Situation at a glance: Hamas fires rockets at Israel on New Year’s Eve

The Islamist Hamas once again fired rockets from the embattled Gaza Strip into Israel on New Year’s Eve. Two bullets were fired at midnight from the center of the cordoned-off coastal area into the southern Israeli town of Netivot, the Israeli army said. One rocket was intercepted and the other hit an open area. There were no reports of injuries. Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

The warning sirens blared once again in Israel because of the attack. Shortly afterwards, residents of the area from where the rockets were fired were asked in Arabic by an Israeli military spokesman via the online platform X to “immediately” go to the local humanitarian zone because of an expected counterattack.

The Israeli army is also continuing to take massive action against Hamas in the north of the Gaza Strip. Militant Palestinians have also repeatedly fired rockets from there into the Israeli border area in recent days.

Israel: Hamas commander killed in Gaza Strip

Israel’s army meanwhile announced the killing of a Hamas commander who is said to have been a key player in the terrorist attack on Israel’s border towns on October 7, 2023. The commander of the Hamas elite unit “Nukhba” in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza was killed in the humanitarian zone there. He was therefore one of the leaders of the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, where the terrorists committed particularly terrible atrocities on October 7th.

Terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups killed more than 1,200 people in Israel in the massacre and kidnapped around 250 others as hostages to Gaza. The unprecedented attack sparked the Gaza War. Before the drone attack on the commander in Khan Yunis, measures were taken to limit damage to civilians, the Israeli army said. Their information could not initially be independently verified.

UN calls for investigation into attacks on clinics

In its actions against Hamas, Israel’s military repeatedly attacks hospitals in Gaza on the grounds that Islamist positions, weapons depots and fighters are located there. However, Israel has not yet provided any solid evidence of this, according to a report by the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva.

The Israeli military, on the other hand, points out that, for example, after the capture of the largest clinic in the Gaza Strip, the Shifa Hospital in the city of Gaza, Hamas bunkers and tunnels were found directly under the building. This was also publicly proven through corresponding videos and photos. Hamas used parts of the hospital as a retreat and weapons storage facility for years.

Targeted attacks on non-military clinics and disproportionate attacks on civilians are war crimes, the UN human rights office emphasized. If this is part of a systematic attack against the civilian population, it could be considered a crime against humanity, it said.

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for an independent and thorough investigation into the Israeli attacks. “As if the relentless bombing and catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the only place of refuge where Palestinians should feel safe has become a death trap,” he said in Geneva.

The UN Palestinian Relief Agency laments hundreds of deaths

According to the head of the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, at least 745 people have been killed in the organization’s shelters since the start of the war. More than 2,200 others were injured, he wrote on X. There were almost 650 attacks on UNRWA buildings and facilities. More than two thirds of the aid organization’s buildings are damaged or destroyed. 258 employees were killed and at least 20 were in Israeli detention centers.

Israel has long accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas. At the end of October, the Israeli parliament passed a law that prohibits the aid organization from operating on Israeli territory in the future. The ban on activity is due to come into force at the end of this month. This would mean that the aid organization will hardly be able to continue its operations in the Palestinian territories in the future because Israel controls the border crossings.

The situation of the people in Gaza is catastrophic

According to the UN, almost a million people in the Gaza Strip have to spend the winter months without adequate shelter. Even on New Year’s Eve the temperatures were sometimes below ten degrees at night. Aid organizations warn of the precarious living conditions in lower temperatures and an increase in illnesses among children. There have been reports of infant deaths due to hypothermia. Recently, rains led to flooding in tent camps for internally displaced people.

Israelis demand commission of inquiry

It is believed that Hamas continues to hold around 100 hostages in the Gaza Strip. How many of them are still alive is unclear. Efforts to reach a ceasefire and release the hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners have so far been unsuccessful. The anger of the relatives of Hamas victims and survivors of the massacre on October 7, 2023 in Israel is great. According to a report by the Times of Israel, around 1,000 families have written a public letter calling for a state commission of inquiry into the government’s conduct before the terrorist attack.

Many people in Israel accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not yet admitting personal responsibility for the failure of politicians and security forces in connection with the October massacre. Netanyahu, who is facing a corruption trial, does not want to launch an investigation until the end of the Gaza war. Critics repeatedly accuse him of prolonging the war against Hamas in order to remain in office.