Scores of Palestinians have been killed or injured over the last few hours, including children and women, as the ongoing Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip enters its 128th day.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least 25 civilians were killed, and dozens more were injured due to the Israeli shelling of a house sheltering displaced people east of Rafah in southern Gaza, the area initially designated as a ‘safe zone’ for Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army.
Israeli warplanes continue their airstrikes in the Rafah area, amid reports of an imminent ground invasion into the densely populated city, home to over 1.3 million residents and displaced individuals near Palestine’s border with Egypt.
Earlier last night, medical reports confirmed that approximately 42 civilians were killed due to Israeli airstrikes on homes and vehicles in the city of Rafah since yesterday’s early morning hours.
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Israeli warplanes also conducted a series of intense airstrikes this morning on areas in southern Khan Yunis. There were no confirmed reports of casualties.
Meanwhile, Israeli artillery targeted central Gaza, causing casualties among the civilian population. There were no exact figures of the killed and wounded in the aftermath of the attack due to the continuous disruptions in communications in the war-torn enclave.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that an Israeli airstrike on the Abu Salimah family’s home in Deir al-Balah led to the killing of a woman and injuries to several others, including a child.
The injured were rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following the Israeli assault on the Abu Salimah family’s residence on Palm Street in the western part of Deir al-Balah.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 28,176 Palestinians have been killed, and 67,784 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 8,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all of the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(WAFA, PC)
