Soldier killed in northern Gaza as five rockets fired into Israel

Fighter jets hit rocket launchers amid resurgent fire from Strip; fourth baby dies of hypothermia in Gaza tent city; IDF says it killed six Oct. 7 perpetrators last month

Staff Sgt. Yuval Shoham, killed in the northern Gaza Strip on December 29, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
Staff Sgt. Yuval Shoham, killed in the northern Gaza Strip on December 29, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

An IDF soldier was killed in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, the military announced, as a months-long operation in Jabalia appeared to approach its end, despite several instances of rocket fire from the enclave, which has been a rare occurrence at this stage of the war.

The slain soldier was named as Staff Sgt. Yuval Shoham, 22, of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 9th Battalion, from Jerusalem.

On Monday, the IDF informed Shoham’s family that he was killed in an accident, when he was hit by the rotation of the turret in the tank he was in, during fighting in the Jabalia area.

The killing brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against the Hamas terror group in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 394.

Separately, a soldier with the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion was seriously wounded during fighting with Hamas terror group operatives in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun on Sunday, the military added.

The incidents came as the IDF indicated that it was wrapping up its operations in northern Gaza’s Jabalia following the Israeli military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Kamal Adwan Hospital was described by the IDF as “Hamas’s last bastion in Jabalia,” after hundreds of terror operatives allegedly used the medical facility as a shelter from Israeli strikes. According to the military, the terror operatives had returned to Kamal Adwan after the IDF last operated in the medical center in late October.

There is no way to verify the military’s claims.

The IDF has been operating in the Jabalia area since early October, facing relatively fierce resistance by remaining Hamas cells in the area, military sources said.

The IDF said it had arrested hundreds of terror suspects at the hospital while facilitating the transfer of patients and civilians to other Gaza hospitals. The raid sparked a widespread outcry in the international community with Israel being accused of torching the hospital and killed civilians.

IDF troops are seen next to Palestinians who evacuated from northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, in a handout photo issued by the military on December 29, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Overnight, Israeli fighter jets struck rocket launchers in Beit Hanoun, which had been used to fire two long-range rockets at the Jerusalem area on Saturday.

There were no injuries or damage in Saturday’s rare long-range rocket attack from Gaza, as both projectiles were intercepted.

When the strike was carried out, another rocket had been loaded into one of the launchers, the IDF said, releasing an image showing the launchers before they were hit.

In a video published by the military, the rocket could be seen flying out of the launcher.

More rocket fire

On Sunday, five more rockets were launched from the northern Gaza Strip, this time at the southern city of Sderot, along the border with the enclave, one of the largest rocket attacks from Gaza in recent months.

According to the IDF, two rockets were intercepted, while the other three apparently struck open areas.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage from the attack, which marked the third day in a row of rocket fire from the Strip.

Rocket attacks from Gaza have been rare at this stage of the war, after frequent barrages during and in the months after the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which started the war.

Following Sunday’s rocket fire, the IDF issued a fresh evacuation warning for civilians in a large area near the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.

“Terror organizations are again launching rockets from these areas that have been warned several times in the past,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman said on X, attaching a map of the areas to be evacuated.

Civilians were urged to head for shelters in Gaza City, in advance of the IDF launching strikes on the area.

Strike hits Hamas cell in Gaza City hospital

Also Sunday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck a group of Hamas members who were operating out of a former hospital in Gaza City, the IDF said.

Palestinian media reported at least seven dead and several others wounded in the airstrike on Al-Wafa Hospital.

According to the IDF, the operatives were part of Hamas’s air defense unit in the terror group’s Shejaiya Battalion.

“The terrorists operated in a command and control center that was established in a building that was previously used as Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, and is not currently an active hospital,” the military said.

The IDF said the operatives were using the command center at the former hospital to plan and carry out attacks against troops operating in Gaza “in the immediate future.”

The military added that it took “numerous steps” to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure in the strike, including by using a precision munition, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.

Artillery shelling also reportedly hit the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City Sunday morning, though there was no immediate comment from the IDF on that incident.

Visible damage at the Al-Wafa Hospital in central Gaza Strip on December 29, 2024. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Hamas commanders, Oct. 7 perpetrators killed

The IDF and Shin Bet also revealed on Sunday that 14 members of Hamas, including six who participated in the October 7 onslaught, were eliminated in a series of operations and airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip last month.

As part of the IDF’s ongoing operation in the Strip’s far north, troops are working to locate and kill terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, the military and Shin Bet said.

In one incident on November 27, the IDF said, troops of the Givati Brigade raided a Hamas position in Jabalia, where they killed Muhammad Abd al-Hamid Salah, a Hamas terrorist who “participated in the murderous massacre on October 7.”

Another two Hamas commanders were killed in the same operation, according to the military.

The IDF said an airstrike in Jabalia on November 26 killed Rasem Jawda, a Hamas company commander, Zahar Shahab, and Ali Ramadan, who all participated in the October 7 onslaught. Another two Hamas commanders were also killed in the strike, the military said.

A separate strike on an unspecified date a month ago killed Muhammad Hamuda, who also participated in the October 7 attack, the IDF says. With him, five additional Hamas operatives were killed, the military added.

Strikes carried out by the IDF in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, in a video issued on December 29, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Fourth baby dies of cold in Gaza

A fourth infant has died of hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter arrives.

Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up Sunday, his father Yehia said. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Their father said the twins were born one month premature and spent just a day in the nursery at the hospital, which, like other health centers in Gaza, has been overwhelmed and is only partially functioning.

He said medics told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night.

“We are eight people, and we only have four blankets,” al-Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described drops of dew seeping through the tent cover overnight. “Look at his color because (of) the cold. Do you see how frozen he is?”

An imam prayed over the shrouded infant, who was laid at his feet, barely larger than his shoes. After prayers, the imam took off his ankle-length coat and wrapped it around the father.

“Feel warm, my brother,” he said.

At least three other babies have died from the cold in recent weeks, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave.

Rainy and stormy weather in the region is expected to intensify over the next two days before slightly warmer conditions return later this week.

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, according to evolving IDF operations against Hamas.

Imam Islam Abu Suaied prays over the bodies of two babies before their burial at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on December 29, 2024. One baby died at birth, while the other, 20-day-old Jomaa al-Batran, succumbed to hypothermia. According to local officials from the Hamas-run government, at least three other babies in Gaza have died from the cold in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

War broke out in the enclave on October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel from the territory, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 45,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle, as of November, and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7, 2023.

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.

It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages were rescued alive by troops, and the bodies of 38 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

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