War in Gaza will go on for 'many months,' IDF chief says

The White House today called yesterday’s appointment of Sigrid Kaag as the U.N. coordinator for humanitarian efforts in Gaza “an important step” and said the U.S. wants to increase the flow of aid there.

“Yesterday’s announcement appointing Sigrid Kaag as United Nations Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza is an important step as we continue to work with the UN as a critical partner in the delivery and distribution of life-saving humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” the White House said in a statement.

“The United States is the largest financial supporter of the humanitarian assistance efforts to support Palestinian civilians who are caught in the middle of the conflict between Israel and Hamas,” it said. “We welcome Ms. Kaag’s leadership and look forward to working together closely to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, and ensure safety and security for the aid delivery and the humanitarian staff providing the life-saving support to those in need.”

Kaag, from the Netherlands, is set to begin her role Jan. 8. She was the first deputy prime minister and the first female finance minister in the Dutch government, and she also worked as the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon from 2015 to 2017.

While all children under age 5 are at risk for preventable death, it is "impossible" to provide care to every child and every civilian in Gaza who needs it "while bombs are falling," UNICEF spokesperson Joe English said on "Meet the Press NOW."

"The number, the proportions we are talking about, knock you sideways," English said of the number of children in desperate need of help, including water, protection and nutritional services. But UNICEF can't help them until there is a pause in the fighting, English said.

"The fighting needs to stop. There needs to be a humanitarian pause," he said. "Children are exhausted, they are traumatized, they are shocked."

"Children are too scared, too scared, too hungry to even cry, many of them," English said of the situation in Gaza. "It is a deathly, deathly silence."

Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron had a call tonight discussing the war, including the need for hostages to be released and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, according to readouts from their offices.

Macron reiterated his support of Israel's right to security and their shared goal of returning the remaining 129 hostages home, his office said in a statement. But he also expressed his concern over the "very heavy civilian toll and the absolute humanitarian emergency."

"He recalled the imperative of the protection of civilians that was imposed on Israel and stressed the urgency of delivering the necessary aid to the population of Gaza, as well as the need to work for a lasting ceasefire, with the help of all regional and international partners," Macron's office said.

According to Netanyahu's office, he thanked Macron for France's support and willingness to involve itself in restoring security along Israel’s border with Lebanon.

"The Prime Minister updated the French President on developments in the war to destroy Hamas in Gaza, as well as the effort to bring about the release of the hostages, and asked him to continue working for their release," the prime minister's office said in a thread on X.

JERUSALEM — Supporters of a local Palestinian activist in the West Bank say he has been arrested by Israel on suspicions of incitement.

They say Israeli troops arrested Munther Amira, a social worker and community activist in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem, on Dec. 18. Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli activist assisting Amira, says Munther was questioned about Facebook posts and denied allegations against him. He said it was unclear which posts drew attention from Israeli authorities.

Amira’s lawyer, Riham Nasra, said the military is trying to place Amira under administrative detention — a status under which suspects can be held without charge for months at a time. She accused Israel of trying to stifle criticism of the Gaza war.

“Munther is a renowned activist, and Israel is grasping at the opportunity to remove him from the stage,” Nasra said.

Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency did not respond to a request for comment. Rights groups say Israel has arrested scores of Palestinians, including Israeli citizens, in a crackdown on free speech and political activity since the war erupted on Oct. 7.

The Israeli rights group HaMoked says Israel was holding 2,873 Palestinians in administrative detention as of Dec. 1, an increase of 800 from the previous month.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi met with Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein in Cairo to discuss the ongoing situation in Gaza, as well as the future of Palestinians, Sissi's spokesperson said in a statement.

The two leaders discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and their agreement to reject "all attempts to extinguish the Palestinian issue or to expel Palestinians from their territories or internally displace," the statement said. The men also agreed that there should be a cease-fire with a push toward the development of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.

Establishing a Palestinian state is a "great political and moral responsibility on the international community," the statement said.

