Happy New Year 2024 highlights: Fireworks lit up skies as world entered 2024

Fireworks illuminated skies over Paris, Rio and Sydney to celebrate the entry to 2024, while rockets and strikes marked the year's earliest hours in Israel, Gaza and Ukraine.

Much of the world's population -- now more than eight billion -- is hoping to shake off high living costs and global tumult in 2024, which will bring elections concerning half the world's population and the Paris Olympics.

But with the new year barely started there were already ominous signs: at the stroke of midnight in Gaza a barrage of rockets was fired towards Israel in a twisted reflection of the fireworks lighting up night skies elsewhere around the world.

Here's WION's rolling gallery on New Year celebrations worldwide.

The New Year ball has dropped in New York's iconic Times Square.

In just a few minutes, New York's legendary ball drop will usher in the new year. The epic tradition was first held on December 31, 1907, and since then, except in 1942 and 1943 in observance of wartime blackouts, the ball drop has been held.

India's popular tourist spot Shimla on New Year 2024 recorded more than 60 per cent occupancy till Sunday evening, which, as per officials, was "the lowest in the last 40 years".

Talking to PTI, Shimla Hotel and Tourism Stakeholders Association president M K Seth said that this is even lower than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, Shimla had recorded more than 80 per cent occupancy on New Year.

Greece welcomed 2024 with a spectacular and colourful fireworks display that lit up the ancient monuments of the Acropolis in Athens.

Hundreds of people were celebrating New Year's Eve in the Greek capital, including in its central Syntagma square.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including tourists from abroad, welcomed the New Year on the Champs Elysées in Paris on Monday (January 1).

The French ushered in the year of the Paris Olympic Games with a giant celebration, leading up to the traditional fireworks display over the Arch of Triumph.

The festivities took place under tight security measures put in place by French authorities, with around 90,000 police deployed across the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a resolute New Year's address on Sunday (Dec 31st), pledged to unleash formidable "wrath" against Russian forces throughout 2024. The leader of the war-torn nation vowed this, undeterred by what he said were attempts to "undermine" support for Kyiv.

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Berlin welcomed the New Year with fireworks over the German capital’s landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, early on Monday (January 1).

Around 65,000 people gathered on the 17. Juni boulevard on the western side of the Gate to celebrate the start of 2024.

Talking to Reuters, one reveller said he wished for the situation “in Ukraine and elsewhere” to become more peaceful, while a young Dutch tourist thought it was also time to look forward to “the good things that happen.”

The Brandenburg Gate once separated East and West Berlin until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

People across the world welcomed a new year with enthusiasm and hopes that 2024 will come with peace, prosperity and happiness as people have wrapped up 2023 — a year which was defined by wars and climate crises. 

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Denmark's Queen Margrethe II used her annual New Year's speech to announce that after 52 years on the throne, she will abdicate on January 14. The Denmark Queen will be succeeded by her eldest son, Crown Prince Frederik.

India welcomed in 2024 with New Year countdowns cities around the country - in Bengaluru crowds surged and cheered as the clock struck midnight.

As they turn from a year that could barely have brought more bitter hardship after 12 weeks of a pulverising Israeli assault, people in Gaza have little hope that 2024 will bring much relief. In Rafah on Gaza's border with Egypt, which has become the biggest focal point for Palestinians fleeing other parts of the enclave, people on Sunday were more preoccupied with trying to find shelter, food and water than by the new year.

"In 2024 I wish to go back to the wreckage of my home, pitch a tent and live there," said Abu Abdullah al-Agha, a middle aged Palestinian man whose house in Khan Younis was destroyed and who lost a young niece and nephew in an Israeli air strike.

"I wish for our children to live in peace and security, to go back to school, back to university, for workers to go back to work and find a source of income," he added.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Sunday his country's economy had weathered a storm and grown "more resilient and dynamic" this year. Adressing the nation for the New Year on state-run channel CCTV, Xi also promised that China would "surely be reunified" - a reference to the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own and has pledged to seize. 

Amid the Israel-Hamas war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, Christian communities in the Palestinian territories, southern Lebanon, and Syria marked a subdued Christmas, setting a somber tone for the upcoming festivities, including the New Year 2024.

To show solidarity with the people of Gaza, Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has banned all New Year's Eve firework displays and celebrations. Sharjah Police issued the diktat on Tuesday (Dec 26), urging all members of the public and organisations to comply with the regulations. 

Pakistan caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar imposed a ban on New Year celebrations in the country in a bid to express solidarity with the people of Gaza amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia would "never back down" in his New Year's Eve address, praising his country's military personnel without explicitly mentioning the conflict in Ukraine.

"We have repeatedly proved that we are able to solve the most difficult tasks and will never retreat, because there is no force that can separate us," Putin said.

People take pictures as they observe the last sunset of the year on a viewing deck at Namsan tower in Seoul on December 31, 2023.

The 9pm "family fireworks" explode over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Sydney on December 31, 2023.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday that China would "surely be reunified" as he addressed the nation in a speech marking the New Year, state media reported. 

"All Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," state news agency Xinhua said.

Auckland welcomed 2024 with a fireworks display over its tallest building, which is the Sky Tower. 

The Pacific nation of Kiritimati becomes the very first in the world to ring in 2024.