An Israeli civilian has been killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon, the French news agency AFP has said, citing the Israeli army and emergency medical services.

Smoke could be seen and explosions could be heard over the border between Israel and Lebanon, Reuters reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying that “If Hezbollah makes a mistake, it will turn Beirut and South Lebanon into Gaza and Khan Younis.”

Hezbollah is an organisation which is politically influential and in control of the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.

Image source, EPA

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi alleges that Western nations are supporting a "genocide" in the Gaza Strip, in reference to Israel's bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave, according to Reuters.

Speaking during a visit to Moscow, Raisi said it was necessary for the bombardment to stop "as soon as possible", and added it was "regretful" that international organisations have not been effective at stopping the violence.

Iran has been one of Hamas's chief sponsors over the years, providing both financial assistance as well as rockets and other weapons to the Palestinian group.

There are reports that Iran was involved in and gave the green light to Hamas's brutal attack on Israel on 7 October, although Tehran has denied those accusations.

Image source, Reuters

When Thai avocado farm worker Anucha Angkaew and and five of his colleagues found themselves face-to-face with 10 Hamas attackers on 7 October, they shouted "Thailand, Thailand", hoping they'd be spared. But that didn't work.

Two of them were shot dead, and the others were forcibly taken to Gaza. "I lost my friend in front of my eyes," Anucha said in an interview with Reuters news agency.

He's now back at his family home in the rural north-east of Thailand, after spending 50 days in captivity.

But he's haunted by memories of having his hands tied behind his back, being punched and kicked by Hamas captors and sleeping on a bare sandy floor.

Image source, Reuters

The group – as well as two Israeli men – were taken to a small building leading to a tunnel and stayed in a room where they were given flatbread twice a day and shared two bottles of water per day.

After four days, they were taken to another room inside the tunnel. It was more spacious, Anucha says, and the beatings stopped. It had lightbulbs and they got better food, including nuts, butter and rice.

One day a guard left behind a pen, so they started marking the time and managed to sketch a chessboard to pass the hours. Anucha dreamed of soi ju, a Thai raw beef delicacy in spicy sauce.

The group had no idea of the intense Israeli bombardment going on above their heads, he says. When they were finally released, "it was like I was reborn".

Hamas - designated a terrorist organisation in the UK, US and other Western countries - has not responded to Reuters' request for a comment.

Image source, Reuters

Frequent exchanges of fire have occurred across the UN-patrolled Israel-Lebanon border over the last two months.

Now human rights groups, including Amnesty International, are calling for Israeli strikes that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in south Lebanon on 13 Oct to be investigated as a war crime.

Investigations suggest the journalists, all of them clearly identified as media, were most likely fired on by an Israeli tank crew.

Read more about the border area known as the Blue Line, the unofficial frontier between Lebanon and Israel here.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says that 17,177 Palestinians have been killed and 46,000 injured since the 7 October attack on Israel.

In the past 24 hours 350 Palestinians were killed and 1,900 injured, health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra added.

Image source, Getty Images

Since yesterday, we've been reporting that Israeli forces have encircled the home of Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas's political wing in Gaza - effectively second-in-command after leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The IDF says he doesn't appear to be there. He's thought to be hiding in underground tunnels with bodyguards, communicating with no-one to avoid being tracked down.

Israel holds him responsible, along with others, for the 7 October attacks, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists "it's only a matter of time before we get him".

Sinwar, 61, was born in Khan Younis after his parents were displaced from Ashkelon in what Palestinians call “al-Nakba” (the Catastrophe) – the mass displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral home in the war that followed Israel's founding in 1948.

He was first arrested by Israel in 1982, aged 19, for "Islamic activities" and then arrested again in 1985. That's when he won the confidence of Hamas's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and started working his way up through the ranks.

Read Frank Gardner's profile of Sinwar here.

Egyptian authorities are pushing to accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The chairman of Egypt's information service Diaa Rashwan said that his country would continue its cooperation with its partners to enable faster delivery of aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory, as reported by Egypt's state information service.

Egypt controls the Rafah crossing on Gaza's southern border. It coordinates with Israel over when and for how long to open the border, that so far has allowed humanitarian trucks to enter Gaza and some foreigners and injured Palestinians to leave the enclave for medical treatment.

