Tens of thousands marched in Istanbul Monday to protest "murderer" Israel's war in Gaza and the killing of Turkish soldiers by outlawed Kurdish militants in Iraq.
The rally, called by a foundation which counts Bilal Erdogan, the son of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, among its members started after crowds performed morning prayers at Istanbul's iconic mosques, including Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.
Unrelenting Israeli bombardment rocked Gaza on Monday, while an army spokesman warned the war on the besieged territory's Hamas rulers will continue throughout 2024.
Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant met troops inside Gaza on Monday, and vowed in a statement that "life will return to its course" for residents of border communities hit in Hamas's October 7 attacks that triggered the war.
Seconds after ringing in the new year on a lively street in Tel Aviv, some young Israelis found themselves running for cover while others kept the party going with a shrug as missile defence systems intercepted a barrage of rockets overhead.
The attack at the stroke of midnight, just as many were trying to forget about the war in the Gaza Strip, seemed to underscore the fatigue at the ongoing fighting expressed by many of the young revellers gathered to celebrate New Year's Eve.
The PGA Tour worked Sunday to extend a deadline into 2024 for finalizing a merger agreement with Saudi Arabian investors, tour commissioner Jay Monahan calling talks "active and productive."
The update to players in a memo from Monahan came hours ahead of the year-end deadline to approve a framework agreement merging the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) that finances the upstart LIV Golf League.
More than 4,360 people, including combatants and civilians, were killed in Syria’s civil war in 2023, in the thirteenth year since fighting began, a war monitor said on Sunday.
The figure was an increase on 2022, when 3,825 people were killed.
That was the lowest annual death toll since the conflict began in 2011 with the government's brutal crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Israeli strikes pounded Gaza on Sunday as both sides near the end of a dark year and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack will last for "many months".
At least 48 Palestinians were killed in overnight bombing in Gaza City, the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said, with many still buried under the rubble.
"After the explosion we arrived at the scene of the strike and saw martyrs everywhere," said one resident after a building was hit. "Children are still missing, we can't find them."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel displayed unparalleled "morality" in the Gaza war and rejected South Africa's charge that it was committing "genocidal" acts in the Palestinian territory.
"We will continue our defensive war, the justice and morality of which is without peer," Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv.
His comment came after South Africa launched a case on Friday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel for what it said were "genocidal" acts in Gaza.
Israelis and Palestinians end a dark year on Sunday, with no end in sight to the deadliest military offensive on Gaza, triggered by Hamas' bloodiest attack on Israel.
There has been no respite from Israel's air raids, artillery fire or ground fighting with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, to the despair of Palestinians surviving the onslaught.
"We were hoping that 2024 would arrive under better auspices and that we would be able to celebrate the new year at home with our families," said Mahmoud Abou Shahma in a camp for displaced people in Rafah, on the Egyptian border.
Fireworks lit up skies across the world as crowds gathered to welcome 2024, but airstrikes marred the year's earliest hours in Gaza, Israel and Ukraine, while a powerful earthquake triggered tsunami warnings in Japan.
Many around the world are hoping to shake off surging living costs, global tumult and extreme weather in the coming year, which heralds elections for half the planet's population of more than eight billion.
Yet with the new year barely started there were already ominous signs.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday brushed off criticism after the Turkish Super Cup final between two Istanbul giants was postponed following a row with its Saudi hosts.
Friday night's Turkish Super Cup between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce had been due to be played in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
But it was postponed before kickoff after Saudi organisers refused to allow players to wear jerseys bearing political slogans.
