Baby dies of exposure in Gaza as Israel blocks reconstruction
Nora Barrows-Friedman Rights and Accountability12 December 2025
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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 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 Haaretz reported 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.”
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