As the new year began, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza persisted, devastating the besieged enclave’s communities and refugee camps, which were reduced to ruins by weeks of grueling bombing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted that the conflict would take “many more months” to conclude.

In addition to raising further doubts about a potential two-state solution, Netanyahu’s remarks indicate that the campaign that has killed hundreds of people and leveled most of Gaza would not stop. He also promised to return Israeli sovereignty over the enclave’s border with Egypt.

The Israeli military announced on Sunday that it would support the economy as it gets ready for a protracted conflict by releasing certain reservists who were called up to fight Hamas in Gaza.

Air strikes hit the central Gazan neighborhoods of al-Maghazi and al-Bureij, killing ten people in one house and forcing many to escape to Rafah on the Egyptian border from the front lines where Israeli tanks are engaged in combat with Hamas fighters.

Overnight, rockets fired from Gaza raced toward central Israel, setting off sirens across the nation’s central and southern regions. Israeli television broadcast images of many interceptions. There were no direct hit reports. The onslaught, according to Hamas’ armed wing, was a reaction to “massacres against civilians” occurring in Gaza.

In a Red Crescent video released on Sunday, rescuers in central Gaza were seen struggling in the dark to remove an injured child from blazing debris. According to health officials, an attack on the town of al-Mughraqa outside of Gaza City claimed six lives. They said that one person was murdered and several others were injured in a separate attack on a residence in Khan Younis.

Palestinians in Gaza prayed for a ceasefire as 2023 came to an end, but many didn’t think much would change in the coming year.

“Tonight, fireworks will light up the skies across several nations, and happy laughter will permeate the atmosphere. Israeli tank shells and missiles are constantly falling from the skies over Gaza, striking defenseless, destitute people, according to Zainab Khalil, 57, a resident of northern Gaza who is currently living in Rafah.

Israel’s military has declared its intention to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian resistance organization that on October 7, 2023, carried off an unexpected cross-border attack on Israeli cities, killing 1,139 settlers and taking 240 hostages, according to Israel’s twice-revised death toll.

According to Gaza’s health authorities, Israel’s air and artillery assault has killed over 21,800 people, driven nearly all of the country’s 2.3 million residents from their homes, and left thousands more suspected dead under the debris. 70% of Gaza’s fatalities, according to casualty estimates from the Palestinian Health Ministry, are women and minors.

Following the incident on October 7, Israel blockaded most food, fuel, and medications. It declared on Sunday that, following security checks in Cyprus, it was prepared to let ships from several Western nations to transport aid directly to Gaza’s borders.

Many of the tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing to Rafah, according to Gemma Connell, an official with the UN humanitarian organization OCHA, have nothing to their name and nowhere to sleep.

“I just am so fearful that the amount of deaths that we’ve been seeing is going to increase exponentially both because of this renewed offensive but also because of these conditions which are literally unbelievable,” she stated.

“Where are people going?”

Israel’s principal ally, the United States, has urged it to halt the conflict, while some European nations have expressed concern over the degree of suffering being endured by Palestinian civilians.

There won’t be any softening anytime soon, though, based on Netanyahu’s remarks from Saturday, when he defended his security record in the face of the October 7 incident and declared he would not leave despite opinion polls showing his administration is widely unpopular.

According to Netanyahu, “the war is at its height” and Israel must recover control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, which is currently teeming with evacuees from the devastation that has spread throughout the territory.

Israel’s 2005 pullout from Gaza may be de facto reversed if the border is retaken, creating new concerns about the enclave’s destiny and the likelihood of a Palestinian state.

Washington stated that after the conflict ends, Israel should permit a Palestinian government to rule Gaza.
In terms of what post-conflict Gaza needs to look like, we just take a fundamentally different position here, as national security spokeswoman for the White House John Kirby stated on ABC television.

Concerns regarding the objectives of the offensive were stoked on Sunday by Israel’s hard-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who demanded that Palestinians evacuate Gaza to make room for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom.”

That ran counter to the official line of the Israeli government, which states that Gazans will be allowed to go back to their homes. Despite being left out of the key war cabinet, Smotrich and other conservative coalition ministers have pressed to be included in decisions regarding the fight.

In his final remarks as Israel’s foreign minister before taking up the energy ministry on Sunday, Eli Cohen stated that Hamas’s recent acquisition of weapons was most likely due to the border.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh stated on social media that Israel’s decision to retake the border was proof of its intention “to completely return the occupation.”

“We relocated from Khan Younis to this location because we believed Rafah to be safe. Rafah is packed with displaced people and has no room for them,” stated Umme Mohammed, a 45-year-old Palestinian woman taking refuge near the border.

“Where will people go if they control the border?” she questioned, describing it as “a disaster.”

The battle runs the potential of expanding into a larger regional struggle including Iran, an ally of Hamas, and organizations Tehran backs throughout the Middle East.

Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel have been exchanging cross-border gunfire on a regular basis; the Israeli military claimed to have hit targets in Lebanon on Sunday. Attacks by Hezbollah have primarily targeted Israeli troops and borderside sites. By using a diverse array of weapons, the resistance organization has severely compromised Israel’s ability to monitor the border area and resulted in a sizable number of casualties.

While certain factions in Iraq have attacked US targets, Israel has also targeted rebel groups in Syria.

The US Navy reported that the Houthi group, an Iranian-aligned militia in Yemen, assaulted a Maersk cargo ship. The group has been attacking Red Sea commerce for weeks in what it claims is retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza.

According to the military, US naval helicopters pushed the fourth small boat the Houthis had used in their attack on Sunday back to shore and sank three of them.

Israel said that although 174 of its soldiers have died in the combat in Gaza, its operations are progressing, as seen by the destruction of certain Hamas tunnels beneath the enclave.

Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas, who have pledged to put an end to Israel’s settler colonialism, have stated that they will not stop attacking Israeli forces that are present in the enclave

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