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Fatalities as Israel warplanes strike house in Gaza's Rafah

February 26, 2024 at 8:56 pm

Civil defence teams carry out search efforts at a collapsed building after Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Rafah, South Gaza Strip on February 26, 2024 [Abed Zagout – Anadolu Agency]

Israeli fighter jets struck a house in Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday evening, according to eyewitnesses, Anadolu Agency reports.

Several Palestinians were killed and injured in the strike in central Rafah, eyewitnesses said.

The Health Ministry has yet to issue an official death toll.

The airstrike came as Tel Aviv plans a ground offensive in Rafah, where 1.4 million people have taken refuge, despite international warnings and calls to avoid any such attack.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, warned that an all-out Israeli offensive in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering, would put an end to the UN assistance programs.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since a 7 October cross-border incursion by Hamas, killing more than 29,782 people and causing mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed.

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.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85 per cent of the Territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

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