Live Updates: Attacks in Red Sea, Israel as Gaza death toll passes 24,000

Editor's note: This blog ended Jan. 16, 2024. Please visit our archives via the links below and follow along for the latest coverage of the Gaza war on our Israel and Palestine pages.

The 100-day mark for the Gaza war saw an increasingly dire humanitarian situation, with the death toll surpassing 24,000 and a new escalation in the Red Sea region.

As the Israeli military hit Gaza City with more airstrikes and ground operations continued in the enclave’s south, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Monday that 132 bodies of those killed in the bombardment had arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours. The ministry said the death toll 100 days in stands at 24,100, with over 60,000 others injured.

Just three days after the United States and the United Kingdom launched strikes against Yemen’s Houthis, US Central Command reported an attack on an American ship in the Red Sea. CENTCOM said that a container ship owned and operated by the United States was hit by an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by the Houthis from Yemen on Monday afternoon.

“On Jan. 15 at approximately 4 p.m., Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, US-owned and operated container ship. The ship has reported no injuries or significant damage and is continuing its journey,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.

Meanwhile, a stabbing and vehicular attack were reported near Tel Aviv on Monday, leaving one person dead and at least 17 people wounded.

A 79-year-old woman was killed after three vehicular and stabbing attacks in the central Israeli city of Ra'anana.

According to Israeli police, Mahmoud Zidat, “an illegal worker from the Palestinian town of Bani Na'im in the West Bank, was arrested after ramming civilians with three different vehicles,” Haaretz reported.

Ezgi Akin, Beatrice Farhat, Rina Bassist, Elizabeth Hagedorn, Adam Lucente, Jack Dutton, Jared Szuba and Al-Monitor’s contributors on the ground in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel contributed to this blog.

Live updates (all times EST):

Monday, Jan. 15, 2024

9:26 am: Mass Israeli rally demands Netanyahu bring hostages home

Or Sela is a relative of Tal Shoham, who is still held hostage in Gaza. "100 days after Oct. 7, I’m calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say again what he had told us, the families of the hostages, only once: that bringing them home tops everything else," he told Al-Monitor. He believes no deal to release the hostages will be reached until Netanyahu puts bringing them home before the ground operation in Gaza. Rina Bassist reports.

8:54 am: Humanitarian crisis worsens as death toll surpasses 24,000

The war in the Gaza Strip has entered its 100th day with no signs of abating as the Israeli bombardment from the air, sea and ground rages on.

At least 132 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted in October to 24,100, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the enclave. Beatrice Farhat reports.

5:39 am: Hamas officials say Gaza war deaths top 24,000

Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza reported on Monday more than 24,000 deaths in the war with Israel that has rocked the region, and militants released a video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages. Read the full story here.

3:26 am: Palestinian churches, mosques decimated by Israeli strikes 

The Great Omari Mosque, Gaza’s largest and oldest, was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last month in the Hamas-Israel war that began Oct. 7.

Hundreds of heritage sites have been destroyed or damaged since Israel launched its air, sea and ground campaign on the Gaza Strip. Rasha Abou Jalal reports.