Several casualties reported from Israeli airstrike on Rafah despite international warnings

By Anadolu staff

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Several Palestinians were killed and injured Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on a residential home in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Witnesses told Anadolu that Israeli warplanes struck a home in the Al-Zuhur neighborhood in northern Rafah, causing the casualties, including to children and women.

The Health Ministry in yet to specify the number of casualties in the attack.

The Israeli army continues to strike Rafah despite international warnings about launching a ground operation against the city which is heavily populated with more than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed last week to go ahead with plans to attack Rafah, the last area in Gaza that has not been attacked from the ground.

Israel has launched a retaliatory offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, on Oct. 7. The offensive has killed more than 31,000 victims and injured nearly 73,000 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli onslaught 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 is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in 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