By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
GAZA
At least 28 more Palestinians were killed in relentless Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since October 2023 to 45,581, the Health Ministry in the enclave said early on Thursday.
A ministry statement added that some 108,438 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 28 people and injured 59 others in two massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 45,581 Palestinians and wounded 108,438 since October 7, 2023
However, latest figures of Palestinians killed in Gaza in last 24 hours by Israeli Defence Forces is: 71 people, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
Photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui is the latest Palestinian in Gaza to be killed in an Israeli attack. At least 217 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
At least 12 civilians were killed and several others were injured in Israeli airstrikes targeting the town of Az Zawayda in central Gaza and the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City.
According to local sources, Israeli airstrikes targeted a group of civilians in the town of Az Zawayda, resulting in the killing of four civilians and the injury of 12 others. Israeli strikes also bombed a gas station in the town, which led to the killing of seven civilians.
In a separate attack, one civilian was killed and several others were injured in an Israeli shelling that targeted a gathering of people on Al-Mansoura Street in the Shuja’iyya area.
At least two people were also killed and several others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a group of civilians on Al-Lababidi Street, west of Gaza City.
Three more civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a tent in the Hamad City, north of Khan Yunis.
Several civilians were also killed and injured following an Israeli strike on a house belonging to the Al-Danaf family in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, west of Gaza City.
In southern Gaza, at least one civilian was injured in an Israeli drone strike on the Musabeh area, north of Rafah. At the same time, another airstrike targeted the city of Hamad, northwest of Khan Yunis.
Israeli warplanes bombed a house on Awni Daher Street in the center of Rafah, and launched an airstrike on the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Strip.
Four civilians were killed and several others were injured on Thursday evening in Israeli airstrikes that targeted a house south of Gaza City.
WAFA correspondent reported that the bodies of four civilians were brought to the Arab National Hospital following Israeli airstrikes that struck the home of the Habib family on Al-Maghribi Street in the Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
He added that the Israeli military also struck the Abu Aida intersection in the same neighborhood and shelled a glass factory near the entrance to the northern Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
WEST BANK
Several settlers bulldozed on Thursday large swathes of Palestinians’ lands in Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, according to a local activist.
Activist Osama Makhamreh said that the settlers bulldozed vast areas of land in the Sada Al-Tha’la, in an apparent prelude to seizing it for the benefit of colonial expansion.
Israeli occupation forces demolished the home of Mohammad Talal Farid Abu Yassin, a Palestinian detainee in Israeli prisons, last night in the town of Bal’a, east of Tulkarm.
WAFA correspondent reported that around 30 military vehicles accompanied by two bulldozers broke into the town and surrounded the targeted house in the western neighborhood of Bal’a before proceeding with the demolition.
The house, a two-story building with an additional storage space, was home to Abu Yassin and his family. The family had been forced to evacuate after receiving a demolition notice last week. The notice also warned of a ban on rebuilding on the site.
Abu Yassin was detained by Israeli occupation forces in January 2024 from his residence.
The Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission has reported that Israeli authorities carried out 52 demolitions in November 2024, targeting 63 structures, including 27 inhabited homes, two uninhabited buildings, and 17 agricultural facilities
LEBANON
Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes on three areas in southern Lebanon on Thursday, continuing violations of the cease-fire agreement that went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024.
Israeli warplanes struck the Barij area on the northern outskirts of Iqlim Al-Tuffah in the Nabatieh District, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.
In another airstrike, Israel targeted the area between Zhalta and Jbaa in the Nabatieh District, southern Lebanon, the NNA reported, adding that in the third strike of the day, Israel targeted Mount Al-Rihan in the Jezzine District, southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military claimed in a statement that its warplanes “destroyed medium-range rocket launch platforms used by Hezbollah at a military site belonging to the organization in southern Lebanon.”
“Another military site in the Nabatieh area, alongside additional rocket launch platforms, was also targeted,” according to the statement.
Early on Thursday, an Israeli patrol entered the town of Beit Lif in southern Lebanon for the first time since the cease-fire went into effect on Nov. 27.
The latest breaches brought the number of Israeli violations of the cease-fire deal to 349, according to an Anadolu tally based on figures released by the Lebanese authorities.
Under the cease-fire terms, Israel is required to withdraw its forces south of the Blue Line—a de facto border—in phases, while the Lebanese army is to deploy in southern Lebanon within 60 days.
SYRIA
Israeli warplanes launched an airstrike on Tel al-Shahem, southwest of the Syrian capital Damascus, on Thursday, local sources told Anadolu.
The sources said the targeted site had been used as a military base by the Bashar al-Assad regime before its fall.
Loud explosions were heard in Damascus during the strike, the sources added.
Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia after anti-regime groups took control of Damascus on Dec. 8, ending the Baath Party’s regime, which had been in power since 1963.
The takeover came after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters captured key cities in a lightning offensive that lasted less than two weeks. A new administration led by Ahmed al-Sharaa has now taken charge.
The Israeli army has intensified its attacks on Syrian territory since Assad’s fall, targeting military infrastructure and facilities while expanding control over the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel has occupied most of the Golan Heights since the 1967 Middle East war. After the Assad regime’s downfall, Tel Aviv seized the demilitarized zone in Syria’s Quneitra province and declared the collapse of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
[Photo: Palestinian mourns for her near and dear ones killed by the Israeli Defence Forces bombings on Maghazi refugee camp. Dead bodies are brought to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for burial in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on January 2, 2025. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra/AA]
