50 people killed as Israeli military launches airstrike on Rafah
The Israeli military has launched a devastating airstrike on Rafah, allegedly killing 50 people who were displaced and living in tents.
According to MailOnline, Palestinian medics said an Israeli air strike killed at least 22 people when it hit tents for displaced people in the southern Gaza city and ‘numerous’ others were trapped in the debris.
The IDF said its aircraft struck a ‘Hamas compound’ where ‘significant Hamas terrorists were operating’.
Footage from the scene showed heavy destruction and flames but there were no immediate details on the target.
Hamas said the attack fired on an area ‘crowded with hundreds of thousands of displaced people’.
And the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said at least 50 people have died, going on to say that ‘most’ of them are women and children.
The strike came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population had sought shelter before Israel’s recent incursion.
The Israeli army said it was unaware of anything occurring in the area.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was in Rafah today and was briefed on the ‘deepening of operations’ there, his office said.
A spokesperson with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the death toll was likely to rise as search and rescue efforts continued in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood about 1.2 miles northwest of the city centre.