Traffic was blocked in New York City and Los Angeles today by war protesters who were demonstrating just outside major airports.

There were 26 arrests after a pro-Palestinian demonstration at 11:30 a.m. ET blocked traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway outside John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Not long afterward, a group stopped traffic on Century Boulevard not far from Los Angeles International Airport in what NBC Los Angeles described as a war protest. According to the station, 36 people were arrested after a confrontation with police in which one officer was thrown to the ground.

No group has claimed responsibility for the Los Angeles protest, NBC Los Angeles noted.

NORTHERN GAZA — As Israel says it has almost destroyed Hamas’ brigades in northern Gaza, its forces are preparing to blow up some of the hundreds of tunnels it says belonged to the militant group — including one large enough to drive a car through.

The Israel Defense Forces invited NBC News into Gaza on Wednesday to take a look at what it says is the largest tunnel discovered so far. 

The entrance is roughly a quarter-mile or a 10-minute walk from the destroyed Erez border crossing, which Hamas terrorists breached when they launched multipronged attacks on Israel on Oct. 7. 

The IDF said the tunnel is roughly 2.5 miles long and extends all the way to Gaza City, the enclave’s largest city. NBC News could not independently verify the claim.    

As Israeli tanks occasionally rolled past, a vast wasteland of mangled steel, concrete blocks and dusty mounds of sand could be seen along the way. Workers on cherry-pickers were repairing the border barrier damaged during the Hamas incursion.

Fairly close by, gunshots and artillery explosions could be heard, as well as the buzz of Israeli drones overhead, although no Palestinians were seen during the roughly two-hour visit.

Reinforced with concrete, the tunnel has shafts in the floor that extend vertically down to what the IDF said was a sprawling network of offshoots and other levels. Although Israel’s military said it believed it had cleared any Hamas presence from the tunnel, troops with weapons drawn stood guard inside. 

Read the full story here.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged the U.N. Security Council to quickly turn its recent resolution for humanitarian aid deliveries "into reality."

"Day after day, the needs of #Gaza’s war-ravaged people grow. Peril, ill-health, hunger, thirst, lack of shelter — these should not be the norm for millions of people. But sadly, they are," Tedros wrote on X.

WHO teams "witnessed tens of thousands of people fleeing heavy strikes" in Khan Younis and the central Gaza Strip. Staff members were in Gaza yesterday to deliver supplies to Al-Shifa Hospital in the north and Al-Amal Hospital in the south, both of which are sheltering thousands of civilians.

“The recent United Nations Security Council resolution appeared to provide hope of an improvement in humanitarian aid distribution within Gaza,” Tedros said in a separate statement today. “However, based on WHO eyewitness accounts on the ground, the resolution is tragically yet to have an impact. What we urgently need right now is a ceasefire to spare civilians from further violence and begin the long road towards reconstruction and peace.”

Israel is only now uncovering the expanse of Hamas tunnel infrastructure despite having been aware of the existence of an underground network in Gaza, Mark Regev, senior adviser to Netanyahu, told MNSBC's Yasmin Vossoughian.

"We did know — maybe we didn't have all the details, but we did know," Regev said. "And we've been going in and we've been finding all this stuff and showing it to the world."

Harsh winter weather is deepening the "misery" for children in Gaza as they continue to face food and housing insecurity, according to UNICEF, the U.N. agency for children.

Heavy rain and cold weather are “piling misery upon misery” for civilians in Gaza, UNICEF said. Nearly 2 million Palestinians have been displaced by the war, and many lack access to basics such as blankets and mattresses.

"Families displaced by the hostilities and living in makeshift shelters are especially vulnerable to the damp winter weather, with flooding and a lack of fuel for heating leaving them exposed to the risk of respiratory and other diseases," UNICEF said.

Liora Argamani, the mother of hostage Noa Argamani, wrote a letter begging for Biden's assistance in securing her daughter's release from captivity in Gaza.

