JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel’s military said two projectiles were fired from Gaza on Wednesday in the first minutes of the new year, one of which was intercepted while the other landed in an open area.

Alert sirens sounded around midnight in the western Negev, the Israeli military said, and “two projectiles were identified crossing from the central Gaza Strip into Israeli territory.”

“One projectile was successfully intercepted and the second projectile fell in an open area,” the army said on Telegram.

The military said it has intercepted several rockets fired from northern Gaza in recent days.

Since October, Israeli operations in Gaza have focused on the north, with officials saying their land and air offensive aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented Hamas-led 7 October 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,208 deaths — mostly civilians — according to an Agence France-Presse tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 45,500 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The United Nations considers those figures reliable.