OVERNIGHT and throughout yesterday morning, the Israeli military continued to pound parts of eastern Rafah city.
The majority of residential homes and farmland have been cleared, as well as the central part of Rafah.
Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said it fired ‘heavy-calibre mortal shells’ at Israeli soldiers operating to the east of Rafah near the site of Gaza’s derelict airport.
Israeli strikes in the municipality of ash-Shoka in eastern Rafah killed at least one Palestinian, report our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, adding to dozens who have been killed and injured since Israel launched an incursion in the east of the province earlier this week.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from the centre of Rafah, said: ‘Events are evolving rapidly. People in Rafah are filling up the roads and evacuating from the city. They are moving their stuff either by car or by animal-drawn cart, using whatever means of transportation available as Israel expands its intense bombing campaign. The bombing seems to be moving a little further towards central Rafah, as well as the western part of it.
‘People are pouring into central Gaza by the thousands, mainly to Deir el-Balah city. The vicinity of this hospital – Al-Aqsa Hospital – is becoming very crowded, with many families looking for any small, empty area to set up tents or whatever they’re able to construct. Exhaustion and panic define what these families are experiencing.’
• ‘Israel’s ground operation in Gaza’s Rafah, a day after Hamas delivered its acceptance of a ceasefire proposal, shows that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is not acting in good faith,’ Türkey’s foreign ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Öncü Keçeli said: ‘An attack on Rafah will affect not only the region but the whole world. Israel must immediately withdraw from the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing.’
- Switzerland has decided to contribute 10 million Swiss francs (over $11 million) to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), focusing on the basic needs of the people in Gaza. ‘The CHF 10 million contribution is exclusively earmarked for Gaza and will be used to provide the urgent assistance specified in the UNRWA Flash Appeal for the occupied Palestinian territory covering the period April-December 2024,’ the Federal Council said.
- Medical teams have found a third mass grave inside Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, with 49 bodies so far recovered, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.
It said the team expects to find dozens more as the process of retrieving bodies continues. There have been a total of seven mass graves found inside hospitals so far.
‘We condemn in the strongest terms the crimes of genocide and the continuous killing committed by the occupation army against our Palestinian people. We hold the US administration, the international community and the occupation fully responsible for these mass graves and this blatant aggression.’
- US police have arrested dozens of students after clearing an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Just before dawn, hundreds of officers entered the campus and used pepper spray to disperse the protesters and clear the encampment, according to GW Hatchet, the university’s independent student-run newspaper.
‘Officers gave their third and final warning to demonstrators to move at about 3:30am, saying all who remained in U-Yard and the stretch of H Street in front of the plaza would be arrested,’ GW Hatchet wrote.
Between 30 and 40 protesters were arrested, according to CNN.
Citing familiar sources, the newspaper said police charged several protesters with unlawful entry.
Protesters were carrying signs that read, ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘Hands off Rafah’.
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