In Gaza, a 1-month-old baby named Ali al-Batran has died from hypothermia in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The baby’s death from bitter cold temperatures faced by Palestinians displaced by more than a year of Israeli attacks came just one day after the infant’s twin brother, Jumaa al-Batran, also succumbed to hypothermia. They were the fifth and sixth Palestinian babies to die of exposure this week, as Israeli forces continue their withering assault.

At least 27 Palestinians were killed and 149 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period, bringing the official death toll from Israel’s nearly 16-month assault to more than 45,500, though that’s likely a vast undercount.

On Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others. The nearby Ahli Hospital was also damaged from artillery fire.

Meanwhile, CNN reports Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, is being held at Sde Teiman, an infamous Israeli military base in the Negev Desert that doubles as a prison where Palestinians have been tortured. On Friday, Dr. Safiya was arrested as Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan, northern Gaza’s last major functioning hospital, setting the facility on fire and forcing staff and patients outside at gunpoint. This is Faris al-Afaneh, a patient who survived the ordeal.

Faris al-Afaneh: “At around 4 a.m., the army came into Kamal Adwan Hospital and asked all the medical staff, the patients and all the people accompanying them to go out into the courtyard. And then they sorted everyone, the medical teams in one group, the patients in another. Then they got ambulances to get us and sent us through the main gates. … We were taken for interrogation at around 3 p.m. They stripped us naked and left us there until sunset, with no one to aid us. We were left in the dust. And then one soldier would come around every once in a while and would curse at us and spit on us. It was very ugly.”

In the occupied West Bank, 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh was fatally shot in the head late Saturday near her home in Jenin. Her family said she was walking with her mother in a well-lit neighborhood and carrying young children when she was shot by a sniper with the Palestinian security forces. There was reportedly no fighting nearby at the time of her death. The Palestinian Authority denied the claim and instead blamed Israeli forces for the killing. Sabbagh had been active in documenting the Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on armed groups fighting the Israeli occupation.

The leader of the armed groups who toppled longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad says it could take as long as four years for Syria to hold elections. Ahmed al-Sharaa made the comments in an interview with the Saudi Al Arabiya network, saying it will take time to organize a new census, and up to three years to draft a new constitution. Al-Sharaa also said his paramilitary group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham would soon be dissolved.

Elsewhere, civil defense groups say 11 people were killed — most of them civilians — after an Israeli airstrike triggered a massive blast at a weapons depot near the Syrian capital Damascus. This follows dozens of Israeli airstrikes on Syria’s military infrastructure in recent weeks.

Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities on Saturday night, demanding a ceasefire deal to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza and calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down. Families accused Netanyahu of sabotaging a hostage release deal so that he could remain in power. The protests came a day before Netanyahu underwent successful surgery to have his prostate removed. Critics noted Netanyahu received anesthesia during his surgery — something that’s frequently inaccessible to Palestinians. An International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Netanyahu for crimes against humanity cites, among other things, Israel’s blockade of anesthetics and anesthesia machines from entering Gaza.

South Korea has begun a second day of national mourning after a Boeing 737-800 airliner operated by Jeju Air skidded off the end of a runway at Muan International Airport and crashed into a concrete wall before bursting into flames, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. It was the worst aviation disaster involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades. Investigators are looking into whether a bird strike caused the flight from Bangkok to crash, and why the pilots did not have the plane’s wing flaps or landing gear deployed when attempting an emergency landing.

The leader of Azerbaijan has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to apologize and admit guilt for the fate of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, which crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day after a failed attempt to fly from Baku to the Russian city of Grozny. The crash killed 38 of 67 people on board. President Ilham Aliyev said Sunday he believed the plane was shot down unintentionally by Russian air defenses. 

President Ilham Aliyev: “The facts indicate that the Azerbaijani civilian plane was damaged from the outside over Russian territory, near the city of Grozny, and almost lost control. We also know that the use of electronic warfare put our plane out of control. … The Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Secondly, it must acknowledge its guilt. Thirdly, those responsible must be punished, brought to criminal responsibility, and compensation must be paid to the Azerbaijani state, to the injured passengers and crew members.”

