An Israeli strike left nine dead, including six children, all members of the same family, during the night from Friday to Saturday in Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip, said the Civil Defense of the Palestinian territory.
“Nine martyrs, including six children, were pulled from the rubble after Israeli warplanes struck a house of the Radwan family in Tal al-Sultan in Rafah
,” said Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal, in a press release sent to AFP.
Al-Najjar Hospital said six children aged one to 16 were among the dead, as well as two women and a man, where they had all been admitted. Outside the hospital, an AFP journalist saw relatives mourning the deceased and gathered in front of small white plastic body bags. A woman stroked a dead boy's forehead as planes roared overhead.
“People were sleeping peacefully
,” testified a neighbor, Abou Mohammed Ziyadah.
As you can see, there were no fighters, not even adult men, except for the head of the family. There were only women and children.”
A house and a nursery school affected
The Civil Defense spokesperson noted that strikes hit several areas in Rafah during the night, including the Salam neighborhood where one person was killed and several others injured. He added that the army had hit a house and a nursery school and that "
the night had been very hard for the Rafah governorate."
Shortly after the war in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, Israel asked Palestinians living in the north of the territory to move to
“safe zones”
in the south, such as Rafah.
Six months later, Rafah is under threat of an imminent ground offensive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was determined to launch an assault on the city where, according to him, four battalions of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas are concentrated. But NGOs and a growing number of foreign chancelleries are opposed to this operation, fearing that it will cause numerous civilian victims, while 1.5 million Gazans, residents or displaced persons, are in Rafah.