6 children among 9 killed in Israeli airstrike on Rafah

AN ISRAELI airstrike on a house in Gaza’s southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group Hamas has led to a dramatic escalation of tensions in an already volatile West Asia.

The strike late Friday hit a residential building in the western Tel Sultan neighborhood of the city of Rafah, according to Gaza’s civil defense. The bodies of the six children, two women and a man were taken to Rafah’s Abu Yousef al-najjar hospital, the hospital’s records showed.

At the hospital, relatives cried and hugged the bodies of the children, wrapped in white shrouds, as others comforted them. The fatalities included Abdel-fattah Sobhi Radwan, his wife Najlaa Ahmed Aweidah and their three children, his brotherin-law Ahmed Barhoum said. Barhoum also lost his wife, Rawan Radwan, and their 5year-old daughter Alaa.

“This is a world devoid of all human values and morals,” Barhoum told The Associated Press Saturday morning, crying as he cradled and gently rocked the body of Alaa in his arms. “They bombed a house full of displaced people, women and children. The only martyrs were women and children.”

No victims were registered from a second overnight strike in the city. Rafah, which lies on the border with Egypt, currently hosts more than half of Gaza’s total population of about 2.3 million people, the vast majority of whom have been displaced by fighting elsewhere.