Updates: Israel attacks Gaza as Palestinian man shot dead in West Bank

Read more about Yasser Abu Shabab, leader of the Israel-backed militia in Gaza who was recently killed, here.

Check out our reporting on makeshift movie screenings to bring Gaza’s children a brief respite from the pain of displacement and Israeli bombing.

And see Ori Goldberg’s opinion piece on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plea for a pardon during his corruption trial.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a look at the day’s top developments:

• The Israeli military fired on Palestinians in northern and southern parts of the Gaza Strip, including via helicopter gunship, as it continues to attack the enclave despite a US-brokered truce.
• Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, as the army carried out a series of raids across the territory.
• The UN General Assembly passed a series of resolutions expressing support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and extending its mandate as it has come under attack by Israel and the US during the genocidal war on Gaza.
• Gaza mediators Egypt and Qatar, and six other Muslim-majority countries, say they’re worried about Israel stating it will open a crucial crossing for Palestinians to exit the Strip, but not return.
• Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has condemned Israel-Lebanon talks after the Lebanese government included a civilian representative in the process, calling the move a “free concession” to Israel.

Hezbollah’s leader gave a defiant speech pledging never to surrender as Israel continues to attack and occupy Lebanon despite a yearlong ceasefire.

“They want to eliminate our existence,” Naim Qassem said in a televised address of Israel. “We will defend ourselves, our people, our country. We are prepared to sacrifice everything, and we will not surrender.”

He accused Israel and the United States of wanting Lebanese authorities to negotiate “under fire”. A UN Security Council delegation is in Lebanon for talks with the government on defusing tensions with Israel.

Qassem said his group is cooperating with the Lebanese authorities, and the US and Israel should have “no say in how we manage our domestic affairs”, calling their imposition of conditions on Lebanon “unacceptable”.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said new talks with Israel are strictly limited to fully implementing last year’s truce and do not amount to broader peace discussions.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says a baby had to receive medical attention after inhaling tear gas during an Israeli raid south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Amjad Ahmed, director of the emergency centre at the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Nablus, said the three-week-old baby suffered tear gas inhalation during the incursion in the village of Madma and was taken to hospital.

The Palestinian news service Wafa reported Israeli forces fired large amounts of tear gas, forcing businesses to close in the centre of the town while scattering residents.

Palestine has commended countries that voted in favour of resolutions at the UN General Assembly in support of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

As we reported earlier, one of the resolutions extended UNRWA’s mandate until the end of June 2029. The backing of UNRWA highlights international support for Palestinians, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It also marks “a clear rejection of Israel’s colonial occupation policies amid the continuation of its barbaric aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem”.

Fans of Europe’s annual song contest are fearing for its future after four countries announced they’re boycotting it over Israel’s inclusion in 2026 because of the genocide in Gaza.

See more in our video below:

The Trump administration has signed off on a possible sale of medium tactical vehicles to Lebanon as the US pressures its government to assert control over the country and disarm Hezbollah.

The State Department has approved the potential sale of M1085A2 and M1078A2 Medium Tactical Vehicles and related equipment worth an estimated $90.5m, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Lebanon’s government has announced a timeline for Hezbollah’s disarmament, saying the military would set out a plan to bring all weapons under state authority before the end of 2025.

This comes after months of pressure from the United States after Israel’s war on Lebanon killed more than 4,000 people and culminated in a ceasefire in November 2024. Israel has continuously violated the ceasefire and still occupies five points in Lebanon.

Gaza mediators Egypt and Qatar and six other Muslim-majority countries say they’re worried about Israel stating it will open a crucial crossing for Palestinians to exit the Strip, but not return.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates “expressed their deep concern regarding the statements issued by the Israeli side concerning the opening of the Rafah crossing in one direction with the aim of transferring residents of the Gaza Strip to” Egypt, a joint statement said.

Israel’s statement on Wednesday immediately raised fears the move could lead to the permanent displacement of Palestinians, something far-right ministers in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hardline government have promoted for months.

Hanan Ashrawi, a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, has slammed Israel’s “unilateral decision” to open Gaza’s southern Rafah crossing with Egypt, but only for Palestinians seeking to leave the enclave.

The move “is not only a violation of the ‘ceasefire’ but also a disingenuous & cruel tool for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza”, Ashrawi wrote on social media.

Israel said this week the crossing would be opened in the coming days, but Palestinians would not be allowed back into the Strip. The ceasefire deal reached last month stipulated that Israel must allow freedom of movement both in and out of Gaza.

Israel’s unilateral decision to open the Rafah crossing one way out only is not only a violation of the “ceasefire” but also a disingenuous & cruel tool for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

— Hanan Ashrawi (@DrHananAshrawi) December 5, 2025

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), says the vote “reflects the broad solidarity of people across the world” with Palestinian refugees.

Earlier, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution commending UNRWA for its role in supporting Palestinian refugees. The motion extended the agency’s mandate until the end of June 2029.

The resolution passed with 151 votes in favour, 10 votes against, and 14 abstentions, the UN said in a statement. The 10 countries that voted against it were Argentina, Fiji, Hungary, Israel, North Macedonia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, and the United States.

Israel and its main ally, the US, have carried out an unprecedented effort to dismantle UNRWA during the Israeli war on Gaza, accusing the agency of supporting Hamas.

