3 children, 1 woman killed in Israeli airstrike on shelter for displaced people in Rafah

By Mohamad Majid

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Three children and a woman were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a shelter for displaced people in northern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to witnesses.

Bodies of the victims were transported to the European Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, while civil defense teams were searching the rubble for survivors, witnesses said.

The attack came shortly after at least 20 people were injured in Israeli shelling of a group of civilians near humanitarian aid warehouses in eastern Rafah.

Israel expanded its ground offensive in Rafah on Tuesday, with its tanks reaching the center of the city.

Israel's current expansion of its incursion into the city makes the Israeli army close to fully control the border area between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, a demilitarized buffer zone running along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Before the launch of the Israeli military operation against Rafah on May 6, the city was home to over 1.5 million displaced Palestinians who fled their areas across the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli onslaught that started on Oct. 7, 2023, following a Hamas attack.

Israel has since killed at least 36,170 Palestinians, the vast majority being women and children, and injured over 81,400 others, according to local health authorities.

More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice, which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to halt its offensive in Rafah immediately.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio