Netanyahu urges troops 'Do not stop' as hundreds are killed in Gaza

Netanyahu visits Israeli soldiers in Gaza hours after devastating strike

03:04

Netanyahu told Israeli soldiers today during a visit to Gaza to remain steadfast as Israel would stay the course in the war against Hamas militants — "to the end."

Netanyahu, under pressure over the fate of hostages taken by militants in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, asserted Israel's need to eliminate Hamas.

The Gaza Health Ministry said dozens of people were killed at the al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza. The IDF has said it’s reviewing reports of “an incident” there.

After visiting soldiers, Netanyahu told a special session of Israel's parliament he was inspired by what fighters on the ground told him — to keep fighting until the last Hamas militant is no longer a threat.

"We are not stopping, and we will not stop until we are victorious," he told the Knesset.

Ahmed Matar, a paramedic with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, comforted his children after they survived the destruction of their home in central Gaza.

"You want to become a paramedic like me, to save people, right?" Matar asked his son in a video posted by the group today.

He hugged one of his daughters as she cried, asking him, "Where will we live?"

Matar's family home "collapsed entirely over their heads," the Palestine Red Crescent Society said, while his parents were killed in the shelling of a neighboring house.

U.S. airstrikes targeted an Iran-affiliated terrorist group and its affiliates, believed to be responsible for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq, U.S. Central Command said in a statement tonight.

The group, Kataib Hezbollah, and affiliated groups attacked coalition forces this morning at Erbil Air Base in Iraq, injuring three U.S. service members, one critically, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement.

The counterattack was conducted at the direction of President Joe Biden, and targeted three facilities used by the groups in Iraq, Austin said.

"Early assessments indicate that these U.S. airstrikes destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants," Central Command said in its statement. "There are no indications that any civilian lives were affected."

A one-way attack drone was used in the offensive on U.S. personnel, and Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups claimed credit, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been high amid skirmishes along Israel's northern border, where the IDF has been trading munitions with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

"The President and I will not hesitate to take necessary action to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests," Austin said in his statement. "There is no higher priority. While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities.”

Ron Dermer, a close adviser to Netanyahu, is scheduled to meet with White House officials in Washington tomorrow to discuss the war, a source familiar with the matter said. 

Axios first reported that Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, was expected to meet with U.S. officials. The source confirmed the meeting was scheduled for tomorrow and would cover the war between Israel and Hamas.

Dermer is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. It wasn’t immediately clear which White House officials were expected at the table. He is also expected to meet with State Department officials, the source said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said today he has instructed the Foreign Affairs Ministry not to extend the visa of a U.N. employee and to deny the visa request to another.

Cohen accused the U.N. of cooperating with Hamas' propaganda, writing on X, "The conduct of the UN since October 7th is a disgrace to the organization and the international community."

The U.N. General Assembly has overwhelming voted in favor of a cease-fire, with the Security Council agreeing on a resolution that called for increased aid into the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu said today that Israel will remain responsible for security in Gaza for the "foreseeable future."

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, the prime minister also again criticized the Palestinian Authority. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month said the future of Gaza "must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority," but Netanyahu disagreed.

“The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream,” Netanyahu wrote. "For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza."

Netanyahu also defended his country’s military operation regarding civilian casualties in Gaza — health officials there report over 20,000 deaths — writing that Israel drops leaflets and sends text messages to warn of attacks. Hamas deliberately positions itself in civilian areas, he wrote.

A World Health Organization team visited Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza today following the deadly strike last night at al-Maghazi refugee camp. A staff member said he saw doctors sedate a 9-year-old boy named Ahmed with exposed brain matter "to ease his suffering while he died."

Sean Casey, an emergency medical teams coordinator for the organization, described how Ahmed arrived at the hospital after being hit while crossing the street; a building beside him blew up, he said.