Earlier in October, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told BBC Newshour that "the Rafah crossing on our side is officially open", but he blamed "aerial bombardments" for making the crossing "inaccessible" and unsafe for aid lorries to cross into Gaza.

Image source, .

Adnan El-Bursh
BBC Arabic, reporting from Gaza

Image source, Reuters

In what is my third day in the southern city of Rafah, after fleeing Khan Younis with the BBC team, I can still see tens of thousands of Palestinians continue to stream into the city.

Streets here are packed with newly displaced people, and ambulances are seen rushing with the wounded trying to reach hospitals through the jammed streets.

Water shortages are severe, and people carry empty yellow and blue jerrycans hoping to fill them at any opportunity.

There is also no food or electricity, the supermarkets are empty. There is no internet at all, and no humanitarian aid is being delivered.

Thousands have tried to go to UNRWA schools to find shelter, but as there was no place for them, they were forced to sleep on the ground in front of the schools. Others have gone to medical centres.

The weather is very cold, and yesterday it was raining slightly.

People are sleeping on the ground in light clothes. Some had to go to markets that sell second-hand clothes to buy warmer clothes for winter.

Being one of the tens of thousands who has been displaced to Rafah, I am now writing from inside a makeshift tent set up by fellow journalists, in front of the Kuwaiti Specialised Hospital in the city.

I would say this is our second journey of homelessness. We are still struggling to work through these difficult times while trying to understand what is happening around us. We cannot think of the extent this war will reach. The situation has gone far beyond imagination.

Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza used to be one of the most densely populated areas on the Strip and the territory's largest refugee camp.

The camp covers an area of just 1.4 sq km and before the current conflict was home to more than 115,000 people, according to the UN.

Now it's under intense bombardment by Israeli forces, and despite evacuation orders Hamas-run local authorities say tens of thousands of residents remain in the area in dire conditions.

Overnight the IDF said it had raided a Hamas compound in Jabalia, killing several gunmen and locating a network of tunnels, a training area and a weapons cache.

Image source, .

Image source, EPA

It is another difficult day for civilians in Gaza, as Israel continues its bombardment of the Palestinian enclave. Here's a recap of what's been happening:

• Israel is attacking targets in both northern and southern Gaza
• One of the focal points is Jabalia refugee camp in the north, where Israel maintains Hamas has a stronghold
• Al Jazeera reported that one of its journalists had lost 22 family members in an Israeli attack on Jabalia camp yesterday
• Israel's military has also advanced into the heart of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, which had been sheltering hundreds of thousands who fled the fighting in the north

• No aid has reached the north since the humanitarian truce ended at the start of December
• UN chief Antonio Guterres yesterday warned that the humanitarian system in Gaza may collapse and public order could completely break down
• His comments were criticised by Israel's foreign minister, who said that Guterres' tenure was a "danger to world peace"

A director of a medical charity working in Gaza has described the situation there as "absolutely dire" and a "tragedy unfolding."

Richard Makepeace, from Medical Aid for Palestinians and a former diplomat in Israel, told the BBC that the world must insist on a permanent ceasefire.

Echoing the concerns of the World Health Organization (WHO), he fears there is now a very real threat from the spread of disease and a collapse of the health system in Gaza.

He added that it was too dangerous for his team members to even try to take the sick and injured to hospital because of the fighting.

Al Jazeera has reported that one of its journalists lost 22 members of his family in an Israeli attack on Jabalia refugee camp.

According to a statement by the Qatari news outlet, the house in which Momen Al-Sharafi's family were sheltering was hit on 6 December. Al-Sharafi's mother, father, three of his siblings and some of their children were reportedly killed.

In October, another Al Jazeera reporter Wael Al-Dahdouh lost his wife, teenage son, young daughter and grandson in an Israeli attack in central Gaza.

Israel's bombardment of Gaza has been the deadliest for journalists since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Image source, Reuters

Israel maintains that Hamas has a stronghold in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Israeli media reported today that Israeli forces had captured a main Hamas outpost in the area, and found tunnels and weapons.

A UN report , externalfrom yesterday indicated that "more than 100 people were killed, and many others injured, in heavy bombardments of multiple residential buildings in the Jabalia camp".

On 5 December, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the Israeli army was fighting "in the heart of Jabalia and in the area of Shejaiya".

