Israeli army says it is investigating deaths of Palestinians in Israeli detention
The Israeli army has said it is investigating the deaths of Palestinian detainees who were arrested in military operations across the Gaza Strip.
At least six Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons or Israel Defense Forces (IDF) detention facilities since the start of the war, Haaretz reported.
The Israeli newspaper said several Palestinians had died after being held at the Sde Teiman base near the city of Be’er Sheva, in southern Israel. Hundreds of Palestinians have been held for weeks at the facility, it said, where detainees are “blindfolded and handcuffed for most of the day”.
An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday:
We know of deaths of terrorists in military detention centres and they are under investigation.
Amnesty International has said Palestinian detainees held by Israeli forces have shared testimony of torture and ill-treatment, including severe beatings and humiliation.
Key events
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in a single day in Gaza, the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry says, as an Israeli military official said heavy civilian casualties were the price of battling militants.
Reuters quoted the official, whom it granted anonymity at the Israeli military’s request, speaking at the Palmachim air force base 28 miles from the Gaza border.
The cost in civilian lives was balanced against an evaluation of the military advantage before each strike, the official, a legal advisor to the Israeli Defense Forces, said:
(There are) thousands and thousands of attacks, and often attacks that require heavy firepower. Really tragically that results in a large number of civilian casualties.
Multiple Israeli attacks on Gaza on Tuesday left more than 100 Palestinians dead and hundreds more wounded, Palestinian health ministry spokesman Ashral al-Qidra said.
Julian Borger
There appears to have been a disconnect between the US permanent mission at the UN on one side and Washington on the other.
The White House and state department seem not have paid proper attention to the UAE’s draft ceasefire resolution until today, and demanded last-minute changes.
One of the issues is a call for the “urgent suspension of hostilities” to allow humanitarian deliveries. The Biden administration prefers language like “humanitarian pauses” in the context of negotiated pauses for the release of hostages by Hamas.
Another sticking point is language giving the UN authority to monitor aid deliveries to make sure arms are not being smuggled in. Washington wants more explicit language that makes clear Israel would still have a role in inspections of aid trucks.
According to one informed source, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, would be prepared to abstain on the UAE text, but Joe Biden has recently talked to Benjamin Netanyahu who insisted the US must cast a veto.
The problem is that Biden has been at the funeral of the late supreme court justice Sandra Day O’Connor this afternoon, so the US mission is playing for time so that the president can have the final say.
A UN official has said the US is “defending the indefensible” when it comes to Israel’s operation in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, told Sky News that the US continued to post obstacles in defence of Israel.
“This operation has already caused almost 20,000 deaths, 8,000 are still missing and 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced,” she said.
What are the US waiting for to declare a ceasefire? This is unfathomable for me.
Palestinians who were arrested in IDF operations across the Gaza Strip have said they were beaten and blindfolded while in Israeli detention.
One of the Palestinian men, Mohammed Dawood, told the BBC he was detained for 26 days after he followed Israel’s order to move farther south within the enclave.
He said that while in Israeli detention he was “tied up and my eyes were blindfolded like all the other men,” adding:
They abused us, spat on us and disrespected us. We were all beaten.
Another man, Mahmoud Abu Husein, 62, told the news outlet that Israeli soldiers shot him in the leg. “Afterwards, they amputated my leg,” he said.
An IDF spokesperson told the BBC it detained people “suspected of terrorism”, but did not give specifics for why these men were held. They said Israel respected international law.
The UN security council vote on resolution calling for a halt in the fighting to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza has been postponed again.
The vote, initially scheduled for Monday afternoon, had been expected to take place in New York by early Tuesday afternoon, but diplomats said it was pushed back until later in the day because the US had asked for more time, AP reported.
![A UN security council meeting on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question” at the UN headquarters in New York City.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5b1896e9f27890fafd41c4b206512c2edbecfb08/0_0_7511_5007/master/7511.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said the US was still “engaging constructively” with other security council members on the text, without giving any details.
The draft resolution on the table Monday morning called for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” but the language is expected to be watered down possibly to a “suspension” of hostilities or even weaker to get US support, according to diplomats.
Speaking at a briefing, Miller said Washington would welcome a resolution that fully supports addressing the humanitarian needs of the people in Gaza but that the details of the text mattered.
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly 9pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
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Israeli forces have bombed a home in southern Gaza, killing 25 people, as Palestinian casualties in Gaza climbed towards 20,000. The death toll from airstrikes and grim conditions for nearly 2 million people displaced from their homes with little access to food, clean water or sanitation is fuelling growing international anger. In addition to longstanding concerns about the humanitarian catastrophe inside Gaza, there has been a growing international focus on Israel’s rules of engagement.
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At least 13 Palestinians were killed and 75 others wounded in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, a spokesperson for the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory said on Tuesday. Jabalia is the largest of eight refugee camps in Gaza.
