Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza, West Bank/East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria - 1/25/25

On the plight of children in Gaza

Highlights of statement by Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator: “The children of Gaza are not collateral damage. They are as deserving as children everywhere of security, education and hope. They tell us that the world was not there for them throughout this war. We must be there for them now.”

Gaza:

• Children have been killed, starved and frozen to death. They have been maimed, orphaned, separated from their family.

• Children have lost their schools and their education. Those with chronic illnesses have struggled to access the care they need, many unable to do so. Many have faced sexual violence. Girls, who have endured the additional indignity of no menstrual care, have been left exposed and vulnerable.

• >17,000 children are without their families in Gaza

• One million children are in need of mental health and psychosocial support for depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. A generation has been traumatized.”

• 150,000 pregnant women and new mothers are in desperate need of health services.

West Bank:

• Record-high levels of casualties, displacement and access restrictions. These trends have intensified since the announcement of the ceasefire.

• Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian villages, setting homes and properties on fire. Increased movement restrictions are impeding Palestinians’ ability to access basic services and livelihoods. Mass detentions are taking place across the West Bank.

• In Jenin, an Israeli military operation – helicopter gunfire and airstrikes alongside ground forces – has claimed lives and caused further destruction of basic infrastructure and displacement.

Three asks:

1. Ensure the ceasefire is maintained.

2. Ensure international law is respected across the oPt of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, allowing release of arbitrarily detained Palestinians; the return of civilians to their homes; medical evacuations to proceed; rapid, unimpeded and safe access for aid delivery (including “dual use” items); and accountability for atrocities in accordance with international law. “UNRWA’s role is fundamental and must remain the backbone of these efforts.”

3. Ensure humanitarian operations are well-funded: $4.07 billion to meet the needs of 3 million people in Gaza & the West Bank, with nearly 90% of funds for Gaza.” here

REPORTS/JOURNALS

The Systematic Destruction of Gaza’s Healthcare System: A Pattern of Genocide, 100-page report issued by Al-Haq, a human rights NGO in Ramallah here

British Medical Journal: World Medical Association (WMA) calls for Israel to publish charges levelled against detained doctors. WMA has welcomed the Gaza ceasefire deal but says that the location and health status of healthcare workers who have been detained must now be made known, including the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya. BMJ 2025; 388 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r155 (Published 23 January 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;388:r155

BMJ article: Gaza: Aid agencies ready to enter territory if ceasefire holds, but $10bn to rebuild health system BMJ 2025; 388 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r112 (Published 17 January 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;388:r112 or here

A Year After Israel Bombed My Family’s Home, I’m Still Trapped in the Ruins While the physical scars have mostly healed, the emotional ones remain as fresh as the day Israel brought my home down on me and my family. here

Gaza Ceasefire Deal: Respite but No End to Colonial Occupation. here

CEASEFIRE 1/19 - 1/25/25

• First phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement commenced with the release of 3 Israeli women detainees to the Red Cross, and 90 Palestinian detainees, amid large celebrations in Gaza City

• Addameer: As the ceasefire in Gaza entered its second day and appeared to be holding, “We’re hoping that it will continue, the Israelis will continue to release prisoners. And, of course, we have no guarantees they will not be rearrested again. They were starving inside the prisons.”

• Two Palestinians were killed and dozens injured by Israeli forces in Gaza on the second day of the truce, while recovery teams continue to pull bodies from the rubble.

• Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian Authority security forces conducted raids on the homes of detainees in the West Bank who were scheduled to be released as part of the first phase of the prisoner exchange deal. Israeli forces raided the home of Abeer Muhammad Hamdan Ba’ara in the village of Burqa, north of Nablus, and warned her family against organizing any celebration for her release from prison.

• Despite the ceasefire, the Israeli military had been raiding homes and mosques, detaining dozens of Palestinians across the occupied territory, including children and journalists

• Israeli air & land bombardment of the West Bank has intensified, particularly in Jenin. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed by both Israeli military forces and rampaging Israeli settlers.

