‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 129: Israel bombards Rafah, killing more than 60 in a night
67 Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed Sunday night as Israel intensified bombing in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, in preparation for a ground invasion that experts warn would amount to genocide.
Casualties:
- 28,340+ killed* and at least 67,984 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
- 566 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
Key Developments:
- Hamas’ military wing says Israeli bombing kills two Israeli captives and wounds of eight others, it is unclear where the attacks took place.
- CENTCOM: US carries out “self-defense strikes” in Yemen.
- UNICEF: Civilians in Rafah must be protected as they have nowhere to go.
- UN: At least 395 displaced people killed in UNRWA shelters since October 7
- 100 Palestinian bodies recovered from Gaza City after Israeli troops withdrew, most killed by sniper bullets.
- Israel says two captives rescued from Rafah in southern Gaza, claims they are in good medical condition.
- In the last 24 hours, Israeli forces killed 164 people and injured 200 in Gaza, a ministry statement on Telegram said.
- At least 67 Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
- Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in occupied West Bank
- In four months, 17 settlement plans for over 8,400 housing units were advancedin occupied East Jerusalem.
- Israel spends at least 7 million dollars on zionist Super Bowl advertisement.
- Dutch court orders Netherlands to halt delivery of F-35 jet parts to Israel.
- US Senator Bernie Sanders: “No one in Congress” should support the Biden administration sending military aid to Israel, Netanyahu’s “war machine” is responsible for an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster.”
- Military expert: Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers, reported Al Jazeera
- Dutch court orders government to halt delivery of F-35 fighter jet parts used by Israel in its attacks on Gaza, saying there is a “clear risk” that the parts being exported by the Netherlands are being used in “serious violations of international humanitarian law”.
- Israel ‘deports’ 51-year-old Palestinian journalist from occupied West Bank to Gaza Strip.
Israel bombards Rafah ahead of planned ground invasion
The Israeli military has ramped up its attacks on Rafah in southern Gaza as it prepares for a possible ground offensive on the Palestinian city, which has become one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
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Rafah, which borders Egypt, is the last key city that Israeli troops have yet to enter. The area was once designated a “safe zone,” although it has been subjected to constant air attacks since Israel’s offensive began.
Overnight on Sunday, the military intensified their air raid on the city, killing at least 67 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including babies and children.
The strikes have resulted in significant destruction in Rafah, damaging homes, businesses, and mosques, which, according to Al Jazeera, are hosting 1.4 million Palestinians.
Hamas has condemned the latest Israeli air strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying they represent an “expansion of the scope of the massacres it is committing against our people,” in a press release, reported Al Jazeera.
“The Nazi occupation army’s attack on the city of Rafah tonight” the group said, “is considered a continuation of the genocidal war and the attempts at forced displacement it is waging against our Palestinian people,” the group continued.
Similarly, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry has “condemned in the strongest terms the mass massacres” the Israeli forces continue to commit against Palestinians, especially displaced people.
“Israel is officially continuing to target civilians and transfer the war to Rafah to push the population to get displaced under bombardment,” it said in a statement released on X.
“The recent massacres of the occupation are evidence of the validity of international warnings and fears of catastrophic results of the expansion of the war to Rafah,” the ministry added.
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned of “dire consequences” of an Israeli military assault on the southern city.
“Egypt reiterates its complete rejection of statements by top Israeli officials about launching a military operation on Rafah, warning of its dire consequences, in light of the humanitarian catastrophe it threatens to deepen,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Egypt called for the necessity of uniting all international and regional efforts to prevent the targeting of the Palestinian city of Rafah,” it added.
Military expert Wassef Erekat has told Al Jazeera that an Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers.
“It would be another tragedy befalling the Palestinian people, a catastrophe of epic proportions,” he said.
Erekat added that in the eyes of Netanyahu, a war without an invasion of Rafah would mean an admission of defeat.
“An invasion has dangerous and disastrous repercussions. Any number of scenarios can unfold: allowing the displaced back into the central and northern Gaza Strip, pushing them into [Egypt’s] Sinai, or merely bombing them further,” Erekat added.
The evacuation of Rafah would be ‘unlawful’, human rights experts warn
The majority of those in Rafah have been forcibly displaced several times since October due to Israel’s offensive, which has gradually expanded its invasion across the besieged enclave.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) “estimates that in total at least 395 IDPs [internally displaced persons] sheltering in UNRWA shelters have been killed and at least a further 1,379 injured” since October 7, it said in a statement.
Nadia Hardman, researcher at Human Rights Watch, has said that people are already struggling to survive in the small area where they have been pushed and displaced.
Hardman told Al Jazeera that people she spoke with, some of whom have been displaced up to 10 times, say they are fearful of a ground invasion of the area.
“The one question they continue to ask is ‘Where do we go?’ They have fled from areas that were once considered safe. Israel’s promise to provide safe passage must be analyzed in light of the fact that it has consistently failed to do this,” Hardman said.
