Rare four rockets launched at Israel from Gaza, causing no damage
Two missiles intercepted, rest fall in open areas; IDF issues evacuation orders for launch site areas; Hamas authorities say dozens killed in Israeli strikes
Four rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel on Wednesday, causing no damage and prompting the military to issue evacuation orders to Gazans in the area from which they were launched.
Pairs of rockets from Gaza were fired in two volleys, the first pair hitting open areas and the second intercepted by air defense systems, the Israel Defense Forces said.
After 14 months of war that began when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive attack on southern Israel — which included a barrage of thousands of rockets at many other areas of the country — rocket fire from Gaza has become a rarity. Airstrikes and IDF troops, operating on the ground in Gaza, have greatly depleted Hamas’s arsenal. The last rocket fired from the coastal enclave was over a week ago on December 2.
Following the rocket attack, the IDF issued evacuation orders for specific areas in the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza. The IDF’s Arabic language account on social media platform X published details and a list of blocks to be evacuated.
It urged residents to head toward a humanitarian-designated zone near the Mediterranean coast.
“Terrorist organizations are once again firing rockets from your area,” the post read. “This particular area has been warned several times before. For your own safety, you must evacuate this area immediately and move to the humanitarian zone.”
#عاجل ‼️ الى كل سكان قطاع غزة المتواجدين في بلوكات 2232, 2244, 2245, 2343, 2340 (منطقة المغازي)
⭕️تطلق المنظمات الإرهابية القذائف الصاروخية مرة أخرى باتجاه دولة اسرائيل من منطقتكم.
⭕️هذه المنطقة المحددة قد تم تحذيرها في السابق عدة مرات.
⭕️من أجل أمنكم, عليكم اخلاء هذه… pic.twitter.com/wmuN9tCLP0
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) December 11, 2024
The IDF has laid out a safe zone for non-combatants to stay in during the fighting.
Evacuation orders usually come before airstrikes on the areas.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip overnight and during the day killed at least 33 Palestinians, most of them in an airstrike on a house in Beit Lahiya in the north of the enclave, according to medics in the Hamas-controlled Strip.
The Beit Lahiya strike killed at least 22 people, including women and children, Hamas-run health officials said, without differentiating between fighters and non-combatants. Relatives listed the names of the dead on social media.
More than 30 people were living in the multi-story building before it was struck, and several family members remained missing as rescue operations continued through the morning, the Palestinian WAFA news agency said.
The military said it was checking the report.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
In nearby Beit Hanoun, where the IDF has operated since October, medics said an Israeli airstrike killed and wounded several people, without giving an exact toll. Rescue workers said several people were trapped under rubble.
Earlier on Wednesday, at least seven Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, medics told Reuters.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service and medics said four other people were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes on two houses in Gaza City.
Israeli forces have been operating in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the nearby Jabalia refugee camp since October 5, fighting Hamas members waging attacks from those areas and preventing them from regrouping the Israeli military says.
Earlier this week, three Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hamas attack in Jabalia. The next day the IDF said an airstrike killed 10 Hamas members involved in the attack.
Palestinian officials and residents accuse Israel of depopulating the areas on the northern edge of the enclave to create a buffer zone, something Israel denies.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The thousands of terrorists who burst into the country also abducted 251 people who were taken as hostages.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Wednesday that at least 44,805 people have been killed in the fighting, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments in July.
The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group. As of late August, the zone is just over 46 square kilometers (17.7 square miles), or nearly 13% of the total size of the Gaza Strip.
