By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, The Muslim News):
GAZA
At least 32 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 45,259, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Sunday.
A ministry statement added that some 107,627 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 32 people and injured 54 others in four 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.
Israeli forces have bombed a displacement camp in south Gaza’s al-Mawasi, killing at least seven and leaving tents in flames. Al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis, had been designated as a “safe zone” in the past by Israel.
Electricity was completely cut off at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Sunday after Israeli drone strikes on the facility’s power generators and fuel tanks.
According to witnesses, Israeli drones struck power generators and fuel tanks at the hospital in the town of Beit Lahia, leaving it entirely without power.
Marwan Al-Hams, the director of field hospitals in Gaza’s Health Ministry, described the situation at the hospital as “dire,” saying that communication with medical staff has been cut off.
According to a medical source at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, eight bodies, including that of two children and two women, along with several injured individuals, were brought to the hospital following an Israeli airstrike on the Musa Bin Nusair School in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza City.
Eyewitnesses reported that airstrikes on the school, which housed displaced families, caused fires and extensive damage to the building.
Five Palestinians, including four children, were killed when an Israeli airstrike targeted a gathering of civilians in the Jabalia al-Nazla area in northern Gaza, he added.
In another attack, medical sources reported that four people were killed and several others injured when Israeli jets targeted a vehicle in Gaza City’s Al-Jala Street.
Two more people were killed and seven others injured in an Israeli strike targeting a group of civilians in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said.
Sixteen people were also injured in a drone strike on a school sheltering displaced civilians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, they added.
A Palestinian man and his wife were also killed by an Israeli helicopter attack on their apartment in central Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Additionally, three Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in eastern Rafah in southern Gaza, medics said.
Five people were critically injured after an explosion caused by unmanned robotic devices in the Sheikh Zayed area in northern Gaza, a medical source said.
Meanwhile, the northern Gaza Strip continued to face intense bombardment and shelling throughout the night into Sunday, particularly in the Jabalia refugee camp, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun cities, with ongoing strikes around Kamal Adwan Hospital.
WEST BANK
Several Palestinians suffocated by tear gas on Sunday evening during confrontations with Israeli occupation forces in the village of Yatma, south of Nablus, according to local sources.
Sources reported that Israeli infantry forces raided the village of Yatma, leading to confrontations, during which soldiers fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters at Palestinian residents, causing several suffocation cases among them.
Illegal Israeli settlers Sunday established a new illegal outpost in the Qaoun Plain west of Bardala village in the northern Jordan Valley, according to a local official.
Mutaz Bsharat, an official in charge of monitoring Israeli colonial activities in Tubas and northern Jordan Valley Governorate, reported that settlers began establishing the new outpost today, bringing a tractor, a water tank, animal feed and around 30 cattle into the area.
The outpost was established near a military checkpoint that was set up by Israeli forces about two months ago.
More than eight illegal settler outposts, the majority of which are used for agriculture, were established in the northern Jordan Valley. These outposts enable settlers to seize vast areas of pastoral land, harass Palestinian shepherds, steal their livestock and raid their tents in an attempt to force them off the land.
Israeli forces Sunday demolished two apartments in Beit Safafa, a town southeast of occupied Jerusalem, according to local sources.
The two apartments, constructed in the 1970s, were destroyed by Israeli authorities under the pretext of opening a new road at the site.
The apartments belonged to a Palestinian father and his son and were home to 15 family members.
Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian properties today in the Um al-Simsim area near the town of Dhahiriya, south of Hebron, according to local sources.
Samer Abu Sharekh, a local Palestinian resident, told WAFA that settlers destroyed his agricultural room, uprooted its windows and contents, and damaged water tanks. He reported that all of his belongings in the area were attacked.
Israeli occupation forces have detained at least six Palestinians, including a child, during a series of raids across the West Bank between Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and the Palestinian Authority Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs, the detentions took place in the governorates of Nablus, Tubas, Tulkarm, and Ramallah, amid widespread incursions and heavy-handed tactics by Israeli soldiers.
The raids were accompanied by extensive searches, house demolitions, and the detention of several individuals without charge.
Among those detained was a young child, drawing further concern over the Israeli military’s treatment of minors during its assaults in the West Bank.
YEMEN
The Yemeni Houthi [Ansar Allah] group claimed Sunday to have shot down a US F-18 fighter jet in an attack on an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea.
Military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement that Houthi forces successfully “foiled a US-UK attack on Yemen.”
“Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and several of its accompanying destroyers were targeted as the aggressive attack on Yemen began last night,” he said.
Saree explained that the operation “was carried out using eight cruise missiles and 17 drones, resulting in the downing of an F-18 fighter jet while the destroyers attempted to intercept the Yemeni drones and missiles.”
Early on Sunday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that a US Navy F/A-18 fighter jet was downed by “friendly fire” over the Red Sea.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on Yemen’s coastal city of Al-Hudaydah and the capital Sanaa in retaliation for Houthi drone and missile attacks.
The attacks were the third wave of airstrikes launched by Tel Aviv against Houthi-held sites in Yemen since July.
Israeli airstrikes on Al-Hudaydah Port in western Yemen have caused $313 million in losses since July, the Houthi group said.
The strikes have damaged the port’s cranes, power station, and tugboats, the Houthi-run Red Sea Ports Corporation said in a statement.
“The crimes of destroying Yemeni ports are flagrant violations of the principles and provisions of international law and the United Nations Charter,” it added.
The Israeli army launched airstrikes on Thursday on Al-Hudaydah and the capital Sanaa in retaliation for Houthi drone and missile attacks.
The attacks were the third wave of airstrikes launched by Tel Aviv against Houthi-held sites in Yemen since July.
The Houthis have targeted Israeli cargo ships or those associated with Tel Aviv in the Red Sea with missiles and drones in a show of support with the Gaza Strip, where over 45,200 people have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war since Oct. 7, 2023.
[Photo: Search and rescue operation to find bodies continue following Israeli attacks on house belongings the Abu Semra family in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on December 22, 2024. The building was completely destroyed and surrounding houses were damaged after attack. Photojournalist :Ashraf Amra/AA]
