GAZA WAR WILL LAST ALL YEAR, ISRAELI ARMY SAYS
▶ Troops are being withdrawn from enclave to bolster Lebanon border
Israel’s military said yesterday that its war in Gaza would continue throughout 2024, as it began withdrawing some of its forces from the Palestinian enclave after nearly three months of strikes and fighting.
The decision to release five brigades from combat duty follows a sharp drop in rocket launches by militants as Israeli troops increase control of territory, said military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari.
“The objectives of the war require prolonged fighting, and we are preparing accordingly,” he said.
The move will allow returning troops to receive further training, while reservists will be able to return to work to prop up the economy, he said.
“These adjustments are aimed at ensuring the planning and preparations for 2024,” Admiral Hagari said.
“The IDF needs to plan ahead, out of the understanding that we will be needed for additional missions and continued fighting during the entire coming year.”
According to an Israeli official quoted by Reuters, the withdrawal will also free up units in case of an escalation on the northern border with Lebanon, where there have been daily exchanges of fire with Iranbacked Hezbollah.
Israel continued its bombardment of Gaza as the new year began, killing at least 156 people in strikes across the enclave over a 24-hour period.
Heavy fighting was also reported in the southern city of Khan Younis and parts of central Gaza.
Militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and surrounding areas overnight.
But overall, the number of launches has dropped from an average of 75 a day in early December to 14 in the final week of the month, Israeli military figures show.
The Gaza war began when Hamas militants attacked Israeli settlements on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and abducting 240.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes and ground offensive have killed about 22,000 people.
The war has also brought about an increase in violence in the occupied West Bank, as Israeli security forces increased raids and arrests and settlers were emboldened to carry out more brazen attacks on the Palestinian population.
The past year was the “most violent” on record for settler attacks “in both the number of incidents and their severity”, with at least 10 Palestinians killed and dozens of homes torched, Israeli human rights watchdog Yesh Din said yesterday.
Settler violence surged after October 7, according to the group, which began monitoring attacks against Palestinians in 2006.
About 490,000 settlers live among about three million Palestinians in the West Bank, in settlements considered illegal under international law.
“The first two months since October 7 were particularly violent, with Yesh Din documenting 242 settler violence incidents,” the group said.
“Hundreds of Israelis raided Palestinian villages, setting fire to dozens of homes and vehicles.”
At least 317 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces and settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, the Palestinian Health Ministry has said.
Thousands of doses of vaccines against childhood diseases have begun entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said yesterday.
Health Minister Mai Al Kaila said the inoculations would be used to protect Gazan children against ailments such as polio, measles, rubella and mumps.
More than 16,800 children have missed at least one routine vaccination since the IsraelGaza war began on October 7, increasing the risk of outbreaks of “deadly but preventable diseases, such as measles and polio”, the UN said in a report on Sunday.
Other diseases have also started to spread, the world body said, with cases of meningitis, skin rashes and chickenpox recorded, as well as “particularly alarming rates of respiratory infections and diarrhoea in children under five”.
The UN children’s agency, Unicef, said it delivered at least 600,000 doses of vaccines for Gaza.
Gaza’s medical infrastructure has been devastated during the war, which began when Hamas – the militant group that governs the territory – attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.
Most of the enclave’s population has been displaced and thousands are living in crowded conditions with poor sanitation, contributing to the spread of disease.
The fighting continued as the world welcomed the new year, with Israeli forces carrying out strikes across Gaza, and Hamas and allied armed groups launching rockets into Israel.
Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, reported firing a barrage of rockets towards Tel Aviv. Israel reported no casualties from the attack.
Yesterday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 156 people had been killed and 246 injured by 13 Israeli strikes over the past two days.
The death toll in the enclave is about 22,000, Gaza ministry spokesman Dr Ashraf Al Qudra said in his daily media briefing, while the number of those injured in Israeli strikes has risen to about 57,700. According to
Residents of Gaza city’s Sheikh Radwan district say Israeli tanks withdrew yesterday after 10 days of bombardment
the ministry’s tally, 70 per cent of the casualties are women and children.
Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al Dahdouh, who lost his family during the war, said his hope for this year is for the conflict, and the killing of innocent people, to stop.
“I hope all the pain we have experienced comes to an end,” he told The National. “As journalists, we pay the price twice: once because we are journalists, and again because we are part of this community.
“We have been displaced,
lost our loved ones and lost our homes.”
Noor Arafa, who has been documenting the war from Khan Younis, said she hoped to celebrate her approaching birthday in an atmosphere of peace.
She also hopes to finish writing a book.
“I was supposed to complete it by the end of 2023, so I hope to finish it with the beginning of the new year,” she said.
Residents of the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza city, in the northern part of the enclave where Israel’s offensive was initially focused, said tanks withdrew yesterday after what they called the most intense 10 days of bombardment since the war began.
“The tanks were very near, we could see them outside the houses,” said Nasser, a resident of the area. “We couldn’t get out to fill water.”
Tanks also pulled out of Gaza city’s Al Mina district and parts of Tel Al Hawa, while retaining some positions in the suburb controlling the enclave’s main coastal road, residents said.