• 1/25 Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners [ed: some would call them hostages] in exchange for four soldiers who were being held hostage in Gaza.

• Gaza's Hamas-run municipal governments have published their first official reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip, in the latest sign that the group intends to be a leading actor in the rebuilding of the territory. The immediate priorities include formalizing displacement camps, repairing hospitals, clearing rubble and restoring law and order. Here

GAZA

The ceasefire in Gaza began just before noon on 1/19. UN and other aid organizations immediately began dispatching critically needed goods, distributing fuel, and repairing infrastructure. The first step of the ceasefire was implemented as 3 female Israeli hostages were released to the Red Cross and 90 Palestinian detainees (69 women, 21 children) were released from Israeli prisons. The slaughter in Gaza has abated, but Israel continues to subject the region to a health and human rights emergency.

Killed: 47,161 + (336 this week, mostly before the ceasefire)

Injured: 111,166+ (1,154 this week, mostly before the ceasefire)

Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza: 405 (0 this week)

Israeli soldiers injured in Gaza: 2,571

Hostages in Gaza: 94

Palestinian prisoners in Israel: 10,221 including 2,025 sentenced prisoners, 2,934 remand detainees, 3,376 administrative detainees (held without trial), and 1,886 “unlawful combatants.” These do not include Gazans detained by the military since October 2023.

(Numbers are cumulative through 1/21/25, per OCHAOPT. For more details: here

In Gaza, civil defense workers say they’ve discovered the bodies of 137 people buried under the ruins of Palestinian homes, schools and businesses in the hours since the ceasefire deal took effect. The grisly discoveries are only the first of what the Palestinian Civil Defense agency estimates to be 10,000 bodies trapped under the rubble

Israeli attacks the week of the ceasefire

• 1/13, 15 & 16, 6 strikes killed 48 (4 children) injuring 100+ in homes and a school, Gaza City.

• 1/14 &15, 13 killed (2 children, 1 journalist) in strikes on a house sheltering IDPs and a community kitchen in Khan Younis.

• 1/14, 10 killed (1 child, 1 pregnant woman) in a house in Rafah.

• 1/14 &15, 12 killed (2 children and a journalist) and others injured in 2 strikes on An Nuseirat refugee camp, Deir al Balah.

• 1/16, 5 killed (2 children) in a building near Jabalya, North Gaza.

• 1/18, 5 killed (a couple and their 3 children) in an IDP tent in Al Qarara.

• 1/21, Israeli sniper shot and killed a Palestinian child, Zakaria Hamid Yahya Barbakh, in central Rafah despite a ceasefire deal. Another Palestinian was injured while attempting to retrieve Zakaria’s body.

• Palestinian Civil Defense: their losses include: 99 personnel killed, 319 injured, some permanently disabled, and 27 detained/whereabouts unknown. 17 of 21 PCD centers were targeted (14 destroyed) and 85% of their fire trucks and ambulances were destroyed.

• Since 10/7/23: At least 377 aid workers (270 UN staff and 73 NGO staff) were killed in Gaza. 1/14, a female staff for Ma’an Development Center succumbed to wounds from the 1/6 attack on a WFP warehouse in Deir Al Balah. 1/14, 20 Palestinians, including a lawyer with the Independent Commission for Human Rights, his wife from Al-Awda Health and Community Association, and their children, were killed in Deir al Balah. 1/16, a staff for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) was killed with his wife and 2 in Gaza City.

Challenges ahead

• Protection Cluster underlines the traumatic pattern of child and family separation in Gaza and the need for child tracing. There are at least 17,000 unaccompanied children and 35,000 children estimated to have lost one or both parents this past year. Here

• The full scale of unexploded ordnance (UXO contamination) is unknown, will take years to remedy. Community risk education work, survey, and clearance is essential to reconstruction and the restoration of services in Gaza. It “will require approximately US$500 million over 10 years.” It is buried in the >42 million tons of rubble [which] contains asbestos, other hazardous materials,… [and] human remains.”