"In each such stronghold, combined land and air attacks are carried out, underground infrastructures are destroyed, many terrorists are eliminated in face-to-face battles, and weapons are located," he added.

Israel has announced what it called a "minimal" increase in fuel supplies to southern Gaza.

It said the fuel supply increase was "necessary to avoid a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics".

PM Benjamin Netanyahu's office added that: "The minimal amount will be determined from time to time by the War Cabinet according to the morbidity situation and humanitarian situation in the Strip."

It follows international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, although the UN says it won't be enough.

It said the ability to receive incoming loads of aid "has been significantly impaired" due to several factors, including a shortage of trucks and staff not being able to get to the Rafah crossing, where aid comes through, because of fighting in the south.

Rushdi Abu Alouf
Reporting from Istanbul

Image source, Getty Images

While the focus of the Israeli ground operation seems to be in the south, hundreds of tank shells hit Jabalia refugee camp in the north.

The situation in the biggest refugee camp is terribly difficult, hundreds of tanks are surrounding the densely populated area according to witnesses. The Hamas-run local authority said about 100,000 people are still in the camp without a functioning hospital and at risk of starvation.

No aid has reached the north since the humanitarian truce has collapsed, very little food and fuel were allowed during the truce.

Fifty-six year-old Hanan Alturok, a mother of eight, lives close to Jabalia. She told the BBC: “During the ceasefire we moved to the hospital, we thought it's safer than my house but yesterday the shells were landing inside the place and we had to flee under fire.

“My husband Maher was killed on 29 November when he was trying to buy some food from the local market, I don’t know what to do or where to go, I have no money and no food and very little drinking water.

"I’m afraid that my kids will die from hunger."

The director general of the Hamas-run Health Ministry, Dr Munir Al-Bursh, said: “Yesterday, we dug a mass grave in Jabalia market for more than 100 martyrs, whose bodies rotted in the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital.

"All of the northern hospitals are out of service, including the last functionining hospital, Kamal Adwan, which was heavily bombed by artillery shells."

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is concerned about the spread of disease in Gaza, as displaced Palestinians struggle to survive amid Israel's relentless bombardment of the besieged enclave.

The WHO's representative for the West Bank and Gaza, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, says that displaced people are "scavenging for sheets, for wood, for everything."

"We are really scared for the spread of infectious diseases, water borne diseases," he says, and describes the water situation as "incredibly critical everywhere".

Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis is harbouring thousands of patients, he says, even though it has a capacity of only 350.

"The trauma ward was a war zone when we visited," he says. "Many trauma patients on the floor, screaming scared family members."

Image source, Pool

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said more aid needs to reach Gaza.

He said: "It seems to me that what the world needs to do is get a lot more aid to people who are, in many cases, innocent in this."

Shapps is in the West Bank to offer UK supplies via a sea route into Gaza, although he agreed that, at this stage, they are studying options for routes in.

In response to the UN secretary general’s call for a ceasefire, he said that the problem is that Israel would still end up living next door to an organisation that wants to murder all Jewish and Israeli citizens in the world.

The best thing, he said, would be for all the hostages to be released.

Anna Foster
BBC News, Rishpon, central Israel

Two months ago, early on 7 October, more than 360 young partygoers were shot, beaten or burnt to death by Hamas attackers, who stormed the Nova music festival site near the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence. Another 40 were taken hostage.

First, social media posts showed panicked crowds fleeing from rockets fired from Gaza and gunmen on the ground. Later, distressing videos from first responders began to confirm the scale of the massacre, as they filmed scores of murdered partygoers.

In the following days, Dr Lia Naor realised that - unlike those who'd been evacuated from their nearby kibbutzim - the young people from the festival who lived through the ordeal didn't have a community already around them to give support.

So she built one.

Read the full story here.

Image source, IDF handout

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say they are continuing to fight Hamas in the Gaza Strip, including in Khan Younis, striking "dozens of terror targets".

A press release states: "IDF troops engaged with a terrorist cell that exited from a tunnel shaft killed two terrorists in combat and struck the shaft."

It goes on to say it also targeted a military compound belonging to Hamas’ Central Jabaliya Battalion, killing a number of fighters.

"Furthermore, the forces located a network of underground tunnels that lead out of the compound, as well as a training area and weapons storage facility in the area of the compound."