26 Killed as Israeli Warplanes Strike Several Houses in Rafah

Rafah, MINA – At least 26 Palestinians, including eight children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, medical sources told Anadolu Agency on Monday.

Several people were also injured in the attacks that targeted at least 11 houses in the city since Sunday evening, the sources said.

Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said several people were still missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

The Israeli army issued immediate evacuation orders on Monday for Palestinians in the eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah and called on them to move to the town of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.

Around 100,000 Palestinian civilians are estimated to be living in the areas to be evacuated, according to Israeli Army Radio.

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Despite growing global opposition, Israel has approved plans to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people have taken refuge from Israel’s brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas incursion, which killed around 1,200 people.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians and wounded 77,700 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian Territory.

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More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement besides a crippling blockade on food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stand accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)