Liora is terminally ill with stage 4 brain cancer and has been pleading for her daughter's return for weeks. The letter, which was released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, is not dated, but it makes note of the Christmas holiday.

"President Biden, you have been instrumental in bringing some of our hostages home to their families," she wrote. "It’s Christmas now, and I would like to request from you, Mr. President, as a present, to see my daughter again before I leave this world."

She went on to describe her daughter as a "contagiously happy" young woman who loves music and dancing. "She deserves to be back where she belongs, pursuing her dreams, surrounded by love and care," the letter said. "She deserves to see her mother alive one last time."

Time is running out for a political solution to Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, war Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz said in an interview with Israel's Channel 12 news station.

"If the world does not act to stop the shooting into the northern settlements and to remove Hezbollah from the border, the IDF will do it," Gantz said, according to an NBC News translation of the interview.

Multiple other Israeli military leaders have offered similar rhetoric about the situation with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yesterday, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari warned that the group is threatening to plunge the entire country of Lebanon into a war it does not deserve.

In a statement today, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it targeted a base near the Erbil Airport where American troops were stationed.

The group said the attack was in resistance to "American occupation" in Iraq and Israel's military operations in Gaza. A U.S. defense official confirmed the strike to NBC News, saying there were no reported injuries or deaths.

News of the attack comes after the U.S. conducted retaliatory airstrikes in Iraq over previous targeting of U.S. troops in the country.

In a letter to Congress, Biden said today that more strikes could be launched. "The United States stands ready to take further action, as necessary and appropriate, to address further threats or attacks," he wrote.

Israel will fight to the end with most advanced technology, Netanyahu said in a video statement yesterday, vowing that it will continue the war and intensify the fighting in southern Gaza.

“We have soldiers on the ground, sometimes underground, and we have eyes in the sky,” Netanyahu told the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Unit.

“We say to the Hamas terrorists: We see you, and we will reach you,” he said.

A child cries as people mourn at Nasser Hospital today in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

France reiterated a call for a cease-fire as the country's leadership said it is "gravely concerned" that Israel has announced an intensification in fighting in Gaza, the French foreign ministry said in a statement today.

"The framework of international law requires clear principles of distinction, necessity, proportionality and precaution, everywhere and at all times, in order to spare civilians," the statement said. "Israel must take practical measures to protect the lives of Gaza’s civilians."

The last several days have been marked by bloody battles and bombardments that have brought large civilian casualties and killed many IDF soldiers. Yesterday, Israel announced it was expanding its operations in south and central Gaza, where many Palestinians either live in refugee camps or have been displaced after having fled the north.

After weeks of mounting attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, Yemen's Houthi rebels doubled down on their rhetoric in a statement the group's military media issued today.

"We are ready to inflict the harshest blows on the enemies if their crimes and siege of the Palestinian people continue or if they think about harming the security and sovereignty of Yemen," Houthi defense minister Mohammed Nasser Al-Atefi said.

The group also said its solidarity in support of Palestinians is a "religious and moral position."

The statement follows ongoing defensive action in the Red Sea by the U.S. Navy, which has been shooting down Houthi attack drones and anti-ship ballistic missiles.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, has refuted claims made by IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus on NBC’s "Meet the Press" that some “UNRWA workers [are] controlled by Hamas” and that “Hamas is stealing the humanitarian supplies” intended for internally displaced Palestinians.

“UNRWA delivers its aid directly to people in need in the Gaza Strip,” the agency said in a statement to NBC News, adding: “Every year, UNRWA shares a list of all its staff with the host governments in the region. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, UNRWA also shares that list with the Government of Israel as the occupying power. UNRWA has never received any response or objection from the Government of Israel on the content of that list.”

Conricus also told "Meet the Press" that the IDF had “obtained voice recordings” of Palestinians “saying that UNRWA is collaborating with Hamas and that Hamas is stealing the humanitarian supplies.”

Conricus did not provide the voice recordings for independent review.

The Israeli air force conducted a "raid" on Lebanese territory today, according to a new statement from the IDF.

