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Middle East crisis live: 14 security personnel killed in Syria after clash over former prison officer

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Syrian forces suffer 14 fatalities in countryside clashes

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and developments in the Middle East more widely.

Fourteen security personnel from Syria’s new authorities and three armed men were killed in clashes in Tartous province when forces attempted to arrest an officer linked to the notorious Sednaya prison, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory said the clash broke out in Tartous, a stronghold of ousted president, Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority.

Syria’s new interior minister confirmed the fatalities in a message on Telegram, and said that 10 police officers were also wounded by what he called “remnants” of the Assad government. The minister vowed to punish anyone who dared “to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens”.

The deadly incident comes as demonstrations and an overnight curfew elsewhere marked the most widespread unrest since Bashar al-Assad’s removal more than two weeks ago. One demonstrator was killed and five others wounded in Homs “after security forces … opened fire to disperse” the crowd, Agence France-Presse reported.

The protests took place in several cities around the same time that an undated video was circulated on social media that showed a fire inside an Alawite shrine in the city of Aleppo.

People protest on the north-eastern outskirts of Damascus on Christmas Day – an example of some of the unrest since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images

In other developments:

  • Five journalists were killed when their vehicle was struck in the vicinity of Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat in central Gaza, health authorities said. Palestinian media and local reporters said the vehicle was marked as a media van and was used by journalists to report from inside the hospital and Nuseirat camp. The journalists worked for the Al-Quds Al-Youm television channel. The Israeli army said its air force attacked the vehicle in a “targeted manner” and that members of the Islamic Jihad militant group were inside.

  • In a separate incident, five people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood early on Thursday, medics with the Gaza health authorities reported. They warned the death toll could rise as many people remained trapped under the rubble.

  • A baby girl has frozen to death in Gaza, the third to die from the cold, in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, doctors said. The father of three-week-old Sila, Mahmoud al-Faseeh, wrapped her in a blanket to try to keep her warm in their tent in the Muwasi area outside the town of Khan Younis, but it was not enough, he told the Associated Press.

  • On Wednesday, Hamas and Israel traded blame over their failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.

  • Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It says more than half the fatalities have been women and children, but does not say how many of the dead were fighters.

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Key events

Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the al-Aqsa compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem’s Old City on 26 December 2024. Photograph: Itamar Ben-Gvir’s spokesperson/Reuters

Israel’s ultranationalist security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem on Thursday for what he said was a “prayer” for hostages in Gaza, freshly challenging rules over one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East, Reuters reports.

Israel’s official position accepts decades-old rules restricting non-Muslim prayer at the compound, Islam’s third holiest site and known as Temple Mount to Jews, who revere it as the site of two ancient temples.

Under a delicate decades-old “status quo” arrangement with Muslim authorities, the Al-Aqsa compound is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and, under rules dating back decades, Jews can visit but may not pray there.

In a post on X, Ben-Gvir said: “I ascended today to our holy place, in prayer for the welfare of our soldiers, to swiftly return all the hostages and total victory with God’s help.”

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office immediately released a statement restating the official Israeli position.

Al Jazeera reported that the Jordanian foreign ministry was critical of Ben-Gvir, calling his actions “a provocative step” and a violation of the decades-old “historical and legal status quo” and of international law.

Suggestions from Israeli ultranationalists that Israel would alter rules about religious observance at the Al-Aqsa compound have sparked violence with Palestinians in the past.

In August, Ben-Gvir repeated a call for Jews to be allowed to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque, drawing sharp criticism.

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Updated at 

Here are some images coming to us over the wires.

Protesters chant during a demonstration in Tartous, Syria, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video released on 25 December 2024. Photograph: Social Media/Reuters
Mourners attend the funeral of Palestinian journalists from Al-Quds TV channel. Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinians greet one another after Israeli strikes in Gaza City’s al-Zaitoun neighbourhood on 26 December. Photograph: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images
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Five journalists killed in Israeli strike in Gaza

Civil Defense members put out a fire in a broadcast van following an Israeli strike that killed five journalists from Al-Quds TV channel. Photograph: Khamis Said/Reuters

We’re getting more information on the five journalists killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Gaza.

The Gaza-based TV channel Al-Quds Today identified the five journalists killed as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed Al-Lada’a.

They were killed “while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty”, the channel said in a statement, Agence France-Presse reports.

“We affirm our commitment to continue our resistant media message,” it added.

The channel said the journalists were killed in a broadcast van, sharing an photo of a damaged vehicle marked “Press.”

Children stand near the remains of the broadcasting van. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

The Israeli military said in its own statement that it had conducted “a precise strike on a vehicle with an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell inside in the area of Nuseirat”.

It added that “prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

According to witnesses in Nuseirat, a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft hit the broadcast vehicle, which was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital, setting the vehicle alight.

The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East arm said the organisation was “devastated” by the deaths.

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Updated at 

Syrian forces suffer 14 fatalities in countryside clashes

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and developments in the Middle East more widely.

Fourteen security personnel from Syria’s new authorities and three armed men were killed in clashes in Tartous province when forces attempted to arrest an officer linked to the notorious Sednaya prison, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory said the clash broke out in Tartous, a stronghold of ousted president, Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority.

Syria’s new interior minister confirmed the fatalities in a message on Telegram, and said that 10 police officers were also wounded by what he called “remnants” of the Assad government. The minister vowed to punish anyone who dared “to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens”.

The deadly incident comes as demonstrations and an overnight curfew elsewhere marked the most widespread unrest since Bashar al-Assad’s removal more than two weeks ago. One demonstrator was killed and five others wounded in Homs “after security forces … opened fire to disperse” the crowd, Agence France-Presse reported.

The protests took place in several cities around the same time that an undated video was circulated on social media that showed a fire inside an Alawite shrine in the city of Aleppo.

People protest on the north-eastern outskirts of Damascus on Christmas Day – an example of some of the unrest since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images

In other developments:

  • Five journalists were killed when their vehicle was struck in the vicinity of Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat in central Gaza, health authorities said. Palestinian media and local reporters said the vehicle was marked as a media van and was used by journalists to report from inside the hospital and Nuseirat camp. The journalists worked for the Al-Quds Al-Youm television channel. The Israeli army said its air force attacked the vehicle in a “targeted manner” and that members of the Islamic Jihad militant group were inside.

  • In a separate incident, five people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood early on Thursday, medics with the Gaza health authorities reported. They warned the death toll could rise as many people remained trapped under the rubble.

  • A baby girl has frozen to death in Gaza, the third to die from the cold, in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, doctors said. The father of three-week-old Sila, Mahmoud al-Faseeh, wrapped her in a blanket to try to keep her warm in their tent in the Muwasi area outside the town of Khan Younis, but it was not enough, he told the Associated Press.

  • On Wednesday, Hamas and Israel traded blame over their failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.

  • Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It says more than half the fatalities have been women and children, but does not say how many of the dead were fighters.

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