Tensions escalate as U.S. helicopters sink Houthi boats in Red Sea

Among the wounded at Nasser Hospital today, Mohamad al-Laham cried and told an NBC News crew that he believes the majority of his family was killed in a strike.

"We were sitting in the house, and two houses went down," he said. "My mother and sister disappeared. It's only me and my [other] sister who were found."

Al-Laham said his sister's daughter, his niece, has not been found. Among the confirmed dead are his brother-in-law and his 9-year-old brother.

"They all died," he said. "They all died."

JERUSALEM — A former member of Netanyahu’s Cabinet offered a rare public apology today for contributing to the internal strife in Israel that preceded the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip.

The mea culpa by Galit Distel Atbaryan, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party, was one of the first times a Likud member has accepted responsibility for the polarized atmosphere ahead of the attack, which triggered a devastating war that has continued for nearly three months.

Distel Atbaryan appeared to accept the argument that the internal divisions created perceptions of weakness that encouraged Hamas to attack.

“I’m here sitting and telling you, the democratic, secular public: I sinned against you, I caused pain for you, I caused you to fear for your lives here, and I am sorry for this,” she told Channel 13 TV.

Distel Atbaryan added she was taking responsibility for her role in the massive protests and civil discord that erupted after Netanyahu’s right-wing government attempted to implement a far-reaching overhaul of the judicial system. The crisis sparked mass protests, alarmed business leaders and former security chiefs and drew concern from the U.S. and other close allies.

“I was one of those people that caused the state to be weakened, that harmed people,” she said. “I created a split, I created a rift, and I created tension. And this tension brought weakness. And this weakness, in many ways, brought massacre.”

Distel Atbaryan, a former public diplomacy minister who was one of Netanyahu’s strongest supporters, drew attention for her harsh criticism of his opponents.

But days after the Oct. 7 attack, she resigned when it was clear that other government ministries were handling her responsibilities.

Distel Atbaryan said the office was a “waste of public funds” during wartime. She has remained as a member of parliament in the Likud.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Maya Regev lay badly wounded in a nondescript house in Gaza, her leg mangled from a gunshot, under orders not to make a sound.

Regev, 21, begged her captors to let her younger brother Itay, who was being held in a room nearby, join her while the bandages on her leg were replaced.

It was days after Hamas Islamists rampaged through southern Israel in a killing and hostage-taking spree on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in Gaza. The siblings were shot and wounded as they tried to flee an outdoor music festival-turned-killing field. They were thrown into a pickup and taken away with their friend Omer Shem Tov.

“Itay and Omer walk in. And they began removing the bandages. And I’m screaming and Omer is holding my hand and covering my mouth,” a tearful Maya recalled in an interview with "Uvda," a current-affairs program on Israel’s Channel 12 TV.

Itay, 18, spoke about told, days earlier, a “scared and sweaty doctor” painfully removed the bullet from his leg without anesthesia while he was instructed to remain quiet or be killed.

Maya’s injury was more severe, and she said she was eventually sneaked into a Gaza hospital. Her dangling foot was re-attached in surgery, but sideways, at an unnatural angle. She gave her interview in a wheelchair, her leg in a cast.

Some reservists who have been actively serving in the Israel Defense Forces since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel will be returning home starting this week, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said today.

"This will allow considerable relief for the economy and allow them to gather strength for the next activities in the coming year," Hagari said. "And the fighting will continue, and we will still need them."

Netanyahu announced Saturday that the war in Gaza will continue for many months as the military fights a complex battleground in the Palestinian enclave. Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in the central and south areas of Gaza, where many Palestinians were forced to go after the IDF's ground invasion took hold of the north.

"We are planning a smart management of the forces operating in the field while looking at the reserve system, the economy, the families, the renewal of the forces and the continuation of the combat training processes in the IDF," Hagari said of the military's 2024 planning.

