In northern Gaza, at least 17 Palestinians were killed when Israel’s military bombed a home near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia. The dead were members of the family of Dr. Hani Badran, one of the few remaining medical workers at Kamal Adwan. Video shows hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who lost his own son to an Israeli airstrike last month, comforting Dr. Badran after delivering the news. The hospital has since come under fresh attacks by Israeli forces who shelled and fired on the building, including right outside Dr. Abu Safiya’s office. Dr. Abu Safiya reports wounded patients are dying daily due to a severe lack of doctors and medical supplies.

Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City on Monday killed seven Palestinians and wounded 10 others. Survivors said the strike came without warning.

Mohamed Abu Ryaleh: “We were at home having breakfast. I went out and suddenly heard the sound of a bombing. I returned back, thinking it was another house that was hit. I saw the whole house was damaged. I started searching and discovered all of the martyrs were kids. All of those who were at home were elderly, children and infants. They were all women. Who else would be there? All of the men were at work. We were recovering them in pieces.”

On Monday, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East peace process warned the Security Council that conditions in Gaza are “among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve.” The warning came as Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador delivered an annual report by the U.N.’s special committee on Palestinian human rights.

Peter Mohan Maithri Pieris: “This year’s report examines the mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians in Gaza. Our findings conclude that Israel’s methods of war align with the characteristics of genocide.”

In Lebanon, at least five people were killed and 31 others wounded Monday in an Israeli attack on a densely populated neighborhood in central Beirut. The airstrike tore through an apartment building near Lebanon’s Parliament and close to a United Nations building and several embassies. This is survivor Hussein Zahwa, whose family had fled earlier Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.

Hussein Zahwa: “At the time of the explosion, there was a lot of screaming, I mean, to the point that I could hear my little daughter, who is 7 years old, calling me, 'Dad! Dad! Dad!' Because of the smoke, they could not breathe. I don’t know how I went up. The gate that I was opening was on fire. It was burning. I don’t know how I opened it. I went up and pulled them from the rubble. Thank God it went well.”

UNICEF warns two months of Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 200 children and injured over 1,100. Spokesperson James Elder warned nations not to remain silent in the face of what he called the “normalization of horror” in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon injured at least six Israelis and sparked a fire in Tel Aviv Monday night. In diplomatic news, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is “now within our grasp” after meeting with Lebanon’s Parliament and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut today.

United States senators will vote Wednesday on whether the U.S. should halt $20 billion of arms sales to Israel. Bernie Sanders introduced the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval as the Biden administration has continued to violate U.S. laws that prohibit the transfer of weapons to governments committing human rights violations. Six senators have publicly backed the resolutions thus far: Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz, Elizabeth Warren, Peter Welch, Chris Van Hollen, and Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile, the rights groups Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network have taken the U.K. government to court for continuing to supply F-35 fighter jet parts and other weapons to Israel, despite saying it would suspend Israeli export licenses over international humanitarian law violations. The U.K. said it exempted F-35 parts from its arms suspension to avoid “[undermining] U.S. confidence in the U.K.” In related news, activists in Canada have blockaded the entrances to Collins Aerospace in Oakville and Honeywell Aerospace in North Vancouver, both of which supply parts for F-35 jets used by Israel to kill Palestinians.

Moscow says Ukraine fired six U.S.-supplied long-range missiles into Russia for the first time today. The Russian Ministry of Defense says Ukraine used the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in the strike on Russia’s Bryansk region. This comes after President Biden gave Ukraine the green light to begin striking inside Russia and as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. The revised nuclear doctrine states that any attack on Russia by a nation backed by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on Russia. It also allows for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons in response to aggression against allies, including Belarus. On Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also signaled Britain will supply long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine for attacks on Russian soil.

Separately, a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa Monday killed 10 people and wounded 44 others. Four children were among the wounded in the attack, which struck a residential neighborhood.