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The UN security council has been meeting in New York ahead of an expected vote on calling for a sustainable cessation of hostilities in Gaza. The vote had been due on Monday but it was postponed to give more time for diplomats to meet US objection over a reference to a “cessation of hostilities” in the draft resolution. Britain’s development minister, Andrew Mitchell, told parliament that he hoped that the UK would be able to support the security council vote.
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Israeli forces raided one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza, putting it out of action, according to the hospital’s director. The overnight raid at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City led to the arrest of doctors, medical staff and patients, according to reports. The hospital was also reportedly damaged as a result of the assault.
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Israeli forces have taken control of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza after surrounding the facility for 12 days, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It said males over the age of 16 were taken out of the hospital, stripped, bound and interrogated – among them were six MSF staff. The hospital still has dozens of patients inside, including 14 children, it said, adding that the facility had run out of essentials such as general aesthetic and oxygen.
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Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the Israeli ground operation would “expand to additional areas” of the Gaza Strip. It is thought that he was referring to the central Gaza Strip or the southern city of Rafah.
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Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has signalled readiness on the part of the country to enter into another foreign-mediated Gaza truce to recover hostages held by Hamas and enable more aid to reach the besieged Palestinian enclave. A senior Hamas official said on Tuesday that Hamas rejected holding negotiations over exchanging prisoners during the war, but it was open to any initiative to end the “continuing Israeli genocidal war”.
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The Israeli army has said it is investigating the deaths of Palestinian detainees who were arrested in military operations across the Gaza Strip. At least six Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons or Israel Defense Forces (IDF) detention facilities since the start of the war, according to a report, including “several” held at the Sde Teiman base near the city of Be’er Sheva, in southern Israel. Meanwhile, the IDF said it had suspended a group of Israeli soldiers recorded smoking a water pipe and joking in front of Palestinians who were detained and blindfolded in the occupied West Bank.
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Benjamin Nentanyahu has been meeting families of the hostages held captive in Gaza. About 15 family members of hostages were expected to attend the meeting, where the Israeli prime minister was joined by the coordinator for hostages and missing persons, Gal Hirsch.
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UN officials have expressed anger and disbelief about the situation in Gaza hospitals, where injured people do not have basic supplies and children recovering from amputations are being killed in the conflict. “I’m furious that children who are recovering from amputations in hospitals are then killed in those hospitals,” said James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency. He added that the Nasser hospital, the largest operational hospital left in the territory, had been shelled twice in the past 48 hours.
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The US has announced the creation of an enhanced naval protection force operating in the southern Red Sea in an attempt to ward off mounting attacks from Yemen’s rebel Houthis on merchant shipping. Britain said it would be among the countries participating but notable absentees were Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Houthis said on Tuesday they would press on with attacks in the Red Sea and could mount a naval operation there roughly every 12 hours. The group has stepped up the missile and drone attacks it began last month against international vessels in response to Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
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The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, told MPs at a liaison committee that too many civilians were dying in Gaza but rebuffed questions on whether Israel had violated international humanitarian law or whether it was responsible for the death toll. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran made an impassioned plea in the Commons for the government to back an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as she told of the desperate plight of relatives who had taken refuge in a church there.
Israeli forces have taken control of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza after surrounding the facility for 12 days, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
In a series of posts on social media, MSF said males over the age of 16 were taken out of the hospital, stripped, bound and interrogated – among them were six MSF staff.
It said most of them were sent back to the hospital and told not to move after the interrogations.
The hospital still has dozens of patients inside, including 14 children, it said, adding that the facility had run out of essentials such as general aesthetic and oxygen. MSF added:
Over the past 10 weeks, Al Awda has been besieged, damaged in strikes, and medical staff have been killed in blasts. It is the last functioning hospital in the north of Gaza that we know of.
On 17 December, Israeli forces took control of Al Awda hospital, after besieging it for 12 days. Males over 16 years old were taken out of the hospital, stripped, bound and interrogated – six MSF staff were among them…
— MSF International (@MSF) December 19, 2023
Over the past 10 weeks, Al Awda has been besieged, damaged in strikes, and medical staff have been killed in blasts. It is the last functioning hospital in the north of Gaza that we know of.
— MSF International (@MSF) December 19, 2023
Blake Montgomery
Meta’s oversight board said on Tuesday that the social media company erred in removing two videos depicting hostages and injured people in the Israel-Hamas conflict, saying the videos were valuable to understanding human suffering in the war.
One of the cases concerned a video posted on Instagram that showed the aftermath of an airstrike near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, including children who appeared injured or dead. The second case involved a video on Facebook of the 7 October attack, which showed an Israeli woman begging her kidnappers not to kill her as she was taken hostage.
The board described the videos as important for “informing the world about human suffering on both sides”. Meta’s automatic moderation systems removed the content. In both instances, after the oversight board selected the content takedowns for review, Meta reversed its decision and restored the videos with a screen that warned viewers before viewing, the board said.
The board said it approved of the move to restore the content, but disagreed with Meta’s decision to restrict the videos from being recommended to users, and in a statement urged Meta to “respond more quickly to changing circumstances on the ground, which affect the balance between the values of voice and safety”.