Crowds making their annual pilgrimage to New York City's Times Square tonight in hope of watching the ball drop at midnight can expect some changes as authorities aim to keep disruptions to a minimum.

"We're expanding our zone from Sixth Avenue and Eighth Avenue, from 41st Street to 57th Street," New York police Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a briefing Friday. "That gives us a buffer zone so we can move quickly if we have to like last year, and also it gives us a space between protesters not to come in here."

There are no specific threats to this year's event, but Maddrey noted that police are staffing more than a thousand officers for the celebration, including the usual K-9 and counterterrorism units typically on hand. Mayor Eric Adams praised the city's handling of tensions in recent weeks, particularly with regard to maintaining peaceful protests.

"We have witnessed that there’s a small number of people who are trying to embed themselves in some of the protests and bring about disruption," Adams said. "It’s not going to be tolerated. It’s not going to be accepted."

RAFAH, Gaza — As they turn from a year that could barely have brought more bitter hardship after 12 weeks of a pulverizing Israeli assault, people in Gaza have little hope that 2024 will bring much relief.

In Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt, which has become the biggest focal point for Palestinians fleeing other parts of the enclave, people were more preoccupied with trying to find shelter, food and water than by the new year.

“In 2024 I wish to go back to the wreckage of my home, pitch a tent and live there,” said Abu Abdullah al-Agha, a middle-age Palestinian man whose house in Khan Younis was destroyed and who lost a young niece and nephew in an Israeli airstrike.

“I wish for our children to live in peace and security, to go back to school, back to university, for workers to go back to work and find a source of income,” he added.

The Israeli bombardment has pushed nearly all Gazans from their homes, killed 21,800 people, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, and left survivors facing hunger, disease and destitution.

Any hope of a political settlement and Palestinians’ 75-year quest for self-determination appear further away than ever.

A brazen attack by Houthi rebels today marked the first time the recent uptick in attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea has turned deadly.

After two U.S. Navy ships and helicopters responded to a distress call, Houthi rebels fired on Navy helicopters, which prompted the Navy to fire back in self-defense, sinking three boats and killing their crews. A fourth ship fled.

According to a Houthi statement, 10 of the group’s fighters were killed when U.S. helicopters hit three of its boats.

John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the U.S. is not seeking to widen the conflict but that countries have to protect the flow of commerce.

“We certainly aren’t looking for a conflict with the Houthis,” Kirby said. “The best outcome here would be for the Houthis to stop these attacks, as we have made clear, over and over again.” Despite U.S. forces’ repeatedly shooting down Houthi drones and missiles in the Red Sea and beyond since October, today’s strike is an escalation in how the American military is responding in the Red Sea.

Israel expanded its offensive to central Gaza last week, targeting a belt of dense, built-up communities that house refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants.

In the area of Zweida in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 13 people and wounded dozens of others, witnesses said. The bodies were draped in white plastic and laid out in front of a hospital, where prayers were held before burial.

“They were innocent people,” said Hussein Siam, whose relatives were among the dead. “Israeli warplanes bombarded the whole family.”

Officials from Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah said the 13 were among 35 bodies received today.

The Israeli military said it was battling militants in Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas leaders are hiding. It also said its forces operating in the urban Shati refugee camp, in northern Gaza, found a bomb in a kindergarten and defused it. Hamas continued to launch rockets toward southern Israel.

Israel has faced stiff resistance from Hamas since it began its ground offensive in late October, and the military says 172 soldiers have been killed during that time.

Members of Yemen's Houthi rebels directly linked U.S. attacks on its boats in the Red Sea to American support for Israel, with a senior leader of the group calling it protection at the "request of the occupying Israeli entity."

Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi wrote on X that the recent Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are not a threat to American sovereignty and that the attacks on Houthi crews "confirm the continued protection of Israel to continue to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza." He also accused the U.S. of expanding the conflict by "militarizing" the sea.

