Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 1, 2024:
Latest updates
- Israel has rejected South Africa’s recent case filed in the International Court of Justice against Israel.
- The Israeli government voted on Sunday to postpone municipal elections, originally scheduled for January 30, to February 27, according to local media. A total of 688 candidates for 144 cities and towns are currently serving in army reserves.
- Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reiterated his call for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza. “They want to leave. They have been living in a ghetto for 75 years and are in need,” said Smotrich.
- Shipping giant Maersk announced a temporary halt in operations through the Red Sea on Sunday following a missile attack on a vessel by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Human impact and fighting:
- The Government Media Office in Gaza says it recorded 1,825 Israeli “massacres” in the strip in the past 85 days. Israeli attacks resulted in 28,822 people killed or missing, including 9,100 children, the Government Media Office added.
- Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has said it has fired at least 20 rockets towards Israel. This comes as Israel says it’s going to prolong its war on Gaza, reported Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan from East Jerusalem.
- Turkey’s Ministry of Health posted on X on Sunday that it received 292 wounded and sick from Gaza for treatment.
- The Israeli attacks in Gaza continue. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says that several people have been killed and injured during Israeli shelling in the Beach Street area of Khan Younis, south Gaza.
- At least 68 Palestinians were killed in new Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Sunday.
- Former Palestinian Minister of Awqaf and Religious Affairs Yousef Salameh was killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted his home in central Gaza on Sunday, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.
- Israeli warplanes have also targeted civilians in the eastern Gaza district of Zeitoun, Wafa reported.
- Israeli attacks have also affected civilians in the Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps in Gaza, reported Wafa.
New Year’s Eve protests:
- Residents of Ramallah took to the streets on New Year’s Eve to demonstrate in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan reported from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
- Protest actions for Palestine on New Year’s Eve were also held in communities around the world, including Pakistan, Turkey and Iraq.
- The UN refugee agency, UNRWA, said that the year 2023 brought devastation and tragedy to Palestinian refugees on Sunday.
- The UN’s World Food Program reiterated its call for a long-term ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian aid access in the beleaguered Gaza strip in an X post on Saturday.
As we count down to a new year, there is a different kind of countdown in #Gaza.
We are racing against time to avert a complete collapse of even the most basic services and starvation for millions.
Only a long-term ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access can end this. pic.twitter.com/AU7EPHTAyn
— World Food Programme (@WFP) December 30, 2023
Raids in the West Bank
- Israeli forces have continued to raid areas in the occupied West Bank including el-Bireh city in the south of Qalqilya; Biet Iba west of Nablus; Beit Ummar north of Hebron and Barta’a in Jenin.
- Wafa reports that Israeli forces injured a young Palestinian man with live bullets and detained a man in his 60s, along with his son, during an Israeli military raid on the town of Bani Naim, east of Hebron.
- Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds in Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, Wafa reports.
- Wafa also reported that Israeli occupation forces on Sunday evening detained two teenagers — Nasr Jihad Mansour, 17, and Mohammad Rizq Mansour, 16 — from the town of Deir Istiya, northwest of Salfit, which is in the central West Bank.
