RAFAH, Gaza Strip –
Warning: contains graphic content.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza’s southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said on Saturday, as Israel continued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group Hamas has caused a dramatic escalation of tensions in an already volatile Middle East.
Friday night’s attack hit a residential building in the western Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah city, according to Gaza’s civil defense. The bodies of the six children, two women and a man were taken to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, hospital records show.
At the hospital, relatives cried and hugged the children’s bodies, wrapped in white shrouds, while others comforted them.
The dead included Abdel-Fattah Sobhi Radwan, his wife Najlaa Ahmed Aweidah and their three children, said his brother-in-law Ahmed Barhoum. Barhoum also lost his wife, Rawan Radwan, and his five-year-old daughter Alaa.
“This is a world devoid of all human values and morals,” Barhoum told The Associated Press on Saturday morning, crying as he gently cradled and rocked Alaa’s body in his arms. “They bombed a house full of displaced people, women and children. There were no martyrs other than women and children.”
No casualties were reported in the second night strike in the city.
Rafah, which sits on the border with Egypt, is currently home to more than half of Gaza’s total population, some 2.3 million people, the vast majority of whom have been displaced by fighting further north in the territory. .
Despite calls for restraint from the international community, including Israel’s staunchest ally the United States, the Israeli government has insisted for months that it intends to push for a ground offensive in the city, where it says it many of the remaining Hamas militants are in hiding.
Such a ground operation has not materialized so far, but the Israeli military has repeatedly carried out airstrikes in and around the city.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented raid into southern Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on October 7 that left around 1,200 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians, and saw around 250 people kidnapped and taken away. to Gaza. Israel says about 130 hostages remain in Gaza, although more than 30 have been confirmed dead, either on October 7 or in captivity.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday that the bodies of 37 people killed by Israeli strikes were brought to Gaza hospitals over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 68 wounded, he added. The latest figures bring the total number of Palestinian deaths from the war between Israel and Hamas to at least 34,049, and the number of wounded to 76,901, the ministry said. Although Hamas-led health authorities do not differentiate between fighters and civilians in their count, they say at least two-thirds have been children and women.
The war has triggered regional tensions, causing a dramatic eruption of violence between Israel and its archenemy Iran that threatened to escalate into a full-blown war.
On Friday, both Iran and Israel downplayed an apparent Israeli airstrike near a major air base and nuclear site in central Iran, signaling that the two sides were withdrawing from what could have become an all-out conflict. In recent weeks, a suspected Israeli strike killed two Iranian generals at an Iranian consulate in Syria and was followed by an unprecedented Iranian missile barrage against Israel.
Israel has also clashed with the militant group Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy operating from Lebanon, and the two sides frequently exchange rocket and drone attacks across the Lebanese-Israeli border. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also joined the fight, launching attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Tension has also been high in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli military raid on Friday in the Nur Shams refugee camp killed at least four Palestinians, including three militants, according to the Israeli military, Palestinian health officials and a militant group. .
Palestinian health authorities said one of the dead was a 15-year-old boy shot dead by Israeli fire. The Islamic Jihad militant group confirmed the deaths of three members, including one it said was a local military commander. The Israeli military said four Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded in the operation.
Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, said its fighters had engaged in intense firefights on Saturday morning with Israeli forces in the town of Tulkarem, adjacent to Nur Shams. No further details were immediately available. Tulkarem residents began a general strike on Saturday to protest the attack on Nur Shams, closing shops, restaurants and government offices.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, has a limited presence in many of the territory’s northern towns and cities, including Tulkarem and Jenin. Militant groups, including Islamic Jihad, are active in both cities and often clash with Israeli soldiers during army raids.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, more than 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials say. Israel carries out frequent raids on towns and cities in the volatile territory. Among the dead are militants, but also stone throwers and passers-by. Some have also been killed in attacks by Israeli settlers.
Magdy reported from Cairo