Analysts say the attacks against UNRWA – the main provider of humanitarian aid and other services to Palestinians in the Strip – are part of a wider attempt to stamp out the rights of Palestinian refugees.

I salute the overwhelming vote by the @UN General Assembly to renew @UNRWA's mandate for three years. 

It reflects the broad solidarity of people across the world with #Palestine Refugees.

It is also an acknowledgement of the international community’s responsibility to support… pic.twitter.com/idUdla6WHo

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 5, 2025

Earlier, we reported Israel’s military budget for 2026 has been set at $34.7bn – a $14.5bn surge since its genocidal war on Gaza began in 2023.

“We will continue to act decisively to reinforce the [military] and to fully address the needs of the soldiers and to reduce the burden on reservists in order to ensure the security of the state of Israel on every front,” Defence Minister Israel Katz’s said in a statement.

The Gaza war has been costly for Israel, which spent $31bn in 2024 on its conflicts with Hamas and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“We are allocating a huge budget to strengthen the army this year, but also one that allows us to return the state of Israel to a path of growth and relief for citizens,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.

An analysis of the impact of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza’s agricultural landscape has found about 98 percent of all tree cropland has been destroyed since October 2023.

“Now, after 2 years, we see that most of the greenhouses are gone and the remaining tree cover is largely gone,” Mazin Qumsiyeh, a biologist at Bethlehem University and a researcher on the project, told the science magazine Eos.

He Yin, a geographer and remote sensing researcher at Kent State University in Ohio, said the scale of destruction of Gaza’s agricultural lands has few parallels in modern history, including other conflicts he has studied such as Syria and Chechnya.

“This is unprecedented damage,” said Yin, the lead researcher on the project. “I have never seen anything like this.”

Agriculture made up about 32 percent of land use in Gaza before the war, and played a central role in the besieged enclave’s economy, along with an important part of Palestinian cultural identity.

By the end of October 2025, Israel destroyed 98% of Gaza’s tree cropland and 75% of its greenhouses.

This destruction will have horrific long-term environmental impacts on Gaza.https://t.co/AX7FO6y1SP

— The IMEU (@theIMEU) December 5, 2025

The killing of Gaza militia leader Yasser Abu Shabab is the final chapter of a man who tried to present himself – with Israeli support – as an alternative to Hamas but was widely derided as a collaborator.

For many Palestinians, Abu Shabab was a criminal. He had been imprisoned in Gaza for a number of years on drug-related charges prior to escaping from jail in the early days of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.

His subsequent alliance with Israel – as it committed a genocide in Gaza killing more than 70,120 people – was immediately disqualifying for most Palestinians, including his own tribe, who said his killing served as “the end of a dark chapter that does not represent the history of the tribe”.

Read more here.

Two people have been wounded by shrapnel and gunfire during an Israeli raid in the Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian news service Wafa, citing local sources, said clashes broke out as Israeli troops stormed the camp, firing tear gas, sound grenades, and live ammunition.

A 45-year-old man was shot in the hand while another had his foot injured by shrapnel, it said.

Israeli police officer Ran Gvili is now the last remaining captive in Gaza after Hamas returned the body of Thai agriculture worker Sudthisak Rinthalak.

Gvili’s remains would complete a key step in US President Donald Trump’s plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza.

See more in our video below:

We have more from the UN Population Fund’s Nestor Owomuhangi, who described recent conversations with Palestinian health workers in Gaza providing care in extremely dire conditions and during harrowing personal loss.

“Gaza’s health system is still standing only because its workers refuse to abandon it,” Owomuhangi said during a UN briefing

He recalled how a doctor in a Gaza hospital’s maternity ward pointed to an incubator holding two premature babies and warned, “Every complication is now magnified by the fear of losing power.”

“If the power cuts again, I don’t know what will happen,” Owomuhangi said the doctor told him.

A Palestinian midwife said, despite losing her sister and her home in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, she’s continuing to work because other women need her. “Meanwhile, she has not been paid in months,” Owomuhangi said.

Nestor Owomuhangi, the UN Population Fund’s representative to Palestine, says the truce between Israel and Hamas “was desperately needed but it is not an end to the war for women and girls” in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking during a UN briefing via video-link from Gaza, Owomuhangi said most Palestinian families in the enclave are living in overcrowded shelters “where hunger and disease threaten daily”.

“More than 57,000 households in Gaza are now headed by women. Many of them are deeply vulnerable with no income to support their children,” he said, adding winter rain and flooding have worsened peoples’ suffering.

“People no longer ask for warmth, education or proper food. They ask for a tent, a small heater, or a light. Their expectations have collapsed, as devastating as any destroyed building.”

Intensified Israeli army raids in northern West Bank areas have caused displacement, school closures, and disruptions to local services, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says.

“Over 95,000 Palestinians were affected by expanded operations by Israeli forces in the northern area in recent days, particularly in Jenin and Tubas governorate,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York City.

At the same time, Dujarric said Israeli settler attacks have continued “unabated” in the West Bank, with at least 1,680 violent incidents that caused casualties or property damage documented by the UN’s humanitarian office so far this year.

Settler violence has affected more than 270 Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank. “That’s an average of five incidents per day,” Dujarric added.