Gaza Rockets Strike Israel: Casualties Rise on January 3

Israel claimed three rockets were fired at its territory on Friday from the Gaza Strip, where rescuers said at least 12 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli attacks.

The rockets were the latest in a string of recent launches from the devastated Palestinian area, with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatening of even harsher retaliation if the attacks persisted.

According to the IDF, one of Friday’s missiles “fell adjacent to the community of Nir Am, and the second projectile fell in an open area”.

Earlier in the day, it was reported that another rocket fired from Gaza had activated sirens near Beeri.

There were no injuries recorded from the launches.

Meanwhile, first responders in Gaza have retrieved the bodies of 12 Palestinians, “including several children,” who were killed in air attacks on Gaza City, the center Maghazi refugee camp, and the southern city of Rafah, according to Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence.

“Friday was a harsh day for the residents of Gaza, particularly in Gaza City, due to the continuous Israeli bombardment,” a source told AFP.

Bassal stated that ten of the fatalities happened in strikes on northern and central Gaza, with two in the south, and that others were injured throughout the region.

According to a statement issued by the Israeli military, “the Israeli air force struck approximately 40 Hamas terrorist gathering points” in Gaza over the last day.

According to the report, several of the targets “were embedded in areas that previously served as schools”.

Bassal refuted the military’s statements, accusing Israeli soldiers of “committing massacres under the pretext of the presence of militants”.

He further said that the IDF were “preventing food and drinking water from reaching dozens of medical staff, patients, and the injured” at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

He said his agency had received panic calls from the hospital since Thursday, and that the institution was “nearly destroyed.”

It’s just a pile of rubble and walls; there’s no hospital.”

The Israeli army has conducted intense raids in Gaza’s north since October 6, claiming it aims to keep Hamas fighters from regrouping there.

On Friday, the army reported that one of its brigades had been active in the northern town of Beit Hanoun over the past week, conducting raids and eliminating “armed terrorist cells”.

Bassal estimated that 10,000 people remained in the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, down from between 150,000 and 200,000 before the war.

Most of those who fled the area went to Gaza City in the territory’s centre.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

According to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, Israel’s retaliatory reaction has killed at least 45,581 individuals in Gaza, the majority of them are civilians, figures deemed reliable by the United Nations.

On Friday, the Israeli military also shot down a missile and a drone launched from Yemen, the latest in a string of attacks against Israel in recent weeks.

Much of Yemen is controlled by Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who have fired missiles and drones toward Israel, as well as ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, claiming support with Palestinians during the Gaza conflict.

Israel has also attacked Yemen, attacking Sanaa’s international airport at the end of December.

AFP