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Azerbaijan’s leaders for what he called a “tragic incident” but stopped short of accepting responsibility for the crash.

Georgia’s outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili refused to step down Sunday as former soccer star and Kremlin-backed conservative Mikheil Kavelashvili took the oath of office. Zourabichvili said she would leave the presidential palace but insisted her successor is an illegitimate leader. Four opposition parties refused to participate in Sunday’s inaugural ceremony in Georgia’s Parliament in Tblisi after denouncing October’s elections as rigged. On Sunday, there were scuffles between police and protesters who gathered near Parliament. 

Anna Akhaladze: “Our illegitimate government is trying to appoint an illegitimate person who does not have any background in politics, diplomatics, economics, who does not know how to rule a country other than maybe score a goal once or twice in a match. He was a footballer that does not have any type of background or education, while we had a great president who had an education, great education, studied in France, Salome Zourabichvili. She has done so much for this country, and even right now she’s trying to get our voices heard in the West, talking to so many diplomats and trying to take this country in a right direction.”

Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. The 39th president served a single, tumultuous term in the White House from 1977 to 1981. He is remembered as a man of deeply held faith who helped negotiate a landmark peace deal between Israel and Egypt that still holds to this day. Carter was also a committed Cold Warrior who began funneling arms to the Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in 1979. He continued to support right-wing authoritarian governments in Latin America and beyond. His austerity politics also hastened the Democratic Party’s neoliberal turn, further cemented by his defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1980. In retirement, Carter devoted himself to causes including election integrity and building homes for low-income people. He stirred controversy in 2006 with his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” in which he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South Africa’s former racist government. This is Jimmy Carter speaking to Democracy Now! in 2007. 

Jimmy Carter: “The Palestinians can’t even ride on the same roads that the Israelis have created or built in Palestinian territory. The Israelis never see a Palestinian, except the Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians never see an Israeli, except at a distance, except the Israeli soldiers. So, within Palestinian territory, they are absolutely and totally separated, much worse than they were in South Africa, by the way. And the other thing is, the other definition of 'apartheid' is, one side dominates the other. And the Israelis completely dominate the life of the Palestinian people.”

Later in the broadcast, we’ll air extended clips of our past interviews with President Jimmy Carter.

At least four people are dead across Texas, Mississippi and North Carolina after a strong storm system produced dozens of rare late-December tornadoes over the weekend. The Houston region was especially hard hit, with one person killed and four injured after several tornadoes struck southeastern Texas. Meanwhile, a new report from Climate Central and World Weather Attribution finds human-powered climate change led to an average of 41 extra days of extreme heat in 2024. Small island and developing states suffered the largest increase in extreme temperatures. 2024 is on track to become the hottest year in human history, surpassing the previous high set in 2023.

Newly released body-camera video shows guards at an upstate New York prison beating a handcuffed prisoner to death. Forty-three-year-old Robert Brooks was pronounced dead on December 10, a day after guards at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Utica repeatedly punched and kicked him in the face, chest and groin. Four of the officers involved were wearing body cameras but did not activate them. At least three of the officers involved were previously accused of assault. Brooks was Black; all of the officers who took turns beating him appear to be white. Ahead of the video’s release, New York Governor Kathy Hochul fired 14 state prison staffers and ordered an investigation into Brooks’s killing. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has also opened an investigation, said it was a difficult decision to release the bodycam footage.

Letitia James: “I do not take lightly the release of this video, especially in the middle of the holiday season, but as attorney general, I released these videos because I have a responsibility and duty to provide the Brooks family, their loved ones, and all New Yorkers with transparency and accountability. My deepest condolences go out to Mr. Brooks’s family.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement, “It shouldn’t take a cold-blooded killing captured on film to be a wake-up call to our leaders that the culture of officer brutality in NY prisons must be stopped.”