Health and Hospitals

• Israeli detention of health workers remains a major concern: nearly 200 health workers are still imprisoned.

• 1/16, 12 patients, mostly suffering cancer and immunological disorders, were evacuated to Albania, France, Norway and Romania, with 35 family members and caregivers, for medical treatment. WHO emphasized: Ceasefire “offers an opportunity for expedited medical evacuations for over 12,000 people, including many children, who urgently need lifesaving care outside Gaza.”

• 1/14, UNICEF reported distributing 500+ wheelchairs to children, adding that only a single center in Gaza City worked to address the scarcity for prosthetic supplies. 20% of the population now have permanent disabilities, thousands of children have lost one or both legs. Doctors at the European Gaza (Khan Younis) and Al Aqsa (Deir al Balah): they have performed “numerous operations on children wounded by tiny fragments of shrapnel, which leave barely visible entry points but cause extensive internal damage and appear to be intentionally designed to increase the number of casualties.” Gaza’s only 2 specialized rehabilitation hospitals – Al Wafa in Gaza City and the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in North Gaza – have sustained severe damage. [ed: Al Wafa was destroyed in 2014 and then rebuilt]

• 1/15, despite intense fighting, WHO and NGOs managed to visit both the Indonesian and Al Awda hospitals in North Gaza to assess their status, provide food, fuel, supplies and water, and help evacuate a few of the patients remaining in both barely functional facilities. One of the Red Crescent ambulances was hit by gunfire at Al Awda, but there were no casualties.

• Severe shortage of medicines and resulting lack of access negatively affects not only the health of people suffering non-communicable and chronic diseases (even simple ones like untreated eczema); it also affects their mental health, their relationships with family, and their ability to participate in the community, causing further isolation and heightening risks of neglect, violence and exploitation.

• Following Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s arrest in northern Gaza, his wife describes her fears over the hospital director's fate and the tragedy of their son's killing. On 1/9, Abu Safiya was transferred from Sde Teiman to Ofer Prison near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where he remains until now. He is prohibited from meeting with his lawyer, Nasser Ouda, until 1/22, and his detention has been extended until 2/13.

• Israel will let 50 wounded Hamas militants cross for treatment in Egypt daily to begin on the 14th day of the ceasefire. Netanyahu's office confirmed that Gazans unaffiliated with Hamas will manage the transfer, with all movements subject to prior IOF and Shin Bet approval.

• A study conducted by the Community Training Center for Crisis Management in Gaza, revealed that 96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent, while 49% expressed a desire to die. Here

Evacuation and Displacement

• On average, Gazans were displaced 6 times (some up to 19 times), often forced to flee on foot in dangerous travel. Moving on average every 2 months made even temporary employment impossible, and supply shortages left small businesses (primarily women-led) struggling to survive. Fighting, Israeli military evacuation orders, lack of basic supplies, overcrowding, lack of privacy, and the anxiety-producing makeshift sites became new drivers of displacement.

• Loss of personnel, housing, land, and property documentation will pose long-term threats to people’s rights and future stability. Women’s roles were profoundly affected by repeated displacement. Women and girls had little control over their safety and wellbeing and were far more vulnerable to gender-based violence, cared for ill and injured family members, and were often responsible for gathering the family’s food and water.

• >two million people have been forced to flee their homes within the Gaza Strip, ½ are children. Gaza’s government is preparing to publish a plan to facilitate the return of displaced people from the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip to their homes in Gaza City and the northern part of the enclave

• ~20,000 orphaned children have lost one or both parents on past 15 months. >40% of families in Gaza are taking care of children not their own. Before current war, there were a staggering number of orphans in Gaza – 33,000 children – as a result of five previous wars since 2008.. All four orphanages in Gaza have been turned into shelters for the displaced, leaving orphaned children without care or living with other families.

