The U.N. said Thursday that a Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip drowned in floods that engulfed his tent camp, with videos showing rescuers trying to pry his body out of muddy waters by pulling him by the ankle. It was the latest sign of the miseries that winter is inflicting on the territory’s population, with many left homeless by the devastation from two years of war.
Health officials also reported the death of another 9 year-old boy in Gaza Thursday, but the circumstances were not clear.
As 2026 begins, 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. At least three Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the ceasefire came down, killed by militant attacks or explosive detonations.
UNICEF said Thursday that 7-year-old Ata Mai had drowned Saturday in severe flooding that engulfed his tent camp in Gaza City. Mai’s was the latest child death reported in Gaza as storms, cold weather and flooding worsen already brutal living conditions. Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have lost their homes, and most are living in squalid tent camps with little protection from the weather.
UNICEF said Mai had been living with his younger siblings and family in a camp of around 40 tents. They lost their mother earlier in the war.
Video from Civil Defense teams, shown on Al Jazeera, showed rescue workers trying to get Mai’s body out of what appeared to be a pit filled with muddy water surrounded by wreckage of bombed buildings. The men waded into the water, pulling at the boy’s ankle, the only part of his body visible. Later, the body is shown wrapped in a muddy cloth being loaded into an ambulance.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s four-year term leading the nation’s largest city began Thursday with a seven-block long street party and guest appearances at his inaugural ceremony from the leading lights of the left.
Around 40 people have been killed and 100 injured, most of them seriously, after an explosion tore through a crowded bar during a New Year's Eve party in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana, Swiss officials said on Thursday, Jan. 1.
US President Donald Trump and his top aides expressed concern over several Israeli policies in the West Bank during their meetings Monday with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in West Palm Beach, a US official told The Times of Israel.
A turbulent New Year’s Eve unfolded across Russia as multiple regions reported drone attacks in the early hours of Jan. 1, triggering fires at oil facilities in Kaluga Oblast and Krasnodar Krai, according to Russian Telegram channels and monitoring groups.
The U.S. Department of Energy issued an emergency order late Tuesday to keep an aging Colorado coal plant open, just one day before it was slated to close. 
First, New Yorkers saw the elimination of subway token, which lasted for half a century. Now, its successor – the swipeable MetroCard, which lasted barely more than three decades – has seen its demise.
The Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all childcare payments to all states, an official for Donald Trump’s administration told ABC News in a report published Wednesday. States’ funds will be released “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately”.
