Central Gaza strip — Israel’s war on Gaza has once again forced thousands of Palestinians to flee as the Israeli army issued new evacuation orders in the central Gaza Strip.
Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army spokesman, conveyed the directive on Friday through his social media platforms, urging residents of Bureij camp and other central Gaza areas to promptly vacate their homes and relocate to the southern city of Deir el-Balah.
In his message, Adraee stated, “To the residents of Al-Bureij Camp and the neighborhoods of Badr, the Northern Coast, Al-Nuzha, Al-Zahra, Al-Buraq, Al-Rawda, and Al-Safa in the areas south of Wadi Gaza: For your safety, you must move immediately to the shelter in Deir Al-Balah.”
Reports from the region indicated that the Israeli army directly contacted residents in some areas, compelling them to evacuate swiftly, prompting thousands to head to the south.
At the entrances to Bureij, displaced individuals could be seen carrying their belongings, blankets, and essentials on carts pulled by donkeys. Some improvised by placing sleeping mats atop vehicles as they headed towards Deir el-Balah.
Many among the displaced people, already grappling with the consequences of previous evacuations during the 77 days of conflict, believe that these latest orders further intensify the humanitarian crisis, especially considering that many have experienced displacement multiple times, particularly from the northern regions.
Deir el-Balah, like other southern areas, faces continuing bombardment from Israeli artillery and warplanes. Additionally, it contends with severe overcrowding as hundreds of thousands have sought refuge there from eastern regions close to the border, along with residents of Gaza City and the north displaced since the early stages of the Israeli war.
United Nations agencies have persistently warned about the dire conditions for civilians in the impoverished and densely populated strip. The Israeli bombings have obliterated entire neighbourhoods, leading to the displacement of 1.9 million Gaza Palestinians, constituting 85 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.
Simultaneously, international relief organisation Oxfam reported on Friday that 90 percent of Gaza’s approximately 2.3 million people strong population, confronts acute hunger, with the risk of famine escalating daily unless a ceasefire is brokered.
Cologne police chief says sniffer dogs will search building following indications of attack planned for New Year’s Eve.
German police have searched a cathedral in the western city of Cologne amid warnings of a possible attack planned for New Year’s Eve.
Cologne police chief Michael Esser said on Saturday that Cologne Cathedral would be closed and sniffer dogs would be brought in to search the building after the evening mass service.
“Even though the information relates to New Year’s Eve, we are from this evening doing everything we can to ensure the safety of visitors of the cathedral on Christmas Eve,” Esser said in a statement.
Visitors on Sunday will have to undergo security checks before entering the cathedral.
German newspaper Bild reported that authorities in Germany, Austria and Spain have all received indications that an Islamist group was plotting attacks in Europe, with targets possibly including Christmas masses in Cologne, Vienna and Madrid.
On Saturday, special forces in Vienna and Germany arrested a number of suspects, Bild also reported.
Al Jazeera could not independently confirm the arrests.
Austrian police said in a statement they were boosting security for churches and Christmas markets due to the heightened state of alert.
“Given that terrorist actors throughout Europe are calling for attacks on Christian events, especially around December 24, the security authorities have taken the corresponding protection measures in public spaces,” the police said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Spain’s Interior Ministry announced it would ramp up security measures for the Christmas holiday period.
Cologne Cathedral, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, is one of Germany’s most popular tourist attractions, attracting more than six million visitors each year.
White House says the two leaders discussed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, including its ‘objectives and phasing’.
United States President Joe Biden says he did not ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in a telephone call between the two leaders.
“I had a long talk with Netanyahu today [Saturday] and it was a private conversation,” Biden told reporters on Saturday.
“I did not ask for a ceasefire,” he said, in response to a shouted question.
In a statement later, the White House said Biden and Netanyahu discussed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, including its “objectives and phasing”.
Biden “emphasised the critical need to protect the civilian population including those supporting the humanitarian aid operation, and the importance of allowing civilians to move safely away from areas of ongoing fighting,” said the statement.
“The leaders discussed the importance of securing the release of all remaining hostages.”
The call between the two leaders came a day after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution calling for the scaling up of aid for Gaza but fell short of calling for a ceasefire or a pause in weeks-long fighting.
The resolution, which demanded “immediate, safe and unhindered” deliveries of life-saving aid to Gaza “at scale”, was passed after UNSC members wrangled for days over its wording and toned down some provisions at Washington’s insistence.
The US and Russia abstained from the vote, whose impact on the ground, aid groups fear, will be close to nil.
“This resolution has been watered down to the point that its impact on the lives of civilians in Gaza will be nearly meaningless,” Avril Benoit, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement.
“The way Israel is prosecuting this war, with US support, is causing massive death and suffering among Palestinian civilians and is inconsistent with international norms and laws,” Benoit added.
The US also opposed the demand to create a UN monitoring mechanism for aid, assuring Israel would continue to have a role in inspecting deliveries.
Netanyahu on Saturday “expressed his appreciation” for the stance taken by the US at the UN, his office said. He also “made it clear that Israel will continue the war until all its goals are completed”.
More than 200 killed in 24 hours
Israel has continued to bomb Gaza for nearly 80 days, with more than 200 people killed in the past 24 hours.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll since the start of the attacks rose to 20,258 on Saturday, most of them being women and children.
According to UN estimates, the war has displaced 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
The UN has described the situation in Gaza as “beyond catastrophic”, with residents struggling to find food, fuel and water, while living in crowded shelters or tents.
In a post on X, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it “cannot deliver meaningful aid” while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues.
“It is extremely tragic that politics stand in the way of 2.2 million people’s survival in Gaza,” UNRWA spokesperson Tamara al-Rifai said at a news conference on Saturday.
It is the second attack in two weeks by the RED-Tabara rebels, who have been largely inactive inside Burundi since 2021.
Gunmen have killed at least 20 people and wounded nine others near Burundi’s western border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an official has told reporters.
Those killed in the Friday evening raid on the town of Vugizo included 12 children, two pregnant women and a police officer, government spokesperson Jérôme Niyonzima said on Saturday.
The attack was claimed by the RED-Tabara rebel group, considered a “terrorist” group by the Burundian authorities.
The attack targeted nine homes in the town, close to the Lake Tanganyika border with the DRC. At least nine others wounded in the attack have been hospitalised.
The RED-Tabara rebel group, which has been battling Burundi’s government from bases in the eastern DRC since 2015, claimed on the social media platform X to have killed nine soldiers and one police officer.
The group denied having targeted civilians.
Local residents said they heard sounds of gunfire and explosions during the attack.
Witnesses who spoke to the Associated Press said the rebels appeared to be wearing Burundian Army uniforms and civilians were “left to their own devices” after the military and police fled.
“We realised they were attackers when they attacked the police position guarding the border,” said Priscille Kanyange, a farmer.
“Many people here were injured by bullets [as they were] trying to flee.”
Another farmer, Innocent Hajayandi, who witnessed the attack, said security forces fled, “leaving the residents to their own devices”.
André Kabura, a grocery shop owner who was wounded in both legs in the gunfire, said the military and police were slow to regroup and fend off the attackers.
Two military and security sources told the AFP news agency the attack targeted “a military position”.
“The civilians were caught in the crossfire and were killed, and then the assailants retreated to DRC,” a senior military official told the AFP on condition of anonymity, confirming the toll of 20.
The attack was the second in as many weeks inside Burundi by the rebels, who have not been active inside the country since September 2021, when they carried out a series of attacks, including on the Bujumbura airport.
Since then, their activities have been taking place in the DRC’s South Kivu province. But on December 11, they exchanged fire with the military in northwestern Burundi.
On Friday, Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye told army, police and intelligence officers to remain vigilant, warning that “the enemy never sleeps even if we have security”.
Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy latest to be killed in Israeli attack on his home in the east of Gaza City.
At least 100 journalists have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, according to new figures released by the government media office in Gaza.
Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy was the latest to be killed in an Israeli air raid on his home in the east of Gaza City on Saturday, the media office said.
“The number of journalists killed has risen to 100, men and women, since the start of the brutal war on the Gaza Strip, after the martyrdom of journalist Mohammed Abu Hweidy in an Israeli airstrike in the Shujaiya neighborhood,” the office said on Telegram social media.
Palestinian officials in Gaza say the number could be much higher.
However, according to a tally by the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 69 journalists have been killed in the conflict, including Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman Samer Abudaqa.
