Israel high court strikes down key part of Netanyahu judicial overhaul

WASHINGTON — The Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier will return to its home port, the U.S. Navy said on Monday, ending its deployment to the eastern Mediterranean, which started in support of Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.

The nuclear-powered Ford, the Navy’s newest carrier with over 4,000 personnel and eight squadrons of aircraft, became a powerful symbol of American support by rushing closer to Israel after the Palestinian militant group’s attack.

“Immediately following Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel, the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group was ordered to the eastern Mediterranean to contribute to our regional deterrence and defense posture,” the Navy said in a statement.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had extended the Ford’s deployment three times in hopes that its presence would deter Iran and Iran-aligned groups, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah, from attacking Israel. “DoD (Department of Defense) will continue to leverage its collective force posture in the region to deter any state or non-state actor from escalating this crisis beyond Gaza,” the Navy said.

The Biden administration has built a “high degree of credit” in Israel, said Ambassador Dennis Ross, former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East and an NBC News Foreign Affairs analyst.

He said that with this “credit,” the administration has been pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to lay out a “day after strategy” for what happens in Gaza after the war ends.

GAZA — In Rafah zoo, dozens of destitute Gazans are camping between the cages where starving monkeys, parrots and lions cry out for food 12 weeks into Israel’s offensive.

Nearly all Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes under a bombardment that has reduced much of the territory to rubble. Many now cram the southern city of Rafah, their shelters packing street corners and empty lots.

In the private zoo, run by the Gomaa family, a line of plastic tents stood near the animal pens and washing hung from lines between palm trees. Nearby a worker tried to feed a weak monkey tomato slices by hand.

Four monkeys have already died and a fifth is now so weak it cannot even feed itself when food is available, zoo owner Ahmed Gomaa said. He also fears for his two lion cubs. “We feed them dry bread soaked in water just to keep them alive. The situation is tragic really.”

WASHINGTON — In this time of war overseas, more Americans think foreign policy should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2024, with a new poll showing international concerns and immigration rising in importance with the public.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in the next year, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

That’s about twice as many who mentioned the topic in the AP-NORC poll conducted last year. Long-standing economic worries still overshadow other issues. But the new poll’s findings point to increased concern about U.S. involvement overseas — 20% voiced that sentiment in the poll, versus 5% a year ago.

It also shows that the Israeli-Hamas war is feeding public anxiety. The conflict was mentioned by 5%, while almost no one cited it a year ago. The issue has dominated geopolitics since Israel declared war on Hamas in Gaza after that group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israeli soil.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on its Telegram account on Monday that three of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon.

The statement gave no detail about how the three were killed but said they “were martyred on the road to (liberate) Jerusalem.” Security sources said they were killed in an Israeli raid on two houses in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila near the border where Hezbollah maintains security control.

Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern frontier since the eruption of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza in early October.

The Israeli military said on Monday it struck a series of targets in Lebanon, including “military sites” where Hezbollah was operating.

Participants display an Israeli and Palestinian flag during the annual New Year's Day Polar Bear Plunge at Coney Island in New York. 

The IDF plan to withdraw some of its troops appears to be the beginning of moving to the next phase of operations in northern Gaza, and a U.S. official says it's a move that the Biden administration has been pushing for.

The official noted that fighting is still happening in the area and there don’t appear to be any changes happening in southern Gaza.

Israel said five of its military brigades will be withdrawing from the Gaza Strip this week, but Netanyahu has stressed that fighting would continue for months.

TEL AVIV — Israel says five of its military brigades, including many reservists, will be withdrawing from the Gaza Strip this week in an effort to pace itself for an expected long-term conflict and to mitigate damage to Israel’s economy.

The Israeli Defense Forces said the 828th Brigade, 261st Brigade and 460th Brigade, composed of active duty troops, will all return to their normal training missions. The 551st Brigade and 14th Brigade, comprising reservists, will be allowed to go home and to resume their normal jobs, the IDF said.  

Yet the military took pains to signal that the withdrawal of those brigades did not signal an end to active, intensive combat in Gaza or any reduction in Israel’s mission there. Israel has been under intense global pressure to scale back the war but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a national address over the weekend that the war would continue for “many more months.” 

“The goals of the war require prolonged fighting and we are preparing accordingly,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters. 

