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Tuesday, 16 December 2025
British hunger strikers learn prison lessons from Palestine
The political prisoners for Palestine currently on hunger strike: T Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed, Jon Cink, Heba Muraisi, Qesser Zuhrah and Amu Gib (L to R, top to bottom).
Prisoners for Palestine
Six political prisoners in British jails associated with the banned group Palestine Action have now been on hunger strike for up to a month.
They are demanding to be released on bail, the right to a fair trial and an immediate end to what they say is their persecution by the British government.
Most have already been held on remand far longer than the normal six-month maximum which the law allows before trial.
On the latest episode of The Electronic Intifada podcast, the sister of Kamran Ahmed, one of the hunger strikers, told us that her brother’s condition is deteriorating rapidly.
We also spoke to Francesca Nadin, a spokesperson from the new group Prisoners for Palestine, which supports the hunger strike.
Watch the whole interview in this video, or scroll to the bottom of this post for the audio version.
All are accused of being involved in Palestine Action campaigns carried out before the ban was implemented earlier this year.
Francesca Nadin is a former political prisoner herself, and wrote two letters from British jail for The Electronic Intifada.
She was held on remand for nine months before ultimately being let out on bail. She faces trial in January 2027 for charges relating to a direct action campaign carried out by Palestine Action against Israeli arms firm Elbit and its accomplices in the UK.
Ahmed’s sister, Shahmina Alam, told us that her brother was being treated appallingly inside jail and that his health was failing, but that he was also determined to win.
Due to the effects of the hunger strike on his body, he was hospitalized on 25 November, but discharged three days later. He’s finding it really hard to stay awake and at times even to breathe, Alam said, and he is likely to be rehospitalized soon.
Yet the prison healthcare system was anything but caring.
“He said it was the most inhumane and degrading experience of his life,” Alam said. “Actually he wanted to be discharged because he could not handle being there anymore.”
She related the unhygienic and degrading conditions inside the hospital. The guards even made him walk barefoot back to prison, she said. Doctors would not talk to him, interacting only with guards, and refused him access to his medical notes.
Establishment stitch-up
Palestine Action was infamously banned as a “terrorist” group by the Israel-lobby funded British government this past summer. The group’s co-founder, Palestinian-Iraqi activist Huda Ammori, was at the High Court this week challenging the ban. The judgement is expected to come in the new year.
But she faces an uphill battle. Last month the judge on the high-profile case was replaced at the last minute by a three-judge panel led by Victoria Sharp, a former “principal adviser” to Robert Maxwell, who later turned out to be an Israeli spy.
Nadin and Alam told us that they see similar signs of a stitch-up by the British establishment in the treatment of the political prisoners by both the justice system and the media.
Nadin said there had been “almost a complete blackout in the mainstream media about this story,” despite its importance.
Nadin said her group had had conversations with mainstream journalists wanting to do stories on the hunger strikers that later got blocked by their bosses: “it seems very suspicious to me … I can see a pattern emerging here where it gets blocked by editors or lawyers.”
An end to censorship in jail. Prisoners’ letters and phone calls have been blocked.
Immediate bail. Most have been held over the usual six-month time limit.
The right to a fair trial. An end to government demonization and lies.
Deproscribe Palestine Action and drop the “terror” link on these cases.
Shut Elbit down.
Judge mysteriously removed
Alam, too, told of a stitch-up attempt by the British courts system.
Her brother was arrested on 19 November 2024 and so has now been held for nearly 13 months – long past the legal maximum on remand.
In fact, judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb did order Kamran Ahmed be bailed in February this year at a Crown Court. But the bail was immediately appealed by government prosecutors and Ahmed was not released.
Not only was his bail overturned at the High Court, but Cheema-Grubb was immediately removed from judging similar cases, according to Alam.
Ahmed’s trial is currently set for June 2026. By that time, he will have been imprisoned without trial for 18 months. He is facing charges of criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary.
Despite all this, Alam said that every time she speaks to her brother “he sounds upbeat. It’s like he’s the one trying to keep me happy … He’s very determined to make sure that these demands are heard … this is just another commitment he’s making for the liberation of Palestine.”
Lessons from Palestine
At the Palestine solidarity march in London on Saturday, Alam told us, she was approached by Palestinians who passed on a message from Palestinians in the West Bank who had heard about Kamran’s hunger strike.
