Updates: Israel hits Gaza displacement camp leaving tents ‘in flames’

Thank you for joining us.

You can read our piece about Israel’s bombing of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, here.

And you can read about the contrasting accounts of the downing of a US fighter jet over the Red Sea, here.

This live page is closing soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s main developments:

• Israeli forces are continuing to attack and besiege Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, with the hospital’s director reporting loud explosions and shrapnel flying.
• Israeli army drones and warplanes attacked al-Mawasi, near the southern city of Khan Younis, killing at least seven people, according to our colleagues on the ground.
• Israeli opposition leaders have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging negotiations to reach a captive exchange deal with Palestinians.
• Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Israel has failed to achieve its goals of destroying Hamas and bringing back its captives in Gaza and that the resistance is “alive”.

Earlier today, Israeli forces targeted Musa Bin Nusair School in Gaza City without warning, killing at least nine Palestinians and wounding dozens.

The missile strike caused significant destruction, including a large crater.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reports from northern Gaza.

Watch below to learn more:

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, says there has been an “escalation” in Israel’s war on Gaza over the past 24 hours.

In a post on X, he reiterated his calls for a ceasefire, saying that “the world must not become numb”.

#Gaza
Escalation over the past 24 hours.
More civilians are reported killed and injured.

Attacks on schools and hospitals have been commonplace.
The world must not become numb.

All wars have rules
All of those rules have been broken.

A ceasefire is long overdue
A…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 22, 2024

Winter winds, cold and rain have hit the Gaza Strip, leaving the 2 million Palestinians displaced by Israel’s 14-month war on the enclave struggling to protect themselves.

There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families live in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.

Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of al-Mawasi told the news agency AP that she has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.

“We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we’re inside,” she said.

The UN warns that people living in precarious, makeshift shelters might not survive the winter. At least 945,000 people need winter supplies, which have become prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the UN said in an update Tuesday.

As we’ve been reporting all day, Israeli forces have launched more attacks on the barely functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged North Gaza after ordering people inside and near the facility to evacuate.

Watch below to learn more:

Graphic footage verified by Al Jazeera has emerged showing the aftermath of Israel’s attack on al-Mawasi.

It shows large fires which have burned away the material of several tents, leaving only their metal frames and a large dark plume of smoke rising into the night sky.

People can be seen desperately trying to save those trapped in the fires, with one man screaming, “Go, Go, take out those who are in there!”

Another man sprays a fire extinguisher into the flames as people scream around him, climbing over rubble to save an unconscious person.

In another scene, a pile of what appears to be dead bodies is laid out on the sand.

Israel ordered the closure and evacuation of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in the Gaza Strip today, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds of patients and staff to safety.

The head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, Husam Abu Safia, told Reuters via text message that obeying the order to shut down was “next to impossible” as there are too few ambulances to get patients out.

“We currently have nearly 400 civilians inside the hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators. We cannot evacuate these patients safely without assistance, equipment, and time,” said Abu Safia.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on Abu Safia’s remarks. On Friday, it said that it sent fuel and food to the hospital and helped to evacuate more than 100 patients and caregivers to other Gaza hospitals.

Kamal Adwan is one of the few still partially functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, an area under intense Israeli military pressure for nearly three months – one of the most punishing operations of the 14-month war.

It said the attack, which is reported to have killed seven Palestinians, was an “intelligence-based strike” targeting a Hamas fighter.

Israel has previously designated al-Mawasi a humanitarian safe zone, telling Palestinians fleeing bombing elsewhere in the Strip that they would be safe there.

The camp is an area of approximately 41sq km (15.83sq miles), lacking critical infrastructure and services, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The tent camp has been targeted by the Israeli military several times before.

The biggest attack occurred on July 13, when 90 people were killed and at least 300 wounded.

At the time, Israel said the attack intended to target two senior Hamas commanders, a claim Hamas dismissed.

Here’s a look at the recent developments:

• Israeli forces are continuing to attack and besiege the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip.
• Israeli army drones and warplanes attacked al-Mawasi, near the southern city of Khan Younis, killing at least seven people, according to our colleagues on the ground.
• The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Benny Gantz, the chairman of the National Unity Party, has blamed Netanyahu for “sabotaging” negotiations for a captive deal. The Prime Minister’s Office, in response, called Gantz “submissive”.
• Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the Israeli army has hit the town of Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon in a “major bombing operation”.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, citing medical sources, say that 46 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids across several parts of the Gaza Strip since this morning.

Here are just some of those attacks:

• Eight were killed in a school hit in Gaza City
• Seven were killed in two attacks on Jabalia
• Four were killed inside a vehicle hit in Gaza City
• Two were killed in the Shujayea neighbourhood in northwestern Gaza City
• Two were killed in an attack on Nuseirat in the central part of the territory
• A child was killed in a drone attack on a group of people at a marketplace in the Bureij refugee camp.
• Three were killed in an attack on a displacement camp in al-Mawasi.

Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child, according to UNICEF, the UN children’s relief fund.

The agency has described the situation in the Strip as “hell on earth”.

Rachael Cummings, the humanitarian director for Save the Children International, says children in Gaza will face long-term psychological effects from the war.

Watch below to learn more:

As the crackdown on Jenin refugee camp by Palestinian Authority (PA) forces continues, the Jenin Battalion has issued a statement slamming the PA for its actions.

Here is a summary of its key points:

• The statements of the spokesman for the PA’s security services against the resistance fighters are consistent with those of the official spokesman for the [Israeli] occupation army.
• Our message to the [PA soldiers]: Come to your senses, we have warned you, and do not test our patience.
• Since October 7, the Palestinian security services have killed 14 citizens outside the framework of the law, without accountability or supervision.
• We have information that the Authority detained 237 of its soldiers who refused to participate in the operation in Jenin.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that dozens of people are demonstrating outside the Kishon Detention Center near Haifa in northern Israel, in solidarity with the antigovernment protesters accused of firing maritime flares at Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea.

The suspects were arrested on November 7 after two flares landed near the Israeli prime minister’s residence.

In a statement at the time, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar said it was “a very serious incident that is far from a legitimate protest”.

Haaretz said the demonstrations, titled “Protest isn’t Terrorism”, have taken place for the seventh consecutive day.

Our correspondent in the Strip reports that army drones and warplanes have attacked al-Mawasi, near the southern city of Khan Younis.

There are reports of casualties from these attacks, which hit the tents of those displaced by the war.

Israel has previously designated al-Mawasi as a humanitarian safe zone, telling Palestinians fleeing bombing elsewhere in the Strip that they would be safe there.