According to the IDF, fighter jets targeted military sites and other infrastructure "belonging to the Hezbollah." Three enemy aircraft were also spotted crossing over the border and crashed, it said.

"Also, during the last hours, several rocket shells were launched, which penetrated the borders from the territory of Lebanon towards various areas in the north of the country, where they landed in an open are," the statement said.

“We are now at a fork in the road: either Hezbollah backs off from the Israeli border in line with U.N.," Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, said in a briefing today, "or we will push it away ourselves.”

United Nations officials warned today that there was “no safe place” for Gazans as Israel extended evacuation orders to areas in the central part of the strip.

“Scenes of forced displacement are constant and repeated now,” Philippe Lazzarini, director-general of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a statement on X. He added that lives in Gaza were being “turned upside down overnight.”

“We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas,” the U.N. said in a separate statement on X. “We restate our warning that all attacks must strictly adhere to the principles of int’l humanitarian law.” 

The IDF has called the refugee camps of central Gaza "a new battle zone."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's comparison of him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Erdoğan is “the last person who can preach morality to us,” Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that the president “commits genocide” against the Kurds and cited Turkey's record of imprisoning journalists.

Netanyahu went on to repeat his claim that “The IDF is the most moral army in the world," and that it is fighting Hamas, a terrorist organization Erdoğan "praises."

The leader of the opposition in Israel, Yair Lapid, also said in a statement on X that he “strongly strongly condemn Erdogan’s words and the shameful comparison to the Holocaust and Hitler.”

Explosions were heard and missiles sighted near a vessel sailing through the Red Sea yesterday, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations said.

The agency said it received a report of the incident 60 nautical miles from the port of Al Hudaydah in western Yemen, adding that the vessel and its crew were safe.

Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated attacks on commercial vessels with ties to Israel sailing to and from the Suez Canal on the Red Sea, citing retaliation for the war in Gaza as the reason for the attacks.

The Gaza telecommunications company, Paltel, said today that communication services are gradually being restored in central and southern Gaza after a blackout that began yesterday.

Phone and internet connectivity has gone down in Gaza more than half a dozen times since the start of the war, according to NetBlocks, which tracks global internet access. Such blackouts hamper aid delivery, rescue efforts and communications with the outside world.

MERSIN, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hilter, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported today.

“We watched Israel’s Nazi camps in the stadiums, right?” Erdoğan said in a speech at an award ceremony, referring to videos of half-naked men being rounded up in Gaza.

"Is there anything different in Netanyahu’s actions compared to Hitler’s?” he added.

He also suggested that the United States was complicit in the deaths of more than 21,000 people in Gaza.

Israeli forces have arrested at least 12 people in the occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, two prisoner advocacy groups said today in a joint statement today.

"During the arrest campaigns, the Israeli forces continued to carry out extensive break-ins and harassment, and assaults against the detainees and their families," according to the Commission for the Affairs of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners and the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

The statement added that around 4,800 people had been arrested in the West Bank after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

NBC News has reached out to the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet, for comment.

At least six youths were killed by an Israeli strike on the Nour Shams refugee camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said today. Residents said they were not fighters.

Israeli forces traded fire with the Hezbollah militant group across the border with Lebanon today.

Hezbollah said in a post on Telegram that it targeted a new Israeli command position. In a later post, it said "guided missiles" achieved "direct hits" on a tent belonging to a special force of the Israeli army.

The Israel Defense Forces said on its own Telegram channel that it "intercepted a number of the launches." Overnight, it said a fighter jet struck a Hezbollah military site in Lebanon.

NBC News could not independently verify either claim.

The death toll in Gaza since Oct. 7, has risen to 21,110, a spokesperson for the Gazan Health Ministry said today in a statement on Telegram.

Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra said 195 people had been killed in the past 24 hours and 395 people had been injured.

More than 55,000 people have been injured in Gaza since Israel began a military assault following the Hamas attack, he said.

