Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

Israeli airstrikes killed four people and wounded 18 others in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, local health authorities said, as Hamas and Israel accused each other of violating a near six-week-old, US-brokered ceasefire.

Medics said that one strike on a house in Bani Suhaila town east of Khan Younis killed three people, including a baby girl, and wounded 15 others, while another killed a man and wounded three others in the nearby Abassan town.

Israel's military confirmed the strikes but said it was not aware of casualties.

Hamas has said that Palestinian children deserve protection similar to that enjoyed by children everywhere else, Al Jazeera reported.

"The United Nations commemorates Universal Children’s Day on November 20th, while Palestinian children endure a tragic reality," Hamas said in a statement adding that Israeli onslaught had "destroyed the very foundations of life — food, medicine, clean water, healthcare, education and psychological support — in violation of international conventions and humanitarian values, and in disregard of UN resolutions guaranteeing the rights of Palestinian children".

The group further urged for international prosecution of Israeli leaders for the "crimes against children".

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said that Israeli settler violence in the West Bank amounts to "terrorism", Al Jazeera reported.

"Let's just be blunt, that’s what it is: Israelis can carry out terrorism as well," Ambassador Huckabee said while on NewsNation's Elizabeth Vargas

The envoy further acknowledged there has been an "escalation" of settler violence, but claimed it is being perpetrated by a "very small number" of people, most of whom don't live in the area.

"It is a very tense time. We don't want to pretend that it isn't," said the ambassador.

• Israel carried out deadly air strikes across Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 30 people in Gaza City and Khan Younis, an action Hamas described as a “serious escalation.”
• Israel said the strikes were in retaliation for Hamas fighters firing on Israeli troops in southern Gaza, a claim Hamas rejected as an “attempt to justify their ongoing crimes and violations.”
• Israeli forces also bombed four villages in southern Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah infrastructure despite a truce, causing damage to homes in residential areas.
• The UN warned that many Gaza families lack proper shelter for the approaching winter, with heavy rains flooding tents and spoiling scarce food supplies.
• “For the third winter since heavy Israeli bombardment began in October 2023, Palestinians are desperate not only for a lasting ceasefire but also for safe, warm places to sleep,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that it aims to vaccinate more than 40,000 children against various diseases in Gaza, as it takes advantage of the recent ceasefire.

The WHO and its partners already vaccinated over 10,000 children under the age of three in the first eight days of an initial phase of the campaign launched on November 9.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said phase one of the programme has been extended until Saturday and hopes to protect children against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, polio, rotavirus and pneumonia.

Phases two and three of the campaign, which is being conducted in collaboration with UNICEF, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and the health ministry in Gaza under Hamas control, are planned for December and January.

The WHO chief said he was "encouraged to see that the ceasefire continues to hold, as it allows the WHO and its partners to intensify essential health services across Gaza and support the necessary re-equipment and reconstruction of its devastated health system".

Israel's expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps in early 2025 amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said while calling for urgent international measures to hold Israeli officials accountable and stop further abuses.

The rights group said about 32,000 residents of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces during "Operation Iron Wall" in January and February. The displaced have been barred from returning, and hundreds of homes were demolished, said the group's 105-page report, titled "All My Dreams Have Been Erased".

"Ten months after their displacement none of the family residents have been able to go back to their homes," said Milena Ansari, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who worked on the report, while speaking to Reuters.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit displacement of civilians from occupied territory, except temporarily for imperative military reasons or their security. HRW said senior officials responsible should be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The report describes soldiers storming homes, ransacking property and ordering families out via loudspeakers mounted on drones. It said residents reported bulldozers razing buildings as they fled and that Israeli forces offered no shelter or aid, leaving families to crowd into relatives’ homes or seek refuge in mosques, schools and charities.

Israeli forces have carried out two raids in the occupied West Bank, targeting the village of al-Lubban Asharqiya south of Nablus and the town of Hizma northeast of Jerusalem, the Wafa news agency reports.

In al-Lubban Asharqiya, residents said soldiers opened fire at a Palestinian vehicle and threw stun grenades in front of several shops in the village.

In Hizma, Israeli forces stormed the town and fired live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas canisters extensively. No injuries were reported.

The Palestinian group Hamas denounced a series of Israeli air strikes Wednesday in the Gaza Strip as a "dangerous escalation", warning they jeopardised a fragile ceasefire.

"We consider this a dangerous escalation through which the war criminal (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu seeks to resume the genocide against our people," Hamas wrote in a statement.

At least 25 Palestinians were killed in four Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday in a part of Gaza under Hamas control since a shaky ceasefire took effect in October, health authorities said.

Medics said 10 people were killed in the Gaza City suburb of Zeitoun, two in Shejaia suburb to the east and the rest in two separate attacks in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said its forces struck Hamas targets across Gaza after members of the Palestinian group fired on its troops in violation of the nearly six-week-old ceasefire. No Israeli forces were injured.

Repeated shooting incidents have pointed to the fragility of the ceasefire. Israel and Hamas have traded blame for what both call violations of the US-brokered truce, the first stage of President Donald Trump's 20-point plan for a post-war Gaza.

All three attacks were far beyond an agreed-upon imaginary "yellow line" separating the areas under Israeli and Palestinian control, according to medics, witnesses and Palestinian media.

The Zeitoun attack was on a building belonging to Muslim religious authorities and the Khan Younis attack was on a UN-run club, both of which house displaced families.

At the site of the attack in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, just outside Sidon, life appeared normal on Wednesday, but Lebanese authorities prevented journalists from entering the port city, Al Jazeera reported.

At the scene of the strike, paramedics searched for human remains around a wall that was stained with blood.

Several cars were burned, and broken glass and debris littered the ground.

At least 13 people have been reported killed and four wounded in the attack that took place.