Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
At least 26 people were killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Wednesday, the enclave's civil defence authorities and media reported, while Israel said two projectiles were fired from the Palestinian territory.
Fifteen people were killed, most of them children, in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in Jabalia in northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging a major military operation since early October, the civil defence said. Another 20 people were injured in the attack.
Two people were killed in an Israeli strike on Bureij camp in central Gaza, reported official news agency Wafa.
Three people were also killed and others injured in a drone strike on a group in Al Manara neighbourhood in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Wafa said.
Meanwhile, the civil defence said its teams recovered the bodies of six people, including three children and two women, from the rubble of a house hit by an air strike in Al Shujaiya, in eastern Gaza city. The Israeli army also hit residential areas in Beit Lahia in the Jabalia refugee camp, also in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military said two projectiles were fired from Gaza at Israel on Wednesday in the first minutes of the new year, one of which was intercepted, while the other landed in open ground.
Alert sirens sounded around midnight in the Negev desert region, the Israeli military said, and “two projectiles were identified crossing from the central Gaza Strip into Israeli territory”, the army said on Telegram.
The military said it had intercepted several rockets fired from northern Gaza in recent days.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry says women and children make up more than half the fatalities.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, though at least a third are believed to be dead.
The Israeli military claims it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. It says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them forced to move numerous times.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living in tents, as winter brings rainstorms and low temperatures. At least four infants have died of hypothermia.
US and Arab mediators have spent nearly a year trying to broker a ceasefire and full hostage release, but these efforts have repeatedly stalled, as Hamas demands a lasting ceasefire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to keep fighting until “total victory”.
The UN Human Rights Office said in a report on Tuesday that Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza have devastated the health system and raised serious concerns about Israel's compliance with international law.
Its 23-page report, documenting various attacks between October 12, 2023, and June 30, 2024, said the conduct of the war has had severe consequences for access to medical attention for Palestinians.
“The destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law,” it said.
Daniel Meron, Israel's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, described the report's data as fabricated. He said on X that Israel operates in accordance with international law, would never target innocent civilians and accused Hamas of using Gaza hospitals for what he called “terror activity”.
Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthi rebels – who frequently fire drones and missiles at Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Gaza – claimed on Wednesday to have shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, while it was carrying out “hostile missions” in the western province of Marib. The drone was hit by a locally made surface-to-air missile, said Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree.
