On Tuesday, day 214 of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, 21 Palestinians, including children and women, have been killed in the Israeli shelling of separate areas in the Gaza Strip, most of them in the city of Rafah.
Medical sources said that 20 dead civilians and dozens of injuries reached the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in Rafah.
The Israeli invasion of Rafah followed the announcement by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, of its approval of the proposal of the Qatari and Egyptian mediated agreement for a ceasefire. Israel, for its parts, rejected the deal, despite the agreement having conceded to Israel most of the points its negotiators had stressed.
It included the release of most of the remaining Israeli hostages, in exchange for a cessation of hostilities and the negotiated exchange of a number of Palestinian hostages being held by the Israeli authorities. Israel currently holds over 10,000 Palestinian hostages, while the Palestinian resistance holds an estimated remaining 133 Israeli hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s war council had unanimously decided to continue the Rafah operation, saying the aim was to put military pressure on Hamas in order to advance efforts to release prisoners and achieve war goals.
Video footage from the Israeli military shows its tanks rolling up to the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only passage through which some Palestinians have been able to escape the ongoing and relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which survivors say has become “hell on earth” over the past seven months of Israeli bombardment.
Video by the Israeli army: Israeli tank drives up to and invades the Rafah border crossing between Rafah and Egypt
For its part, the Qassam Brigades announced earlier that it targeted the Israeli forces in the “Netzarim” axis with rockets, and a command room of the occupation forces in the same axis with short-range rockets and mortar shells, while the Al-Quds Brigades said that it shelled a gathering of the Israeli occupation forces and sniped an Israeli soldier east of the Sheja’eyya neighborhood.
The rescue and ambulance crews and citizens recovered the bodies of 4 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, including two women, and 18 others were wounded, in the Israeli occupation shelling of a house belonging to the Al-Darbi family in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah.
The bodies of 3 Palestinian civilians were retrieved from under the rubble of the Abu Amra family house, and 4 Palestinians from the Al-Hams family in the Al-Geneina neighborhood in the east were killed in an airstrike on the family home. In addition, four were killed in the bombing of a house belonging to the Abdel Aal family.
A number of injuries reached the Kuwait Specialist Hospital, as a result of Israeli warplanes targeting the house of the Afifi family in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah.
The Israeli warplanes launched air raids targeting the Abu Halawa area, east of Rafah, in conjunction with the shelling of Israeli artillery and firing on the homes of citizens in the eastern areas of Rafah.
In Gaza City, a civilian was killed, and others were injured in the bombing of a school to shelter the displaced in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza, and the occupation artillery shelled different areas in Gaza City, especially the neighborhoods of Al-Zaytoun, Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ejleen and Al-Sabra.
In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombed a house in the Al-Atatra area of Beit Lahia, and Israeli warplanes targeted the eastern areas of the towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the Israeli army committed six massacres against Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, including 54 corpses moved to hospitals and 96 wounded, including many children and women, in addition to those who remain under the rubble.
The Israeli occupation army has continued its aggression by land, sea and air on the Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October, resulting in the death of 34,789 citizens, the majority of whom were children and women, and the injury of 78,204 others, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble.
