Israel ramps up deadly attacks on Gaza’s Rafah despite US, UN warnings
Al Jazeera
US tells Israel it won’t support ‘unplanned’ Rafah offensive as President Biden calls Gaza attacks ‘over the top’.
Israel is ramping up its attacks on Rafah as it prepares to mount a ground offensive despite warnings of catastrophic consequences for displaced Palestinians and the United States saying it won’t back an assault on the southern Gaza Strip because it would be a “disaster”.
The Israeli military launched several rounds of air strikes and tank shelling on Rafah on Thursday and Friday. At least three children were among eight people killed on Friday morning in Israeli attacks on homes in Rafah, the Palestinian state news agency, Wafa, reported. Five of those killed were members of one family.
“We have our backs to the [border] fence and faces towards the Mediterranean. Where should we go?” asked Emad, 55, a father of six, who fled to Rafah with his family.
Four people were also killed and a number injured in the bombing of a kindergarten housing displaced people in az-Zawayda, and one person was killed in a bombing in Deir el-Balah, both in central Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials have said they are planning to expand their military offensive in Gaza to include Rafah, where more than half of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million has been forcibly displaced, some multiple times, as a result of unyielding Israeli attacks.
