RAFAH: Israeli strikes killed at least fifty-two people on densely crowded border town of Rafah in Gaza on Sunday night, said Gaza health ministry.
According to Hamas the strikes targeted 14 houses and three mosques in different parts of Rafah.
Journalists and witnesses heard intense strikes and saw smoke above the city, which now hosts more than half of Gaza’s total population after they were displaced by the fighting in Gaza.
The Israeli military in a statement on Monday said that it had carried out a series of strikes on targets in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his army to be ready for ground offensive on Rafah.
About 1.4 million Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, with many living in tents while food, water and medicine are becoming increasingly scarce.
Earlier, US President Joe Biden asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he must not start a military operation in the densely populated Gaza border town of Rafah without a proper plan to protect civilians in the area, said White House on Sunday.
Over half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have moved to Rafah to avert the intense fighting in other areas. The displaced people are crowded into tent camps and U.N.-run shelters near the border.
28,176 Palestinians killed in Gaza
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry the bodies of 112 people killed across the territory had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, as well as 173 injured people. It said 28,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza.
Hamas’ media had also quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying that any Israeli move in Rafah would blow up talks brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to achieve a cease-fire and the release of Israeli hostages.
“An Israeli offensive on Rafah would lead to an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe and grave tensions with Egypt,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on X.
Hamas has said it will, not free any more hostages unless Israel ends its war and withdraws from Gaza. It has also demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, languishing in Israeli jails.
