On Sunday, Day 121 of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that Israel killed 127 Palestinians and injured 178 others, committing 14 massacres in the past 24 hours.
Israeli airstrikes bombed two inhabited houses in Rafah and killed at least 26 Palestinians.
Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 562 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured. Since October 7th, at least 27,365 Palestinians have been killed and at least 66,630 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 380+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Overnight, Israeli forces bombed a kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, the southern city which borders Egypt.
Israel is bombing Rafah and says it’s planning a ground invasion in the area. Israel declared it a “safe zone,” but now Palestinians have no safe place to go.
The UN described Rafah as a “pressure cooker of despair.” Israeli bombardment has killed 27,000+ Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/TONixoWgBl
— AJ+ (@ajplus) February 4, 2024
Wafa news agency reported that two girls were killed in the Israeli airstrike and dozens injured. Another Israeli airstrike on an apartment in Hassan Salama Tower in Al-Geneina neighborhood, east of Rafah, killed a child and wounded two others.
An Israeli airstrike on the house of the Abu Safar family killed seven Palestinians, including children, in the Al-Hakar area in Deir Al-Balah city, in central Gaza. Wafa also reported that several Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling were launched on Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, overnight.
Also in Khan Younis, the army fired missiles and shells at Palestinian homes in Bani Sohelia, east of the city, causing extensive damage to many homes and buildings.
The soldiers also shot a young man with live rounds near the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, and killed two young men after the soldiers fired a missile at many Palestinian trying to reach their homes in the center of Khan Younis.
An airstrike on the house of Masran family in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza injured several Palestinians as Israeli forces continued to bomb north Gaza neighborhoods, killing at least eight Palestinians in an airstrike on the Al-Remal area.
Wafa reported that in north Gaza, medical teams transferred the bodies and the injured to the Kamal Adwan Hospital, while for the sixth day in a row, Israeli forces are laying siege over the Al-Shifa Hospital, preventing people from accessing the facility.
Palestinian children were severely injured after an Israeli attack on Rafah, south of Gaza. Civilians were previously told to evacuate to Rafah as the Israeli army designated it as a “safe zone”.
Since October 7, Israeli air strikes and ground attacks have killed over 27,000… pic.twitter.com/Akkzo2n3R0
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) February 4, 2024
Furthermore, at least fifteen Palestinians, including children, were killed and many were injured when the Israeli army bombarded several areas in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza.
Last week, Israeli tanks approaching the Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Rimal neighborhood, forced thousands of Palestinians to flee in panic and fear to the eastern areas of Gaza City. Despite being one of the first hospitals attacked by the Israeli military in its ground offensive campaign, Al-Shifa is one of the few remaining hospitals that are still partially operating in Gaza.
In Rafah, Israeli airstrikes on two inhabited houses killed at least 26 Palestinians, according to Wafa, and injured dozens. Rafah, the southernmost district of the Gaza Strip, has seen the influx of nearly half of Gaza’s 2 million residents, who were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces. Thousands of Palestinian families are living in tents in Rafah and lack sufficient food, fresh water and heating sources.
In the past weeks, Israel has been mulling a plan to invade the Philadelphia Axis, a zone which separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Palestinians are concerned that Israel will use the military operation in the area to push thousands of people out to the Sinai Peninsula under the threat of bombardment and airstrikes. Israel claims that the border area is still a breathing lung for Hamas fighters and has tunnels running underneath it.
Hamas releases video of attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers
Hamas’ military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of the attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month.
The attack was the heaviest combat loss the Israeli military has suffered since December, when eight soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in Al-Shuja’iya refugee camp, east of Gaza City.
Since October, at least 562 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip or during armed clashes with Palestinian fighters, according to the Israeli military. The 562 identified soldiers are, according to the military’s website, the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
In the video released by Hamas, fighters fired a 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank shell on a two-story building in Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, while another one fired another Al-Yaseen on an Israeli tank, followed by detonating a minefield.
The Israeli force were preparing mines and explosives to demolish a building 600 meters away from Kissufim, an Israel kibbutz to the east of the Gaza Strip’s fence.
The Israeli military said one of Hamas’s anti-tank grenades hit the explosives and mines being set up by the Israeli unit inside the building, which led to a massive explosion, killing the 21 soldiers and the collapse of the building, Haaretz reported.
Since December, the Israeli military demolished several houses and residential buildings along the Gaza fence in a bid to create a “buffer zone” and further push Palestinian neighborhoods to the west away from Israeli towns.
Hamas also released a video of shooting an Israeli command officer west of Gaza City, with a sniper fire, while in Khan Younis, it attacked several Israeli tanks and military vehicles, including the D9 Bulldozer with a direct and close hit, while it was destroying Palestinian homes.
*This news summary was compiled by our colleagues at Mondoweiss.net
Aid blocked from entering Gaza:
The Israeli dedication to blocking aid from entering Gaza is horrifying. The fact that it’s happening after the international court of Justice told Israel to do everything in its power to stop genocide is doubly so.
— Read Let This Radicalize You (@JoshuaPHilll) February 5, 2024
