Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump on December 29 to discuss the next steps of the Gaza ceasefire, an Israeli government spokesperson said on Monday.

"The Prime Minister will meet with President Trump on Monday, December 29, they will discuss the future steps and phases and the international stabilisation force of the ceasefire plan," government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said in an online briefing to reporters.

DOHA: Conditions for medics and patients in Gaza are as severe as ever despite a nearly two-month truce in the territory, the president of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in an AFP interview.

"It's as hard as it's ever been," Javid Abdelmoneim said of conditions for medical staff operating in Gaza's hospitals, speaking on the sidelines of the annual Doha Forum on diplomacy.

"While we're able to continue doing operations, deliveries, wound care, you´re using protocols or materials and drugs that are inferior, that are not the standard. So you've got substandard care being delivered," he explained.

"We're seeing the injured patients in the emergency rooms in which we work throughout the strip," he added.

The MSF president said that since the truce began, aid "hasn't come in to the level that´s necessary".

"There isn't a substantial change and it is being weaponised [....] So as far as we´re concerned that is an ongoing feature of the genocide. It´s being used as a chip and that's something that should not happen with humanitarian aid," said Abdelmoneim.

The chief of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees denounced the Israeli authorities’ seizure of assets from its east Jerusalem compound on Monday, which police told AFP was part of a debt-collection operation.

"Today in the early morning, Israeli police accompanied by municipal officials forcibly entered the UNRWA compound in East Jerusalem", Philippe Lazzarini said on X.

With trucks and forklifts, the authorities took "furniture, IT equipment and other property", and the compound’s United Nations flag was replaced with an Israeli one, Lazzarini added.

Israeli police told AFP in a statement that the seizures were "carried out by the Jerusalem municipality as part of a debt-collection procedure".

"Police are present to secure the municipality’s activity," the statement said.

The Israeli army carried out fresh ceasefire violations in the Gaza Strip on Monday, using blasts, shelling and gunfire in areas under its control, according to local sources cited by Anadolu Agency.

The ceasefire agreement, which took effect on 10 October, ended Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that had raged since October 2023 and left more than 70,000 people killed and over 171,000 wounded.

Local sources told Anadolu that Israeli forces detonated residential buildings in western Rafah, a district fully under Israeli control under the terms of the ceasefire, and opened fire to the east of the city.

The army also carried out artillery and helicopter attacks east of Khan Younis, another area that falls within the zones it controls under the truce.

According to the Gaza media office, Israel has committed hundreds of ceasefire violations since 10 October, killing 373 Palestinians and injuring 970 others.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel’s military will not withdraw from territories it has occupied in southern Syria, Anadolu Agency reported.

Speaking at a conference attended by Israeli ambassadors, mission heads and Foreign Ministry officials, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel would not leave areas seized after the fall of the Baath regime in Syria on December 8, 2024.

“We want to preserve these assets,” he said, referring to Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon) and the buffer zone adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel has held since 1967.

Netanyahu added that Israel hopes to reach an agreement with the Damascus administration on demilitarising southern Syria.

The United States, Israel and Qatar held a trilateral meeting in New York on Sunday, a senior White House official told AFP, months after Israeli jets conducted an airstrike in Doha, unsuccessfully targeting Hamas leadership.

The White House official confirmed that the meeting had taken place but did not provide any further details.

Two sources told US news outlet Axios it was "the highest level meeting between the countries since the deal to end the war in Gaza, for which Qatar served as a key mediator."

Axios also reported White House envoy Steve Witkoff hosted the meeting, with Mossad spy chief David Barnea representing Israel and an unnamed senior Qatari official in attendance.

Qatar, along with Egypt and the United States, helped broker a comprehensive ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which remains delicate as both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching its terms.

At least two children, aged 17 and 12, were transported to the hospital by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, according to the Wafa news agency. 

Wafa said that the two were attacked by Israeli soldiers at the Beit Furik military checkpoint, which is east of the city of Nablus.

Israeli soldiers shot at three Palestinians who were throwing rocks at cars in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and killed one of them, the Israeli military said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said one person had been killed and one wounded in the incident. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials. The Israeli military said that apart from the fatality, one other person was "neutralised" and one arrested.

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians’ vehicles near the town of Mukhamas in the northeast of occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Wafa news agency, citing a statement by the Jerusalem Governorate.

The statement said that a group of settlers attacked vehicles on the main road near Mukhamas in the evening, without any reported injuries.

Israel’s army chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, said the demarcation line where Israeli troops have withdrawn behind in Gaza is a "new border", according to a military statement.

"We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip and we will remain on those defence lines. The Yellow Line is a new border line — serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity," the army quoted Zamir as saying to reserve soldiers in Gaza.

Under the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israeli forces have withdrawn to positions behind the so-called Yellow Line.