At least 20 killed in airstrikes in Rafah
Gaza City, Palestine - At least 20 Palestinians, including five children, were killed and many others injured in Israeli airstrikes targeting three homes in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early on Monday, medical sources told Anadolu.
The victims were taken to Kuwaiti and Mohammed Yousef El-najar hospitals in Rafah.
The first strike targeted a house belonging to the Al-khatib family in the Jneina neighbourhood, resulting in three fatalities, including a child, and several injuries. The second airstrike targeted a house belonging to the Al-khawaja family in the Shabora refugee camp, resulting in the deaths of seven Palestinians, including a baby, and injuring others.
Ten Palestinians, including three children, were also killed, and several others injured in a third airstrike targeting a house belonging to the Abu Taha family in the Salam neighbourhood.
Israel has stepped up airstrikes on Rafah, where it has vowed to launch an all-out assault despite international outcry as it could cause mass casualties. The southern city hosts more than a million people displaced from the war in Gaza.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023 which killed some 1,200 people.
Besides killing more than 34,000 Palestinians since then, the military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3mn people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine.
Meanwhile, the civil defence teams and volunteers have joined hands to extract the bodies of dead Palestinians from under the rubble of destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip, according to a local official on Monday.
“We resume our work (in northern Gaza) after a 100-day hiatus,” Ahmed al-kahlout, head of the Civil Defence Agency, told Anadolu.
He said the recovered bodies will be examined, documented and identified before being buried in northern Gaza.
Kahlout said civil defence teams and volunteers are working with limited equipment.
“The Israeli army has destroyed the agency’s drills, bulldozers, and machines,” he added.
Eid Sabah, the nursing director at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said the Health Ministry has enough information about the number of those under the rubble.
“Work has begun to extract and bury the victims in the designated cemeteries,” he told Anadolu.
“There are about 10,000 bodies still missing under the rubble in various parts of the strip,” he added.
Blinken in Riyadh
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah met on Monday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss the developments in the Gaza Strip, Saudi Press Agency WAS reported. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the joint meeting between the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the United States, the agency said.
Both top diplomats discussed ways to enhance bilateral relations and strengthen cooperation across various fields between the two countries, it added.
They also reviewed the developments in the Gaza Strip and the city of Rafah, emphasising the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire, in addition to exploring ways to ensure the entry of urgent humanitarian aid.
Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza.