Conflicts around the world continued into 2025 as millions elsewhere celebrated the new year.
Israeli air strikes on al-Bureij refugee camp and Jabalia town in central and northern Gaza killed at least 17 Palestinians on Wednesday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Russia launched a drone strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding seven, Ukrainian authorities said Wednesday.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment although in a post on X, its Arabic spokesperson warned residents of al-Bureij earlier to evacuate ahead of an imminent strike. It also said overnight that it killed Abd al-Hadi Sabah, a Hamas member.
The instruction to clear the al-Bureij camp has caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen the humanitarian conditions of the population.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, more than 1,500 tents sheltering displaced people across Gaza were flooded by heavy rains over the past two days, leaving people exposed to the cold and their belongings damaged. Hundreds more tents experienced less severe flooding that still left displaced people unable to use them. Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and razed, fueling speculation Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.
WAFA said the military blew up residential blocks in Beit Lahiya and in and around Jabalia, while tanks shelled parts of Gaza City and the al-Bureij camp.
Israel's Gaza campaign has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny coastal strip is in ruins.
Further north, explosions boomed across the morning sky as Ukraine's air force warned of drones approaching the city and Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defenses were repelling an enemy attack.
Two floors of a residential building were partially destroyed in the strike, Klitschko said. Photos posted by the State Emergency Service showed firefighters dousing a gutted corner of a building and helping elderly victims. Debris from downed drones also damaged a nonresidential building in another neighborhood, Klitschko added. "This is yet another reminder to the world that Russian aggression knows no holidays or days off," Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister, wrote on X shortly after the morning attack.
Kyiv's military said it had shot down 63 out of 111 drones launched by Russia overnight across various regions of Ukraine. Another 46 had been downed by electronic jamming, it added.
