Jerusalem Violence Leads to Hamas Rockets on Israel; Nine Palestinians Dead in Gaza Raid
Voice of America
JERUSALEM / GAZA - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets toward the Jerusalem area and southern Israel on Monday, carrying out a threat to punish Israel for violent confrontations with Palestinians in Jerusalem.
The Gaza health ministry said nine Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in the Palestinian territory after the barrages against Israel. The Israeli military issued no immediate comment on any action it had taken in the enclave. Rocket sirens sounded in Jerusalem, in nearby towns and in communities near the Gaza minutes after an ultimatum from the enclave's ruling Islamist Hamas group demanding Israel stand down forces in the al Aqsa mosque compound and another flashpoint in the holy city expired. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the rocket fire in Israel, but local media reported that a house in the Jerusalem hills had been damaged, in the most serious outbreak of hostilities with Hamas in months.
This handout photo taken and released on Dec. 16, 2024, by Taiwan's defense ministry shows soldiers securing a U.S.-made M1A2 Abrams battle tank onto a trailer at an army training center in Hsinchu county, Taiwan.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake shake hands before their meeting at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Dec. 16, 2024.
FILE - A TV screen shows file images of North Korean soldiers during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Oct. 18, 2024.
Mourners react during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Dec. 16, 2024. Palestinians inspect the damage in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Dec. 16, 2024.
FILE - This frame grab taken from video footage provided by the Australian Broadcast Corporation on December 11, 2024 shows a police officer walking past a torched car being removed in front of anti-Israel graffiti written on a wall in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.
Aftermath of Cyclone Chido, in Mayotte
Andrea Vanek poses for a picture in her apartment in Vienna, Austria on November 22, 2024.
FILE - Myanmar soldiers are seen on the Myanmar side of a bridge across the Moei River linking to the district of Mae Sot in Thailand's Tak province on Thursday, April 11, 2024.
Students stand on the toppled statue of late president Hafez al-Assad during a rally near the campus of the Damascus University in the Syrian capital on December 15, 2024.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (C) poses with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (R) and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed following talks in Ankara, Turkey, Dec. 11, 2024. (Murat Kula/Presidential Press Office/Handout via Reuters)
Participants hold signs during a rally calling on the Constitutional Court to dismiss the President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 15, 2024. The signs read "Immediately arrest."