Fatalities as Israeli warplanes strike house in Gaza’s Rafah

By Hosni Nadim

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Israeli fighter jets struck a house in Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday evening, according to eyewitnesses.

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 an Oct. 7 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.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% 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.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar