Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Army attacks in Gaza kill 135 in 24 hours

This live page is now closed. Follow along with our ongoing coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza here.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a recap of the day’s main developments:

• Deadly Israeli air strikes continued, with dozens reportedly killed in Rafah and Khan Younis.
• Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, described the attacks as “a very bloody day”.
• Two Palestinian telecoms employees were killed in an Israeli strike, says Paltel, as a telecommunications blackout returns to Gaza.
• Six Houthis were killed on the second day of US-UK strikes, the Yemeni group says.
• Israeli forces raided Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, where they surrounded the hospital and searched ambulances, reports Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo.

Bernie Sanders has voiced some of his harshest criticism yet of Israel’s war on Gaza after facing earlier backlash from progressives for refusing to voice support for a ceasefire.

“I hope that he [Biden] understands that you can be pro-Israel without supporting Netanyahu and the horrific war he is waging against the Palestinian people,” Sanders said in an interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian.

Earlier this week, Sanders also called for greater scrutiny on US arms sales to Israel, saying the US is “deeply complicit in what is going on, and we have to ensure the US aid is being used in line with international human rights and our own laws”.

The New York Times reports that even after two rounds of strikes by the US and UK, the Yemeni group retains about 75 percent of its ability to launch missiles and drones at ships crossing the Red Sea.

The Houthis have said they are carrying out attacks on these commercial ships because they are linked to Israel and that the attacks will cease once a ceasefire in Gaza has been reached.

Citing two unnamed US officials, the New York Times said that “even after hitting more than 60 missile and drone targets with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, the strikes had damaged or destroyed only about 20 to 30 percent of the Houthis’ offensive capability, much of which is mounted on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden”.

“It seems like 100 years now,” Mansour Shouman, a resident of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, tells Al Jazeera.

“Together with 2.3 million Palestinian civilians here, I think no one would have thought we would have gone through 100 days of this,” he continued.

“Despite all of these challenges, the morale of the Palestinian people here is still very high and they remain determined to remain steadfast, to continue striving for their rights despite so many challenges that they have been going through.”

He added that life for the last 100 days has “been a battle”.

When asked how the Palestinians in Gaza remain so resilient through constant Israeli bombardment and while dealing with a lack of food, clean water and shelter, Shouman replied: “They don’t have a choice. They need to go on with their life, right?”

It is now 12:30am (22:30 GMT) in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, which means that Gaza has entered its 100th day of war.

By the latest Health Ministry-provided count, at least 23,843 people have been killed and more than 60,317 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

“How did these 100 days pass? I do not know how they passed. But they passed with bitterness, with martyrs, wounded. They’ve passed with scenes of pain, cruelty and sorrow,” Suhaib al-Hamms, a doctor at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, told reporters.

“We witnessed destruction, not only of homes, of universities and schools. And what was bombed was not just hospitals or streets, the targets not only medical teams or ambulances,” he continued. “It’s our dreams, our aspirations, our hopes for a dignified life that we had tried to live under siege. They also went with them.”

What we know right now is that several Israeli military vehicles entered Jenin through different locations.

There’s been fighting ongoing between Palestinian fighters and Israeli security forces. At some point, they surrounded the hospital of the city – they’ve been searching ambulances among other things.

We still don’t know whether anyone has been detained or anybody has been killed… the situation is ongoing as we speak.

But this is not an exception, it is something that we have been seeing a lot since October 7, with raids happening every day, with military vehicles with bulldozers, with clashes and detentions.

The Yemeni group says that six of its members were killed on January 12 during the strikes.

The US hit targets belonging to the Houthis early this morning for the second consecutive day.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna has spoken to Robert McCaw of the Council on American-Islamic Relations at a rally in Washington, DC, where thousands of people showed up to demand an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

McCaw said the administration of US President Joe Biden has “Made the American people complicit in Israel’s genocide”, adding that a group he is a part of has sent a letter to the president with a list of demands.

“We’re demanding an immediate and verifiable ceasefire, an end to all political, diplomatic and financial aid to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It’s war crimes, we cannot support them any longer,” he said. “We’re also calling for a return of all hostages, and political prisoners, Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons.”

McCaw said that they are also demanding that the US be a neutral partner in a once-and-for-all settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding that he has received confirmation that the letter has been received.

The French president has called for new talks to obtain the release of Israeli captives who remain held by Hamas.

Speaking to a rally in Tel Aviv via video message, Macron pressed for negotiations that would lead to the captives coming home. Three people with French citizenship remain unaccounted for more than three months after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, taking more than 240 people captive.

“France does not abandon its children,” he said. “That is why we have to resume negotiations again and again for their release.”

Video verified by Al Jazeera shows Israeli forces surrounding the Al Amal Hospital in the occupied West Bank city during a raid that began this evening, local time.

The video shows soldiers intercepting and searching ambulances as the sound of clashes can be heard in the background.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that an Israeli army bulldozer excavated the road in front of the hospital, called Haifa Street, and committed other acts of vandalism in the surrounding area.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that 180 women are giving birth in Gaza under “dangerous and inhumane conditions” every day.

“Many of them are unable to reach hospitals due to being in besieged areas, with the Israeli forces preventing ambulances 🚑from reaching them,” the group said in a social media post on Saturday.

In a video posted by the group, a doctor attempts to assist a woman through birth by giving her instructions over the phone.

In #Gaza, 180 women🤰give birth daily under dangerous and inhumane conditions. 📍Many of them are unable to reach hospitals due to being in besieged areas, with the Israeli forces preventing ambulances 🚑from reaching them. 👇In this video, there is a call with the sister of a… pic.twitter.com/Lqh33RwVi3

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 13, 2024

The Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad has accused an alleged member of Hamas of planning an attack on the country’s embassy in Sweden.

After a group of Danish, German and Swedish authorities made several arrests last months, Mossad said in a statement on Friday that an alleged Hamas member took orders from a command centre in Lebanon and had the “intent to attack the Israeli embassy in Sweden, to procure paragliders and to activate members of criminal groups in Europe”.

It is not clear if that individual was among those arrested by European authorities last month.

Hamas has yet to comment but has said in the past that it limits attacks to Israel-Palestine. Israel has sought to portray the group as having moved beyond those limitations.

Many Palestinians have been roused by South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, in part due to that country’s own legacy of struggle against an apartheid government that had strong support from powerful Western nations.

“South Africa has very high standing among nations that were colonised in the past. It is a country that overcame apartheid, overcame colonisation, overcame an alliance of the very same countries that are now supporting Israel in its campaign against the Palestinian people,” Palestinian analyst Nour Odeh told Al Jazeera.

“For me, as a Palestinian growing up watching my parents and everybody engaged very actively in the fight against apartheid, in support of the people in South Africa, celebrating the fall of apartheid, I don’t think for any Palestinian there could have been a better country to take this case to the ICJ,” she added. “There’s a feeling of vindication.”

Gaza’s main telecommunications provider Paltel says via a statement on Facebook that a total of 13 of its employees have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported that the employees were killed when a car they were driving was hit by Israeli bombs.

The chilly winter weather has not kept people away and they are angry. We’ve got thousands of people gathering here in downtown [US capital Washington] DC.

The basic message to the US government is “Get a ceasefire in place, stop providing weapons to the Israelis in their ongoing attack on those in Gaza.”

There’s a degree of anger and there’s also a lot of animosity towards US President Joe Biden.

The chant from the crowd has been, “We will remember in November. This is a reference to the upcoming election in November this year, and which the people here are adamant President Biden and his administration will bear a cost for what they have been doing, and what they have been assisting Israel in in Gaza.

A group of Israelis calling for the release of the captives held in Gaza, new elections and an end to Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister have blocked a highway in Tel Aviv, according to reports from Israeli media.

Oren Ziv, a reporter for the Israeli outlet +972, shared video footage of police trying to haul protesters from the road.

Now: Protesters block the Tel Aviv highway calling for a hostages deal, police try to remove them pic.twitter.com/jjhUg9hmqK

— Oren Ziv (@OrenZiv_) January 13, 2024

Osama Hamdan expressed gratitude to the Gulf nation, noting the dire situation faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, adding that some of the medicine will be used to treat Israeli captives being held by Hamas.

Hamdan emphasised that Gaza’s civilian population is the priority, however, saying, “First, we believe our people are more deserving and in need of medicine, and secondly, there are security issues” presented by delivering the medicine to the captives.