Israel, Palestine enter 2024 with no end in sight to Gaza War

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning that the war begun by Hamas’s October 7 attack will endure for “many months” as Israeli strikes hammered Gaza on Sunday as both sides near the conclusion of a difficult year.

According to the Gaza health ministry, at least forty Palestinians were killed in an overnight blast in Gaza City. Of the bodies retrieved so far, eighteen are buried beneath the rubble. The Gaza Strip is controlled by Hamas.

The Israeli army claimed to have found Hamas tunnels and explosives hidden in a kindergarten in addition to reporting the deaths of about a dozen hostile militants in many ground engagements, airstrikes, and tank attacks.

The UN estimates that 85% of the 2.4 million people in besieged Gaza have been displaced as intense fighting has continued, and it warns of the rising risk of starvation and disease as desperate families seek refuge in homemade tents against the winter cold.

The world has been horrified for months as the protracted Israel-Palestinian conflict has escalated into the worst Gaza war in history following Hamas’s historic strike on October 7.

About 1,140 people were killed in the onslaught, the most of them civilians, when the Palestinian militants breached Gaza’s sophisticated border fence and broke into southern Israel, according to an AFP count based on official numbers.

The unexpected attack, which saw 250 prisoners taken hostage by Hamas operatives and committed atrocities, shocked and enraged Israel and precipitated a catastrophic military reaction.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, at least 21,822 people—mostly women and children—have died in Gaza as a result of heavy shelling and a ground invasion by Israel that began three weeks into the conflict.

It stated that over 55,000 people have been hurt at a time when the majority of Gaza’s hospitals are either damaged and overburdened or out of commission.

According to the Israeli army, 172 of its soldiers have died inside Gaza, and according to Netanyahu, Israeli forces have killed roughly 8,000 “terrorists” in total.

Israel claimed a few days ago that its soldiers had demolished Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar’s bunker in Gaza City, which was linked to an extensive network of tunnels. They have called Sinwar a “dead man walking”.

(With agency inputs)