"We're seeing kids like Ahmed dying unnecessarily because of bombing and fighting and because the health system doesn't have the capacity to even come close to managing these kinds of complex cases. ... This is an unacceptable situation," Casey said.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted Casey's video dispatch on his X account, where he noted that hospital staff members reported 100 casualties from the refugee camp strike last night. The Gaza Health Ministry last night said that 70 were killed at al-Maghazi.

"The hospital is taking in far more patients than its bed capacity and staff can handle," Tedros wrote on X. "Many will not survive the wait."

English Premier League soccer star Mohamed Salah of Liverpool FC posted a Christmas message today asking fans to keep in mind those who are grieving as the war in the Middle East continues.

Salah, who is Egyptian and Muslim, made a statement in October urging for humanitarian aid to be brought into Gaza, but he has not made many public comments on the war since then. In his post today, Salah noted that Christmas is a time for families to celebrate but many are incapable of doing so this year because of the war.

"Please do not forget them and do not get used to their suffering," he wrote.

Palestinians mourned loved ones killed in a strike at al-Maghazi refugee camp that left at least 70 people dead, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health. The ministry described the strike as an Israeli bombing at a residential square in the camp.

A man mourns relatives killed in an overnight Israeli strike on the al-Maghazi refugee camp during a mass funeral at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip today. Mahmud Hams / AFP - Getty Images

Palestinians grieve for family members killed at the al-Maghazi refugee camp. Mahmud Hams / AFP - Getty Images

Palestinians inspect the damage at the al-Maghazi refugee camp after an overnight Israeli strike. Mahmud Hams / AFP - Getty Images

The body of a victim killed in an overnight Israeli strike at the al-Maghazi refugee camp is recovered. Mahmus Hams / AFP - Getty Images

The IDF told NBC News that it was reviewing reports of “an incident” in the refugee camp.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Israel will pay following reports that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Razi Mousavi was killed in Syria, according to a state news report.

Tasnim News Agency, an Iranian outlet, reported that Mousavi was killed after an Israeli strike in Damascus. NBC News was not immediately able to verify Mousavi's death or the source of the alleged strike.

A spokesperson for the IDF told NBC News it does not comment on foreign reports.

According to Iranian state news, Raisi described Mousavi as being connected to the late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2020.

Family members of the hostages remaining in captivity in Gaza interrupted Netanyahu's speech today at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to demand a deal.

Netanyahu addressed the families, saying that he has heard their personal stories and that he is committed to bringing their loved ones home. He also said the only way to continue to free hostages is through military pressure.

"I come here from Gaza. I met there in the dust and mud, in the ruins, determined fighters," Netanyahu said. "I asked the commander, what do you need most? The brigadier tells me: time."

"There is no time!" family members attending the speech interjected. "Hostage deal now!"

Christmas weekend took a deadly toll on Gaza, with 250 Palestinians killed, including 70 who died in a strike at a refugee camp, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported. The IDF separately said 17 troops had been killed in Gaza over the weekend.

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BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The mood was somber, streets were deserted and stores were shuttered on Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, the Israeli-occupied West Bank city where Christian tradition says Jesus was born in a stable 2,000 years ago.

Set amid rubble and barbed wire, a striking Nativity scene was placed in the city’s central Manger Square, not far from a giant tree that in Christmas season is typically surrounded by revelers and pilgrims visiting the holy site.

A giant Palestinian flag is unfurled as people gather at Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity in the biblical city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on Christmas Eve. Hazem Bader / AFP - Getty Images

“If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born in Gaza under the rubble,” Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, told NBC News yesterday. 

Read the full story here.

A group of anti-war demonstrators protested outside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's home in Virginia today, a event organizers called "No Christmas for war criminals!"

The group was made up of activists from the Shut It Down for Palestine coalition, the Palestinian Youth Movement and the ANSWER Coalition, a news release said this morning.

Brian Becker, executive director of the ANSWER Coalition, said in the release that the groups were protesting the U.S.' financial and political support for Israel. According to videos Becker posted on X, protesters chanted, "Free, free Palestine" and "No more money for Israel's crimes."