More than 50 media premises or offices in Gaza have been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli attacks. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists and their families have been forcibly displaced to the south.
The media workers were also forced to abandon their reporting equipment in offices in the north to live and report under difficult conditions amid frequent communication blackouts.
Journalists working in areas of armed conflict are protected under international humanitarian laws, which Israel is accused of violating repeatedly.
Palestinian journalists have said Israel is deliberately targeting them to silence their stories.
Tim Dawson, deputy general secretary at the International Federation of Journalists, told Al Jazeera it is becoming “impossible to ignore such a terribly, terribly high toll” of journalists.
“I don’t think we have seen a death toll of journalists to this concentration in any conflict that I can think of. There were about 1,000 journalists in Gaza at the beginning of this conflict. And while there are slightly different counts of precisely how many have died, if between seven-and-a-half and 10 percent have died, that is an extraordinarily high number,” he said.
Dawson said the journalists in Gaza “only have cameras, microphones and notebooks and continue doing their work despite this absolutely mind-blowing death toll”.
When asked by Al Jazeera if Israel is targeting journalists, he said some Palestinian journalists have told him they “received threatening calls from people” purporting to be from the Israeli military, “warning them that they are going to be targeted or that their families are going to be targeted in the coming days”.
Rival groups commit to new ceasefire and engage in UN-led peace process to end the nine-year war, says UN special envoy for Yemen.
The warring sides in the long-running conflict in Yemen have committed to steps towards a ceasefire and engage in a United Nations-led peace process, according to the UN special envoy for Yemen.
The announcement by Hans Grundberg on Saturday marks the latest step to end a nine-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Following a series of meetings between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and Iran-aligned Houthis in Saudi Arabia and Oman, a statement by Grundberg’s office said he “welcomes the parties’ commitment to a set of measures to implement a nationwide ceasefire, improve living conditions in Yemen, and engage in preparations for the resumption of an inclusive political process”.
The envoy “will now engage with the parties to establish a roadmap under UN auspices that includes these commitments and supports their implementation”, the statement said.
The plan, along with a ceasefire, will also include the two sides’ commitment to resume oil exports, pay all public sector salaries, open roads in Taiz and other parts of Yemen, and “further ease restrictions on Sanaa Airport and the Hodeidah port”, it added.
Yemen has been gripped with conflict since the Houthis took control of capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government forces the following year.
A UN-brokered ceasefire that took effect in April 2022 brought a sharp reduction in hostilities in the country of 30 million people. The truce expired in October last year, though fighting largely remains on hold.
In September, Houthi officials visited Riyadh for the first time since the war broke out. That followed a first round of Omani-mediated consultations between Riyadh and Sanaa.
The peace initiatives gained momentum after regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to re-establish ties in a deal brokered by China.
The UN envoy’s announcement also came amid a flurry of Houthi attacks on key shipping lanes in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians under attack in the Gaza Strip for more than two months.
Draft document outlining restrictions caused major stir as tech stocks tumbled, sent investors into a panic.
Chinese authorities have said they may revise newly drafted online gaming rules shortly after the planned restrictions caused major tech companies to lose billions of dollars.
State broadcaster CCTV reported on Saturday that the authorities have heard the “concerns and opinions raised by all parties”, adding that “the State Press and Publication Administration will study them carefully and further revise and improve them”, referring to the media regulator.
The authorities released a draft on Friday with a wide range of rules and regulations aimed at curbing online spending and rewards in video games.
Its impact was immediate, dealing a massive blow to the world’s biggest games market. Investors went into a tailspin, leading to as much as $80bn in market value being wiped off from China’s two biggest companies, industry leader Tencent Holdings and Netease.
According to the new rules, online games would be banned from giving players rewards if they log in every day, if they spend on a game for the first time, or if they spend several times on a game consecutively. All are common incentive mechanisms in online games.
CCTV reported that regulators may now change the wording of sections of the draft rules that limit the ability to encourage daily logins and wallet top-ups.
China has become increasingly tough on video games over the years.
Its first major move against the gaming sector came in 2021, when Beijing set strict playtime limits for under-18s and suspended approvals of new video games for about eight months, citing gaming addiction concerns.
As a result of the crackdown, 2021 and 2022 were the most difficult years on record for the Chinese gaming industry as total revenue shrank for the first time.
