Over the past week, Hamas members have repeatedly launched rockets into Israel, especially from the northern Gaza Strip, where Israeli soldiers are conducting a major offensive, according to AFP.
The rockets caused little damage and were launched in much smaller numbers than in the early stages of the conflict, but they were a political blow to the Israeli government after nearly 15 months of fighting.
Hamas and Israel accuse each other of obstructing the ceasefire agreement
“Unprecedented ferocious attack”
“I want to send a clear message from here to the leaders of the terrorists in Gaza: If Hamas does not soon allow the release of Israeli hostages from Gaza… and continues to shoot at Israeli communities, They will face fierce attacks never seen before in Gaza for a long time,” Mr. Israel Katz, Minister of Defense of Israel, declared.
Mr. Katz issued the above warning after visiting the Israeli town of Netivot, which was recently hit by rockets from Gaza. There is currently no information about Hamas’s reaction.
Israeli soldiers sit in military vehicles on the way to the Gaza Strip on January 1, 2025
Hamas members are still holding 96 hostages captured during the attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and successive rounds of negotiations to release the hostages and ceasefire have failed.
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes continued across Gaza on January 1. “The world welcomes the new year with celebrations and festivals, while we see 2025 begin with Israel’s first massacre in the town of Jabalia shortly after midnight,” said a spokesman for the agency. Gaza Civil Defense Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Mr. Bassal confirmed that “15 people were killed and more than 20 injured” in the attack on a house where evacuees were living.
The Israeli military told AFP it had “eliminated” several Hamas members operating “in a terrorist structure” in Jabalia.
Since October 6, 2024, the Israeli army has conducted a major ground and air offensive in northern Gaza, specifically targeting Jabalia and the adjacent refugee camp. The Israeli military argued that the operation was intended to prevent Hamas members from regrouping in the area.
United Nations human rights experts on December 30, 2024 said that Israel’s “siege” appears to be an effort to “permanently relocate the local population, creating a premise for the annexation of Gaza”.
Almost all 2.4 million Gazans have been displaced at least once since the Hamas-Israel conflict broke out in October 2023, according to AFP.
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“All around me are ruins”
For weeks, Israel’s assault on Jabalia has expanded across the northern Gaza Strip. On December 27, 2024, the Israeli army raided Kamal Adwan hospital, forcing the last staff and patients to leave there.
The Israeli army announced that it had killed more than 20 people it suspected of belonging to Hamas and arrested more than 240 people, including the hospital director, Mr. Hossam Abu Safiyeh.
“All around me is just rubble and destruction. People don’t know what to do, don’t know where to go. And they don’t know how to survive,” said Jonathan Whittall, aid officer for the United Nations, said in a video released after he visited an Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike as Israeli soldiers conduct operations inside the Gaza Strip on January 1.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command centers, while Hamas denies this accusation.
A report released by the United Nations Human Rights Office on December 31 affirmed that there was “insufficient information” to substantiate Israel’s “vague” accusations about hospitals in Gaza being used for military purposes. .
Two further Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on January 1 killed 10 more people, according to rescue forces. Bombing has caused further suffering for Gazans who have lost their homes and are struggling to stay warm in cold weather.
“For three days, we did not sleep because we were afraid our children would get sick because of the winter, as well as because we were afraid that the missiles would fall on us,” said Ms. Samah Darabieh.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP statistics based on official figures from Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,553 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza Health Authority considered reliable by the United Nations.
