WARNING: Distressing content
A Palestinian boy in Gaza has drowned in muddy water in his tent.
UNICEF said on Thursday that seven-year-old Ata Mai drowned as flood waters engulfed his tent camp in Gaza City last Saturday.
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Footage has emerged of rescuers trying to pry his body out of muddy waters by pulling him by the ankle, the only visible part of his body.
The video from Civil Defence teams, shown on Al Jazeera, captured rescue teams wading into Mai’s water-logged camp which was surrounded by the wreckage of bombed buildings.
Later, the body is shown wrapped in a muddy cloth being loaded into an ambulance.
The young boy had been living with his younger siblings and family in a camp of around 40 tents. They lost their mother earlier in the war.
Mai was the latest child death reported in Gaza as storms and cold weather worsen already brutal living conditions, with UNICEF counting at least six children, including Mai, who have died of weather-related causes.
UNICEF also said a four-year-old child died in a building collapse, as heavy rains and flooding cause buildings damaged in Israeli bombardment to crumble.
Weather-related deaths in Gaza are mounting as floods ravage the camps of the displaced population, and aid organisations lose their permits. Credit: Getty ImagesA child walk in a tent camp for displaced Palestinians after heavy rain in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
The Gaza Ministry of Health says three children have died of hypothermia.
“Teams visiting displacement camps reported appalling conditions that no child should endure, with many tents blown away or collapsing entirely,” UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa division regional director Edouard Beigbeder said.
It all comes as Israel blocks dozens of aid organisations from providing help to the displaced population.
Humanitarian organisations including Doctors Without Borders and CARE had their licences revoked after they refused to comply with Israel’s updated registration rules.
“Despite the ceasefire, the needs in Gaza are enormous and yet we and dozens of other organisations are and will continue to be blocked from bringing in essential life-saving assistance,” Norwegian Refugee Council communications adviser Shaina said.
The new regulations include ideological requirements, and disqualify organisations that have called for boycotts against Israel, denied the October 7 attack, or expressed support for any of the international court cases against Israeli soldiers or leaders.
Israel says the new requirements are to stop Hamas working with aid groups, or siphoning the aid, concerns some aid groups have denied.
Some aid groups say they did not submit the list of Palestinian staff, as Israel demanded, for fear they’d be targeted by Israel, and because of data protection laws in Europe.
“It comes from a legal and safety perspective. In Gaza, we saw hundreds of aid workers get killed,” Low said.
Palestinians walk past destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/APNanaa Abu Jari cooks outside her tent after it was flooded by rainwater in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
The decision means aid groups will have their licences revoked on January 1, and if they are located in Israel, they will need to leave by March 1. They can appeal the decision, according to Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
The Israeli defence body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said that the organisations on the list contribute less than one per cent of the total aid going into the Gaza Strip, and that aid will continue to enter from more than 20 organisations that did receive permits to continue operating in Gaza.
But Doctors Without Borders said Israel’s decision would have a catastrophic impact on their work in Gaza, where they support around 20 per cent of the hospital beds and a third of births. The organisation also denied Israel’s accusations about their staff.
Angelina Jolie visits Rafah border
Actor and activist Angelina Jolie met with members of the Red Crescent on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing.
She visited a hospital in the nearby city of Arish to speak with Palestinian patients on Friday, according to Egyptian officials.
“What needs to happen is clear: the ceasefire must hold, and access must be sustained, safe and urgently scaled up so that aid, fuel and critical medical supplies can move quickly and consistently, at the volume required,” Jolie said about Gaza.
Actress and film producer Angelina Jolie carries a Palestinian girl at El Arish hospital during her visit to Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Egypt, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo) Credit: STR/APAmerican actor and film producer Angelina Jolie, front left, greets Red Crecent workers during her visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Emad Elgebaly) Credit: EMAD ELGEBALY/AP
The Yellow Line and raids in the West Bank
The shaky 12-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has largely ended large-scale Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
But Palestinians are still being killed almost daily by Israeli fire, and the humanitarian crisis shows no signs of abating.
Almost the entire population of more than two million people have lost their homes, and most are living in squalid tent camps with little protection from the weather.
The deaths of three Israeli soldiers have been confirmed in Gaza, as a result of militant attacks or explosive detonations, since the ceasefire came down.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces seized about 50 Palestinians, many from their homes, a Palestinian group representing those taken by Israeli forces said.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society said Israeli troops had arrested and interrogated many of them on Thursday night.
Most of the arrests occurred in the Ramallah area, said the group, which is an official body within the Palestinian Authority.
“These operations were accompanied by widespread raids, abuse and assault against detainees and their families, in addition to extensive acts of vandalism and destruction inside citizens’ homes,” the group alleged.
Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the raid.
The society says that Israel has arrested 7000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem this year, and 21,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023.
The number of people seized from Gaza is not made public by Israel.
A makeshift tent camp for displaced Palestinians stretches across Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/APFatima Abu al-Bayd inspects what remains of her mother’s tent after her mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, and grandchild, Saud, were killed when it caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP
Many deaths have occurred near the so-called Yellow Line, the ceasefire demarcation between the more than half of the Gaza Strip still held by the Israeli military and the rest of the territory, where most of the population lives.
A nine-year-old boy, Youssef Shandaghi, died in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, not far from the so-called Yellow Line.
Two officials from Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, Director Mohammed Abu Selmiya and Managing Director Rami Mhanna, said the boy was killed by Israeli gunfire coming from across the Yellow Line. Abu Selmiya cited the report from the doctor who received Shandaghi’s body. Israel’s military said it had no knowledge of the incident.
A 10-year-old girl was also killed, and another person was wounded by Israeli fire in Gaza City near the Yellow Line, the hospital said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incidents but have said troops operating near the Yellow Line will target anyone who approaches or threatens soldiers.
Israeli troops almost daily open fire on Palestinians who come too close to the Yellow Line, often killing or wounding some, according to medical personnel and witnesses.
The Israeli military has acknowledged some civilians have been killed, including young children.
Since the ceasefire began, 416 Palestinians have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.
The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,271.
