Israel-Palestine war: Israeli strike on Rafah kills 27 as Jenin raid continues
An overnight Israeli strike on Rafah, the southernmost area of the Gaza Strip, killed at least 27 people on Thursday, Palestine’s Wafa News Agency reported.
Rafah is the last area Palestinians have been fleeing to for shelter, as Israel recently designated nearby Khan Younis as a combat zone.
The neighbouring Abu Dhbaa and Ashour family homes were destroyed by the air strike as residents were scrambling to find people under the rubble.
Residents told Al Jazeera the buildings housed locals as well as displaced people from other parts of the Gaza Strip who had escaped previous Israeli bombings and the ground invasion.
The Palestinian health ministry announced on Thursday that the death toll in Gaza since the start of the war on 7 October has now reached 18,787, while 50,897 people have been wounded.
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The strike on Rafah comes after a Hamas ambush on Israeli forces in northern Gaza’s Shejaiya neighbourhood killed 10 Israeli soldiers, including a senior colonel.
The attack on Tuesday marked the largest losses for the Israeli army in a single day since the beginning of their ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
A total of 116 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the ground incursion.
The attack comes as a new wartime opinion poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed a surge of support for Hamas among Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank.
Some 82 percent of respondents in the West Bank and 57 percent in the Gaza Strip said Hamas was correct in deciding to launch its attack on Israel on 7 October.
In contrast, 88 percent of respondents believe US-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should resign.
Some 63 percent of respondents also said they view armed struggle as “the best means of achieving Palestinian goals in ending the occupation and building an independent state”.
Hamas’s continued capacity to fight the Israeli army, despite heavy bombardments from the latter, called into question Israel’s ability to defeat the group without causing further mass destruction.
Pressure is also mounting on Israel, as US President Joe Biden said earlier this week that his ally may start losing international support due to its “indiscriminate bombing”.
A CNN report also revealed that a US intelligence assessment has said that roughly 40 to 45 percent of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided, or “dumb bombs”.
Starving people stop UN food trucks
United Nations' agency Unrwa said on Thursday that its food trucks are being stopped as Palestinians, starved by the Israeli siege, are taking the food and eating it straight away.
"Hunger has now emerged over the last few weeks and we meet more and more people who haven't eaten for one, two or three days,” Philippe Lazzarini, Unrwa commissioner-general, told journalists at a refugee event in Geneva.
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Additionally, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said it has become increasingly difficult to sustain life in Gaza.
“Staff on the ground say that every day that passes makes it more and more difficult to sustain human life in Gaza, that’s because of the systematic denial of food, water, medicine and fuel to the civilian population in Gaza,” MAP CEO Melanie Ward said on Thursday.
She added that the Israeli bombings will soon lead to the killing of 10,000 children.
Jenin raid kills 12, including teen
Elsewhere, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin are reportedly running out of food supplies, as Israeli forces have prevented them from leaving their homes for the past three days.
At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli raids on the city over the past three days, including a 17-year-old teenager.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in a post on X that Israeli forces shot and killed the unarmed boy, Musa Ahmed Musa Khatib, inside Khalil Suleiman hospital compound in Jenin on Thursday.
"Israeli forces stopped ambulances taking discharged patients home outside Khalil Suleiman hospital. Paramedics and ambulance drivers were ordered out of the ambulances, stripped and made to kneel in the street. The patients were left in the ambulances," said MSF.
"All of this happened in full view of our team. Since 7 October, we have seen Israeli forces fire live bullets at the hospital, tear gas the hospital, block ambulances, humiliate and harass medical staff, and now - shoot and kill someone in the hospital compound.
"Hospitals are supposed to be safe spaces. Hospitals must be respected. These attacks must stop," added MSF.
Israeli forces were also filmed using the public announcement system of a mosque in Jenin refugee camp to play Hannukah songs, in a video that surfaced online on Thursday.
The Israeli military said the soldiers were "removed from operational activity immediately".
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