The Israel threatened today with an increase in the intensity of the bombings in Gaza Stripwhere at least 25 people have been killed in Israeli raids since the dawn of New Year, according to aid workers in the Palestinian enclave, which is experiencing an already critical humanitarian situation after more than a year of war.

The Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katzon the sidelines of a visit to Netivot, an Israeli town recently targeted by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, wanted to “send a clear message” to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

“If Hamas does not soon allow the release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza (…) and continues to fire missiles at the Israeli population, the Hamas exposes itself to severe blows that Gaza has seen for a long time,” the Israeli minister threatened.

In recent days, the Israeli authorities have reported a series of attacks with rocket launches from the Palestinian enclave, assuring that all of them were either intercepted or landed in uninhabited areas, without causing any injuries.

According to the Civil Protection of the Gaza Strip, three separate Israeli raids since the early hours of the day have, however, caused at least 25 casualties in the Palestinian coastal strip.

“As the world celebrates the new year, we welcome 2025 with the first Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip,” the Civil Protection representative told AFP. Mahmoud Basal.

The clock struck close to midnight when Israeli airstrikes on al-Burayj refugee camp and the town of Jabalia in the central and northern Gaza Strip killed at least 17 Palestinians, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The Israeli armed forces have not yet commented on an X entry by their Arabic-speaking spokesman that earlier warned residents of al-Burayj to evacuate the area as a strike against militants firing rockets from there was imminent.

The Israeli army intensified its ground and air offensive in the northern part of the Gaza Strip from October 6, 2024, to prevent, according to it, the regrouping of units of the military arm of Hamas.

The war was sparked by an unprecedented raid by Hamas’ military arm into southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data of the Israeli authorities.

More than 45,553 Palestinians have died in the ensuing large-scale Israeli military retaliatory operations in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas health ministry in the Palestinian enclave, which are reliably identified by the UN.