At least nine people, including children and women, were killed in Israeli air strikes overnight into Friday in the central area of the Gaza Strip and in the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The overnight air strikes came hours after US President Joe Biden said that he considers Israel’s conduct of the war to be “over the top”.
“I am of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” Biden said on Thursday, after delivering remarks on a special counsel report on his handling of classified documents.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, left Israel on Thursday as the divide grows between the two close allies on the way forward.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been driven by Israel’s military offensive toward the border with Egypt. Unable to leave the tiny Palestinian territory, many are living in makeshift tent camps or overflowing UN-run shelters.
The Palestinian death toll from the war has surpassed 27,840 people, the Health Ministry in Gaza said. A quarter of Gaza’s residents are starving.
The war began with Hamas’ October 7 assault into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Hamas is still holding over 130 hostages, but around 30 of them are believed to be dead.
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Friday’s strikes by Israel hit a residential building in Rafah and a kindergarten-turned-shelter for the displaced in the central town of Zuwaida. The dead and wounded were taken to nearby hospitals, where the bodies were seen by Associated Press journalists.
Those who fled to Rafah heeded Israeli evacuation orders ahead of the military’s expanding ground offensive. Evacuation orders now cover two-thirds of the tiny besieged enclave.
Even in areas of refuge, such as Rafah, Israel routinely launches air strikes against what it says are Hamas targets. It holds the militant group responsible for civilian casualties because it operates from civilian areas.
Israeli ground forces are still focusing on the city of Khan Younis, just north of Rafah, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly warned this week that Rafah would be next, creating panic among hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Netanyahu’s words have also alarmed Egypt which has said that any ground operation in the Rafah area or mass displacement across the border would undermine its 40-year-old peace treaty with Israel. The mostly sealed Gaza-Egypt border is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid.
Biden also said on Thursday that he continues to push for an extended pause in fighting in Gaza to facilitate the release of the dozens of remaining hostages that were captured during the October 7 attack on Israel.
Hamas, however, has demanded that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and end the war as part of a hostage deal. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to agree to those terms.
But Biden said he still is hopeful a deal can be worked out that might open a path to ending the war.