BETHLEHEM, West Bank — In the little town of Bethlehem, Christmas this year is barely a whisper. Palestinian scouts paraded through the streets but without their traditional instruments of drums, horns and bagpipes. There was no jubilant countdown to the ...

In November, over a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a report by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management produced a grim statistic: “Nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent — and nearly half of them want to die.”

With no Christmas tree or decorations adorning the Church of the Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, holiday cheer was absent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem on Tuesday.

An investigation by the Israeli military has found that the actions of their forces on the ground likely influenced the killing of six hostages in Gaza in August by Hamas. It said the "ground activities in the area,

The Israeli official threatened to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi rebel group in Yemen.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz admitted on Monday (December 23) for the first time publicly to Israel's killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July, further risking tensions between Tehran and its arch-enemy Israel in a region shaken by Israel's war in Gaza and the conflict in Lebanon.