In the West Bank, Israeli settlers throw stones at Palestinian vehicles south of Nablus. Israeli forces continue the attacks on Jenin for the seventh day in a row, shooting and injuring a Palestinian child and bulldozing roads. Israeli forces also attack Tulkarm, bombing a vehicle in Nur Shams refugee camp, killing 2 Hamas members and wounding 3 others, seizing several homes in Tulkarm and displacing the families that live in them, uprooting streets, and destroying an electricity transformer, causing power outages. Elsewhere, Israeli forces issue a punitive demolition notice for the family home of a Palestinian man killed by Israeli forces on 7/3/2024 in Jenin refugee camp. Israeli forces also arrest 27 Palestinians during late-night raids in Beit Umar and Beit Awa. In Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians march to northern Gaza to return to their homes after being forcibly displaced to the south by Israeli forces after 10/7/2023. The Gaza Media Office says around 300,000 Palestinians returned to the north today and that they need at least 120,000 tents for shelter as the vast majority of homes have been destroyed. Israeli forces shell a horse cart, killing a 5-year-old child and wounding 3 other children in al-Jisr. Israeli forces also bomb a bulldozer clearing rubble in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing a Palestinian man and injuring others. In Lebanon, Israeli forces shoot and kill 2 people in Odaisseh and Bani Hayyan and injure 17 others in Burj al-Muluk, Hula, Markaba, and Yaroun. Israeli forces also drop a bomb from a quadcopter near civilians in Yaroun, no injuries are reported. (AJ, AJ, AJ, AJ, AJ, AP, AP, AP, AP, AX, HA, HA, NYT, NYT, NYT, REU, REU, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA 1/27; AJ, AP, HA, HA, REU, UNOCHA, WAFA, WAFA 1/28)
More than 47,317 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, including at least 17,818 children and 12,287 women, and around 111,494 have been injured since 10/7/2023. At least 11,000 people are missing in rubble. 879 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 10/7/2023, including 179 children. More than 6,500 people have been injured. Israel reports that 1,139 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed and 5,400 have been injured in Israel since 10/7/2023, including Israeli soldiers. In addition, 408 Israeli soldiers have been killed and 2,485 injured in Gaza since the ground invasion began on 10/27/2023. Over 1.93 million Palestinians, nearly 85% of the population of Gaza, have been displaced since 10/7/2023. There has been a complete electricity blackout in Gaza since 10/12/2023 due to the Israeli blockade. 92% of all housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or severely damaged since 10/7/2023. Doctors Without Borders inspects Rafah, saying it will take years to remove unexploded ordnances from the city. (AJ, WAFA 1/27)
A Hamas delegation arrives in Cairo for ceasefire talks. Hamas also releases a list naming 25 out of 33 Israeli captives scheduled to be released during the first phase of the ceasefire deal who are still alive. (AJ, AJ, AP, HA, REU, REU 1/27)
The PA calls on the U.S. to end Israeli “recklessness” in killing Palestinians and destroying homes in Tulkarm and Jenin. (WAFA 1/27)
EU high commissioner for foreign affairs Kaja Kallas announces that the EU will restart the EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) to monitor the Rafah crossing. Italy, Spain, and France say they will send police officers to Rafah as part of the mission. (AJ, AP, HA, REU, WAFA 1/27)
Hezbollah secretary-general Naim Qassem says Hezbollah does not accept the extension of the ceasefire period in Lebanon. Qassem says Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement 1,350 times. The French foreign ministry calls on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon immediately and expresses “deep concern” over the large number of Lebanese people killed by Israeli forces on 1/26. (AJ, HA, NYT, REU 1/27)
U.S. president Donald Trump says, after claiming to speak with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, that he would like Palestinians in Gaza to live outside of Gaza, saying Gaza has been associated with violence for thousands of years. Egyptian officials say that El-Sisi and Trump did not speak to each other as Trump claims. Albanian prime minister Edi Rama refutes Israeli reports that Albania is in talks with the U.S. government about taking in around 100,000 Palestinians from Gaza. Spanish foreign minister Jose Albares rejects U.S. president Donald Trump’s idea of ethnically cleansing Gaza by moving Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, which he voiced on 1/25, saying “Gazans needs to stay in Gaza. Gaza is part of the future Palestinian state, which needs to be controlled by a single government.” Albares also says Spain will increase its aid to Palestine and UNRWA to $52 million. The German foreign ministry also issues a statement, saying that Palestinians must not be expelled from Gaza and Gaza must not be permanently occupied by Israel. (AJ, HA, HA, REU, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA 1/27; Ahram, HA, HA 1/28)
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich withdraws his threat to leave the Israeli government, according to Israeli media reports. (REU 1/27)
President Trump says he will sign an executive order mandating that the U.S. develops a missile defense system based on the Israeli Iron Dome. (HA 1/27; HA 1/28)
U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio speaks with Jordanian king Abdullah II, discussing the Gaza ceasefire. Rubio also discusses the Moroccan Israeli normalization agreement with Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita. (HA, REU 1/27)
Israel replaces its ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, with Yechiel Leiter. Leiter is an Israeli settler who in his youth was affiliated with the violent extremist group the Jewish Defense League in the U.S. (HA 1/27)
Electronic Intifada director Ali Abunimah is deported from Switzerland after being arrested on 1/25 ahead of an event in Zurich. (EI 1/27; HA 1/28)
Professor Zachary Foster accuses ICJ acting president Julia Sebutinde of plagiarizing large parts of her dissenting opinion on the question of the “Legal Consequences arising from Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” published in July 2024. Forster writes that Sebutinde stole sentences for her opinion from the Zionist organizations The Jewish Virtual Library and Prager U and from a blog post written by former George W. Bush administration appointee Douglas J. Feith. Sebutinde was the only one out of the 17 judges on the ICJ panel to vote against all provisional measures in the South African genocide case against Israel in January 2024. (MEE, PalestineNexus 1/27)