Israel's military says it has killed a senior Hamas commander, Adel Msama, in an overnight strike in central Gaza. The BBC has not been able to verify the Israel Defense Force's claim that he led an attack on a kibbutz in southern Israel on the seventh of October. In Israel, the new year began with air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and other areas after Hamas launched more rockets. And there was no let-up in the airstrikes hitting Gaza with at least 24 people killed. But Israeli tanks have pulled out of some parts of Gaza City ahead of planned troop production. Our Middle East correspondent, Yoland Nel, is in Jerusalem. She gave us more details about last night's Hamas rocket attacks.

So it was just after midnight local time, people in Tel Aviv have been seeing in the new year, and there were these air-raid sirens that went off as a barrage of rockets. Hamas then used its longer range M-90 rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv, also were parts of Southern Israel. Now, Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system was quickly in action. There were the thud of interceptions bringing down those rockets, but really a very grim start to the new year. Meanwhile, in Gaza itself, in the dark, we had scenes of rescuers scrambling in the rubble of buildings that had been newly flattened by Israeli airstrikes. Some 50 people killed in the latest airstrikes in Gaza City. About 20 of them, people who are taking shelter at the Al Aqsa University, we understand. Also in the center and in the south of the Gaza Strip fighting there remains extremely intense.

Escalav Natou, Juliett Tuma, who is Director of Communications for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRA. Give us a little bit of an impression of what it's like on this first day of 2024 there.

Thanks, so much happy New Year. Look, not much difference. The airstrikes and the bombardment continues, and with that, crowds and crowds of people continue to head south in search of safety that sadly has not existed for almost three months now across the Gulf Strip.

In your estimation, when Israel says that it plans to... Well, that the conflict could continue throughout the year, what does that do to particularly children's psyche, perhaps?

I think to everybody's psyche, the continuation of the war and any intensification and expansion is going to mean more suffering everywhere, more loss and more grief. It is time for a ceasefire.

What about shelter? How are you getting on with providing shelter for people who have been forced to move from one place and then had to move again?

Yeah, well, Amra right now is hosting 1.4 million people across our shelters in the gas strip. People continue to come to these shelters and they are overcrowded, mainly in the south. Some of them have been just forced to live wherever they can, including out in the open. They're very, very difficult conditions across these shelters, and there needs to be much more supplies coming in to help people in need.

And on that issue of supplies, when there are reports and negotiations going on behind the scenes to try to get to a point where more can come in, can you explain to us the logistical and the security concerns at the moment you have to overcome when you do bring material in?

Look, it's a very complex humanitarian operation in the gas strip. Yes, there isn't much supplies coming in, so that's for sure. There's also the bombardment itself that stands in the way. There's also hits against humanitarian facilities and humanitarian workers, including the recent shooting that we had against one of our convoys. But there's also high levels of desperation, of hunger among people in Gaza, which means that every time we go and provide aid, especially in areas that we're not able to reach as much as we should, people just come to our trucks, they take stuff and they start eating it then and there. This is why it's absolutely fundamental that there's a humanitarian ceasefire. We know from the short-lived pause from a few weeks ago that we managed to bring in more supplies, that we managed to get into other areas that were restricted previously and that people finally had some respite.