President-elect Trump has nominated Fox News personality Sean Duffy as secretary of transportation. In the 1990s, Duffy starred in MTV reality TV shows including “The Real World: Boston” and “Road Rules.” Duffy served five terms as a Republican congressmember representing northern Wisconsin until 2019, when he resigned from Congress. In 2016, he authored the PROMESA Act, which created an unelected, federally appointed control board with sweeping powers to run Puerto Rico’s economy. Duffy has a 2% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters. He has previously blamed the sun — rather than human activity — for global heating and has promoted what he called “alternative science” challenging the overwhelming scientific consensus on the climate crisis.

A lawyer representing two women who testified that Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, paid them for sex has revealed new details about their testimony to the House Ethics Committee. The lawyer, Joel Leppard, on Monday told CNN one of his clients was an eyewitness to Gaetz having sex with a minor.

Joel Leppard: “She was invited to a party in July of 2017. She testified to the House that as she was walking out to the pool area, she turned to her right and she witnessed her client — I’m sorry, her friend having sex with Representative Gaetz, and her friend at that time was 17.”

Leppard has called on the House Ethics Committee to release its report on Gaetz, who resigned from Congress last week, even as President Trump tapped him to lead the Justice Department. So far Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused calls to release the report on Gaetz.

Donald Trump confirmed on Monday he plans to declare a national emergency and deploy the military to enact mass deportations when he returns to office. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seeking more information on Trump’s plans, including ICE’s use of privately chartered flights. The ACLU’s director warned of an unprecedented attack on immigrants, writing, “As we ready litigation and create firewalls for freedom across blue states, we must also sound the alarm that what’s on the horizon will change the very nature of American life for tens of millions of Americans.”

The FBI is investigating what appears to be a new campaign of abusive text messages, this time targeting Latinx and LGBTQ people. Some recipients received messages telling them they were selected for deportation. Other messages said recipients should report to a “re-education camp.” This comes on the heels of a text message campaign targeting Black people in the wake of Trump’s election victory in which recipients were told to report for slavery.

On Capitol Hill, House Republicans are considering spending caps and new work requirements for recipients of Medicaid, SNAP nutrition assistance and other social programs. That’s according to The Washington Post, which reports the changes would impact at least 70 million low-income people. The proposed cuts come after Trump promised to slash the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% — an annual tax cut worth $48 billion to the 100 largest U.S. corporations.

Here in Azerbaijan, the U.N. COP29 climate talks have entered their final stretch with negotiators from nearly 200 nations still far apart on a new climate finance commitment. One major source of debate is a proposed United Nations-backed carbon market, which proponents say could help offset an extra 5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions annually. Opponents say carbon markets allow major polluters to greenwash their emissions while devastating the environment in frontline communities. This is Eriel Deranger, director of Indigenous Climate Action.

Eriel Deranger: “These carbon markets are literally putting our lands and territories up for land grabs and to allow the sanctioning of multinational corporations to have a system to sort of simply buy themselves out of continuing to pollute.”

A recent study in Nature Communications looked at the use of carbon credits in more than 2,000 projects. It found less than 16% of carbon credits issued constituted real emission reductions. After headlines, we’ll have more on the COP29 U.N. climate talks here in Baku, Azerbaijan.

A Hong Kong court has sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to up to 10 years in prison for their involvement in an unofficial primary election in 2020. It was the largest trial yet under the Beijing-imposed national security law. Among those convicted were prominent activists Benny Tai and Joshua Wong. This is pro-democracy activist Chan Po-ying, whose husband Leung Kwok-hung received a sentence of nearly seven years.

Chan Po-ying: “Actually, the situation is quite clear. All these people are peaceful. They have always only called for people to vote, which is the most peaceful and legal method. It’s shocking that the court has given such harsh sentences.”

In New Zealand, 42,000 people gathered in front of the Parliament building in Wellington earlier today after taking part in a historic march to oppose a bill that would roll back Indigenous Māori rights established in the Treaty of Waitangi, considered New Zealand’s founding document. This is one of the protesters.

Protester: “We just want to make sure that we’re not giving away what was taken away from us, you know, what’s left of what we have in our culture and in our people, you know?”