Local health officials said on Monday that the Israeli attacks on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip led to the killing of at least 37 Palestinians and the injury of dozens, after US President Joe Biden asked Israel not to attack Rafah without a reliable plan to protect civilians.
Residents contacted by Reuters via a chat application said that the violent bombing caused widespread panic in the city of Rafah, where many people were sleeping when the raids began. Some fear that Israel has begun its ground attack on Rafah.
Israeli planes, tanks and ships participated in the attacks, and two mosques and several homes were hit, according to residents.
The Israeli army said on Monday that it had carried out a “series of raids” on the southern Gaza Strip, which had now “stopped”.
Residents said that two mosques and a number of homes were bombed.
Transporting bodies to the European Hospital
Earlier, the Palestinian News Agency “Wafa” reported that the death toll from the Israeli raids on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip had risen to more than 100 dead and hundreds wounded.
Reuters quoted officials from the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip as saying that a number of bodies had arrived at the European Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army announced that it carried out a wave of attacks against specific targets in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, indicating that the strikes on the Al-Shaboura area in southern Gaza had ended.
The city’s surroundings were targeted by dozens of raids, which were more intense than in recent days, which led to clouds of smoke rising, according to Agence France-Presse.
The raids targeted 6 homes and two mosques, according to Palestinian security sources and witnesses.
Freeing detainees in Rafah
On Monday morning, the Israeli army announced that it was able to liberate two Hamas detainees during an operation carried out by special forces in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army explained that its special forces were able to free the Israeli detainees, Fernando Simon Marman (60 years old) and Louis Haar (70 years old).
Reuters quoted a statement issued by a hospital saying that Marman and Har were transferred to Sheba Hospital in central Israel and doctors confirmed that they were in “good condition.”
The Axios news website reported: “In a rapid and successful operation, Israeli army forces rescued two Israeli hostages who were being held in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.”
Evacuation orders without an evacuation plan
Before previous attacks on Gaza cities, the Israeli army was asking civilians to leave without preparing any specific evacuation plan.
The White House said that US President Joe Biden informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, Sunday, that Israel should not proceed with a military operation in Rafah without a reliable plan to ensure the safety of about a million people sheltering there.
Relief organizations say that any attack on Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip would be disastrous. This is the last relatively safe place in the sector that was destroyed by the Israeli military campaign.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke for about 45 minutes, days after the US President said that the Israeli military response in the Gaza Strip had “exceeded the limit,” expressing his deep concern about the high number of civilian deaths in the Palestinian Strip.
Netanyahu’s office said that he ordered the army to develop a plan to evacuate Rafah and destroy four Hamas brigades that he says are deployed there.
Warnings of an attack on Rafah
Following the Hamas attack on the settlements surrounding Gaza on October 7, Israel launched a comprehensive attack, by land, sea and air, on the Gaza Strip, which led to the killing of more than 28,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Yesterday, Sunday, Al-Aqsa TV, affiliated with the Hamas movement, quoted a senior leader of the Hamas movement as saying that any Israeli ground attack in Rafah would lead to “torpedoing” negotiations to exchange prisoners and detainees.
Yesterday, Sunday, Egypt warned of “serious consequences” of a possible Israeli military attack on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near its borders.
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, “Egypt demanded the necessity of uniting all international and regional efforts to prevent the targeting of the Palestinian city of Rafah.”
#Bilad #newspaper #Palestinians #killed #Israeli #bombing #Rafah