By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, The Muslim News):
GAZA
Around 21 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, taking the overall death toll since last year to 45,338, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Tuesday.
A ministry statement added that some 107,764 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 21 people and injured 51 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.
At least 14,500 Palestinian children have been killed in Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip since last year, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.
“One child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short,” UNRWA said in a statement.
“Killing children cannot be justified. Those who survive are scarred physically and emotionally.”
Deprived of learning, the UN agency said, Palestinian boys and girls in Gaza sift through the rubble.
“The clock is ticking for these children. They are losing their lives, their futures and mostly their hope.”
At least three Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medics said.
Witnesses said an Israeli quadcopter drone fired a missile into a gathering of civilians in northern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
One person was killed and another injured in the attack, a medical source said.
Several civilians were killed and several others were injured on Tuesday evening in an Israeli airstrike targeting a group of civilians in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, northwest of Gaza City.
Israeli warplanes also targeted sites near Beit Lahia Street in the northern Gaza Strip. In addition, an Israeli drone dropped bombs on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern part of Gaza.
The attack resulted in multiple casualties.
Two more people were killed and others injured in another strike targeting a civil defense center in al-Daraj neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, Wafa agency said.
An Israeli drone strike targeted a group of civilians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, leaving at least one person dead, a medical source said.
Witnesses said that a quadcopter drone fired a missile into a gathering of civilians in northern Rafah.
The medical source said that one person was killed and another injured in the attack.
The Israeli army continued to target hospitals on Tuesday as Tel Aviv pressed ahead with a deadly offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, according to witnesses.
Witnesses said Israeli forces laid a siege around the Indonesian Hospital in eastern Jabalia amid heavy gunfire around the facility.
The army ordered the medical staff, patients, and displaced civilians taking shelter at the hospital to evacuate the medical facility and head to Gaza City immediately, they added.
An Israeli artillery shell also hit the Al-Awda Hospital in Tel al-Zaatar area in Jabalia, witnesses said.
The attack came hours after the hospital administration warned of relentless Israeli airstrikes in its vicinity, causing several fires.
The Israeli army has detonated remote-controlled explosives in the barely functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Beit Lahiya, injuring at least 20 patients and medical staff.
Also in Beit Lahiya, Israeli soldiers are forcing wounded and sick people to leave the Indonesian Hospital, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
A Civil Defence statement on Telegram says another rescue worker has been injured in a direct attack on the centre of the rescue service in the Daraj area of Gaza City.
“The Israeli occupation targeted the same centre on September 25, injuring four Civil Defence members, and recently targeted the Nuseirat Civil Defence Centre and martyred four,” it said.
“This brutal Israeli attack confirms to the world that the Israeli occupation continues to kill humanitarian service providers and that it will not hesitate to target others,” the statement added.
WEST BANK
At least two Palestinians, including a woman, have been killed in the Israeli assault on the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Khawla Abdo, a 53-year-old woman, was killed by shelling from Israeli forces while Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem, an 18-year-old man, was shot in the abdomen and chest, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military said earlier that it had killed one Palestinian in the operation in Tulkarem and its forces had arrested 18 wanted individuals and confiscated dozens of weapons.
Two Palestinians, including a teenager, were injured on Tuesday evening by Israeli forces’ gunfire following a military incursion into the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, according to Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Nablus
PRCS in Nablus reported that its teams provided first-aid to a fifteen-year-old teenager, who was shot in the foot, as well as to two young men in their early 20s after they sustained gunshot wounds to the thigh and knee by Israeli forces’ live fire.
The injured were transferred to a hospital for further treatment.
WAFA correspondent reported that Israeli forces stormed the town of Beit Furik, amid the heavy firing of live ammunition and tear gas canisters, souring confrontations in the area.
The forces also raided the “Balsam” Medical Center in the town.
Israeli forces also raided other areas across the occupied territory, including Nablus and Ramallah to arrest what they called “wanted” Palestinians.
Over the past few years, the Israeli military has conducted regular raids in the West Bank, which have escalated with the beginning of the war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. Palestinians have also been violently attacked by illegal Israeli settlers.
At least 825 Palestinians have since been killed and over 6,500 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, Israeli army rounded up at least 15 more Palestinians in fresh military raids in the occupied West Bank, according to prisoners’ affairs groups on Tuesday.
An injured person and former prisoners were among the detainees in the raids that targeted Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tubas, Tulkarem and Ramallah, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
“The raids were marked by abuse, threats against detainees and their families, and acts of vandalism and destruction on citizens’ homes,” it added.
Israeli forces detained on Tuesday a Palestinian minor during a military raid into the town of Tell, southwest of Nablus, according to local sources
Sources reported that Israeli forces stormed the town of Tell amid the firing of live ammunition, spurring confrontations in the area.
During the confrontations, a minor was detained after being physically assaulted by the Israeli troops.
The new arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October last year to over 12,100, including those who were released after being arrested, according to Palestinian figures.
The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
Israeli occupation bulldozers continued to raze vast areas of land in the village of Haris, west of Salfit, and uprooted dozens of olive trees.
Citizen Ahmed Daoud said that the Israeli occupation bulldozers have been razing since the morning hours, for more than two dunums in the Dhahr area on the western side of the village, for the benefit of the Israeli company Mekorot, which extends water lines to the illegail outpost of Barkan, which is built on citizens’ lands.
Daoud added that the occupation bulldozers caused the destruction of the land and uprooted dozens of olive trees, estimated to be between 10-12 years old, noting that the occupation army expelled him while he was heading to the land, and prevented him from being there, indicating that the lands in that area are surrounded by the industrial colonies of Netafim and Barakata.
YEMEN
The Israeli army claimed on Tuesday to have intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, marking the third attack by the Houthi [Ansar Allah] group within a week.
A military statement said air-raid sirens were activated in central Israel, including Tel Aviv, after rocket fire from Yemen.
The army said the missile was shot down before entering Israeli airspace by the long-range Arrow air defense system.
According to the Israeli public broadcaster KAN, “millions of Israelis” ran to shelters after air-raid sirens were activated in central Israel.
An Israeli woman was seriously injured while running to a shelter, KAN said.
The Houthi group, for its part, confirmed that it had fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at a military site in Jaffa in central Israel.
Military spokesman Yahya Saree said the strike “achieved its objectives,” without providing any further details.
On Monday, the Yemeni group said that it launched two combat drones towards military targets in Jaffa and Ashkelon in Israel.
The attack came two days after at least 20 Israelis were injured on Saturday when a missile launched from Yemen landed in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area in central Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to act against the Houthis in Yemen.
According to Israeli media, the Houthis have launched over 200 ballistic missiles and 170 drones at Israeli targets since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has been quoted by the Times of Israel newspaper as promising that “the heads of the Houthis” would roll just like the ones of “[Yahya] Sinwar in Gaza, [Ismail] Haniyeh in Tehran and [Hassan] Nasrallah in Beirut”, referring to the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Israel has hit civilian and military infrastructure in Yemen, without targeting specific individuals.
“Just as we took care of Sinwar in Gaza, Haniyeh in Tehran and Nasrallah in Beirut, we will deal with the heads of the Houthis in Sanaa or anywhere in Yemen,” Katz said while visiting an Arrow air defence system battery used to shoot down the Houthi missile over Israel overnight, according to the Times of Israel.
“We will act both against their infrastructure and against them to remove the threat,” he said, adding that “whoever sponsors the Houthi terror in Hodeidah or Sanaa will pay the full price” as well.
GERMANY
Germany approved further arms exports to Israel worth more than €30 million ($31.2 million) over the past few weeks, German newsweekly Der Spiegel reported Tuesday.
Overall, Germany gave green light to weapon exports to Israel worth more than €160 million over the course of the year, despite growing international criticism of what human rights groups label genocidal actions in the Gaza Strip.
According to Der Spiegel, the latest arms export figures were released by the Ministry of Economics following an inquiry.
While the German government has fulfilled many of Israel’s arms requests, it has not delivered any goods classified as weapons of war, such as artillery or tank ammunition.
Based on Der Spiegel’s reporting, the government in Tel Aviv made a specific request for such weapons of war shortly after the Hamas attack in October 2023. But so far there has been no green light from Berlin.
The German deliveries include transmissions for the Israeli Merkava tanks are made in Germany after Berlin’s approval of the deliveries in the summer.
The delivery of weapons which can be used in Gaza was halted in March after Nicaragua brought a case against Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of aiding “genocide” in Gaza.
[Photo: Palestinian residents examine the debris of the mosque destroyed in the Israeli army’s attack on the Beni Suheyla region, east of the city of Khan Younis on December 24, 2024 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Photojournalist: Hani Alshaer/AA]
