Gaza War
Many dead in Israeli air strike in Rafah
The International Court of Justice had ordered Israel to end the military operation in Rafah. Photo
© Jehad Alshrafi/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
According to aid workers, there have been dozens of casualties in an Israeli air strike in Gaza. Most of the dead are refugees – but also two high-ranking Hamas terrorists. The news at a glance.
According to aid organizations, numerous people in a tent camp with refugee civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the bombardment took place on Sunday in the northwest of the city, where the Israeli military is trying to destroy the last Hamas battalions believed to be there. In an emergency room, “dozens of injured and more than 15 dead” were counted, reported the organization Doctors Without Borders. Other sources in the Gaza Strip spoke of more than twice as many dead, and there could be more victims in collapsed or burned tents.
According to the Israeli military, intelligence had identified significant Hamas terrorists on the site before the attack – two of them were killed and reports of civilian casualties were being investigated.
The army stated on the online platform X that the “precisely” conducted air strike was aimed at a complex of the Islamist organization Hamas and was carried out in accordance with international law. In addition to Yassin Rabia, the main mastermind behind Hamas’s terrorist activities in the West Bank, the high-ranking Hamas terrorist Khaled Nagar was also killed. Both were significantly involved in the planning and financing of attacks and had the lives of Israeli soldiers on their conscience. The information could not initially be independently verified.
The Red Crescent said the area hit by the airstrike was designated as a humanitarian protection zone for people who had to flee because of the Israeli war. “We are appalled by this deadly incident, which once again shows that nowhere (in the Gaza Strip) is safe,” Doctors Without Borders criticized.
On Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to immediately end the military operation in Rafah. Decisions of the world court are binding. However, the UN judges have no power to force a state to implement them.
First rocket alert in Tel Aviv in months
On Sunday, Hamas fired rockets at the greater Tel Aviv area for the first time in four months – according to the army, eight missiles were fired from Rafah. The missile defense system was able to intercept some of them. Several explosions were heard in the city center of Tel Aviv. There was also a rocket alert in several cities in the greater area of the coastal metropolis. The military Hamas wing claimed responsibility for the attacks. According to paramedics, two women were slightly injured when they rushed to shelters. Tel Aviv was last attacked with rockets from the Gaza Strip on January 29.
On Sunday evening, several thousand people in Tel Aviv accompanied the funeral procession of an Israeli hostage whose body was recovered by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip last week. The father of two had attended the Supernova music festival on October 7 last year and was caught by the Islamists during the unprecedented massacre by Hamas and other terrorists. His family invited the public to take part in the funeral procession in silent protest for the return of all the hostages.
Negotiations on the release of the hostages were also to be discussed at a meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet on Sunday evening. Before the meeting, Netanyahu had said in a statement that he continued to reject Hamas’s demand for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, according to the army, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian near Hebron in the West Bank on Sunday who was attempting to carry out a knife attack on an army post. Soldiers were not injured, it said. The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said it had been informed by Israeli security authorities of the death of the 14-year-old attacker. Since the start of the Gaza war, almost 500 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, attempted attacks and attacks by militant settlers.
200 trucks with relief supplies roll into Gaza Strip
For the first time since an agreement between Egypt and the USA, aid deliveries for the Gaza Strip were diverted from the closed Egyptian border crossing at Rafah via the Israeli passenger station at Kerem Shalom. The Egyptian state-run television station Al-Kahira News reported on Sunday that 200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid had driven from Rafah to Kerem Shalom and that entry into the blockaded Gaza Strip had begun.
At the Democracy Festival in Berlin on Sunday, there were loud protests at an event with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Angry about the German government’s handling of the Gaza war, several participants disrupted a debate between the Green politician and citizens with loud shouts and banners. Among other things, they called on Baerbock to immediately stop arms deliveries to Israel. Baerbock tried to answer the questions calmly and called on the troublemakers to refrain from making threats.