Israel-Hamas war updates: Death toll in Gaza hits 20,000 as fighting rages

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Please follow along with our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war at our new page, here.

For more context on the conflict, watch our Bottom Line programme examining the Israeli security fallout of the war, here.

Also, read more about how Yemenis are viewing a possible wider escalation in the region, here.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a recap of today’s events:

• Israel has said air attacks across Gaza – including in the southernmost city of Rafah – will continue as the death toll in the enclave today passed 20,000 since the start of the conflict.
• The UN human rights office has said it received “disturbing information” accusing Israeli forces of summarily executing at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in Gaza City.
• Human Rights Watch has said most people in Gaza are displaced and susceptible to harm, as the WHO chief warns of a “lethal” mix of disease and hunger.
• A vote on a UNSC draft resolution that seeks to up aid deliveries to Gaza has again been delayed as parties seek US support to avoid a veto.
• US President Joe Biden has said he did not expect an imminent breakthrough as representatives of Israel, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were in Egypt for the latest round of indirect captive release talks.

Hamas’s armed wing has released a video of its weapons manufacturing capabilities.

It shows the Qassam fighters operating machinery to make rifles, assembling ammunition and testing the weapons.

A message to Israel released with the video says: “We will continue killing your soldiers by our locally manufactured snipers.”

Israel’s military has said its warplanes have struck another Hezbollah position in southern Lebanon.

That came after Hezbollah today said it had targeted Israeli positions near Beit Hillel and Shtula.

Israel’s military also said it fired at fighters near a perimeter fence in the area of Metula.

In another incident, Israel said it returned fire after four launches from Syria were detected in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights area.

Political scientist Ian Bremmer says the human carnage of Israel’s war on Gaza is strengthening Hamas.

Meanwhile, US support for Israel’s actions has made Washington “more isolated than the Russians were when they invaded Ukraine”.

As Israel’s war on Gaza continues, questions grow about the power of the UN to halt the war that has killed at least 20,000 Palestinians since October 7.

Thousands of bodies are believed to be buried under the rubble. And more than 52,000 people in Gaza have been wounded in Israel’s relentless onslaught as it targets hospitals, homes and schools.

The statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) comes after the UN human rights office said earlier today that it had received disturbing information accusing Israeli forces of killing 11 unarmed Palestinians in front of their families.

“While the Biden administration blocks all attempts to end the genocide in Gaza, real people are being slaughtered daily in ways that echo the darkest periods of human history,” Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director, said in a statement.

“Our nation must call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end the killing, ethnic cleansing and starvation of an entire people – the very definition of genocide.”

Tedros, the WHO chief, said that as of two days ago, the hospital had been the last functioning facility in northern Gaza where injured people could undergo surgery.

But that has since ceased. “That has left north Gaza with no functional hospital. Only four hospitals operate at a minimum level, providing very limited care,” he said in a post on X.

In a video, Sean Casey, the WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, described the situation after arriving as part of an aid delivery convoy.

“There are patients here who have been injured for more than a month and have had no surgery. There are patients who have been operated on but they are now getting post-operative infections because the hospital doesn’t have sufficient antibiotics,” he said.

“This is a completely unacceptable situation.”

Al-Ahli Arab Hospital is a “shell” of its former self due to lack of fuel, staff, supplies – @WHO/@UN mission to north #Gaza finds.

WHO and UN partners undertook another high-risk joint mission today to Al-Ahli Arab and Al-Shifa hospitals in northern Gaza.

Our teams delivered… pic.twitter.com/tlSI3gbawA

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 20, 2023

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says that people in Gaza “are desperate, hungry & terrified”, with “alarming levels of hunger never before witnessed” in the enclave.

In a social media post, UNRWA added that its partners were distributing what they can, “but water, food & medicine are being used as weapons of war”.

“Constant bombardment prevents aid reaching those in need,” the post said.

Israel continues to restrict the entry of aid into Gaza as it carries out bombing raids across the territory.

Alarming levels of hunger never before witnessed in📍#Gaza – People are desperate, hungry & terrified.@UNRWA colleagues continue to distribute what they can, but water, food & medicine are being used as weapons of war.

