By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
At least 27 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 45,541, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Monday.
A ministry statement added that some 108,338 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 27 people and injured 149 others in three massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
The Israeli army on Monday continued to bomb and blow up homes and buildings across the Gaza Strip as its genocidal war continues unabated.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that the Israeli army heavily shelled the northern Gaza areas, including the Al-Saftawi and Jabalia areas.
Loud explosions were heard as a result of the Israeli army’s detonation of homes and buildings in northern Gaza, the witnesses added.
The artillery shelling was also reported on areas across Gaza City, including in the southern and southeastern neighborhoods of Al-Sabra and Zeitoun, while in the Al-Jalaa’ street area, northwestern part of the city, the Israeli quadcopter drones opened fire on homes.
In the central Gaza Strip, the Israeli army’s artillery struck the northwestern areas of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in addition to opening gun-machine fire from the army’s military vehicles and helicopters that resulted in at least one injury to a Palestinian man, according to witnesses in the area.
The Al-Mawasi area in western Rafah city, the southern Gaza Strip, saw shelling from the Israeli army’s gunboats, while the city’s northern areas also experienced artillery shelling, according to witnesses.
Several civilians were killed and others were injured on Monday evening in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
Medical sources reported that four civilians were killed and others were wounded after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of Palestinians in Jabalia town.
Additionally, Israeli warplanes bombed a house located near the Jordanian Hospital in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
One-month-old Ali al-Batran dies from hypothermia in Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital a day after his twin brother died from the same cause, the Wafa news agency reports.
Seven displaced civilians, including six children, have frozen to death in Gaza due to extreme winter cold after being forced to live in unhealthy conditions in tents amid the ongoing Israeli onslaught, a local official told Anadolu
“Six children and a nurse lost their lives due to the cold wave in the past days,” Ismail Thawabteh, who heads Gaza’s government media office, said on Monday.
He warned that the death toll may rise due to the current tragic conditions in the enclave amid relentless Israeli attacks.
“The lives of displaced Palestinians are in a real danger amid heavy rainfall and cold waves as their tents are worn out and don’t protect them,” Thawabteh said.
The Gaza Strip has been hit by a cold wave and torrential rains since Sunday, bringing more misery to the territory’s 2.3 million population.
The Israeli army said Monday evening that it intercepted two rockets launched from northern Gaza toward settlements near the border.
In a brief statement on X, the military said: “Following the sirens that sounded at 20:37 in the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip, two projectiles that crossed from the Northern Gaza Strip were intercepted by the IAF (air force).”
Air raid sirens were triggered in the settlements of Karmia, Netiv HaAsara, and Zikim Beach, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
This marked the fourth time sirens sounded in the Gaza border region on Monday, according to the daily.
Earlier in the evening, alarms blared in the settlement of Kisufim. The military later confirmed that a rocket fired from central Gaza landed in the settlement without causing injuries.
The army said that two previous siren activations earlier in the day were false alarms.
The UN on Monday denounced Israeli military operations targeting hospitals in Gaza, including Kamal Adwan Hospital, now rendered non-operational.
“We’ve been very clear in the fact that we condemn any action that targets civilians and civilian infrastructure, and hospitals. We’ve called repeatedly for them to be respected as this is a safe space area where people go to seek medical assistance,” Florencia Soto Nino, the UN chief’s associate spokesperson, told reporters during a news conference.
Asked about Israel detaining of the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya in Gaza, Nino said: “Anyone that is innocent civilian who is trying to help others should not be detained.”
“I think we have been talking about this for a long time there is no safe space in Gaza,” she said, adding that the UN is ready to work with anyone who would support its work to ensure safety of civilians including the director.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday warned that repeated hostilities in and around hospitals have “obliterated” the health care system in northern Gaza, putting civilians at an “unacceptably grave risk” of going without lifesaving care.
ICRC, in a statement, reiterated its urgent call for the respect and protection of medical facilities in line with international humanitarian law.
“This protection is a legal obligation and a moral imperative to preserve human life,” it said. “Hospitals are a lifeline for those wounded or sick in conflict.”
The Al-Awda Hospital, which was previously supported by the ICRC with supplies, is now absorbing more pressure as one of the few functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, it said.
“The Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals are now completely inoperable,” the ICRC said. “For months, these medical facilities have struggled to provide care for patients as ongoing hostilities have damaged hospitals and endangered or harmed staff, patients, and civilians.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, on Monday urged medical professionals around the world to sever ties with Israel as a direct response to the destruction of Gaza’s health care system.
“I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel’s full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide,” Albanese said on X.
WEST BANK
Four more Palestinian detainees from Gaza have died in Israeli custody, prisoners’ affairs groups said on Monday.
A statement by the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society identified the four victims as Mohammad Al-Akka, 44, Samir Al-Kahlout, 52, Zuhair Al-Sharif, 58, and Mohammad Lubbad, 57.
Their death came one day after another detainee breathed his last in Israeli detention on Sunday.
“What is happening to the detainees is just another aspect of the (Israeli) war of extermination,” the statement said.
The new fatalities brought the number of Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli custody since Oct. 7, 2023 to 54, according to Palestinian figures.
Palestinians estimate that there are over 10,000 people held in Israeli jails. The figure, however, does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
Israeli soldiers stormed the town of al-Khader south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
The evening raid saw Israeli forces taking up positions in the al-Bawaba and al-Jami al-Kabir areas in the town, accompanied by firing of sound bombs, according to the Wafa news agency, which said no injuries or arrests were reported.
It also said Israeli forces raided the town of Anabta east of Tulkarem in the evening.
Local sources said a number of Israeli armoured vehicles entered the town, patrolled the streets and main neighbourhoods, and obstructed movement of vehicles. Clashes reportedly erupted, leading to Israeli forces firing live ammunition, but there were no injuries of arrests.
Palestinian outlets also released images of armoured vehicles storming the town of Sa’ir in Hebron.
Local Palestinian platforms on Facebook released scenes today, verified by Al Jazeera, of a Palestinian family being forced to demolish their own home in the town of Jabal al-Mukabber, southeast of occupied Jerusalem.
According to local sources, six people lived in the house, including four children, who are now homeless.
Illegal Israel settlers abducted on Monday night a Palestinian man from the town of Ash Shuyukh, east of Hebron, and violently assaulted him before abandoning him near an Israeli military checkpoint.
The victim, Ashraf Al-Halaika, reported that a group of settlers from the “Asfar” colony, built illegally on the town’s land, raided a quarry in the al-Zafaran area, where they detained the workers and searched their cell phones before abducting 48-year-old worker Diyab Nemer Odeh Al-Halaika.
The settlers took al-Halaika to the said colony, where they severely beat him up, in the presence and help of Israeli soldiers.
Al-Halaika added that the settlers left him at a military checkpoint east of the city, suffering from bruises and various wounds all over his body. He was later transported by ambulance to the Hebron Government Hospital for treatment.
LEBANON
The Lebanese army says commander General Joseph Aoun met French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu and Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot with an accompanying delegation in Lebanon.
They discussed the general situation in Lebanon and the region, ways to enhance cooperation relations between the armies of the two countries, and “continuing support for the army in light of the current circumstances”, it said in a post on X.
The Israeli military continues to launch attacks across southern Lebanon, accusing the Lebanese army of slow deployment. The Lebanese army has in turn accused Israel of repeated violations of the ceasefire, including burning and destruction of residential homes.
[Photo: Palestinians living in the area inspect among rubbles of destroyed buildings following an Israeli air strike on the Kemal Advan hospital in Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip on December 29, 2024. Photojournalist: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/AA]