Nasr Aldeen Amer, vice president of the Houthi Media Authority, echoed similar sentiments to NBC News today. Amer said that the American response would not change the group's position in support of Palestinians in Gaza and that "every American attack on our forces will be responded to because it is an unjustified attack."

"Our operations will not stop in support of the Palestinian people, and this is our natural right," Amer said.

The Houthis are one of three Iran-supported militias in the region that have been asserting their support for Palestinians as they claim responsibility for attacks against Israeli or American sites in the Middle East.

The Israeli military asked a United Nations convoy delivering aid in northern Gaza to change its return route, but the new route apparently was not communicated to other troops, according to an IDF statement today.

"IDF soldiers present in the field were not aware of the change in route," the IDF said. "As a result of this, when the convoy arrived, the soldiers in the field operated to stop it, including the firing of warning shots that were not aimed at the vehicles."

Soldiers stopped firing once the vehicles stopped moving, and no injuries were reported. The IDF said it was drawing "lessons" from the incident. Thomas White, the UNRWA's director in Gaza, said Friday that one vehicle was damaged.

UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini called for unimpeded and safe access for aid workers in Gaza as the organization's team faces constant bombardment, airstrikes and fighting.

“I call on the Israeli Authorities, other parties to the conflict and those with influence over them to safeguard an environment for safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid,” he said in a statement.

There are many reasons to feel hopeless when it comes to the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The sheer scale of death and devastation, first wrought by Hamas’ massacre and then by Israel’s intensive military assault on the Gaza Strip, has hardened opinions on both sides, fomenting grief, anger and desire for vengeance with no clear end point.

Still, senior figures closely involved with past attempts to resolve this most intractable of impasses have told NBC News that, in this moment of tragedy, there may be opportunity — and even hope.

“It’s a big crisis — and crises create opportunities,” said Yossi Beilin, a veteran Israeli politician and peace negotiator whose backchannel discussions led to the Oslo Accords, a series of landmark agreements between the Palestinians and Israelis in the 1990s that mapped out a route to peace but ultimately failed on their promise.

Read the full story here.

Israel is prepared to let ships deliver aid to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip “immediately” as part of a proposed sea corridor from Cyprus, the country's outgoing foreign minister said today.

“It can start immediately,” Eli Cohen told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM, about the arrangement, which would allow cargo from the U.K., France, Greece and the Netherlands to be inspected in the Cypriot port of Larnaca before it's shipped across the Mediterranean Sea to Gaza, around 230 miles away.

If the plan goes ahead, it would mark the first easing of a 16-year Israeli naval blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007 after Hamas seized control of the Palestinian enclave.

Lior Hayat, a spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Ministry, later confirmed the plans in a statement to Reuters.

Israelis, who still largely stand behind the war’s goals, are showing signs they are losing patience.

Last night, thousands took part in one of the largest demonstrations against Netanyahu since the war began. The country, which is sharply divided over the long-serving leader and a judicial overhaul plan he set in motion before the war, has remained mostly united since Oct. 7.

“It is true that the state of Israel has many enemies and threats, but unfortunately today Prime Minister Netanyahu and his continued rule is the most significant existential threat to our country and our society,” said protester Gal Tzur.

A separate protest Saturday called for the release of the estimated 129 remaining hostages held by Hamas. Families of hostages and their supporters have demanded that the government prioritize hostage releases over other war objectives, and have staged large protests every weekend.

Doctors from a delegation of Canadian and American medics who arrived in Gaza on Thursday have described the health situation as “desperate” and said that sanitation and health infrastructure were collapsing due to the lack of space, supplies, medical equipment, food and water.

“It’s very dire, desperate, catastrophe, inhumane. You can name it, every name. They’re all severe,” said Dr. David Hasan, a neurosurgeon at Duke University.

Hasan said that people were living and sleeping in hospital hallways and that he could not walk or access patients due to the amount of people crammed into corridors.