China revised its position last year and started approving new games again, but regulators have continued to set their sights on curbing the time children play in-game and the amount of money they spend.
As part of Friday’s draft, which signifies the strictest limits yet, games are also banned from offering probability-based draw features to minors, and from enabling the auction of virtual gaming items.
The new rules reflected Beijing’s concerns about user data, requiring game publishers to store their servers within China.
The draft comes as China’s video game market has returned to growth this year as domestic revenue rose 13 percent to 303 billion yuan ($42.6bn), according to the industry association CGIGC.
Due to the sheer size and impact of Chinese gaming giants, the global video games market could also be affected in the long run.
Several United States and European video games developers saw shares take a hit after Friday’s announcement, but the losses were small when compared with Tencent’s 16 percent tumble. Friday’s news wiped about $54bn off the company’s share value, according to Bloomberg News.
The administration is seeking public comment on the rules by January 22.
Former TV journalist and opponent of Ukraine war had filed documents seeking to challenge Vladimir Putin.
Former Russian television journalist Yekaterina Duntsova, who had put her name forward as an independent candidate in Russia’s upcoming presidential election, has been barred from running against President Vladimir Putin.
On Saturday, Russia’s Central Electoral Commission rejected Duntsova’s application – which had been filed on December 20 – citing “mistakes in documents”, according to Russian television reports.
The commission’s chief, Ella Pamfilova, said the members unanimously rejected Duntsova’s bid to stand in the March 17 vote that Putin is expected to win comfortably.
Critics of the president will see the torpedoing of her campaign as evidence that no one with opposition views will be allowed to stand against him in the first presidential election since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Kremlin says Putin will win because he enjoys genuine support across society, with opinion poll ratings of about 80 percent.
The commission said Duntsova could not go on to the next stage of gathering thousands of supporters’ signatures.
“You are a young woman, you have everything ahead of you,” Pamfilova told Duntsova.
‘Fear must not win’
The 40-year-old sent in her candidacy documents on Wednesday, to challenge Putin, 71, who is almost certain to win a fifth term as president, allowing him to continue leading Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
Putin has been in power for 24 years, including an eight-year stint as prime minister.
When a reporter asked Duntsova if the commission would give her permission to stand against Putin, she questioned why it was necessary to talk “about permission” if it was her “right according to the law”.
Putin has so far not faced competition in the presidential campaign, with opposition leaders such as Alexey Navalny serving long prison sentences and other leading Kremlin critics either behind bars or outside of the country because of the risk of arrest.
Pamfilova from the commission said on Saturday that 29 people have filed to run for the presidency.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency last month, Dunstova called for the release of political prisoners, including Navalny.
She also avoided using the word “war” in the interview to describe the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which Putin has called a “special military operation”, acknowledging she was afraid.
“Any sane person taking this step would be afraid, but fear must not win,” she added.
Weeks of restricted access to food in the Gaza Strip have culminated in severe hunger and growing risks of famine in the besieged enclave.
Since early October, Israeli attacks across Gaza have damaged local bakeries and food warehouses, along with roads that are used to transport humanitarian aid. Israel’s total blockade on the enclave has also restricted food, water and fuel from entering in the first place.
How bad is starvation in Gaza and what is the food supply like since the war? Here is what we know.
What does the IPC report say about Gaza?
More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Monday.
The IPC, which measures hunger risks, also reported on Thursday that 2.08 million people in Gaza are facing “acute food insecurity” that can be classified in the organisation’s phase three of risk or above.
The IPC has five phases of acute food insecurity, ranging from none (phase one) to catastrophe or famine (phase five). Phase three and five are considered crisis and emergency. “Acute” food insecurity is a short-term phenomenon and tends to stem from unusual or man-made shocks, compared with “chronic” food insecurity, which is long term and a result of insufficient means for living.
Between December and February, Gaza’s entire population is projected to fall under phase three or above, according to the United Nations-backed report.
If current hostilities and limited aid continue, Gaza is also at risk of experiencing a famine by early February. The IPC definition of famine is when at least 20 percent of the population in an area falls under phase five of acute food insecurity.
What does food access look like in Gaza?
Families in Gaza have had to cope with deteriorating quality and declining quantities of food, along with an inability to cook meals due to fuel shortages.