“They got really emotional and were grateful,” Alam said. “They wanted me to send a message to Kamran specifically saying that they’re so grateful for his solidarity and what he’s doing.”
The experience of these hunger strikers mirrors some of what the Palestinians are going through: “It’s like they’re living the experience of a Palestinian.”
Alam recounted that conditions for her brother have only improved when she and others outside prison have advocated for him and pressured the prison authorities: “People out here have to be their voices, they have to be loud and proud.”
Nadin said of the hunger strikers that “their health is deteriorating now in quite a serious way. Despite that, the government is still failing to engage with the process of negotiations [or] with the demands. We have sent letters to the Home Office … [who] are behind this whole witch hunt of the people in prison, and of the wider movement of pro-Palestinian protest in this country.”
Nearly 300,000 families are without proper shelter as a winter storm bears down on Gaza. (Ahmed Ibrahim / APA Images)
The following is from the news roundup during the 11 December livestream. Watch the entire episode here.
The Israeli army continues to kill and injure Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, in spite of the so-called ceasefire enacted on 10 October.
Meanwhile, a brutal winter storm is destroying tent shelters and partially-destroyed buildings as the Israelis continue to prevent the entry of prefabricated mobile homes and supplies to repair basic infrastructure. One infant has already died from exposure.
Israel killed a child, 16-year-old Zaher Nasser Shamiya, on Wednesday, shooting him and then crushing his body underneath a tank in central Gaza, according to the Wafa news agency.
A man and a woman were shot and killed by Israeli fire, and a child was shot in the head and injured in the Halawa displacement camp in Jabaliya on Wednesday in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces shot 10-year-old Bayan in the head, reportedly from a gun mounted on a crane, while she was sheltering with her family in the camp.
Journalist Basheer Abu Asher captured a clip of Bayan, in shock and with bandages around her head, being cradled by her grandfather inside an ambulance. The soldiers, the grandfather says, “shoot over our heads and we have no place to take shelter.”
At least seven Palestinians were killed in separate attacks in northern Gaza on Saturday, 6 December, including a 70-year-old woman and her son who were reportedly hunted by an Israeli quadcopter drone. The Israeli army claimed that those targeted had crossed the so-called yellow line.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that the woman and her son were chased by a quadcopter drone about half a mile from the yellow line and “left there to bleed to death” as the aircraft continued hovering overhead, preventing anyone from reaching them.
Mahmoud described the incident as “just one of many violations throughout the day and throughout the past 50 days” since the truce came into effect.
He added that in areas close to the yellow line, many Palestinians may unwittingly cross the boundary because it is not visible.
“There are no clear markings or signage to show this is the ceasefire demarcation that is a restricted and dangerous area,” he said.
On 7 December, a 3-year-old child, Ahed Tariq Al-Bayouk, was shot and killed by Israeli forces while she was playing outside of her tent in the al-Mawasi tent encampment south of Khan Younis.
Reporter Ibrahim Qannan filmed Ahed’s grief-stricken family members carrying her little body in a shroud to a nearby clinic.
Israel attacked a home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on 8 December, bombing it with two missiles, according to local reports.
The United Nations humanitarian office reportedon 8 December that airstrikes, shelling and gunfire continued across all governorates, including in Jabaliya al-Balad and east of Jabaliya in north Gaza, in Shujaiya and al-Tuffah east and northeast of Gaza city, off the coast of Khan Younis and in the east and south of the governorate, as well as east and north of Rafah city.
Several locations east of the “yellow line” were affected, the UN said.
Reporter Mahmoud Abusalama recorded footage of Israeli forces firing artillery shells from inside the heart of Jabaliya refugee camp on 10 December, where entire blocks are being leveled during ongoing military operations, according to the local media collective Translating Falasteen.
Residents report intensified shelling alongside the movement of troops and armored vehicles, signaling a new wave of destruction in an area within the yellow line that is already devastated by months of Israeli occupation bombardment and forced displacement.
The Gaza government media office stated on 9 December that in the 60 days since the ceasefire took effect, Israel has committed at least 738 violations, including more than 200 direct shooting incidents, 37 incursions by military vehicles into residential areas, 358 bombings and attacks targeting civilians and their homes, and nearly 140 demolitions of homes, institutions and civil buildings.
On 11 December, Gaza’s health ministry reportedthat more than 380 Palestinians have been killed and 1,000 people have been injured since the so-called ceasefire took effect.
Infant dies of exposure
A brutal winter storm has hit Gaza, plunging hundreds of thousands of families into further crisis 26 months into Israel’s genocide. And the blockade of essential humanitarian aid, food, fuel, medicine, medical supplies and infrastructure and construction materials remains firmly in place amid a lack of any meaningful international political pressure.
One 8-month-old baby, Rahaf Abu Jazar, died of exposure to cold after water gathered in her family’s tent in Khan Younis amid the heavy rainfall, Al Jazeera reported on 11 December.
Ismail al-Thawabta of the Gaza government media office said that nearly 300,000 families are without shelter as the storm bears down.
Roughly 250,000 tents and mobile homes were supposed to enter Gaza, al-Thawabta said. But there are currently 6,000 trucks “loaded with aid stuck at the crossings,” he told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
“We are issuing an urgent appeal to the world, [US] President Trump and the [United Nations] Security Council to pressure the Israeli occupation,” he added.
Gaza’s civil defense rescue workers say that its teams are receiving distress calls from Palestinians inside displacement camps, reporting flooding tents and families trapped inside by heavy rains.
“Despite limited resources and a lack of necessary equipment, our teams are working tirelessly to reach those in need and provide assistance within the available means,” the civil defense stated.
On 11 December, the civil defense reported that three buildings have already collapsed in Gaza City due to the flooding and strong winds.
The Gaza government media office stated on 9 December that with the storm bringing flooding and strong winds, Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing “a recurring tragic scenario, where thousands of families will face the risk of drowning, collapses, and flooding.”
“The coming hours will document heartbreaking scenes of families struggling to survive inside tents that cannot withstand the rain or wind, amidst a shameful international silence and the absence of any serious intervention to provide even the most basic protection and relief for the displaced,” the office added.
Social media user Ehab Nuor captured footage of people trying to mitigate the flooding inside their tents on Tuesday.
Trump’s plan to entrench Israeli control in Gaza
Israeli military officials claimed on Tuesday that they are working on using the so-called yellow line, which keeps moving westwards, to designate a permanent new boundary for Gaza.
While visiting Israeli occupation soldiers in northern Gaza, in the ruins of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya, Israeli army official Eyal Zamir said that the yellow line that was demarcated by the Trump administration “is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”
Zamir added that Israel would hold on to its current military positions. “We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip and we will remain on those defense lines,” he said.
Earlier this month, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor admonished Donald Trump’s plan to entrench Israel’s ongoing control and rampant encroachment of occupied Gaza.
“The consequences of the US plan to support dividing the Gaza Strip into green and red zones separated by a yellow military line carry grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army,” Euro-Med stated.
“The yellow line, marked by concrete blocks, has not remained fixed but has been pushed beyond the published maps, advancing in some areas by more than one kilometer inside the Gaza Strip. It is used to unilaterally redraw lines of military control, gradually expanding areas under direct Israeli authority, placing additional territory under closed military rule, and severely restricting freedom of movement. This practice entrenches de facto annexation and fragments Gaza’s territorial unity in clear violation of international law,” the group added.
According to information obtained by Euro-Med, this plan is based on transferring the Palestinian population from the red zone to the green zone through various pressure tactics, which are war crimes.
The plan includes the establishment of “cities” of prefabricated container homes (caravans) in the green zone, each housing around 25,000 people within an area of no more than one square kilometer and enclosed by walls and checkpoints, Euro-Med notes.
“The design of these proposed cities mirrors the historical model of ghettos, in which colonial and racist regimes confined specific groups to sealed areas surrounded by walls and guard posts, with movement and resources controlled externally, as seen in Europe during World War II and in other colonial contexts,” the group added.
Euro-Med warned that engineering units responsible for the plan have already begun preparing designs for the first experimental city in Rafah, pending the securing of funding to begin implementation on the ground.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric responded to Zamir’s vision of a new boundary line inside Gaza saying “we firmly stand against any change of the borders of Gaza and Israel” and that Zamir’s statement “seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of the Trump peace plan.”
Israel kills child, raids UNRWA headquarters
Turning to the occupied West Bank, a 17-year-old child was killed by Israeli forces on 6 December in Hebron in the south.
Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) reported that Ahmad Khalil Rajabi “was driving his family’s car to visit a friend at Alia Governmental Hospital in the city center, during which Israeli forces allege that Ahmad attempted to run over a soldier. Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle, killing Ahmad.”