The Red Crescent aid organization said today that it established the first organized camp for displaced people in the city of Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest and target of recent Israeli military operations.

It's been set up with around 300 people — mostly aid workers, ambulance crews and other personnel and their families — the organization said, but there are plans to expand it to 1,000 people.

Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, came under assault by Israeli military forces last month.

The United Nations relief agency UNRWA said in a situation report Sunday that since the Oct. 7 terror attacks against Israel and the war that followed, up to 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced. That number would be 85% of the population of Gaza.

Thousands of cancer patients trapped in Gaza by the fighting between Hamas and Israel have run out of medications to treat their illnesses, the head of the Palestinian territory's only cancer hospital said.

"We have ten thousand cancer patients in dire and inhumane conditions," said Dr. Subhi Skaik, director of the Al-Sadaqa Turkish-Palestinian hospital, which was forced to shut down after the Israelis invaded. "We do not have any type of medicine to treat cancer in the Gaza Strip."

Skaik, at a news conference, said "more than 2,200 referrals were made for cancer patients for treatment abroad, and a number of them traveled to some sister countries."

"We call on the free world to stop the aggression, expedite the departure of patients, and ensure the provision of treatment," Skaik said.

The Israeli military has announced plans to begin pulling thousands of soldiers from Gaza as part of their repositioning for a long-term conflict.

Hamas said a right-wing Israeli minister's calls for removing Palestinians from Gaza were "just daydreams."

"The statements of the occupation leaders about displacing our people from Gaza are just daydreams that will be thwarted by our people with their steadfastness and valiant resistance," the militant group said in a statement on its Telegram channel translated by NBC News.

Hamas was reacting to an earlier statement by Israeli far-right national security minister Ben Gvir, who called for promoting the “migration of Gaza residents."

Gvir, who is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, has endorsed the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip that the Israelis voluntarily abandoned nearly two decades ago.

In a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the Israeli Supreme Court said today that it has the power to intervene when the Legislature exceeds its authority.

With a 12 out of 15 majority, the Supreme Court ruled it can strike down a law that deviates from the constitutional mandate of the Knesset.

Netanyahu’s overhaul and weakening of the Supreme Court deeply divided Israel earlier in 2023. Some military reservists said they would stop volunteering in protest. The overhaul has been on hold since the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas and subsequent war against the group launched by Israel in response.

The Supreme Court ruled that it has the authority to conduct judicial review of basic laws, and to intervene in exceptional and extreme cases where the Knesset exceeded its founding authority. Some judges cited the power of the country's Declaration of Independence as a basis for its judicial review.

Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul.

The court narrowly voted to overturn a law passed in July that prevents judges from striking down government decisions they deem “unreasonable.”

Opponents had argued that Netanyahu’s efforts to remove the standard of reasonability opens the door to corruption and improper appointments of unqualified cronies to important positions.

Israel National Security Minister Ben Gvir criticized the decision “a dangerous, anti-democratic" decision. “The High Court’s ruling is illegal, and includes the annulment of a basic law in a precedent manner, in the absence of a source of legal authority,” he wrote on social media platform X.

A child receives treatment today at Aksa Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza.

The death toll in Gaza was nearing 22,000 and some 70% of the fatalities are women and children, a Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson reported Monday.

As of New Year's Day, the number of fatalities climbed to 21,978 and 56,697 people have been wounded in the 87 days since the Israelis invaded the Palestinian territory, the spokesperson, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, said on the ministry's Telegram channel.

Among those dead were 326 "health personnel," the spokesperson said in the latest ministry update, which was translated by NBC News.

Israeli forces "deliberately targeted 150 health institutions, leaving 30 hospitals and 53 health centers out of service in all areas of the Gaza Strip, Al-Qudra said.

The Israelis launched the offensive after Hamas militants ignited the latest war with a bloody Oct. 7 surprise attack that left around 1,200 dead. They have accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields and hiding military installations under hospitals.

Mourners during a funeral for Staff Sgt. Maj. Constantine Sushko today in Tel Aviv. According the Israel Defense Forces, Sushko was killed while fighting in Gaza on Saturday.

Israeli far-right national security minister Ben Gvir called for promoting the "migration of Gaza residents," saying it is a "human solution."

In a post on X today he wrote: "Encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza will allow us to bring home the residents of the area around Gaza and the residents of Gush Katif."

