Nine Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

Seven Palestinians were killed overnight by an Israeli F16 attack in the eastern area of the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Quds newspaper reported that this attack brings the number of Palestinians killed within the last 24 hours to nine, after two Palestinians were also killed by an Israeli airstrike on Al-Bureej refugee camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

In addition, spokesperson of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Ashraf Al-Qidra reported that several citizens have been wounded in a series of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

Just minutes before MEMO’s reporter in Gaza wrote this report, an F16 rocket targeted a farmland in the middle of Gaza City. Several light injuries were reported. An eyewitness said that the attack caused much damage to his house, as well as other houses in the targeted area.

Israeli warplanes and drones are still roaring in the skies of the Strip and Palestinians in Gaza fear more Israeli strikes.

Hamas’s military wing announced that the seven Palestinians killed overnight were active members and were preparing to face an expected Israeli offensive on the Strip.

Large numbers of Israeli forces, armed with heavy military equipment, have been mobilising along the Gaza borders from the Israeli side.

On Sunday, Israel closed the only commercial crossing for the Gaza Strip, which was previously partially open, and ordered Gaza’s fishermen to remain within three nautical miles instead of six.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have been threatening to carry out a massive military operation in the Strip, ostensibly to stop the firing of rockets but coming at a time when many Israelis are calling for increasing the occupation’s collective punishment of Palestinians after the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli settlers.

Gaza fighters said they would stop firing rockets if Israel stopped its daily airstrikes, ended the military operation in West Bank and lifted the eight-year-old siege of Gaza.