‘Israel’ Launches Airstrikes, Artillery Fire Across Gaza on First Day of 2026

The Israeli military has carried out attacks on the Gaza Strip on the first day of 2026 in yet another violation of the ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the regime’s two-year-long genocide in the besieged territory.

The Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire took place on Thursday across Gaza, where heavy winter rains have in recent weeks flooded tents sheltering displaced Palestinians and claimed the lives of children affected by hypothermia.

Latest reports said Israeli fighter jets targeted eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip while the occupation forces fired artillery simultaneously.

In the same area, the reports added, loud explosions were heard amid sporadic gunfire from Israeli military vehicles.

Similar Israeli attacks were also reported in Gaza City’s Zeitoun and Shujaiya neighborhoods, as well as eastern sections of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

On October 10, a US-backed ceasefire deal took effect between Israel and Hamas aimed at bringing an end to the Tel Aviv regime’s genocidal war on Gaza that began on October 7, 2023.

Since then, at least 415 Palestinians have been killed, and 1,152 others injured as Tel Aviv continues airstrikes on the territory.

Under the fragile truce deal, Israel is obliged to allow “full aid” to be immediately sent into Gaza.

Earlier this week, however, the criminal regime banned 37 international humanitarian agencies from operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The foreign ministers of 10 countries, including Canada, the UK, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, expressed “serious concerns” about a “renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation” in Gaza.

In a statement, they warned of the “catastrophic” situation in the blockaded Palestinian territory, saying that “1.3 million people still require urgent shelter support. More than half of health facilities are only partially functional and face shortages of essential medical equipment and supplies. The total collapse of sanitation infrastructure has left 740,000 people vulnerable to toxic flooding.”

In its war on Gaza, Israel has killed at least 71,269 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 171,232 others.