The soldiers then confiscated his body.
Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP said “There is no rule of law for Palestinian children. Palestinian families are left to piece together how their child was killed, and in many cases are denied even the basic dignity of burying them, as Israel continues to withhold children’s bodies in violation of international law.”
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 53 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2025, according to documentation collected by the human rights group.
Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least 61 Palestinian children since June 2016, DCIP says. Six of the children’s bodies have since been released to their families, while 55 Palestinian children’s bodies remain withheld by Israeli authorities.
In the village of Qaryut near Nablus in the northern West Bank, Israeli soldiers used heavy machinery to uproot olive trees this week, during the harvest season.
Journalist Issam Ramawi captured this footage of the bulldozers destroying the olive groves belonging to village elders in Qaryut on 8 December.
The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretzreported that the military destroyed hundreds of trees in an area that the army claims exceeds the boundaries set by a military order, citing security measures and signed by the army’s West Bank commander.
Village council members said that the soldiers also destroyed wells, not only the trees.
The roots of the trees were severed, the village council members said, and the owners could not reach them and attempt to rescue them. The council said the military threatened residents that “they would also destroy their houses” if anyone tried to approach the trees.
Meanwhile, in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli police and municipal officials raided the headquarters of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees, on 8 December, cutting communications, seizing items and replacing the UN flag with Israel’s flag.
This is the latest in an escalation of attacks against the agency, which was established in the wake of Israel’s seizure and theft of Palestine by Zionist militias and the expulsion of approximately 800,000 Palestinians in 1948.
UNRWA has not used the building since the beginning of the year after Israeli authorities ordered the agency to vacate all of its premises and halt operations, Al Jazeera reported.
The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said that this latest attack on the agency follows “months of harassment that included arson attacks in 2024, hateful demonstrations and intimidation, supported by a large-scale disinformation campaign, as well as anti-UNRWA legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in breach of its international obligations.”
Highlighting resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to highlight people expressing joy, determination and resilience across Gaza and around the world.
In Beach (al-Shati) refugee camp west of Gaza city on 7 December, Palestinians celebrated the Palestine football team’s qualification to the quarter-finals of the 2025 Arab Cup.
Journalist Abood Abusalama took photographs and video of people watching the match in a crowded room, huddled around a television. He writes: “Gathered closely around a small screen, Gaza residents watch the Arab Cup football match between the Palestinian national team and its Syrian counterpart. Despite the harsh living conditions in the al-Shati refugee camp, this shared moment of sports brings a brief sense of unity and escape amid ongoing hardship.”
Nearly 300,000 families are without proper shelter as a winter storm bears down on Gaza. (Ahmed Ibrahim / APA Images)
The following is from the news roundup during the 11 December livestream. Watch the entire episode here.
The Israeli army continues to kill and injure Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, in spite of the so-called ceasefire enacted on 10 October.
Meanwhile, a brutal winter storm is destroying tent shelters and partially-destroyed buildings as the Israelis continue to prevent the entry of prefabricated mobile homes and supplies to repair basic infrastructure. One infant has already died from exposure.
Israel killed a child, 16-year-old Zaher Nasser Shamiya, on Wednesday, shooting him and then crushing his body underneath a tank in central Gaza, according to the Wafa news agency.
A man and a woman were shot and killed by Israeli fire, and a child was shot in the head and injured in the Halawa displacement camp in Jabaliya on Wednesday in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces shot 10-year-old Bayan in the head, reportedly from a gun mounted on a crane, while she was sheltering with her family in the camp.
Journalist Basheer Abu Asher captured a clip of Bayan, in shock and with bandages around her head, being cradled by her grandfather inside an ambulance. The soldiers, the grandfather says, “shoot over our heads and we have no place to take shelter.”
At least seven Palestinians were killed in separate attacks in northern Gaza on Saturday, 6 December, including a 70-year-old woman and her son who were reportedly hunted by an Israeli quadcopter drone. The Israeli army claimed that those targeted had crossed the so-called yellow line.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that the woman and her son were chased by a quadcopter drone about half a mile from the yellow line and “left there to bleed to death” as the aircraft continued hovering overhead, preventing anyone from reaching them.
Mahmoud described the incident as “just one of many violations throughout the day and throughout the past 50 days” since the truce came into effect.
He added that in areas close to the yellow line, many Palestinians may unwittingly cross the boundary because it is not visible.