Aid

• 1/1-18, before the ceasefire, of 301 planned aid movements coordinated with Israeli authorities, 39% (117) were facilitated, 38% (115) were denied, 14% (43) were impeded, and 9% (26) were cancelled. Since the ceasefire, coordination is no longer required except for crossing Netzarim corridor or entering the buffer zone.

• 1/20 915 aid trucks entered Gaza, on 1/19 some 630 aid trucks entered the Palestinian enclave, with at least 300 of them going to the north, where experts have warned a famine looms.

• Ban on UNRWA in Gaza threatens to cut the lifeline for 2 million Palestinians dependent on aid — at a time when Israel is supposed to be allowing an increased amount of humanitarian aid as part of its ceasefire agreement. The Israeli Knesset’s laws banning UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank and labeling it as a “terror” group, without substantial evidence, are set to go into effect on 1/28. They are the culmination of years of efforts from Israel seeking to vilify and ban the agency that, unlike any other in the UN, not just coordinates aid but also provides government-like services like schooling, health care and housing. Israeli officials, in their seeming mission to create a humanitarian catastrophe and maximize suffering in Gaza, have forged on without providing any alternatives for the crucial aid group. here

Food & Nutrition

• Many families rely on a single cooked meal from community kitchens as their main source of daily food. As of 1/18, only 5 of 20 bakeries supported by WFP were operational, all of them in Gaza governorate. After operating at 50% due to fuel shortages, these bakeries received fuel on 1/15 and immediately resumed full operations, including bread delivery to shelters and community kitchens. In central and southern Gaza, where all 8 WFP-supported bakeries were closed due to flour shortages since 11/30, partners continue to prioritize household flour distribution. 7 WFP-supported bakeries in North Gaza and Rafah remained closed.

• Food Cluster continues to advocate for unfettered entry of agricultural supplies (seed kits, organic fertilizers and nylon sheets for greenhouses). Resuming agricultural activities, including small-scale home, community and school gardening, is key to enhancing diet diversity and reducing food gaps in Gaza. The cluster also advocates for the entry of cooking gas into the north where there has been none for 15 months, forcing people to burn waste.

• Due to severe overcrowding in shelters, the lack of privacy for women and girls limits breastfeeding counselling. The lack of weather-proof structures also affects carrying out nutrition related activities. The limited entry of food compared to the need creates a vicious cycle by exacerbating overcrowding and congestion at nutrition sites.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

• WASH Cluster finalized a ceasefire operational plan to guide their work. Many people are expected to return to areas of origin and face insufficient access to water supply, particularly in North Gaza and Rafah. For instance, of 30 main wells in Rafah, 15 are fully destroyed and the other 15 require extensive rehabilitation. The UAE cross-border desalination plant is nonoperational due to damage and proximity to the Philadelphi corridor.

Education

• As of 1/18, 280,000 students registered for the distance learning initiative launched by UNRWA on 1/1/25. This initiative complements Education Cluster efforts: mental health and psycho-social support, recreational activities in shelters and UNRWA spaces, and non-formal learning activities at 85 Temporary Learning Spaces. Core subject materials for the 1st semester (English, Math, Science and Arabic) have been published, and the 2nd semester’s materials are being prepared. The program is initially prioritizing students in grades 1-3, students in the North Gaza and Gaza governorates, and students with special needs. Challenges include limited internet access, limited access to electronic devices, and a destroyed power grid.

• Israeli authorities continue to block entry of education supplies into Gaza, from tents to textbooks. The Cluster has supplies for 465,000 children in Jordan, but restrictions prevent their dispatch. Supplies prepositioned in Egypt face constraints due to limited truck access.

• In the days prior to the ceasefire, Israel attacked 7 schools: 3 in Gaza City, 2 in North Gaza, and 2 in Deir al Balah. As of 1/7, 12,119 students and 498 teachers had been killed; 19,483 students and 2,603 education personnel were injured.

WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM

The signing of the ceasefire in Gaza has sent the already high levels of Israeli violence against West Bank Palestinians into overdrive. The Israeli military is not just protecting but often joining rampaging Israeli settlers, angry about prisoner releases, in their pogroms against Palestinians.

