Eyewitnesses reported that the attacks targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip, the Al-Bureij camp in the center, as well as the eastern areas of the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south.
In the latest field developments, the Israeli occupation army carried out artillery shelling east of the town of Bani Suheila, while a drone dropped a bomb near the main roundabout of the town east of Khan Yunis, in addition to carrying out demolition operations on citizens’ homes east of the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli military vehicles also opened fire towards the tents of displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Rafah city, according to witnesses.
Hours earlier, witnesses reported that Israeli fighter jets had raided the eastern areas of Rafah, coinciding with artillery shelling, amid explosions and intermittent gunfire from Israeli military vehicles.
In the Zeitoun and Shuja'iyya neighborhoods east of Gaza City, the Israeli occupation army launched air raids and artillery shelling, coinciding with the sound of explosions.
“An exceptional year”
For its part, the Gaza government said that 2025 was "exceptionally cruel" due to the Israeli war of extermination, stressing that the next phase should focus on stopping the aggression and moving towards humanitarian recovery and starting reconstruction.
The Government Media Office in Gaza stressed, in a statement on the first day of 2026, that the urgent priority is to end the genocide, lift the siege, and achieve a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
He explained that the year 2025 passed for the Palestinians in Gaza amidst "systematic killing policies, forced starvation and widespread destruction," affecting more than 2.4 million people, resulting in unprecedented destruction of infrastructure, the leveling of entire residential neighborhoods, and the forced displacement of more than two million Palestinians.
He pointed out that the toll of the Israeli genocide over two years, since October 8, 2023, exceeded 71,000 martyrs who reached hospitals, and 171,000 wounded, in addition to about 9,500 missing under the rubble, “in full view and hearing of the international community and the unjust, silent world.”
He pointed to the near-total collapse of the humanitarian system in the sector during the past year, as a result of the direct targeting of hospitals and medical personnel, schools, universities, shelters, ambulance and civil defense teams, in addition to systematic policies to prevent the entry of food, medicine and fuel, which led to the killing of thousands of children, women and the elderly, and threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands with hunger and disease.
The Government Media Office stressed that the next phase must be "a phase of stopping the aggression and ending the genocide, and a serious transition towards comprehensive humanitarian recovery, and the start of the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip on just and sustainable foundations," and emphasized that 2026 "must be a year to end the suffering, not perpetuate it."
The Israeli occupation army still controls the southern and eastern strips of the Gaza Strip, in addition to large parts of northern Gaza, continuing to occupy more than 50 percent of the Strip's area.
Since May 2024, Israel has occupied the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, destroyed and burned its buildings, and prevented Palestinians from traveling, plunging them, especially the sick, into a major humanitarian crisis.
The crossing was scheduled to open in October 2025 as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, but Israel did not comply.
On October 10, 2025, a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel went into effect, according to the plan of US President Donald Trump.
The agreement ended the genocidal war waged by Israel with American support in Gaza, but the humanitarian situation remains catastrophic, with a shortage of aid, a lack of reconstruction, a lack of shelter for thousands of displaced people, and hospitals not yet fully operational again after being destroyed.
