On January 1, Israel launched a series of artillery and air strikes in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon, while the US announced the withdrawal of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford from the Middle East.
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| US aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. (Source: Reuters) |
According to Xinhua , at least 15 Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Local sources said the airstrike targeted a house that was sheltering people who had fled their homes due to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Rescuers are now searching for survivors under the rubble.
Before the airstrike, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Authority announced that the number of Palestinians killed since the conflict broke out on October 7 was 21,978.
As fighting in the Gaza Strip continues, Israel has also launched other shelling attacks on neighboring countries in the North and Northeast of the country.
Specifically, Sham FM radio reported that the Israeli army fired artillery in response to an attack by Syrian gunmen, causing damage to agricultural land in the Yarmouk River basin in Syria's Dara province.
Earlier, Syrian gunmen fired four rockets at the two Israeli settlements of Eliad and Avnei Etan in the occupied Golan Heights.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed the above information on the same day.
Meanwhile, on January 1, Reuters reported that the Israeli army announced that it had attacked a series of targets in Lebanon, including military sites where the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement is operating.
Israel noted that five of its soldiers had been wounded by cross-border fire from Lebanon earlier. Hezbollah confirmed on Telegram that three of its fighters had been killed in southern Lebanon.
Amid the escalating Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip, which threatens to spread throughout the region, the US Navy announced that the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford will return to port in Virginia, ending its deployment to the Eastern Mediterranean to support Israel.
The US Navy noted that immediately after the conflict broke out, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group was ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean to contribute to Washington's defense and deterrence posture in the region.
The statement affirmed: "The US Department of Defense will continue to leverage collective force posture in the region to prevent any state or non-state actor from escalating this crisis beyond Gaza."
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has extended the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group three times in the hope that its presence will deter Iran and its allies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon, from attacking Israel.
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