Genocide in Gaza: Israel intensifies attacks on Rafah

Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip is now in its fifth month, with the focus of onslaught being the southern city of Rafah, which hosts more than half of the Palestinian population.

Israeli troops and warplanes bombed areas in Rafah on Thursday. Tanks shelled some areas in the eastern part of the city.

The health ministry said at least 27,840 people have been killed in the territory since Israel began its war in October. 

The latest toll includes 130 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, while a total of 67,317 people have been wounded in Gaza since October 7.

Also in Rafah, mourners wept over the bodies of those killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood.

Witnesses said a man was carrying the body of a young child in a black bag after an Israeli rocket attack on a spot with children, women, and the elderly.

Israel intensified attacks in Rafah overnight as warplanes struck three homes and killed 24 Palestinians.

Rafah is home to more than half of the 2 million Palestinians who have been forced from their homes across Gaza. The city was designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli regime’s authorities, but in recent days they have vowed to move the military offensive into the city.

Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if Israel follows through on its threat to enter one of the last remaining areas of the Gaza Strip that its troops have not moved into during its ground offensive.

On Wednesday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said pushing into Rafah on the border with Egypt would “increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”

“We have our backs to the (border) fence and faces toward the Mediterranean. Where should we go?” said Emad, 55, a displaced person who is a father of six. “There is no place to go. One million people and more than 1 million are asking this question today; where shall we go?”

Israel using hunger as ‘weapon’ against Palestinians in Gaza, UN expert warns

Israel is using hunger as a ‘weapon’ against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, a UN expert warns.

Meanwhile, the health ministry in Gaza says Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis is overwhelmed with a large number of injured. The ministry warns that 10,000 displaced Palestinians are facing death and starvation under Israeli fire on the hospital.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says staff and patients are also in danger at Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

Hospitals and medical centers have been among the main targets of the Israeli military since the regime’s hostilities began in early October.

Israel appears unwilling to establish a ceasefire. It has already rejected a proposal for truce by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas. But a Palestinian official said a Hamas delegation has traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The talks will reportedly focus on the first phase of the proposed ceasefire deal by Hamas, which would last about six weeks.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also been on a tour in the region. Still, Washington has so far failed to put meaningful pressure on Israel to end the onslaught.

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