AI-powered toys that can talk back to you are on display at Asia’s biggest toy show, raising smiles but also concerns about children’s safety too. Laura Westbrook went to see some of them.
Video: AI toys in spotlight amid concerns over child safety
‘Frustration & despair’ in Gaza as US announces ceasefire phase 2
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary says there is ‘frustration and despair’ in Gaza over the US announcement of phase 2 of a ceasefire plan, which has failed to bring relief to people still suffering the effects of Israel’s genocidal war.
Gaza’s ceasefire moves to next phase, but is it working?
The US has announced the Gaza ceasefire is moving to phase two, where “demilitarisation, technocratic governance, and reconstruction” will be the focus. But did Israel and Hamas abide by phase one? Soraya Lennie breaks down what’s happened.
Trump on the future of Gaza: In his own words
A compilation of what Trump envisions for the future of the Gaza Strip.
Israel carries out raids and demolitions, arrests dozens across West Bank
The Israeli military has launched raids and interrogations ensnaring more than 80 people across the occupied West Bank, wounding at least one man and demolishing the home of another as Israel escalates its attacks on the Palestinian territory in tandem with its ongoing genocidal war in Gaza.
In one incident on Thursday, Israeli forces surrounded a home in Dura, south of the city of Hebron, before shooting and wounding the brother of Mahmoud al-Fasfous.
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The al-Fasfous brothers have long been wanted by Israeli forces and have faced frequent raids of the family home and soldier assaults.
In another raid in Hebron’s Khallat Nafisa area, Israeli forces sealed off the area from civilians before destroying the home of Imran al-Atrash with a bulldozer, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Israeli forces killed al-Atrash and another Palestinian, Walid Muhammad Khalil Sabarna, in mid-November when the duo was accused of carrying out a car-ramming and stabbing attack that killed one Israeli settler and injured three.
The Israeli military posted photos of the demolition on Telegram, claiming that al-Atrash was a “terrorist” and cheering the effort to destroy his home.
Escalating arrest campaign
Elsewhere in Hebron and the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces detained and interrogated at least 80 Palestinians during overnight and dawn raids, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reported.
At least one woman and two children were among those detained along with former prisoners.
“This represents an unprecedented escalation since the beginning of the year, described as part of a campaign of collective punishment,” the group said, adding that field interrogations have “become the occupation’s most prominent policy”.
Two arrests took place during a raid on the Arroub refugee camp, located north of Hebron, with other arrests under way in virtually all areas surrounding the city, Wafa reported.
In the al-Majaz community of Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets in the South Hebron Hills, Israeli forces plundered homes before converting one into a military outpost, forcing its inhabitants to spend the night outside in the cold.
Meanwhile, in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, soldiers stormed the town of Kobar and fanned out across multiple neighbourhoods.
Townspeople told Al Jazeera that the soldiers tried to provoke residents by shouting: “Who wants to become a martyr? Where are the cowards?”
Israel has stepped up its raids on the occupied West Bank – including injuring dozens of Palestinians with live rounds and grenades at a prominent university earlier this month – amid a formal push to annex the territory.
Israeli settlers have rampaged in Palestinian lands, killing and beating Palestinian civilians, including the elderly, and destroying their property with impunity, often backed by the Israeli military.
Throughout 2025, Israeli settlers or soldiers killed 240 Palestinians in the West Bank, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last week. Israeli forces killed 225 people while settlers killed at least nine. The agency could not confirm whether settlers or soldiers caused the remaining six deaths.
Fifty-five of those killed – nearly one-quarter of the total – were children.
During the same period, Palestinians killed 17 Israelis in the West Bank, including one child and six members of Israeli forces, OCHA reported.
ICE officer shoots Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis: What we know
A federal officer in the United States has shot a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Officials say officers had tried to stop a car to arrest the man and opened fire after two people attacked one of them with a “snow shovel and broom handle”.
Protests broke out in the city after the incident.
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Wednesday’s shooting comes exactly a week after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed local resident Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis during an immigration raid.
What happened?
In an X post on Wednesday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote that at 6:50pm (00:50 GMT on Thursday), federal law enforcement officers were stopping “an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by [former President] Joe Biden in 2022”.
The DHS added that the man had tried to evade the officers, crashing his car into another parked car and then fleeing on foot. It said one of the officers caught up with the immigrant on foot “when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer”.