Constant bombardment prevents aid reaching those in need. https://t.co/HZ7h6c9Ubv

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 20, 2023

Eli Cohen, in an interview with Israeli media, said he has reached an agreement with Cypriot and UK authorities to open the corridor after a brief trip to Cyprus today.

Israel will “establish a sea corridor between Cyprus and Gaza, provided that it would be under Israeli security supervision and control”, he said.

He also said this would be done in a way that would allow Israel to “completely close the crossings between Israel and Gaza, and in order to ensure complete separation from Gaza”, implying that Israel intends to close the recently opened Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing with Gaza.

Last month, Cyprus proposed establishing a corridor to collect, inspect and store aid on the island before shipping it to the Palestinian enclave.

Israel is preparing its public for possible tough decisions – including the release of “dangerous” Palestinian prisoners – as part of a new prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan) has reported.

Israel is discussing with mediators the possible release of dozens of Israeli captives in Gaza, prioritising women who were not released under previous deals as well as elderly people who were injured during their capture or suffer from chronic illnesses.

The Israeli public must be prepared to make “concessions” regarding the release of so-called “dangerous prisoners”, said the Kan report, citing an Israeli source.

The term “dangerous prisoners” refers to Palestinian detainees who are serving heavy sentences in Israeli prisons.

According to the Huffington Post, US officials are finalising the diplomatic initiative in response to an expected request from Palestinian diplomats and several UN member states for Switzerland to hold a conference looking at possible violations of the conventions.

The Geneva Conventions are a series of treaties and protocols that establish international humanitarian law.

Both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are party to the four main treaties of the conventions. Switzerland, as the “depository”, generally determines when meetings are held to discuss concerns raised by the parties.

The Huffington Post cited internal State Department documents that direct US officials to convey “serious concern” about any effort to hold a conference and to make several arguments against it. That includes saying the UN General Assembly has not passed a resolution calling for such a conference and that doing so would risk politicising the conventions.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the report. We’ll bring you their response when we can.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is where 12 percent of the total global seaborne trade of oil, as well as 8 percent of liquified natural gas, passed through in the first half of 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That is 8.8 million barrels per day of oil and 4.1 billion cubic feet per day of LNG.

More than 17,000 ships pass through it each year, some heading to the Suez Canal that takes them to the Mediterranean and acts as the link between Asia and the West.

Denmark’s AP Moller-Maersk, which accounts for 15 percent of the global container freight market, has been among several of the largest global names in the shipping industry to opt out of taking the route. Together with Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, which has also pulled out, they account for almost a quarter of the market.

Container rates for shipments from North Asia to the United Kingdom, which go through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, have hit record highs this year, according to assessments by S&P Global Platts. Underwriters are charging more to insure ships planning to take the route as well.

Read more in our explainer here.

An NGO says it submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor a list of 40 Israeli commanding officers who allegedly planned and executed the bloody war on Gaza.

The non-profit said the ICC prosecutor should investigate as suspects for war crimes and crimes against humanity the senior Israeli commanders identified by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).

DAWN submitted the information in response to the prosecutor’s November 17 call for parties to present to his office information relevant to its investigation team’s ongoing probe into violations of the Rome Statute in Palestine, including the current war in Gaza.

“These 40 [military] commanders who have been responsible for planning, ordering, and executing Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment, wanton destruction, and mass killing of civilians in Gaza should be prime suspects in any ICC investigation,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director.

“While Israel has done its best to conceal the identities of many of its officers, they should be put on notice that they face individual criminal liability for the crimes underway in Gaza.”

Martin Griffiths says that “such a brutal conflict has been allowed to continue and for this long – despite the widespread condemnation, the physical and mental toll and the massive destruction – is an indelible stain on our collective conscience.”

He made his statement on X, calling the latest death toll in Gaza a “shameful milestone”.

Earlier, we reported that the Gaza Media Office said at least 20,000 Palestinians had died in Gaza since October 7.

That such a brutal conflict has been allowed to continue and for this long – despite the widespread condemnation, the physical and mental toll and the massive destruction – is an indelible stain on our collective conscience. pic.twitter.com/M7awX8b8nC

— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) December 20, 2023