This week, Israeli forces killed 13 Palestinians (2 children) and injured 99 (26 children).

Killed since October 2023: 1019 (218 children) and injured: 16,332 (2,513 children).

Israeli deaths: 4 (1 soldier).

For more detail: here

Israeli attacks

• 1/14 &15, 2 Israeli airstrikes killed 12 (1 child) and injured 2 in Jenin refugee camp.

• 1/16, Israeli forces raided the Askar refugee camp, shooting and wounding three Palestinian teenagers. Separately, Israeli military vehicles entered the grounds of the Arab Evangelical Hospital in Nablus and took up positions in the courtyard. Overnight, Israeli soldiers raided the Tulkarem refugee camp, where there were reports of gunfire amid clashes with Palestinian fighters.

• 1/18, a man from Duheisha refugee camp (Bethlehem) died while imprisoned (since 11/23) under administrative detention.

• 1/19, during a raid on Sabastiya village (Nablus), Israeli forces shot and killed a boy who was one of a group shining laser pointers at them.

• 1/20, an Israeli soldier was killed and 4 were injured by an IED during a patrol in Tammun town, Tubas.

• 1/21, the Israeli military launched operation “Iron Wall” in Jenin. airstrikes alongside ground force operations. Multiple airstrikes were carried out on Jenin city, camp, and nearby locations, accompanied by helicopter gunships and ground forces. 13 Palestinians were killed and at least 50 were injured. Jenin Governmental Hospital is surrounded by Israeli forces who destroyed the roads around it trapping patients, medical staff, and 600 people seeking shelter in the hospital yard, and preventing delivery of food, supplies, and the wounded. Red Crescent emergency vehicles have been put out of commission by Israeli forces. The military operation continued in Jenin town where Israeli troops surrounded several houses and killed a man, withholding his body, and arresting 2 others, including a 17-year-old child. 1/22, military operations extended to Birqin village, west of Jenin city, where Israeli forces killed 2 more Palestinians.

• Netanyahu’s military operation into the northern West Bank city of Jenin and an adjoined refugee camp is known as “Operation Iron Wall,” an apparent reference to the Zionist writings of Ze’ev Jabotinsky that argued for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to secure an Israeli state.

• Mass detentions are being reported across the West Bank.

• Severe access restrictions are impeding movement for tens of thousands cutting off access to basic services and workplaces. Some checkpoints on main roads have been closed, and new gates installed at village entrances, and roadblocks and earth mounds closing secondary roads. Al ‘Arrub refugee camp, for example, is now isolated from surrounding cities, preventing Palestinians from leaving to access emergency health care, education, and livelihoods. Checkpoints are causing prolonged delays; first responders report being stuck for hours.

• 1/20, hundreds of Palestinians were caught at checkpoints surrounding Nablus, spending 10 hours and even sleeping there waiting to return home. In the restricted H2 areas of Hebron city, curfews, detentions and physical assaults at checkpoints have prevented 2,500 residents from entering or leaving their homes.

Palestinian Authority

• Jenin Battalion reached an agreement with the PA that will end a 44-day-long siege on Jenin refugee camp and includes the release of detainees in PA’s prisons, the cessation of the pursuit of resistance fighters, and allowing PA police forces to operate in the camp.

UNRWA

• 1/24: Israel Gives UNRWA Six Days to Halt Operations in East Jerusalem. The directive came in a letter to the U.N., after the Israeli Parliament banned the relief agency that has aided Palestinian refugees for decades. UNRWA expects to continue its work, albeit with enormous logistical challenges in the West Bank and Gaza, and that its work in Jerusalem would be compromised. Here

• Israel will likely seize the UNRWA field office in East Jerusalem and evict the agency — “in flagrant violation of international law” — in order to turn the property into an Israeli settlement.