The department’s post said that while the immigrant and the officer were struggling on the ground, two people came out of a nearby apartment and began to strike the officer with a snow shovel and a broomstick. It further said, “The original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick.”
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” the DHS wrote.
It added that the immigrant and the two people who had come out of the apartment ran back inside the apartment and barricaded themselves in.
The immigrant and officer who was attacked were taken to hospital, and the other two people who attacked the officer are in custody, DHS wrote.
Who was Renee Nicole Good and what happened to her last week?
On the morning of January 7, Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer, fatally shot Good while she was in her car in Minneapolis.
Local officials said Good, 37, was acting as a legal observer during protests against US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Legal observers are usually volunteers who attend protests to watch police-demonstrator interactions and record any confrontations or possible legal violations.
Good’s killing sparked outrage and protests in Minnesota and nationwide.
In a joint statement released after she was shot dead, Minneapolis City Council President Elliot Payne and council members wrote: “Renee was a resident of our city who was out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government. Anyone who kills someone in our city deserves to be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
After Good was shot, the Republican Trump administration clashed with local authorities, including Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Trump and administration officials claimed that Good had deliberately hit the ICE officer with her SUV and he had shot her in self-defence.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism”.
She said Good had refused to obey orders to get out of her car, “weaponise[d] her vehicle” and “attempted to run” over the officer. Minnesota officials disputed Noem’s account, citing videos showing Good trying to drive away.
Footage from the incident shows Good’s car slowly reversing and then trying to move forwards. As the car moves forwards, an agent is seen walking around in front of it. He opens fire while standing in front of the driver’s side of the SUV.
Speaking about the shooting on Wednesday, Trump told the Reuters news agency: “I don’t get into right or wrong. I know that it was a tough situation to be in. There was very little respect shown to the police, in this case, the ICE officers.”
What have local authorities said about the latest shooting?
Walz wrote in an X post on Wednesday that state investigators have been to the scene of the shooting.
“I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” Walz wrote.
“But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
In a series of posts on X on Wednesday, Frey wrote: “No matter what led up to this incident, the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable.”
He added that there are 600 local police officers working in Minneapolis, and the Trump administration has sent in 3,000 federal officers.
“I have seen conduct from ICE that is intolerable. And for anyone taking the bait tonight, stop. It is not helpful. We cannot respond to Donald Trump’s chaos with our own chaos.”
What is ICE doing in Minnesota?
The DHS launched Operation Metro Surge, which includes Minneapolis, in December. The Trump administration said the operation aims to root out and arrest criminals and undocumented immigrants.
The Trump administration escalated its immigration operation in Minneapolis on January 6. In an X post, ICE announced it planned to deploy 2,000 additional agents to the northern Midwestern city.
“A 100% chance of ICE in the Twin Cities – our largest operation to date,” the post said, referring to Minneapolis and the adjacent city of St Paul.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told local news media that ICE is “surging to Minneapolis to root out fraud, arrest perpetrators and remove criminal illegal aliens”.
On Monday, the state of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the operation is an unconstitutional “federal invasion”.
The population of Minnesota is more than 5 million people, and according to numbers from the Migration Policy Institute from 2023, the number of undocumented immigrants in the state is 100,000.
Republicans have made disparaging remarks particularly targeting the state’s Somali population.
Noem said on Tuesday that Trump intends to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for some Somali nationals in the US.
“Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem said in a statement. “Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”
In December, ICE launched a raid in Columbus, Ohio, which also has a large Somali population. In late November, ICE agents were deployed in New Orleans, Louisiana. Similar raids were launched in Charlotte, North Carolina, the same month.
How many Venezuelan immigrants are in the US?
As of 2023, there were about 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, making up just under 2 percent of the country’s 47.8 million foreign-born population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The institute estimated that in 2023, 486,000 Venezuelan immigrants were not authorised to be in the US, accounting for 4 percent of a total of 13.7 million unauthorised immigrants.
Since 2014, about 7.7 million Venezuelans, comprising 20 percent of the population, have left the country, mostly to seek better opportunities abroad as the economy has faltered and the government has cracked down on the political opposition. While the vast majority have moved to neighbouring countries, some have gone to the US.
On January 3, US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration describes as a “narcoterrorist”. He currently faces charges related to weapons and drug trafficking in New York.
During a national address on January 3, Trump stated: “Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang, Tren de Aragua, to terrorise American communities nationwide.”