Palestinian terrorists rang in the New Year on Sunday evening by firing a large barrage of rockets at Israeli cities at midnight, in a statement of defiance against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) advance deep into the Gaza Strip.
According to the Cumta Telegram channel, which tracks Israel’s Red Alert system, the barrage targeted the cities along the corridor from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, just seconds after 12:00 a.m.
Most of the rockets appear to have been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Iron Dome interceptions seen over central Israel following a Hamas rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/DQcOpg54nT
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 31, 2023
Still, the sirens disturbed Israeli families who had not stayed up to count down the last seconds of 2023. Families with small children had to retreat into bomb shelters.
The IDF said this week that it has seized 30,000 rockets and explosives from Palestinian terrorist sites in Gaza since the start of the war. The remaining rocket capacity of Hamas is thought to be concentrated in the central Gaza Strip, where the IDF has only just begun fighting.
The IDF said that it will be releasing some reserve units from duty as 2024 begins — five brigades, according to the Times of Israel — as fighting eases somewhat, though the Israeli military expects the war to continue all year as it uproots the Hamas terror network.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