Health care

• Israeli movement restrictions coupled with the Palestinian Authority’s fiscal crisis are affecting West Bank access to health care. Lack of medical supplies, equipment, and salaries limiting health facilities’ operations: 68% of health service points are only partially functional, open only 2-3 days a week; hospitals are functioning at 70% capacity. Checkpoints, closures, and Israeli denial of permits to access East Jerusalem and Israel health facilities since 10/2023 severely disrupt access to care.

• WHO reports that after 10/2023, 44% of patient permit applications and 47% of companion permit applications for medical care in East Jerusalem and Israeli health facilities were either denied or remain pending. WHO has documented 694 attacks on healthcare since 11/23, affecting 62 medical facilities and 475 ambulances.

Settler Attacks

This week, settlers carried out 37 attacks against Palestinians, injuring 17 (2 children) and damaging property (30 vehicles, 440+ mostly olive trees) in 11 towns and villages.

• In Qalqiliya governorate, hundreds of settlers were bused in to raid the villages of Jinsafut, Al Funduq, and Hajja, burning houses, structures, and vehicles. When Israeli forces arrived, they shot bullets and tear gas canisters at Palestinians, injuring 21. Two settlers were shot and injured by an Israeli police officer after they attacked him with pepper spray. In Jinsafut, settlers set fire to 3 houses, a nursery, a carpentry shop, and 5 vehicles. In Al Funduq, a vehicle was torched, and houses and a commercial shop sustained damage from stone throwing.

• 1/19, in Ramallah governorate, hundreds of settlers raided the towns of Sinjil and Turmus’ayya while others raided Ein Sinya. In Sinjil, settlers hurled stones and Molotov cocktails, setting 3 houses on fire, injuring a man trying to extinguish the flames and 3 others with smoke inhalation. Settlers attacked a home, fracturing bones of 2 children, and burning 4 vehicles. In Turmus’ayya, settlers burned a car charging station and a livelihood structure, after which Israeli forces intervened and dispersed the settlers. An hour later, the settlers returned and burned another structure. In Ein Siniya, dozens of armed settlers stoned houses, breaking windows, and burning 3 cars and a kiosk.

• 1/14-18, In Nablus governorate, settlers raided Burin, Qusra, Huwwara and Yatma villages. In Huwwara, settlers injured 2 while accompanying Israeli forces shot and injured one man and assaulted another. In Qusra, settlers stoned buildings and attempted arson. Israeli forces arrived and injured 7 Palestinians (a mother and 6 children) with tear gas, buildings and vehicles were damaged.

Demolitions

• This week, Israeli authorities demolished 14 Palestinian-owned structures for lack of Israeli-issued building permits, affecting 80 people (35 children).

• 1/14, Israeli forces demolished 9 structures in Al Khalayleh (Area C on the East Jerusalem side of the Barrier), affecting the livelihood of 12 households (58 people, 26 children). They demolished a grocery store, a restaurant, a butcher, an aluminium factory, a glass-cutting workshop, a marble and granite workshop, a building supplies store, a furniture and material transportation company, and a chicken coop.

Prisoners

• A deep dive into Marwn Barghouti’s life, his activism, and most importantly, all the red flags around his trial and imprisonment by Israel. “The head of Ofer prison came to him and in front of other prisoners, he asked him to put his hands behind his back and to kneel, to try to tell the other prisoners that if I can humiliate your leader, I can humiliate you all, which he refused. So they forced him to do it, which got his shoulder dislocated,” his son Arab recounts, adding that many more torture techniques were used against his father including solitary confinement and sleep deprivation.

ISRAEL

• According to NGO Yesh Din, only 3% of 1,701 investigations of settler violence complaints by Palestinians, ended in convictions. The Israeli human rights organization also found that police complaints about settler violence filed by Palestinians have plunged since Itamar Ben-Gvir's appointment as national security minister.

• Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the resignation of the IDF's Chief of Staff, and said Israel needs to occupy Gaza for at least two years to eradicate Hamas.

• Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich: "Gaza is destroyed and broken, uninhabitable, and it will remain so. Do not be impressed by the forced cries of joy of our enemies, this is an animalistic society which sanctifies death and dances on the ruins of its life. Very soon, we will erase their smile again and replace it with cries of grief and the wails of those who were left with nothing." While Smotrich opposed the ceasefire deal and voted against it in the Security Cabinet session, he insists it does not signify the end of the war. Following discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu, a clause was added to the cabinet resolution stipulating that Israel will resume military operations with full force, occupy the entire Gaza Strip, and take complete control of humanitarian aid—what Smotrich referred to as Hamas’ ‘oxygen pipeline.’

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed earlier that the military operation in Jenin, seen as a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, aims to “eradicate terrorism” in the area.

• An Israeli court shortened a convicted rapist’s sentence from ten years ago over military service in the Gaza war. The judges said in their ruling on the doctor convicted of raping his student that there were 'exceptional and extraordinary circumstances,' citing his 'contribution to the security of the state.'

• In the aftermath of 10/7, Israel revoked thousands of work permits from Palestinians. Consequently, the trickle of Palestinians entering Israel illegally has steadily grown, while their living and working conditions are deteriorating.

• Netanyahu says Trump "emphasized" to him that the ceasefire is "temporary," and Israel will have "full backing" to resume the war in Gaza. He says Trump has decided to "lift all the remaining restrictions" on US munitions, allowing Israel to resume the war with "tremendous force"

• Forget Trump — agreeing to a ceasefire was Netanyahu’s own calculation. In Israel, the war in Gaza has become a burden on the government, the military, and society as a whole. Trump only gave Netanyahu an excuse to cut his losses. Here

LEBANON

• Israel announced it will not be withdrawing from Lebanon as promised, and Israel continued to violate the Lebanon ceasefire.

SYRIA

• Israel continues to bomb Syria, and extend its occupation of the Golan Heights.

US

• Red Flag Alert for Genocide - United States: The Rise of the Nazi Salute here

• The American Historians’ Association Council is facing backlash after vetoing the membership’s Gaza resolution. The leadership council’s decision came after AHA members overwhelmingly voted in favor of the resolution condemning Israel's scholasticide in Gaza. Steering Committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy urged members to call for an immediate reconsideration, planned to convene an online mass meeting of its 1,950 members to discuss further action.

• A new report from MIT Coalition for Palestine details Israeli-funded research into everything from drone swarms to underwater surveillance. After student organizers began further probing grant information, the school took away access to the grant software used for the coalition’s research.

• Harvard Medical School canceled a planned 1/21 lecture by Dr. Barry Levy of Tufts University on wartime healthcare and a subsequent panel with patients from Gaza receiving care in Boston in response to objections that students would hear from Gazans impacted by the war and not also Israelis. Course instructors and students were notified the morning of scheduled events that they not be held. here

• Medical student at Emory University suspected for Palestine activism here

• Trump rescinded sanctions imposed by the Biden administration last year on dozens of far-right Israeli individuals and settler groups accused of violence against Palestinians and the seizure or destruction of Palestinian property.

• Microsoft is a major provider of cloud services and artificial intelligence for the Israeli military, according to internal documents related to the contracts between the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Microsoft Israel. Here

• US secretary of state Marco Rubio ordered an immediate halt to work on virtually all existing foreign aid programs, (including USAID, but not emergency food programs), except military aid to Egypt and Israel, pending a review into whether they are consistent with President Donald Trump’s policies.

INTERNATIONAL

• UN experts criticized Israel’s continued bombing of Gaza even after the ceasefire deal was announced and emphasized that ensuring humanitarian aid entered the enclave was an ‘immediate priority.’

SOURCES

OCHAOPT, British Medical Journal, Al Haq Democracy Now, Palestine Chronicle. Haaretz, Paul Buhle FB, Zeteo, Haaretz, +972, The Intercept, New York Times, Guardian, Electronic Intifada, Drop Site News, Intercept, Al Arabiya, Pal info, The Nation, X, +972, Ynet, Truthout, US Foreign Policy, Sky News, Al Shabaka