TV News LIES

Families in Gaza face an agonizing choice following last week's winter storm: endure exposure in tents after floods destroyed encampment shelters along with their possessions, killing one baby due to exposure — or shelter in buildings damaged in Israeli strikes earlier in the war that could collapse without warning.

A two-storey home in northwest Gaza City was the latest to partially collapse Tuesday, trapping a family underneath the rubble, killing a man and seriously injuring a family of five, local authorities say. The latest collapse comes as authorities warned a day earlier that more weakened buildings are at risk of falling as strong winds and heavy rain persist in Gaza.

Abu Rami Al-Husari, 46, said his brother and nephews were in the Hamid Junction in northwest Gaza City when the top floor of a two-storey home they were sheltering in, which had been damaged by Israeli bombing in the war, caved in on them.

“This [winter storm] wave affected everything so the home collapsed on them,” Al-Husari told CBC's Mohamed El Saife on Tuesday.

“There’s no place to live … there’s no space anywhere. They were forced to live here.”

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Encircled Russian troops in Kupiansk are still getting limited drone drops — and a Ukrainian official says some included flags, not food.

Approximately 120 Russian troops remain encircled in Kupiansk as of mid-December, Viktor Tregubov, head of communications for Ukraine’s Joint Forces, told the Kyiv Independent on Dec.15.

"As of late last week, our intelligence assessed about 40 active call signs on Russian radio channels in Kupiansk. Typically, that means one radio for three to four soldiers. So we estimate around 120 Russian troops remain encircled," he said.

Tregubov confirmed that the encircled Russian troops are still receiving limited supplies via "air bridge."

"Yes, that’s confirmed. In fact, there were ironic cases where they were being sent not food, but flags, so they could wave them and pretend everything was under control," he said.

"Drones are dropping small payloads — food, water, or symbolic items — but you can't air-drop a new soldier."

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Palestinians in Gaza struggled to recover Tuesday from torrential rains that battered the enclave for days, flooding camps for the displaced, collapsing buildings already badly damaged in the two-year war and leaving at least 12 dead, including a two-week-old baby.

The downpour, which dumped more than 150 milliliters (9 inches) of rain on some parts of Gaza over the past week, turned dirt lanes to mud and flooded tents in camps for displaced people.

The Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, said Tuesday the two-week-old died of hypothermia as a result of the weather. The baby was brought to the hospital a few days ago and was transferred to intensive care but died on Monday.

In Gaza City, a man died Tuesday after a home already damaged during Israeli strikes, collapsed because of the heavy rainfall, according to Shifa Hospital.

Members of the al-Hosari family said 30 people lived in the building, but just nine were home when it collapsed. The man who was killed was a worker who had come to fix the walls, they said. Five people were injured.

The Health Ministry said the remaining 10 people were killed last week, also from buildings collapsing from the rain and heavy winds.

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Thirty-five countries signed a convention in the Netherlands on Tuesday, Dec. 16, establishing an International Claims Commission for Ukraine to address damage caused by Russia’s invasion.

“In the Hague, together with 34 states and the European Union, and on the instructions of President Volodymyr Zelensky, I had the honor of signing the Convention establishing an International Claims Commission for Ukraine. Thirty-five is a record number of states. This is a historic step,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X.

The convention stipulates that the commission will operate under the auspices of the Council of Europe.

Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset said the creation of the Register of Damage for Ukraine in 2023 marked the first step of an international compensation mechanism, according to Ukrainian media reports.

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Donald Trump has ordered “a total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro.

The move comes amid an escalating campaign by the Trump administration against Maduro that has included a ramped-up military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, which have killed dozens of people.

Last week, US forces seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast that was traveling across the Caribbean. The tanker was thought to be loaded with about 2m barrels of Venezuela’s heavy crude, according to the New York Times. The Venezuelan government accused the US of “blatant theft” and described the seizure as “an act of international piracy”, further heightening tensions between the two countries.

In a post on social media on Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to escalate the military buildup.

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Ukraine has launched a new, previously unreported “Sub Sea Baby” underwater drone and sank a Russian Kilo-class submarine in the Novorossiysk port, according to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

The SBU did not specify the date and time of the attack.

In a Monday press release, the SBU said “a Russian submarine of the class 636.3 ‘Varshavyanka’” was struck and “suffered critical damage and was actually put out of action.”

Footage released with the announcement shows multiple Russian warships docked at Novorossiysk, with the surfaced submarine at the pier as an explosion sends up splashes nearby.

The SBU estimated the submarine’s cost at about $400 million, rising to as much as $500 million to replace due to sanctions, and said it can carry up to four Kalibr cruise missiles used in attacks on Ukrainian cities.

“This class of submarine is also known as the ‘Black Hole’ due to the hull’s ability to absorb sound and remain inaudible to sonar,” the SBU said of the destroyed submarine.

The SBU said it was a joint operation with the Ukrainian Navy.

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