The ISRAELI occupation forces (IOF) have committed new massacres on what was described as ‘a night of hell’ in Rafah yesterday, killing at least 164 and injuring hundreds more.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll from Israeli bombardments since October 7th, has now climbed to 28,340, and the number of wounded has surged to 67,984.
In a statement, Hamas warned: ‘Netanyahu’s terrorist government and his Nazi army have flouted the resolutions that were adopted two weeks ago by the International Court of Justice, which called for taking urgent measures to halt any steps that could be considered acts of genocide.’
Hamas said the US president and his administration are fully responsible for the carnage happening in Rafah, ‘as a result of the green light they gave to Netanyahu on Sunday and the financial and military support they provide for his government to continue the genocidal war and massacres in Gaza.’
The Movement appealed to the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the US Security Council to take urgent and serious action to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against the defenceless civilians in Gaza.
Dozens of people, mostly children and women, were killed in Rafah as the extremely intense Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded multiple homes, shelter sites and cars in Rafah overnight on Monday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.
Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: ‘All hospitals in Rafah are overwhelmed and overflowing. In the rest of the Strip the majority of hospitals are either functioning minimally or not-functioning at all.’
Thomas White, the Gaza chief of the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, has said UNRWA has seen alarmingly high rates of diarrhoea, which can be deadly if there is not enough clean water, in addition to outbreaks of Hepatitis A.
‘These are the result of a million people jammed into a pretty small area without access to sanitation,’ White said, adding: ‘Hundreds of thousands of people are digging a hole in the sand adjacent to where they’re living, and that’s where they are defecating.’
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said its fighters ambushed Israeli troops early yesterday morning in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where intense fighting has been reported in recent days.
Doctors Without Borders, (MSF) said: ‘Israel’s planned ground offensive on Rafah would be catastrophic and must not proceed. As aerial bombardment of the area continues, more than a million people, many living in tents and makeshift shelters, now face a dramatic escalation in this ongoing massacre.’
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said that by ‘killing, destroying, and trying to displace Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, Israel wants to reshape the demographic balance to its advantage, after it shifted in favour of Palestine, for the first time since 1948.
‘There is no difference between a soldier and a coloniser. At night, a soldier, and during the day, a coloniser, and they practice all forms of terrorism.
‘We have lost more than 100,000 slain Palestinians, wounded and missing in the Gaza Strip since October 7th, 2023, and more than 640 in the West Bank.
‘There are also more than 10,000 detainees, and these are not numbers, but rather they indicate children, women, the elderly, young men and women, and they indicate our families and our people, each of them has a history, status, and name, and had a future that was killed by Israel.’
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