Israeli strikes kill at least 20 Palestinians across Gaza on New Year | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

At least 20 Palestinians, including children, were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza New Yearas makeshift shelters for displaced people across the Strip flooded after several days of heavy rain.

Attacks were reported on Wednesday in Jabalia in northern Gaza, the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that four children and a woman were among the dead. At least 10 more Palestinians are missing and believed to be under the rubble.

“Fifteen people were killed and more than 20 were injured in a massacre after midnight at a house where displaced people lived in the town of Jabalia,” Gaza Civil Defense Agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.

A relative of some of the victims said that the first team is still searching for survivors. “The house turned into a pile of rubble,” said Jibri Abu Warda.

“It was a massacre with body parts of children and women scattered everywhere. They were sleeping when the house was bombed,” said Abu Warda. “No one knows why they targeted the house. They were all civilians.”

A woman and a child were killed in a nighttime attack in the Bureij refugee camp, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, which received the bodies, said.

The third strike in Khan Younis killed three people, according to Nasser Hospital and European Hospital, which received the bodies.

The Civil Defense Agency said it had found it difficult to respond to calls for help from families due to intense Israeli bombardment over the past few days.

“Those who are besieged in the areas of incursion are suffering from complete lack of means of livelihood. The suspension of our services has completely affected the lives of citizens who are exposed to Israeli bombardment,” a member of the civil defense told Al Jazeera.

“The new year arrives in Gaza, not with joy or hope, but with the noise of fighter jets, drones and the sounds of eardrum-shattering explosions,” said Al Jazeera journalist Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

Israel’s war against Gaza has killed at least 45,553 Palestinians and wounded 108,379 since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.

“It’s not just the Israeli bombs and forced displacement that have overwhelmed the Palestinians, but also the seriously cold weather. Many of them are in tents, without warm winter clothes, and they are trying to solve all this with primitive heating methods,” said Abu Azzoum.

Days of heavy rain have flooded hundreds of makeshift shelters across the enclave, heaping more misery on forcibly displaced Palestinians as Israel continues to restrict the entry of humanitarian aid. There are at least six infants died of cold the last days.

“We don’t sleep for three days for fear that our children will get sick because of the winter, as well as for fear that missiles will fall on us,” said Samah Darabieh, a woman displaced from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and now living in Beit Lahia.

During its 15-month assault on Gaza, Israeli forces routinely besieged and attacked medical facilities housing both patients and displaced families.

“Two days ago they bombed Al-Wafaa hospital, which is behind us, and the shrapnel fell here,” Darabieh said.

Last week, Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, forcibly evacuating medical staff and patients from the facility and arresting the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safi, whose whereabouts are still unknown.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is “suffering from a suffocating siege, as the operating and surgical wards, laboratory, maintenance department, ambulances and warehouses have been completely burnt,” the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The United Nations said Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza had pushed its health system to the “brink of total collapse” and that Israel’s justifications for Palestinian armed groups’ use of health facilities were “vague, broad” and “contrary to publicly available information”.

Israel’s continued assault on Gaza has drawn increasing international condemnation, with officials and human rights groups labeling the attacks and blocking aid deliveries as acts of genocide.

In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a charge of genocide at the International Court of Justice over its deadly war on Gaza.