Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

Israel’s military denied having accepted the Palestinian health ministry’s death toll for the war in Gaza of 71,000 killed since October 2023, as was reported in Israeli media.

"The (Israeli military) clarifies that the details published do not reflect official [...] data", military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani posted on social media.

"Any publication or report on this matter will be released through official and orderly channels."

Israel’s left-leaning daily Haaretz had reported that the military "accepted the estimate of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that approximately 71,000 Palestinians were killed during the Israel-Gaza war.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it will not submit lists of staff demanded by Israel to maintain access to Gaza and the West Bank after failing to receive assurances over the safety of its teams.

The aid groups say sharing such staff information could pose a safety risk. Hundreds of aid workers have been killed or injured during the war in Gaza.

Israel's diaspora ministry manages the registration process. In a statement to Reuters, the ministry accused Hamas of having exerted pressure on MSF.

"However, despite repeated efforts, it became evident in recent days that we were unable to build engagement with Israeli authorities on the concrete assurances required," MSF said in a statement.

Israel will reopen the Rafah border crossing for people to travel between Gaza and Egypt, a government agency said, the first opening of effectively the sole route in or out of the Palestinian territory since May 2024.

The Israeli government agency that coordinates civilian policy in Gaza, Cogat, did not say how many of Gaza's more than two million people would be allowed to cross the border per day.

"The return of residents from Egypt to the Gaza Strip will be permitted, in coordination with Egypt, for residents who left Gaza during the course of the war only, and only after prior security clearance by Israel," COGAT said.

South Africa ordered Israel’s top diplomat to leave the country within 72 hours on Friday, citing a "series of violations" and prompting the Israeli government to expel Pretoria’s own diplomatic representative.

The South African foreign ministry said it had informed Israel that its charge d’affaires, Ariel Seidman, was "persona non grata" and "required to depart from the Republic within 72 hours".

"This decisive measure follows a series of unacceptable violations of diplomatic norms and practice which pose a direct challenge to South Africa´s sovereignty," it said.

The Israeli foreign ministry swiftly responded that South Africa’s senior diplomatic representative "is persona non grata and must leave Israel within 72 hours".

Palestinian resistance group Hamas called for Israel to reopen Gaza’s Rafah crossing to Egypt immediately in both directions.

In a statement, the group called for the "immediate transition to the second phase" of the US-brokered truce in Gaza, namely its provision for the reopening of Rafah, as well as the entry of a technocratic Palestinian committee to administer the territory.

Israel has said it will reopen the crossing but with restrictions and without providing a date.

The Israeli military has accepted an estimate by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that more than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Gaza war, while saying it is reviewing the data to determine how many of the dead were combatants and how many were civilians, Haaretz reported.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 71,667 people have been killed by Israeli military fire since the war began on October 7, 2023. The figure does not include Palestinians who are missing and may be buried under rubble.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said it is currently analysing the information provided by the ministry as part of its assessment of casualties.

The Gaza Health Ministry’s count covers only those killed directly by Israeli strikes and military operations, and does not include people who may have died from starvation or from illnesses worsened by the conditions of the war.

More than 90% of the recorded fatalities are identified by name and official identification numbers, according to the ministry’s published records.

US Agency for International Development staffers in early 2024 drafted a warning to senior officials in Joe Biden’s administration: Northern Gaza had turned into an “Apocalyptic Wasteland” with dire shortages of food and medical aid.

Three months after the October 7, 2023, attacks and Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip, the internal message laid out in gruesome detail scenes observed by United Nations staff who visited the area on a two-part humanitarian fact-finding mission in January and February.

The staff reported seeing a human femur and other bones on the roads, dead bodies abandoned in cars and “catastrophic human needs, particularly for food and safe drinking water.”

But the US ambassador to Jerusalem, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked the cable from wider distribution within the United States government because they believed it lacked balance, according to interviews with four former officials and documents seen by Reuters.

New Zealand decided against accepting US President Donald Trump's invitation to join his Board of Peace, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in a statement on Friday.

Luxon said in an email statement that the decision had been made not to join the Board of Peace in “its current form.”

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters added in a post on X that a number of states, particularly from the region, have stepped up to contribute to the Board’s role on Gaza, and “New Zealand would not add significant further value to that.”

Israel has emerged as the world’s third‑worst jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) annual prison census. 

The report found that 29 media workers were behind bars in Israel as of December 1, 2025, accounting for nearly 9% of the global total of 330 imprisoned journalists.

“For the fifth year in a row, more than 300 journalists were imprisoned worldwide as of the end of 2025,” CPJ noted, describing conditions as “a cemetery of the living,” quoting a freed Palestinian prisoner.

“Israel, the only country on the worst jailers’ list that is traditionally considered a democracy, began imprisoning Palestinian journalists rapidly following the start of the war,” CPJ said.

The watchdog highlighted that many journalists are held without charge or on undisclosed accusations, in what it described as arbitrary detention “in contravention of international law.” 

More than 90 journalists were arrested during the course of the conflict.

While China and Myanmar topped the list with 50 and 30 imprisoned journalists respectively, CPJ stressed that Israel’s record is particularly striking given its democratic status.