RAFAH: Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 18 Palestinians, including 14 children, health officials said Sunday, as the United States approved billions of dollars of additional military aid to its close ally Israel.
Israeli forces have intensified their near-daily air raids on Rafah, where over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinian population sought refuge from the Israeli bombardment raging elsewhere in the region. Despite international calls for restraint, including from the US, Israel has vowed to expand its ground offensive to the city bordering Egypt.
The latest strikes killed innocent civilians, including women and children. The first strike reportedly killed a man, his wife, and their 3-year-old child, with doctors at the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital managing to save the newborn, who was born prematurely after the attack. Subsequent strikes targeted a single family, resulting in the tragic deaths of 13 children and two women, as recorded by hospital authorities.
The ongoing Israeli bombardment has inflicted widespread devastation across Gaza, with over 34,097 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed since October 7, according to the territory’s health officials. The ongoing Israeli bombardment has forced approximately 80% of the Gaza Strip population to flee their homes, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged coastal enclave. Experts warn Gaza is on the brink of famine.
Meanwhile, tensions have escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops fatally shot two Palestinians near the town of Hebron. In separate incidents, the Palestinian Red Crescent retrieved 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp.