The board said such videos could contain evidence of human rights violations and could be important to the historical record of the war. It advised the company to err on the side of allowing such videos instead of algorithmically removing them, a process that board members said raised the chances of cutting “valuable posts”.
Benjamin Nentanyahu has been meeting families of the hostages held captive in Gaza.
The meeting is taking place at the Kirya military complex in Tel Aviv, where the Israeli prime minister was joined by Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for hostages and missing persons.
About 15 family members of hostages were expected to attend the meeting after being hand-picked by Hirsch, the Times of Israel reported. The decision to only allow 15 people into the meeting has infuriated families who have been pushing for a meeting for days, it said.
![Families of hostages and supporters at a protest outside the Israeli defence ministry in Tel Aviv.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f78e1dd9a9915a0d70429df49c01a3e7cb548f88/0_0_5500_3667/master/5500.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
Israeli forces to expand ground operation to additional areas in Gaza, says defence minister
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said the Israeli ground operation will “expand to additional areas” of the Gaza Strip.
Gallant, while touring the Gaza border, said in comments reported by the Times of Israel:
Khan Younis has become the new capital of terror. We will not let up in our action there until we get to the senior Hamas officials.
He added that the ground operation would expand to “additional areas”, which the Israeli outlet said referred to the central Gaza Strip or the southern city of Rafah.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says the ground operation will “expand to additional areas” of the Gaza Strip.
“Khan Younis has become the new capital of terror. We will not let up in our action there until we get to the senior Hamas officials. The ground operation will expand to… pic.twitter.com/b7FOWjFJqN
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 19, 2023
Israeli army says it is investigating deaths of Palestinians in Israeli detention
The Israeli army has said it is investigating the deaths of Palestinian detainees who were arrested in military operations across the Gaza Strip.
At least six Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons or Israel Defense Forces (IDF) detention facilities since the start of the war, Haaretz reported.
The Israeli newspaper said several Palestinians had died after being held at the Sde Teiman base near the city of Be’er Sheva, in southern Israel. Hundreds of Palestinians have been held for weeks at the facility, it said, where detainees are “blindfolded and handcuffed for most of the day”.
An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday:
We know of deaths of terrorists in military detention centres and they are under investigation.
Amnesty International has said Palestinian detainees held by Israeli forces have shared testimony of torture and ill-treatment, including severe beatings and humiliation.
A meeting between Qatar’s prime minister and the heads of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency on a potential new deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza was “positive” but no imminent deal is expected.
On Monday the Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met with the CIA’s William Burns and the Mossad’s David Barnea in Poland.
The talks were “positive with negotiators exploring and discussing different proposals in an attempt to progress on negotiations”, a source told Reuters, adding:
An agreement is not expected imminently however.
The UN security council may once again postpone the vote on calling for a cessation of hostilities in Gaza.
The vote had been due on Monday but it was postponed to today after the US said it could not support a reference to a “cessation of hostilities” in the draft resolution.
The vote will now probably be delayed again, Al Jazeera’s Rami Ayari reports. Citing sources, he said the US believed the mention of “cessation” was a “bridge too far”.
Being told another delay of the vote time is likely. Two sources understand that the very tepid call for “urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities” in the text is at least one of the sources of contention in the negotiations. The call for “urgent suspension of… https://t.co/tMoonCY8s5
— Rami Ayari (@Raminho) December 19, 2023
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from the city of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
![A woman sits in debris of a destroyed building after Israeli attacks in Deir al-Balah.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8cf1bc84a35e1ca87a69553290ccd7c68f87d21d/0_0_5436_3576/master/5436.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
![Palestinians among the debris of a destroyed building after Israeli attacks in Deir al-Balah.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b270bcddc7805445e63cca7a554cb8f1db24410c/0_0_5760_3840/master/5760.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
![Children near the rubble of a destroyed house after an Israeli airstrike in the east of Deir al-Balah.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8c2dd31623ee6f952f7a61ee7185140035d4620e/0_0_6720_4480/master/6720.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
![People carry their belongings on a horse in Deir al-Balah.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a22e8395115653ff1432851904af4cfc30de4cb7/0_0_5357_3526/master/5357.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
James Kariuki, the UK’s representative to the UN, said a “humanitarian catastrophe was unfolding” in Gaza while Israel was still reckoning with the “brutal horror” of the Hamas terror attacks.
Speaking at the UN security council meeting, he called for a “sustainable ceasefire that breaks the cycle of violence”, and urged Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel, release all hostages, and for aid to be allowed to flow into Gaza.
He said this is “the only way to achieve a sustainable peace based on a two-State solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security.”
The UK was focused on three areas, Kariuki said. First, Israel must be “targeted and precise” in its actions as “too many civilians have been killed” in Gaza. Second, work must continue to increase the amount of humanitarian support into Gaza through as many direct routes as possible. Third, the UK will ban those responsible for settler violence against Palestinians from entering the UK, he said.