Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 31 in Gaza as UN Agencies Warn of Fuel Crisis

 Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 31 in Gaza as UN Agencies Warn of Fuel Crisis

 Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight killed at least 31 people, according to local hospitals, as UN agencies warned on Monday that critical fuel shortages put hospitals and other critical infrastructure at risk.

The latest attacks came after US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held two days of talks last week that ended with no sign of a breakthrough in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release.

Twelve people were killed by strikes in southern Gaza, including three who were waiting at an aid distribution point, according to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which received the bodies. Shifa Hospital in Gaza City also received 12 bodies, including three children and two women, after a series of strikes in the north, according to the hospital's director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia.

Al-Awda Hospital reported seven killed and 11 wounded in strikes in central Gaza.

The Israeli military says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.

Separately, three Israeli soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, according to the military. A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said on Monday that they died in an explosion in their tank, apparently after it was hit by an anti-tank missile, though the incident was still being examined.

UN agencies, including those providing food and health care, reiterated a warning made at the weekend that without adequate fuel, they "will likely be forced to stop their operations entirely."

In a joint statement, they said that hospitals are already going dark and ambulances can no longer move. Without fuel, transport, water production, sanitation and telecommunications will shut down and bakeries and community kitchens cannot operate, they said.

The agencies confirmed that some 150,000 liters of fuel entered Gaza last week - the first delivery in 130 days. But they said it is "a small fraction of what is needed each day to keep daily life and critical aid operations running."

"The United Nations agencies and humanitarian partners cannot overstate the urgency of this moment: fuel must be allowed into Gaza in sufficient quantities and consistently to sustain life-saving operations," they said.

The agencies signing the statement were the UN humanitarian office OCHA, food agency WFP, health organization WHO, children's agency UNICEF, the agency helping Palestinian refugees UNRWA, population agency UNFPA, development agency UNDP, and UNOPS which oversees procurement and provides management services.

Israel's military said a June 19 strike killed Muhammad Nasr Ali Quneita, a senior Hamas fighter who it said had taken part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and held hostage Emily Damari, a dual Israeli-British citizen, in his home at the start of the war.

There was no comment from Hamas and no independent confirmation.

Thousands of Hamas-led fighters stormed into Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 people, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. The fighters are still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up more than half of the dead. It does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and is led by medical professionals. The United Nations and other experts consider its figures to be the most reliable count of war casualties.

Israel's air and ground war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and driven some 90% of the population from their homes. Aid groups say they have struggled to bring in food and other assistance because of Israeli military restrictions and the breakdown of law and order, and experts have warned of famine.

Israel's Knesset meanwhile voted to expel a prominent Arab lawmaker, but the measure failed to pass the threshold of 90 votes in the 120-member assembly. Seventy-three members voted in favor.

The attempt to remove Ayman Odeh from parliament was related to a social media post in January in which he welcomed the release of both Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners in a Gaza ceasefire.

The prisoners released in the agreement included scores of fighters convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis, and rival lawmakers accused Odeh of supporting terror, allegations he denied. Many Palestinians view those imprisoned by Israel as freedom fighters jailed for resisting Israel's decades-long occupation of lands the Palestinians seek for a future state.

Israel's Arab minority, which makes up some 20% of the population, has citizenship, including the right to vote, but faces widespread discrimination. Its members have close family ties to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and largely support their cause, leading many Jewish Israelis to view them with suspicion or contempt.



Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

 A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

 A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move the country's far-right finance minister said on Sunday was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.  

The decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.  

The latest approvals come days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- all of which are considered illegal under international law -- had reached its highest level since at least 2017.  

"The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalize 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet," the statement said, without specifying when the decision was taken. 

Smotrich is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself.  

"On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state," he said in the statement.  

"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path." 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently condemned what he described as Israel's "relentless" expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.  

It "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State", he said earlier this month.  

Since the start of the war in Gaza, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state have proliferated, with several European countries, Canada and Australia recently moving to formally recognize such a state, drawing rebukes from Israel.  

A UN report said the expansion of settlements was at its highest point since 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data.  

"These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years," Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually between 2017 and 2022.  

"These developments are further entrenching the unlawful Israeli occupation and violating international law and undermining the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." 

Excluding east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.  

Smotrich's office said the 19 newly approved settlements are located in what it described as "highly strategic" areas, adding that two of them -- Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank -- would be re-established after being dismantled two decades ago.  

Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, the statement said.  

While all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law, some wildcat outposts are also illegal in the eyes of the Israeli government.  

Many of these, however, are later legalized by Israeli authorities, fueling fears about the possible annexation of the territory. 

US President Donald Trump has warned Israel about annexing the West Bank.  

"Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened," Trump said in a recent interview to Time magazine.  

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has soared since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023 following Hamas's attack on Israel.  

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,027 Palestinians in the West Bank -- both gunmen and civilians -- since the start of the fighting in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.  

At least 44 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period, according to Israeli data. 


Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)

The head of Iraq's highest judicial body said Saturday that the leaders of armed factions have agreed to cooperate on the sensitive issue of the state's monopoly on weapons.

However, the powerful Kataib Hezbollah group said that it would only discuss giving up its arms when foreign troops leave the country.

"The resistance is a right, and its weapons will remain in the hands of its fighters," the group said in a statement.

The leaders of three other pro-Iran factions designated by Washington as terrorist groups said that it is time to restrict weapons to state control, although they too have stopped short of committing to disarm -- a long-standing US demand.

Faiq Zidan, the head of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, in a statement thanked "faction leaders for heeding his advice to coordinate together to enforcing the rule of law, restrict weapons to state control, and transition to political action after the national need for military action has ceased".

After Iraq's general elections in November, the United States demanded that the new government exclude six groups it designates as terrorists and instead move to dismantle them, Iraqi officials and diplomats told AFP.

But some of the groups have increased their presence in the new parliament and are members of the Coordination Framework, a ruling alliance of Shiite parties with varying ties to Iran that holds the majority.

The blacklisted groups are part of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces, a former paramilitary alliance that has integrated into the armed forces. But they have also developed a reputation for sometimes acting on their own.

They are also part of the Tehran-backed so-called "Axis of Resistance" and have called for the withdrawal of US troops -- deployed in Iraq as part of an anti-ISIS coalition -- and launched attacks against them.

These groups include the powerful Asaib Ahl al-Haq faction, which won 27 seats in the elections.

Earlier this week, the group's leader, Qais al-Khazali, a key figure in the Coordination Framework, said "we believe" in "the slogan to restrict weapons to the state", and "we are now part of the state".

Two other groups, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya and Kataeb Imam Ali, said on Friday that it is time to "limit weapons to the state".


Israeli Military Says Killed Two Palestinians in West Bank

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Military Says Killed Two Palestinians in West Bank

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's military said it killed two Palestinians in the north of the occupied West Bank Saturday, accusing one of throwing "a block" and the other an explosive at its soldiers.

In a statement the military said that during an operation "in the area of Qabatiya, a terrorist hurled a block toward the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist".

"Simultaneously, during an additional operation in the Silat al-Harithiya area, a terrorist hurled an explosive toward the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist."

Both locations are near the city of Jenin.

The Israeli military reported no injuries among its troops.

The Palestinian health ministry said that a 16-year-old boy died "from wounds caused by a bullet of the Israeli occupation forces", according to the official Wafa news agency.

It also reported that a 22-year-old man was killed by "a bullet to the chest during an occupation forces raid" on Silat al-Harithiya.

Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

It has not subsided despite the truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them gunmen, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.