Spending a day without eating any food has become usual. In early December, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported that nine out of 10 people across the enclave skip meals for long periods.
Nutritionally vulnerable groups such as pregnant women are at heightened risk, while baby formula and milk have been in severely short supply for toddlers who rely on it.
Even preparing meals requires finding alternatives to cooking gas, and aside from using firewood or cardboard, at least 13 percent of displaced people have been forced to burn solid waste, says the WFP.
Hunger has also quickly escalated since a brief truce ended in early December. Just 12 days after it ended, the WFP found that at least half of internally displaced people surveyed knew someone who had resorted to consuming raw meat.
Access to water is also scarce, with less than two litres (0.5 gallons) available for each person per day – far short of the 15 litres needed to survive, according to the WFP.
What level of food aid is entering Gaza?
Since October 7, the number of trucks carrying food that entered Gaza in a month fell by more than half, compared with at least 10,000 trucks before the war.
Over two months of war, only 1,249 trucks carrying food assistance reached Gaza, the WFP reported on December 6. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also reported that over the first 70 days of the war, only 10 percent of the food needed for Gaza’s entire population entered the enclave.
The WFP has recommended that at least 100 trucks carrying just food and water enter Gaza a day, but on most days since the war even the total amount of trucks entering has been less than that. The agency also noted that damaged roads near Rafah at the border with Egypt – where must aid is now dispersed from – cannot accommodate this increase.
At the height of aid supply during the truce lasting from November 24 to December 1, some 200 trucks entered daily, while the WFP was only able to reach about 10 percent of Gaza’s population with in-kind and cash-based food assistance.
Even once food aid is supplied, access to a sufficient share has not been possible. A report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan, a human rights organisation based in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, on December 14 found that people near Rafah’s food distribution centres would often have to wait in line for 10 hours, and sometimes still returned home empty-handed.
“I have to walk three kilometres to get one gallon [of water],” Marwan, a 30-year-old Palestinian, who fled south with his pregnant wife and two children on November 9, told Human Rights Watch. “And there is no food. If we are able to find food, it is canned food. Not all of us are eating well.”
Still, Gaza’s population primarily relies on humanitarian assistance for food, followed by local markets and assistance from friends or relatives. With rising shortages across all of these, support from relatives is also dwindling, according to the WFP.
As more of Gaza’s population is pushed into shelters in southern governorates, which are also under intense bombardment, competition for food is expected to increase, said the IPC.
(Al Jazeera)
Can people in Gaza access food locally?
Fighting across the Gaza Strip, and especially in the northern governorates, has particularly made it difficult to access food and aid.
Local farmlands, flour mills, bakeries and warehouses have also been directly damaged by Israeli bombardments.
Only a month after fighting broke out, all of northern Gaza’s bakeries closed due to lack of supplies such as flour and fuel, the UN reported on November 8. Risks of being hit by Israeli strikes also resulted in movement restrictions for those seeking to leave their homes for food.
Apple has opened negotiations in recent weeks with major news and publishing organisations, seeking permission to use their material in the company’s development of generative artificial intelligence systems, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The iPhone maker has floated multiyear deals worth at least $50 million (roughly Rs. 420 crore) to license the archives of news articles, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the discussions.
The news organisations contacted by Apple include Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue and the New Yorker; NBC News; and IAC, which owns People, the Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens, the New York Times said.
Some of the publishers contacted by Apple were lukewarm on the overture, according to the report.
Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Big tech has been investing aggressively to integrate generative AI. On the other hand, Apple has used the technology to improve basic functions in its new gadgets.
Apple also introduced new MacBook Pro and iMac computers and three new chips to power them in October, highlighting that these can be used by artificial intelligence researchers, whose chatbots and other creations are often constrained by how much data can be held in the computer’s memory.
More Chinese agencies and state-backed companies across the country have asked their staff to not bring Apple iPhones and other foreign devices to work, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month, citing people familiar with the matter.
For over a decade, China has been seeking to reduce reliance on foreign technologies, asking state-affiliated firms such as banks to switch to local software and promoting domestic semiconductor chip manufacturing.
Multiple state firms and government departments across at least eight provinces have instructed employees in the past month or two to start carrying local brands, the Bloomberg News report said.
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