“There are no clear markings or signage to show this is the ceasefire demarcation that is a restricted and dangerous area,” he said.
On 7 December, a 3-year-old child, Ahed Tariq Al-Bayouk, was shot and killed by Israeli forces while she was playing outside of her tent in the al-Mawasi tent encampment south of Khan Younis.
Reporter Ibrahim Qannan filmed Ahed’s grief-stricken family members carrying her little body in a shroud to a nearby clinic.
Israel attacked a home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on 8 December, bombing it with two missiles, according to local reports.
The United Nations humanitarian office reportedon 8 December that airstrikes, shelling and gunfire continued across all governorates, including in Jabaliya al-Balad and east of Jabaliya in north Gaza, in Shujaiya and al-Tuffah east and northeast of Gaza city, off the coast of Khan Younis and in the east and south of the governorate, as well as east and north of Rafah city.
Several locations east of the “yellow line” were affected, the UN said.
Reporter Mahmoud Abusalama recorded footage of Israeli forces firing artillery shells from inside the heart of Jabaliya refugee camp on 10 December, where entire blocks are being leveled during ongoing military operations, according to the local media collective Translating Falasteen.
Residents report intensified shelling alongside the movement of troops and armored vehicles, signaling a new wave of destruction in an area within the yellow line that is already devastated by months of Israeli occupation bombardment and forced displacement.
The Gaza government media office stated on 9 December that in the 60 days since the ceasefire took effect, Israel has committed at least 738 violations, including more than 200 direct shooting incidents, 37 incursions by military vehicles into residential areas, 358 bombings and attacks targeting civilians and their homes, and nearly 140 demolitions of homes, institutions and civil buildings.
On 11 December, Gaza’s health ministry reportedthat more than 380 Palestinians have been killed and 1,000 people have been injured since the so-called ceasefire took effect.
Infant dies of exposure
A brutal winter storm has hit Gaza, plunging hundreds of thousands of families into further crisis 26 months into Israel’s genocide. And the blockade of essential humanitarian aid, food, fuel, medicine, medical supplies and infrastructure and construction materials remains firmly in place amid a lack of any meaningful international political pressure.
One 8-month-old baby, Rahaf Abu Jazar, died of exposure to cold after water gathered in her family’s tent in Khan Younis amid the heavy rainfall, Al Jazeera reported on 11 December.
Ismail al-Thawabta of the Gaza government media office said that nearly 300,000 families are without shelter as the storm bears down.
Roughly 250,000 tents and mobile homes were supposed to enter Gaza, al-Thawabta said. But there are currently 6,000 trucks “loaded with aid stuck at the crossings,” he told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
“We are issuing an urgent appeal to the world, [US] President Trump and the [United Nations] Security Council to pressure the Israeli occupation,” he added.
Gaza’s civil defense rescue workers say that its teams are receiving distress calls from Palestinians inside displacement camps, reporting flooding tents and families trapped inside by heavy rains.
“Despite limited resources and a lack of necessary equipment, our teams are working tirelessly to reach those in need and provide assistance within the available means,” the civil defense stated.
On 11 December, the civil defense reported that three buildings have already collapsed in Gaza City due to the flooding and strong winds.
The Gaza government media office stated on 9 December that with the storm bringing flooding and strong winds, Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing “a recurring tragic scenario, where thousands of families will face the risk of drowning, collapses, and flooding.”
“The coming hours will document heartbreaking scenes of families struggling to survive inside tents that cannot withstand the rain or wind, amidst a shameful international silence and the absence of any serious intervention to provide even the most basic protection and relief for the displaced,” the office added.
Social media user Ehab Nuor captured footage of people trying to mitigate the flooding inside their tents on Tuesday.
Trump’s plan to entrench Israeli control in Gaza
Israeli military officials claimed on Tuesday that they are working on using the so-called yellow line, which keeps moving westwards, to designate a permanent new boundary for Gaza.
While visiting Israeli occupation soldiers in northern Gaza, in the ruins of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya, Israeli army official Eyal Zamir said that the yellow line that was demarcated by the Trump administration “is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”
Zamir added that Israel would hold on to its current military positions. “We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip and we will remain on those defense lines,” he said.
Earlier this month, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor admonished Donald Trump’s plan to entrench Israel’s ongoing control and rampant encroachment of occupied Gaza.
