Elon Musk is shaping up to be a super influential figure in the new Trump administration. He’s going to be running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is tasked with cutting government bureaucracy and spending. Plus, he’s very close to Donald Trump and seems able to influence the new president on all sorts of issues. What should we make of Musk’s new political power?

The UN says there are no fuel reserves to operate generators at hospitals across Gaza, placing the lives of patients and newborns at “grave risk”. The Health Ministry has warned the few healthcare facilities still able to offer services will be forced to shut down.

Sinan Hatahet, a Senior Fellow for the Syria Project at the Atlantic Council, joins Al Jazeera’s live coverage from Istanbul. He reflects on the 61 years of Baath Party rule, highlighting its impact on Syria's population and public sphere. Hatahet emphasizes the enduring challenges of recovering from a regime that has displaced half the Syrian population in the last 14 years. He notes the Syrian people's aspirations for governance that represents them and a future they can proudly pass on to coming generations, despite the region's ongoing turmoil.

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.