Seventeen people have been killed and others injured in new Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reported on Wednesday.
These included 15 people, including children, who died in the shelling of a residential building in northern Jabaliya, according to the WAFA news agency.
Two more people were killed when a building in Al-Bureij in the central part of the coastal region was shelled. The information could not initially be independently verified.
An Israeli military spokesman said that the reports were being checked.
The military as usual emphasized that it is fighting against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties.
According to Palestinian reports, more than 45,500 people have been killed in Gaza since the war started with the Hamas-led massacre of around 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Meanwhile, Hamas again fired rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip on New Year’s Eve, according to the Israeli military.
Two projectiles were launched from the centre of the sealed-off coastal region at the southern Israeli town of Netivot. One was intercepted and the other hit an open area, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
There were no reports of casualties in the attack, which Hamas said it staged. Shortly beforehand, warning sirens sounded again in Israel.
According to the IDF, a workshop for the manufacture of rockets and weapons had also been discovered and destroyed in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
During the operations over the course of a month, troops also found medium and longer-range rockets there, it said.
“As part of their operations, the troops also eliminated terrorists and dismantled Hamas terrorist infrastructure in the area,” the military said.
Israel conducts 1,400 airstrikes in December alone
Also on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it conducted more than 1,400 airstrikes on targets in Gaza in December alone, marking an average of 45 per day.
The attacks were carried out by fighter jets, helicopters and drones, the IDF said, based on information provided by ground troops.
The targets included Fighters from Hamas and its allies, tunnels, observation and sniper positions and weapons depots, it added.
Israel has been criticized internationally for the high number of casualties among the Palestinian civilian population.
West Bank car ramming slightly injures one Israeli soldier
Meanwhile over in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an Israeli soldier was slightly injured in a car attack in the area of the village of Dayr Qadis, 20 kilometres west of Ramallah, the IDF reported on Wednesday on its Telegram channel.
A group of soldiers was in the area when the perpetrator drove a vehicle at high speed towards them, the IDF said. The man then attempted to flee, but the soldiers “neutralized” him with gunshots, the army said.
Normally, the term “neutralized” means that the person was killed, but the Times of Israel reported, citing rescue services, that the suspect sustained severe injuries.