“The consequences of the US plan to support dividing the Gaza Strip into green and red zones separated by a yellow military line carry grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army,” Euro-Med stated.
“The yellow line, marked by concrete blocks, has not remained fixed but has been pushed beyond the published maps, advancing in some areas by more than one kilometer inside the Gaza Strip. It is used to unilaterally redraw lines of military control, gradually expanding areas under direct Israeli authority, placing additional territory under closed military rule, and severely restricting freedom of movement. This practice entrenches de facto annexation and fragments Gaza’s territorial unity in clear violation of international law,” the group added.
According to information obtained by Euro-Med, this plan is based on transferring the Palestinian population from the red zone to the green zone through various pressure tactics, which are war crimes.
The plan includes the establishment of “cities” of prefabricated container homes (caravans) in the green zone, each housing around 25,000 people within an area of no more than one square kilometer and enclosed by walls and checkpoints, Euro-Med notes.
“The design of these proposed cities mirrors the historical model of ghettos, in which colonial and racist regimes confined specific groups to sealed areas surrounded by walls and guard posts, with movement and resources controlled externally, as seen in Europe during World War II and in other colonial contexts,” the group added.
Euro-Med warned that engineering units responsible for the plan have already begun preparing designs for the first experimental city in Rafah, pending the securing of funding to begin implementation on the ground.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric responded to Zamir’s vision of a new boundary line inside Gaza saying “we firmly stand against any change of the borders of Gaza and Israel” and that Zamir’s statement “seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of the Trump peace plan.”
Israel kills child, raids UNRWA headquarters
Turning to the occupied West Bank, a 17-year-old child was killed by Israeli forces on 6 December in Hebron in the south.
Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) reported that Ahmad Khalil Rajabi “was driving his family’s car to visit a friend at Alia Governmental Hospital in the city center, during which Israeli forces allege that Ahmad attempted to run over a soldier. Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle, killing Ahmad.”
The soldiers then confiscated his body.
Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP said “There is no rule of law for Palestinian children. Palestinian families are left to piece together how their child was killed, and in many cases are denied even the basic dignity of burying them, as Israel continues to withhold children’s bodies in violation of international law.”
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 53 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2025, according to documentation collected by the human rights group.
Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least 61 Palestinian children since June 2016, DCIP says. Six of the children’s bodies have since been released to their families, while 55 Palestinian children’s bodies remain withheld by Israeli authorities.
In the village of Qaryut near Nablus in the northern West Bank, Israeli soldiers used heavy machinery to uproot olive trees this week, during the harvest season.
Journalist Issam Ramawi captured this footage of the bulldozers destroying the olive groves belonging to village elders in Qaryut on 8 December.
The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretzreported that the military destroyed hundreds of trees in an area that the army claims exceeds the boundaries set by a military order, citing security measures and signed by the army’s West Bank commander.
Village council members said that the soldiers also destroyed wells, not only the trees.
The roots of the trees were severed, the village council members said, and the owners could not reach them and attempt to rescue them. The council said the military threatened residents that “they would also destroy their houses” if anyone tried to approach the trees.
Meanwhile, in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli police and municipal officials raided the headquarters of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees, on 8 December, cutting communications, seizing items and replacing the UN flag with Israel’s flag.
This is the latest in an escalation of attacks against the agency, which was established in the wake of Israel’s seizure and theft of Palestine by Zionist militias and the expulsion of approximately 800,000 Palestinians in 1948.
UNRWA has not used the building since the beginning of the year after Israeli authorities ordered the agency to vacate all of its premises and halt operations, Al Jazeera reported.
The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said that this latest attack on the agency follows “months of harassment that included arson attacks in 2024, hateful demonstrations and intimidation, supported by a large-scale disinformation campaign, as well as anti-UNRWA legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in breach of its international obligations.”
Highlighting resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to highlight people expressing joy, determination and resilience across Gaza and around the world.
In Beach (al-Shati) refugee camp west of Gaza city on 7 December, Palestinians celebrated the Palestine football team’s qualification to the quarter-finals of the 2025 Arab Cup.
Journalist Abood Abusalama took photographs and video of people watching the match in a crowded room, huddled around a television. He writes: “Gathered closely around a small screen, Gaza residents watch the Arab Cup football match between the Palestinian national team and its Syrian counterpart. Despite the harsh living conditions in the al-Shati refugee camp, this shared moment of sports brings a brief sense of unity and escape amid ongoing hardship.”