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Austin referred NBC News to previous comments he has made about the war, including a statement that protecting Palestinian civilians "is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative."

Police disbanded the protest at about 10 a.m. ET, according to NBC News crews at the scene.

Netanyahu has asked that Chinese President Xi Jinping intervene on behalf of hostage Noa Argamani, whose mother is from China and has begged for her return.

"The mother is begging not only for Noa’s life but also for her own life, because she is suffering from cancer in an advanced stage," Neyanyahu said in a speech at the Knesset today. "The ambassador got back to me and said that these words reached the president of China.”

Argamani was taken by force from the Supernova, or Nova, music festival on Oct. 7 and remains a captive in Gaza. Videos of her abduction circulated on social media, with the world watching as she reached out to her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, as the couple were separated by militants.

She is one of 14 female civilians who weren't released during the weeklong hostage deal last month. It's possible that Argamani was abducted by random individuals or another group and isn't in Hamas custody, according to an NBC News analysis of video, text messages, phone records and satellite images.

Where's Noa? A forensic analysis of her kidnapping and what it says about Israel's hostage crisis

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Seventeen Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed from Friday to Sunday, a spokesperson for the IDF confirmed to NBC News today.

The deaths mark one of the deadliest weekends of fighting for the military since the war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to troops in northern Gaza today to assure them that their safety is an important priority for leaders.

"I am here in the north of the Gaza Strip with you, and I am unusually impressed," he said. "I told your commanders first, and also you, as reservists, as fighters — we are proud of you and trust you."

Gaza's Ministry of Health reported today that 250 people were killed and twice as many were wounded across multiple attacks in the previous 24 hours inside the Palestinian enclave.

At least 70 people were killed in a Christmas Eve strike on a residential square in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, the ministry said last night. Hamas released a statement about the attack on the camp, saying that most of the dead were women and children.

With the collapse of the health system in Gaza, the Ministry of Health said treatment for the injured is "ineffective," which has contributed to the toll.

Israel’s war Cabinet will meet tonight to discuss the hostage situation, among other topics, an Israeli official told NBC News.

Officials estimated last week that there are 129 Israelis and foreign nationals still being held hostage in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited IDF soldiers in northern Gaza after a bloody weekend for the troops, with more than a dozen killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza today. Avi Ohion / Government Press Office of Israel

During his visit, Netanyahu expressed pride in the troops, telling them that he was "unusually impressed." He said he had two things to tell the soldiers, the first being that their lives are important and leadership will do their best to keep them safe.

"Second thing — don’t stop," he told them. "Anyone who talks about stopping — no, do not stop. The war continues to the end. Until they are finished, no less than that."

Netanyahu visited troops in Gaza. Avi Ohion / Government Press Office of Israel

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said today that a dozen of its ambulances have left Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, for Gaza City to evacuate its teams and volunteers in northern Gaza.

"This came after Israeli forces compelled them to evacuate the ambulance center in Jabalia, raided the building, and destroyed the ambulances," it said in a statement on X.

The group also said that 21 injured people will be evacuated from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, along with another 12 people from the Al-Shifa Hospital.

Pope Francis on Monday blasted the weapons industry and its “instruments of death” that fuel wars as he made a Christmas Day appeal for peace in the world and in particular between Israel and the Palestinians.

Speaking from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to the throngs of people below, Francis said he grieved the “abominable attack” of Hamas against southern Israel on Oct. 7 and called for the release of hostages. And he begged for an end to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the “appalling harvest of innocent civilians” as he called for humanitarian aid to reach those in need.

Francis devoted his Christmas Day blessing to a call for peace in the world, noting that the biblical story of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem sent a message of peace. But he said that Bethlehem “is a place of sorrow and silence” this year.

Israeli forces have arrested at least 35 people in the occupied West Bank since yesterday, a pair of prisoner advocacy groups in a statement

Children were among those detained, the Commission for the Affairs of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners and the Palestinian Prisoners Club said.

