Over 20 rockets fired at Israel in midnight barrage by Hamas

Tel Aviv [Israel]: As Israel entered 2024 on Monday, more than 20 rockets were fired by Hamas at southern and central Israel just at the start of the new year, according to The Times of Israel. 

The Iron Dome missile defence system, however, intercepted the majority of them. 
Sirens could be heard in several places around the nation, including in Ashdod, Sderot, and other southern cities, as well as in Rehovot, Ness Ziona, Holon, Lod, and Modiin, The Times of Israel reported. 

There haven’t been any recorded injuries, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, as of yet. 

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), last week asked residents in many parts of central Gaza to leave immediately while its operations against Hamas continue, CNN reported. 
In a message posted in Arabic on X, the IDF urged residents in 15 identified blocks south of Wadi Gaza to move to shelters. The regions include the Al-Bureij refugee camp. 

In its message, the IDF said people in the identified blocks “must immediately move to the shelters in Deir al-Balah. A temporary tactical local suspension of military activities will be imposed for humanitarian purposes in the southern neighbourhood of Deir al-Balah from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm for provisions purposes,” CNN reported. 

The IDF urged people not to move along the central axis, the Salah Al-Din road, due to the fighting in the Khan Younis area of Gaza, according to a CNN report. It said, “The IDF will allow the humanitarian movement of civilians through the bypass axis west of Khan Younis.” 

Meanwhile, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) located and destroyed three terror tunnel shafts belonging to the Hamas terror organisation near the Rantisi Hospital and in the nearby High School on Wednesday. 
The tunnel shafts that the Hamas fighters used are dozens of metres deep and are linked by an underground network that runs beneath the hospital and into Gaza City. “IDF troops are uncovering Hamas’ tunnels inside and around multiple hospitals within Gaza. The Rantisi Hospital is just another terrorist stronghold used to connect and transfer terrorists and weapons throughout Gaza to be used against Israelis,” the IDF wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), after recovering the tunnel. 

In recent weeks, IDF soldiers led by the 162nd Division’s 401st Brigade, in collaboration with Flotilla 13 and the ‘Yahalom’ Unit, discovered and searched three active tunnel shafts near Rantisi Hospital. 

‘Yahalom’ soldiers searched the region, as well as, the shafts and tunnels, employing a variety of methods to map the topography of the tunnels and the linkages between the shafts. Notably, Yahalom is a sayeret unit of the Israeli Combat Engineering Corps of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). 

According to the IDF, this operation revealed that the shafts are connected by a wide underground network passing under the hospital, spanning several kilometres, and leading to strategic points in the heart of Gaza City.