Tensions between Israel and Hamas have spread to the Red Sea, threatening one of the world’s most important shipping routes. NBC’s Josh Lederman reports for TODAY.

Three Qatari planes carrying 135 tons of aid have landed at Egypt's Al-Arish Airport, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement on X.

Since Israel's siege of the enclave, only a few dozen trucks of aid are being let into Gaza daily, a fraction of what used to enter before the war broke out.

At least 32 people have been arrested in the occupied West Bank in the last 24 hours, the Commission for the Affairs of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners and the Palestinian Prisoners Club in Ramallah said in a statement today.

"The arrests were concentrated in the town of Qatana/Jerusalem, affecting at least 12 citizens, a group of whom were later released, including a woman who was detained by the occupation as a hostage," read the statement.

Israeli forces have detained dozens of Palestinians almost every day since the Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks, with the tally reaching 4,910 according to the figures by the organization.

"The occupation forces continue to carry out widespread raids and harassment during arrest campaigns, severe beatings, and threats against detainees and their families," the statement added.

An Iranian warship has entered the Red Sea, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency has reported, a day after the United States exchanged fire with Iran-backed Houthi boats in the strategic body of water.

Tasnim reported that the Alborz, a destroyer-class ship, had passed through the Bab al-Mandab Strait that separates the Arabian Peninsula from Africa and marks the sea’s southern entrance.

The agency said that Iranian warships have been operating in the region “to secure shipping lanes since 2009,” according to a translation by Reuters.

The news comes hours after U.S. helicopters exchanged fire with Iran-backed Houthi crews in small boats, sinking three of the vessels, following distress calls received from a commercial containership.

Ilan Weiss, 56, who was believed to be missing since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a multipronged attack on Israel, is believed to be dead, the Kibbutz Be'eri, where he lived, said in a statement today.

"It is believed he was murdered," the kibbutz said.

The Israel Defense Forces said today that 18 of its soldiers were killed as a result of friendly fire during its ground operations.

A total of 170 soldiers have been killed so far, it said, with 29 of those deaths resulting from accidents. Two of the deaths were due to "shooting irregularities," it added.

Another nine deaths were a result of accidents linked to "ammunition, weapons and trampling," it added.

Sirens were sounded in central and southern Israel around midnight as Hamas' military-wing the Qassam brigades said it had launched a barrage of rockets onto Tel Aviv.

"We bombed the city of 'Tel Aviv' and its suburbs with a barrage of 'M90' rockets," the group said in a post on Telegram.

Baby food purchased by the Palestinian government and some donated by UNICEF has begun entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the Health Ministry in Ramallah said in a statement on Telegram.

It also said Egypt had preserved the food in cold storage until it was handed over to Gaza.

The supply includes children's vaccines for polio and measles, the ministry said, adding they are sufficient for 8 to 14 months.

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed Adil Mismah, a top commander in Deir al-Balah, and destroyed targets in Shejaiya in Gaza City today.

The IDF conducted a "targeted raid on the terrorist organizations’ command and control center and located large quantities of weapons used by the terrorist organizations in the area of a mosque," it said in a statement.

An Israeli aircraft also struck a militant launching rockets in Khan Younis, the IDF said, adding it separately attacked a unit launching mortar shells.

In a New Year’s Eve address, the top spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces warned that the war in Gaza would require “prolonged fighting” and “warfare throughout this year.”

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said: “We are wisely planning the management of the forces operating in the field, looking at the reserve system, the economy, refreshing forces, and continuing the combat training processes in the IDF.”

He also gave details of recent operations against Palestinian militants in the strip, and said that some reservists would return to their families this week.

He said this would “significantly ease the burden on the economy and allow them to gather strength for the upcoming activities in the next year, as the fighting will continue and they will still be required.”

Tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul, Turkey, today to show solidarity with the Palestinian people amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group in the Gaza enclave.

People gathered around the Galata Bridge in Istanbul to denounce the "terrorism" of both Israel and the banned Kurdish group PKK, the official Turkish agency Anadolu said.

Mohamad al-Laham, a survivor of a deadly airstrike attack in Khan Younis that killed dozens, told an NBC News crew that he believes the majority of his family was among those killed.

A Palestinian woman stands amid rubble and belongings in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on New Year's Day, after Israel's military said fighting would continue throughout 2024.