Palestinians mourn victims of Israeli attacks amid Rafah invasion fear

AFP | Jerusalem   

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Palestinians yesterday mourned people killed in Israeli bombardment of Rafah, the crowded southern Gaza city where Israel says it is advancing plans for a ground invasion.

Global concern has mounted over the looming operation against Hamas fighters in Rafah, where much of Gaza’s population has sought refuge from more than six months of war in the narrow coastal strip.

Aid groups warn any invasion would add to already-catastrophic conditions for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.

Israeli officials have for more than two months vowed to enter Rafah, near the Egyptian border, but even before any ground operation, the area has been regularly bombed, including overnight Wednesday-Thursday.

At the city’s Al-Najjar Hospital yesterday, among the mourners were two men crouching, grief-stricken, in front of a white body bag. Those killed in an Israeli strike on Rafah included Abdallah Nabhan, 33, who worked for Belgium’s Enabel development agency. Brussels said it would summon Israel’s ambassador to explain the death.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Israel’s war cabinet met yesterday “to discuss how to destroy the last battalions of Hamas”. He has said the four battalions that remain in Rafah “will be attacked”.

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, with a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. Yesterday’s toll included at least 43 more deaths over the previous day