NORTHERN GAZA — As Israel says it’s almost dismantled Hamas’ battalions in the northern Gaza Strip, NBC News today got a firsthand look at what the IDF says is the largest tunnel discovered so far.

It only takes about 10 minutes to walk from the destroyed Erez crossing on the Israel-Gaza border, which was breached by Hamas terrorists Oct. 7, to the tunnel’s entrance roughly a quarter-mile away.

As Israeli tanks occasionally rolled past, a vast wasteland of mangled steel, concrete blocks and dusty mounds of sand could be seen along the way. Workers on cherry-pickers repair the concrete border barrier damaged during the Hamas incursion.

Not far in the distance, gunshots and artillery explosions were heard, as well as the buzz of Israeli drones overhead. No Palestinians were seen during the roughly two-hour visit.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” yesterday that it had obtained voice recordings of Palestinians saying that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency "is collaborating with Hamas and that Hamas is stealing the humanitarian supplies."

Lt. Col Jonathan Conricus did not provide any evidence to back up this claim.

But he said that "hundreds of trucks" were entering Gaza "every day with food, water, medical supplies and shelter.”

“Hamas goes into UNRWA facilities and takes food paid for by U.S. taxpayers’ dollars amongst others intended for humanitarian purposes,” he added. “Hamas takes and brings to its fighters underground in the tunnels instead of the civilians who needed it.”

NBC News has reached out to UNRWA for comment.

It is possible that an explosion near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi was a "terrorist attack," the Israeli National Security Council said in a statement on its website.

The embassy also issued an advisory to Israelis living in India and New Delhi, in particular, to avoid crowded places and to also avoid displaying any Israeli symbols.

No injuries were reported after the blast and NBC News has reached out to police in the city for comment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their help in freeing hostages still being held by Hamas.

Addressing a special Knesset session Monday on the estimated 129 remaining hostages, Netanyahu said he had summoned Cai Run, the Chinese ambassador to Israel, and asked Xi to personally intervene to secure the release of Noa Argamani, who was kidnapped from a music festival Oct. 7.

Though Argamani is not a Chinese national, her mother, who has advanced cancer, is from the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

“I told the ambassador that I was asking him to please tell Xi Jinping, outside of protocol, outside the rules, which I know very well, that this is the daughter of a Chinese mother and that I am asking for his personal intervention,” Netanyahu said, adding that the ambassador said he had conveyed the request to Xi.

A meeting yesterday between U.S. officials and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer covered several issues related to the war in Gaza, a White House official said.

Dermer met with national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The issues discussed, according to the White House official, were:

• The transition to a different phase of the war to maximize focus on high-value Hamas targets.

In the village of At-Tuwani in the West Bank, residents say Jewish settlers have become far more aggressive in their long campaign to drive Palestinians from this land since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks.

NBC News’ Richard Engel visited the area and reports on the high tensions among the two groups.

Human Rights Watch has accused Meta of stifling pro-Palestinian content on its Instagram and Facebook platforms in what it described as a “pattern of undue removal and suppression,” in a 51-page report.

“Human Rights Watch found that the problem stems from flawed Meta policies and their inconsistent and erroneous implementation, overreliance on automated tools to moderate content, and undue government influence over content removals,” the group said today on Instagram.

The organization said it reviewed 1,050 cases of online censorship from more than 60 countries and found that in many cases Meta “misapplied” policies about dangerous organizations, violent and graphic content, violence and incitement, hate speech, and nudity and sexual activity. In at least 300 cases, Human Rights Watch said, users were unable to appeal suspensions or content removals because of a “malfunction” of the appeal system.

A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement that the report “ignores the realities” of enforcing policies during a “fast-moving, highly polarized and intense conflict.” The statement also said it was misleading to describe 1,000 examples out the high volume of content posted about the conflict as proof of censorship.

• Lose a limb or risk death? Many in Gaza face an agonizing choice
• Deserted streets and shuttered stores as Israel-Hamas war looms over Bethlehem at Christmas
• 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