The arrests were mostly made in the Jenin camp, they said. Israeli forces also raided the town of Nablus, “accompanied by widespread sabotage and destruction operations,” the statement said. Since Oct. 7, about 4,730 people have been arrested by Israeli forces, it added.

NBC News could not immediately verify the arrests.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said today in a statement that it had targeted Israeli soldiers at a barracks in northern Israel.

The statement said that it carried out the attacks in “support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

Shortly afterward, the Israel Defense Forces said on Telegram that fighter jets had “struck a series of Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon, including Hezbollah military compounds, terrorist infrastructure, and operational infrastructure.”

NBC News could not independently verify either claim, but Israel has been exchanging fire with the Iran-backed militants since Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks.

Gaza is on the brink of a famine as more than half-million people face catastrophic levels of hunger, the World Food Programme's chief economist said yesterday in a video on X.

"We can still avoid this famine. But we need to make sure that people have food, people have water, they have shelter, they have sanitation," Arif Husain said.

For that to happen, border crossings into the enclave need to open up, he said, before calling for a humanitarian cease-fire.

Only a few dozen aid trucks are being let into the Gaza Strip on a daily basis. Hundreds would enter before Oct. 7., when Hamas launched a multipronged attack on Israel.

Iran's Foreign Ministry rejected American accusations that it had a role to play in a drone attack that struck a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean.

Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani was quoted today by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying the U.S. claims were "endless."

"The U.S. government has attracted the world nations' public hatred with its measures and support for the Israeli regime," Kanaani was quoted as saying. He added that Iran was committed to maritime safety.

A warplane killed a Hamas leader in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, as Israel's continue to engage in sea, ground and air operations across the Gaza Strip, an IDF spokesperson said in a statement today.

Avichay Adraee added that militants “holding a rocket-propelled grenade in their hands” had also been “eliminated by an Air Force plane.”

An IDF brigade found weaponry inside a building, Adraee added, saying its troops destroyed Hamas infrastructure inside home of a militant.

NBC News has not independently verified the claims.

Denmark’s Maersk is preparing to resume shipping operations in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the company said today, citing the deployment of a U.S.-led military operation designed to ensure the safety of commerce in the area.

The shipping giant paused sending vessels through the Bab el-Mandeb strait earlier this month because of attacks against its ships. That rendered the Suez Canal, which is key to global commerce, unusable for most routes.

The U.S. said Tuesday it was launching a multinational operation to protect commerce in the Red Sea from Iran-backed Yemeni militants, who have been firing drones and missiles at international vessels since last month in what they say is a response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

As a result of this, Maersk said it was “preparing to allow for vessels to resume transit through the Red Sea both eastbound and westbound.”

Elizabeth Price, a former U.N. consultant who contributed to the 2014 post-reconstruction plans in the Gaza Strip, is intimately familiar with the region’s cycle of violence.

However, that cycle hit even closer to home when her 20-year-old son, Hisham Awartani, and his two friends were shot in Vermont in a possible hate crime. The incident left her son partially paralyzed, but Price and her family remain hopeful.

“He draws great strength from his experience of being Palestinian. Even though he has had this terrible thing happen to him, he’s luckier than many Palestinians right now,” Price said.

12:58

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said today that six more staff members had been killed in Gaza, bringing the total to 142 since the war began.

Today’s situation report said at least two of its staff were killed in airstrikes near a school in Rafah last week. Information about the four other deaths was not provided.

The agency said 301 internally displaced people have been killed sheltering in UNRWA facilities since Oct. 7, with more than 1,000 others injured in its installations.

It cited the current death toll provided by Ministry of Health in Gaza in its report, adding that 53,320 Palestinians have been injured.

• How 3 Israeli hostages tried to save themselves, only to be killed by their own military
• How the White House persuaded Israel to open the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza
• About 20,000 people killed in Gaza, Health Ministry says
• Palestinian support for ‘armed struggle’ is rising as Gaza death estimate tops 20,000