Sea will harm the security of all maritime navigation," Nasrallah said.
In more than three months of violence on the Israel-Lebanon border, 190 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
On Sunday, Israeli occupation authorities announced that two Israelis had been killed by a missile fired from Lebanon that hit a house near the border.
Israel's military also claimed it killed three gunmen who had crossed the frontier and "fired at the forces".
18:00 Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes in a strip that has been in large part laid waste, where the health system has almost collapsed, and the United Nations says restrictions on food and medical aid deliveries have left thousands hungry and at risk of disease.
“It is absolutely unliveable,” Dr. Hadeel Qazzaz, Oxfam international spokesperson in the occupied West Bank, told FRANCE 24.
“When we talk about 250 people killed a day, we don’t count people who die of illnesses or lack of access to medications.”
16:00 An Israeli man was killed when a missile fired from Lebanon struck a house in a border community, Israeli medics and the army said.
"A man in his 40s was pronounced dead," the Magen David Adom emergency service said after the military confirmed that a missile struck a house in Kfar Yuval.
15:00 Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian boy, 14-year-old Louay Al-Sufi, during a raid on the Ain Sultan camp, north of the city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, WAFA reported, citing medical sources.
Meanwhile, several Palestinians inhaled teargas during confrontations with the Israeli forces in Yabad, west of Jenin.
Security and local sources told WAFA that a large Israeli force stormed the town, raided several homes, and deployed snipers on the roofs of buildings and shops.
Israel has killed 347 Palestinians in the West Bank since the war on Gaza erupted.
14:00 During a meeting with the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi in Cairo, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed the need to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, to protect civilians and provide them relief amid the catastrophic humanitarian conditions there, according to the Egyptian presidency's statement.
Both sides further agreed on the necessity of addressing the roots of the Palestinian cause through a just and comprehensive settlement and establishing an independent Palestinian state based on the two-state solution, expressing their categorical rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land.
Demonstrators hold banners, condemning Israel's military operations inside the Gaza strip, outside the entrance of RAF Akrotiri, near southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. Protest organizers said the protest also condemns what they call the "use of Cyprus as a launchpad for war" after British warplanes took off from RAF Akrotiri to bomb targets in Yemen following Houthi attacks on international shipping. AP
13:30 Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed a total of 23,968 Palestinians since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said as the war reached its 100th day.
The ministry said it had recorded another 60,582 wounded since the war erupted. In the past 24 hours, 125 Palestinians were killed and 265 were injured, the ministry added.
For a look in numbers at the toll of the Israeli war on Gaza, sourced from the Palestinian health ministry and Israeli officials as well as international observers and aid groups, click here.
13:00 Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), stressed on Sunday that the Egyptian side has never closed the Rafah border crossing even for one day since the start of the war, but it is the Israeli side that obstructs aid entry.
The UNRWA chief, who is en route to the Gaza Strip to stand on the humanitarian situation on the ground, described the Israeli brutal war in the strip as a crime against humanity, warning that the situation might deteriorate further in Gaza if no action was taken by the international community.
"For the people of Gaza, the past 100 days have felt like 100 years," he said during his meeting with North Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel-Fadil Shousha at Arish International Airport before departing for the city of Rafah. "Everyone is targeted by the Israeli war machine, including women, children, elderly people, and UNRWA staffers," he added.
12:15 Israel’s budget deficit ceiling is expected to rise to 6.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2024 from 2.25 percent, according to an amended 2024 budget draft, Reuters reported.
Ministers will begin debate on a revised budget later Sunday that will include steep spending to finance the war, with a vote expected by Monday morning, Reuters said.
The draft Israeli budget estimates the financial impact of the war at more than 40 billion USD in the period 2023-2024.
12:00 Egypt’s Rafah border crossing in North Sinai received on Sunday 30 injured Palestinians from the Gaza Strip for treatment at Egyptian hospitals, the state-owned news agency MENA reported.
