Strikes in Rafah kill at least 5 as ship comes under attack

Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killed at least five people.

More than half of the territory’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in Rafah, where Israel has conducted neardaily raids as it prepares for an offensive in the city. In central Gaza, four people were killed in Israeli tank shelling.

A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday, officials said, the latest assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the Israel-Hamas war.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union. The United States has put Yemen’s Houthis rebels back on its list of specially designated global terrorists.

Pier comes under fire

An under-construction pier for a U.S.-led project to bring aid into the Gaza Strip came under fire Wednesday, forcing U.N. officials to take shelter there, Israeli and U.N. officials said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault, which the Israelis described as a mortar shell attack.

Authorities said that no one was wounded.

The attack marks a shaky start to the construction of the pier, a project that the U.S. is spearheading to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza. A Hamas official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the militant group will resist any foreign military presence involved with the port project.

Ship attack

The attack on the ship came after the U.S. military said early Thursday an allied warship shot down a Houthi missile targeting a vessel the day before near the same area. The Houthis claimed that Wednesday assault, which comes after a period of relatively few rebel attacks on shipping in the region over Israel’s war on Hamas.

In Thursday’s attack, a ship was targeted just over 15 miles southwest of Aden, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.