Rob Reynolds joins live from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, near the hills where wildfires continue to rage. Reynolds explains that authorities are doing their absolute best and have received reinforcements from neighboring states, including Arizona and Nevada. However, he highlights the significant challenges in containing the fires. Reynolds points to the fierce winds as a critical obstacle, noting that the gusts, visible in the whipping flags behind him, some-times reach up to 120 kilometers per hour.

There has been an intensification of air strikes since early morning, particularly in Gaza City. Among the latest attacks, five civilians were killed near a central amusement park, and a residential tower was flattened. Four telecommunication workers were injured while maintaining internet landlines. More than 40 Palestinians have been killed across the Gaza Strip since dawn, with ongoing Israeli military operations in the north.

Famine is now present in five areas of Sudan -- in what a senior UN official says is 'a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions’. Millions are displaced and the US says genocide is taking place. What's the world doing for the people of Sudan?

The Palestinian Authority is intensifying operations in the occupied West Bank, with violent crackdowns in Jenin and efforts to silence dissent, including shutting down Al Jazeera’s bureau. What’s driving this escalation?

In the hours after the Assad dynasty fell in Syria, a frantic search began for survivors of the regime’s brutal prison system. Thousands of people were freed but others remain unaccounted for. In this episode of Close Up, we join Bassam Ezzedine, a former Syrian detainee on a mission to help families find their relatives who went missing or were jailed during the Assad family’s rule. After seeing his own family members disappear, Basem had been living in exile in Turkey but returned home to a new Syria when opposition forces took over. But his work has another purpose: recovering evidence, in the hope that delivering justice for past crimes will help Syrians build a better future.

US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened “all hell will break out” in the Middle East, if Israeli captives held in Gaza are not returned before he takes office in less than two weeks. He was speaking at a news conference in Florida, alongside Steve Witkoff, his nominee for Middle East envoy. A Hamas spokesman said Trump should make more disciplined and diplomatic statements and the group's conditions remain the same - an end to Israel's war on the strip. Sami al-Arian, director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, says President-elect Trump’s threat of “all hell breaking loose” in the Middle East if Hamas doesn’t immediately release the Israeli captives “doesn’t mean much”.

The Israeli military has carried out multiple air strikes across Gaza, killing at least 20 Palestinians since dawn on Wednesday. Many were in southern Gaza, including one on a tent in al-Mawasi, an area Israel designated a safe zone.

Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, spoke to Al Jazeera about the Palestinian Authority’s operations in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. “There is no justification for this escalation, and I think the last thing that Palestinians need is now a violent confrontation between Palestinians and Palestinians,” he said. “We have a big number of political parties, civil society structures, human rights organisations that have interfered and is trying to mediate to end this situation” he said.

International flights to and from the Syrian capital have resumed. Qatar Airways is one of the first major airlines to restart commercial services into Damascus, since the overthrow of Bashar al Assad. Returning Syrians were among the first passengers to touch down on Tuesday.

US President-elect Donald Trump has been holding a press conference in Florida where he addressed some questions about the Gaza ceasefire talks. He said if the captives are not back by the time he gets into office, “all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone”. He was speaking at a news conference alongside Steve Witkoff, his new envoy to the Middle East. Wittkoff says he's upbeat after returning from the latest round of negotiations on a potential deal to free the Israeli capitves held in Gaza. Trump has used this line previously, saying in a December 2 social media post that there will be “hell to pay” if a ceasefire deal isn’t inked by the time he is in office. Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his second term on January 20, 2025.