Once they arrived at the terminal, the wounded were carried by ambulances to Ismailia, North Sinai, Suez, and Cairo hospitals, an official source at the terminal said.
The source added that 100 holders of foreign passports were received at the terminal.
11:30 Thousands of Israelis continued on Sunday a 24-hour rally in Tel Aviv, calling for the release of captives held in Gaza.
Families of captives say that the government has not done enough, demanding the war cabinet to approve any pending captive deal.
More than 100 captives were released during a temporary truce in November 2023, but 132 remain held in Gaza.
Meanwhile, anti-government demonstrators calling for new elections to be held blocked a major Tel Aviv highway, clashing with police who made arrests and tried to push the crowd back. Other protesters advanced toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private residence in the coastal town of Caesarea, calling for his dismissal from office.
In parallel, over 150 Israeli companies begin a 100-minute strike in solidarity with captives in Gaza, Times of Israel reported.
In another sign of domestic tension in Israel, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar will resign from his position at the end of the war in Gaza over the intelligence failures ahead of the 7 October operation, former Shin Bet head Yaakov Perry told Army Radio.
“I spoke with him directly about what is expected and I have no doubt that he will be one of the first to hand over the keys,” Perry said as reported by Times of Israel. “He intends to leave the position,” he added.
On 15 October, Bar acknowledged his responsibility for the lack of an early warning for the Hamas operation on southern Israel communities.
Mourners carry the body of 19-year-old Khaled Zubaidi, who was killed in Zeita village near the northern occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem during an Israeli raid, during his funeral on January 13, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. AFP
11:00 The Israeli army arrested two sisters of Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al-Arouri, who was assassinated by Israel in Lebanon earlier in January. Dalal and Fatima were detained in separate raids in Arura, Al-Arouri’s hometown, and Al-Bireh, both near Ramallah.
The occupation army claimed they were arrested for “inciting terror against the State of Israel.” Another 40 Palestinians were detained in overnight and morning raids across the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli occupation forces have arrested 5,875 Palestinians from the West Bank since 7 October, according to the recent tally by the Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) and the Detainee and Ex-Detainees Affairs Authority.
10:30 The Gaza Strip is grappling with a new wave of challenges as dozens of shelters, accommodating thousands of displaced families, have been inundated with rainwater mixed with sewage following heavy rainfall, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
In central Gaza, shelters, including those housing UNRWA and governmental schools, faced flooding, as did shelters in the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah. The situation in Rafah is particularly dire, with most tents housing displaced families now submerged, and some even blown away due to severe winds.
The impact of the heavy rains is not limited to the south. In Gaza City and the northern areas, several homes and tents have also succumbed to flooding over the past hours.
Meanwhile, amid these challenging weather conditions, WAFA reported that dozens of Palestinians lost their lives in overnight Israeli bombardments targeting the south and center of the Gaza Strip.
10:00 Israeli troops killed four fighters who crossed from Lebanon into Israel and "fired at the forces," the Israeli army said.
Since Israel's war in the Gaza Strip erupted on 7 October, the Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli army.
Violence on the border has killed 190 people, including more than 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel's north, at least nine soldiers and four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
9:45 “For the people of Gaza, the past 100 days have felt like 100 years,” the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said.
Philippe Lazzarini, the boss of UNRWA, said in a statement late Saturday the crisis had been “compounded by dehumanizing language and the use of food, water, and fuel as instruments of war.”
The clock is “ticking fast towards famine” in Gaza, he warned.
“The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss, and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity,” Lazzarini said. People are now living in “inhumane conditions,” he said, and diseases are spreading as Gazans “live through the unlivable.”
On Friday, the German government rejected accusations made by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), asserting that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Germany cautioned against what it labeled as the "political instrumentalization" of the charge and emphasized the need for an objective assessment of the situation.
Namibia, however, rebuffed Germany's position, stating that the country cannot claim moral commitment to the UN Convention against genocide while allegedly supporting actions in Gaza equivalent to a "holocaust and genocide."
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