“I’ve never seen such things before in life,” he said, adding that many patients arriving in the hospital could not be operated on due to their injuries or the lack of appropriate equipment. “The injuries are so severe and bad,” he said. “Today, I had to declare six people, three of them kids, dead.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) criticized the Biden administration’s decision to transfer weapons to Israel without congressional oversight in statement yesterday.

“Just as Congress has a crucial role to play in all matters of war and peace, Congress should have full visibility over the weapons we transfer to any other nation,” Kaine said.

The Virginia senator also called for a “public explanation of the rationale behind this decision — the second such decision this month.”

His comments came after the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Friday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had approved the sale of 155 mm projectiles and related equipment, valued at $147.5 million.

At least 15 people were injured in overnight raids on the Tulkarm and Nour Shams refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said today on X.

Separately, WAFA, the Palestinian news agency, reported that the Israeli military was conducting operations in the area with drones and vehicles that were shooting with live fire. WAFA added that some Palestinians confronted Israeli soldiers and several raids and arrests were made at the same time.

NBC News could not independently verify these reports.

According to a United Nations update released yesterday, 307 Palestinians, including 79 children, have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since Oct. 7.

More than 21,800 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to new figures released today by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ministry said in a statement that 150 people had been killed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of dead to 21,822.

Of those killed, 70% were women and children, the statement said, adding that 56,451 people have also been injured since Hamas launched a series of attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.

NBC News cannot independently verify the number of dead and health officials in Gaza have previously warned that the numbers of those killed are just estimates, due to the amount of people still stuck under rubble and the unavailability of fuel or supplies to help reach them.

Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed in airstrikes and shelling in central and southern Gaza today, the Palestinian Ministry of Information said in a post on Telegram.

Casualties were reported in the Al-Maghazi, Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza, the ministry said, although it did not specify how many. Twenty-five people were killed in separate attacks on Nuseirat, Al-Maghazi, Al-Zawaida and Rafah on Saturday evening, it added.

Israeli forces also “targeted three mosques” in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday, the statement said.

NBC News was not able to independently confirm the reports, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, religious buildings are considered protected civilian infrastructure under international humanitarian law, the targeting of which is deemed a war crime unless the attacking power is able to prove it has lost civilian status.

Former President Bill Clinton's Middle East envoy Dennis Ross has expressed a “sense of solidarity” with the families of hostages held in Gaza, and said he supported “military pressure” on Hamas.

Hamas “wants the whole focus to be on death and destruction in Gaza, not on the hostages,” he told families of hostages and their supporters in “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv last night.

“We collectively have to make it clear that the focus has to be on the hostages," he added.

“Hamas cares about its public image,” he said, and “political and psychological pressure” should be put on the group, including by political and religious leaders in the Arab and Islamic worlds, to argue the taking of hostages “is not Islamic.”

Ross served as Middle East envoy under Clinton in the 1990s. He facilitated the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in 1994, and assisted in the brokering of the Oslo II accords in 1995.

Following attacks on one of its container ships near Yemen, Danish shipping giant Maersk has announced a 48-hour pause to all transits through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

“On December 30 at approximately 06:30pm CET, when the vessel was 55 nautical miles southwest of Al Hudaydah, Yemen, the vessel was hit by an unknown object,” Maersk said in a statement today.

Following the initial attack, "four boats approached the vessel and engaged fire in an expected attempt to board the vessel," it added. "A helicopter was deployed from a nearby navy vessel, and in collaboration with the vessel’s security team, the boarding attempt was successfully repelled."

It is the second time this month Maersk has paused operations in the area due to security concerns. Over 100 container ships operated by various companies have been rerouted in December to travel around southern Africa instead of passing through Suez to avoid attacks from Iran-backed Houthis, adding 6,000 nautical miles to journeys between Asia and Europe.

The Houthis have said they will continue attacking ships in the Red Sea with links to Israel in solidarity with Palestinians and until greater humanitarian aid reaches Gaza’s population.

