Shanghai on Wednesday, the first day of 2025, kicked off a month-long shopping season from the New Year's Day to the Spring Festival, with commercial circles in the city creating a wide variety of scenarios to innovate shoppers' experience.
Running until Feb 4--the end of the eight-day break during the Spring Festival holiday, the shopping season in Shanghai will see districts roll out hundreds of promotional activities to boost consumer spending and attract more visitors to the commercial circles by organizing public entertainment activities and exhibitions.
Authorities of the vigorously developing Pudong New Area in Shanghai said their focus is to boost New Year consumption by integrating business, tourism and cultural activities.
The district has released details of more than one hundred event with that theme.
"Through joint operation of business, tourism and cultural activities, we can push our consumers to consume, and bring more concessions to our consumers, to create a different shopping environment for our consumers in the New Year," said Cao Lei, deputy director of the Commission of Commerce of the Pudong New Area.
The Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year,is China's grandest traditional festival when people return to their hometowns for celebrations and family reunion. It falls on January 29 this year and the public holiday will start from the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Shanghai rolls out activity packages to promote holiday consumption
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza Strip has risen to 50,423, with 114,638 injured, after nearly 18 months of Israeli military operations, Gaza health authorities said Wednesday.
Local medical sources noted that since the Israeli army resumed its operations on March 18, the number of fatalities has reached 1,066, while 2,597 have been injured.
In the past 24 hours alone, hospitals in Gaza received 24 fatalities and 55 injured. Many bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble, with ambulances and civil defense personnel struggling to reach them.
According to a report by the Times of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Wednesday that it had carried out strikes on over 50 sites belonging to Hamas and other militant groups, ahead of a major ground push into the southern Gaza Strip. During the day, dozens more strikes were carried out across Gaza.
In addition, the IDF issued a statement on Wednesday night that it had intercepted two rockets launched from northern Gaza. Air raid sirens were activated in areas near the Gaza Strip, and local media said that there are no reports of injuries or damage in the attack. The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to Palestinian media reports on Wednesday, the Israeli air force targeted a medical facility operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. The head of Gaza-based health authorities reported on the same day that 19 people were killed in the attack.
The Israeli military stated on Wednesday that it had struck a Hamas command center in Jabalia.
On Wednesday night, Al Jazeera quoted relevant sources as saying that Hamas officials had received Israel's response to the ceasefire proposal, which had been put forward by mediators and accepted by Hamas. Based on this response, they concluded that Israel had rejected the proposal.
Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises to 50,423
