Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza metropolis of Rafah on Saturday killed a number of civilians, together with girls and kids, in keeping with Palestinian state media, sending extra concern via an space the place over a million displaced Palestinians are crowded into tents and non permanent quarters.
For a lot of weeks, Palestinians have been bracing for an introduced Israeli floor offensive on Rafah, the southernmost a part of Gaza, the place greater than half of the strip’s 2.2 million residents fled after being pressured from their properties by greater than six months of Israeli bombardment and a floor invasion.
The airstrikes hit two household properties, killing 10 residents, and missiles and artillery additionally struck different areas of Rafah and the encircling space, in keeping with the Wafa information company.
The Israeli navy wouldn’t instantly touch upon the strikes. It has mentioned the objective of its offensive in Gaza is to eradicate Hamas, the armed group that has managed the Gaza Strip for almost 20 years.
“It was like an earthquake,” Mohammad al-Masri, a 31-year-old accountant who’s sheltering together with his household in a tent in a big Rafah encampment, mentioned of the shaking from the strikes.
The primary strike hit at a little bit previous midnight, shaking the earth and lighting up the evening sky, and a second one got here quickly after, he mentioned. “When we hear these strikes we don’t know what to do,” he mentioned. “Everyone is saying the same thing, ‘Where can we go?’”
President Biden and different world leaders have urged Israel to not invade Rafah as a result of it will make an already dire humanitarian disaster even worse.
However Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not heeded these calls and claims a floor offensive is important to “complete the elimination of Hamas’s battalions” and to destroy its tunnel networks.
Saturday’s strikes stoked fears for Palestinians in Rafah that an invasion may very well be imminent.
In a briefing to the Safety Council this week, Secretary-Basic António Guterres mentioned that Israel’s navy offensive in Rafah would “compound this humanitarian catastrophe.”
Rahaf Al-Madhoun, 17, was streaming stay on TikTok to speak in regards to the residing situations in Rafah, when the primary airstrike hit very shut, she mentioned. She stopped to gather herself earlier than persevering with. Then she described the phobia sown by the strikes and the ever-present buzz of surveillance drones overhead.
“We’re at a loss, I swear,” she mentioned. “The fear itself is killing us.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