A medical delegation consisting of six American doctors and one Canadian are assisting with surgeries at the European Hospital in Rafah amid dire conditions.

“The sanitation is unbelievable; people living in the hallways, sleeping in the hallway, cooking, it’s just a recipe for disaster, for infection,” Dr. David Hasan of Duke University said.

U.S. helicopters exchanged fire with Iran-backed Houthi crews in small boats in the southern Red Sea today, sinking three boats, after receiving distress calls from a commercial container ship.

U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said the USS Eisenhower and USS Gravely responded to distress calls from the container ship Maersk Hangzhou, which reported being under attack from Houthi small boats for the second time in less than 24 hours.

"In the process of issuing verbal calls to the small boats, the small boats fired upon the U.S. helicopters," Centcom said in a post on X. U.S. Navy helicopters returned fire and sank three of four small boats, killing the crews, Centcom said. "The fourth boat fled the area," it added.

The U.S. has issued urgent calls for a crackdown on Houthi attacks on shipping along the vital Red Sea trade route, and established a multinational naval task force to protect the area.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retake control of the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt.

Such a move would be a de facto reversal of its 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, placing the enclave under exclusive Israeli control after years being run by Hamas.

“The war is at its height,” Netanyahu told reporters as Israeli military forces pressed ahead with an offensive that the prime minister reiterated will last “for many more months.”

He said the Philadelphi Corridor buffer zone that runs along Gaza’s border with Egypt must be in Israeli hands, adding “it is clear that any other arrangement would not ensure the demilitarization that we seek."

TEL AVIV — Israel will have a new top diplomat at the start of 2024 as the war in Gaza approaches the three-month mark.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat tells NBC News that Israel Katz, currently the energy minister, will become foreign affairs minister, following a decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Eli Cohen, the current foreign minister, will swap into Katz’s role as energy minister.

The appointments still must be approved by the Knesset. But the move abides by an agreement reached when Netanyahu’s governing coalition was formed a year ago that said that Cohen and Katz would swap jobs after a year. Under that arrangement, Cohen is expected to return as foreign minister two years from now.

The foreign minister is not currently part of Israel’s war Cabinet.

PARIS — Security will be tight across France on New Year’s Eve, with 90,000 law enforcement officers set to be deployed, domestic intelligence chief Céline Berthon said Friday.

Of those, 6,000 will be in Paris, where French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said over 1.5 million people are expected to attend celebrations on the Champs-Elysees.

Speaking at a press conference, Darmanin cited a “very high terrorist threat” because, in part, of “what is happening in Israel and Palestine,” referring to the Israel-Hamas war.

Darmanin said that police for the first time will be able to use drones as part of security work, and that tens of thousands of firefighters and 5,000 soldiers would also be deployed.

Violence has risen this year in the West Bank, and has resulted in the deaths 124 Palestinian and six Israeli children, the most in a year, according to the United Nations.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels show no signs of ending their “reckless” attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the top commander of U.S. naval forces in the Middle East said Saturday, even as more nations join the international maritime mission to protect vessels in the vital waterway and trade traffic begins to pick up.

Since Operation Prosperity Guardian was announced just over 10 days ago, 1,200 merchant ships have traveled through the Red Sea region, and none has been hit by drone or missile strikes, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said in an Associated Press interview.

He said additional countries are expected to sign on. Denmark was the latest, announcing Friday it plans to send a frigate to the mission that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced during a visit to Bahrain, where the Navy’s 5th Fleet is based, saying that “this is an international challenge that demands collective action.”

The Iran-backed Houthis say their attacks are aimed at Israel-linked ships in an effort to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

As Palestinians are pushed south in Gaza, some fear they will be forced out of the enclave

Dramatic rescue of 10-month-old who survived Israeli airstrikes in Rafah that killed at least 20

‘We are dying of hunger’: Palestinian mother describes dire conditions in Rafah camp

Biden administration sidesteps Congress again for emergency arms sale to Israel