Updates

14 December 2023

Palestinian artists describe to Amjad Ayman Yaghi, reporting from Gaza, what the Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, meant to them: “It was a hopeful place for all of us.”

The temporary truce “almost felt like a holiday” and when it was extended, it felt like “we were one step closer to freedom,” writes Batoul Mohamed Abou Ali in Gaza. When it ended, it was a harsh return to a nightmarish reality.

Israeli forces are continuing to bomb, besiege and destroy hospitals in Gaza, waging what a UN health official called an “unrelenting war” on the health system across the coastal enclave. Nora Barrows-Friedman provides an overview of the state of Gaza’s health system and Israel’s siege on al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza.

Ghada Abed, reporting from Gaza, interviews women on the hellish conditions they’re enduring at a school being used as a shelter for displaced people: “When we have water, we prioritize the children as they cannot understand war or starvation.”

A large-scale Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp entered its third day, with at least 10 Palestinians killed. The invasion has included airstrikes and the targeting of civilian homes, while the Israeli military says it has arrested at least one hundred during the raid.