“This evacuation would be unlawful if it is ordered,” she added.
The Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, has said that the civilians in Rafah must be protected no matter what.
“Civilians are pushed into a corner, living on streets or in shelters. They must be protected. They have nowhere safe to go,” Russell posted on X, adding that the area is teaming with children and families.
“Rafah already has nearly half of Gaza’s population. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, people have been fleeing to Rafah following Israeli evacuation orders.” Nebal Farsakh, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.
“There is no safe place at all, and there is no way to evacuate. On top of that, there is a complete destruction of the infrastructure, and the lack of transportation as well makes it impossible for people to make their way anywhere,” Farsakh added.
“We are asking to stop war because it has continued for so long,” he concluded.
Healthcare system in Gaza continues to suffer
Medical care all across the besieged enclave has been severely affected by Israel’s deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities. With the looming ground invasion of Rafah, Medical professionals are apprehensive about how the ground operation would further debilitate the already collapsed health system in the area.
Jamal al-Hams, a doctor at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, told Al Jazeera that an Israeli attack on the southern city would cause endless suffering for Palestinians.
“We are suffering a lot during these days because of the huge number of people who have been displaced from the northern and middle areas of the Gaza Strip towards Rafah,” al-Hams said.
“Secondly, we [already] have a huge number of injured people and patients with chronic diseases and acute illnesses who have been collected from all over the Gaza Strip [to Rafah]. We are suffering from the shortage of medical disposables and drugs. Most of the antibiotics and analgesics are not available.”
“We have changed the admission beds to emergency beds. The Najjar Hospital has a bed capacity of 70, and they changed it to 200 but that is still not enough,” al-Hams continued.
“I don’t know what is coming but I am sure that we will suffer very much,” al-Hams concluded.
“There would be no place for more injured people. There will be no bed capacity, not even for one, because all hospitals [in the south] – the European, Najjar, and Kuwaiti – are all at full capacity.”
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described the reports of Israel’s looming offensive as “extremely worrying”.
“Proceeding with the plans could have gravely devastating consequences for the 1.4 million people who have nowhere else left to go, and who have almost no place left to seek health care,” he posted on X.
Moreover, the WHO chief said hospitals in Rafah in the Gaza Strip were “overwhelmed and overflowing.”
“In the rest of the Strip, a majority of hospitals are either minimally or non-functional,” he added.
Meanwhile, in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, sewage water has flooded the emergency department of the medical complex, hindering medical staff from providing life-saving medical care.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health is calling for the protection of the hospital’s technical staff to repair the sewage network in the medical courtyard, where seven people have been shot dead by Israeli snipers and 14 others injured.
Both al Nasser and Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis have been under military siege for over two weeks and subjected to constant Israeli attacks.
PCRS has once again called on the international community to protect healthcare professionals after Israeli forces killed two PRCS paramedics in an airstrike on their way to rescue six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was also killed by Israel a few meters away.
“According to international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, the direct targeting and deliberate killing of PRCS crews and volunteers is considered a war crime,” the group said in a statement on X.
“[T]he contracting parties that signed the Geneva Conventions and are obligated to enforce respect for international humanitarian law must take the necessary measures to suppress, rebuke and punish the perpetrators.”
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations rapporteur on Palestine, has also said that Israel’s escalation in Gaza has led to hundreds of casualties, more devastation, and forced displacement, defying the terms the International Court of Justice imposed on Israel, including ending incitement to genocide and improving the supply of humanitarian aid.
“Israel is obligated to adhere to the court’s order and states must act decisively to prevent further atrocities,” she said.
Despite growing international calls, U.S. won’t tell Israel not to invade Rafah
Despite the growing international concern regarding the plans to invade Rafah, Israel is determined to go forward with the attack. Meanwhile, the US has put little to no pressure on Israel to halt their plans, aside from a verbal request, with no material pressure, to protect civilian lives.
The White House released a readout after Biden’s call with Netanyahu, where the US president said: “a military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for more than one million people sheltering there.”
The readout added that Biden stressed “the need to capitalize on progress made in the negotiations to secure the release of all hostages as soon as possible.”
Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told Al Jazeera that the fact that the United States president did not call for an immediate ceasefire represents a regression in US policy vis-a-vis the war on Gaza.
“What I expected to hear from Biden [is something] we will never hear. His comments about the imminent Israeli attack on Rafah should have been accompanied by the United States supporting a ceasefire,” he said.
“Rafah is the only area that is not destroyed completely in Gaza. Israel never gave up on its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population into Egypt. That’s what the US president should have opposed. But he doesn’t. The US is a participant in this attack,” Barghouti continued.
“For days, United States officials have been suggesting that this potential Rafah military operation would be disastrous and that it can’t go ahead, but now we have the conditions for the Rafah operation to go ahead, despite the 1.5 million people there,” Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi pointed out.
As the US funded Israel’s increasing attacks, the American public tuned into the Super Bowl, where Israel spent at least 7 million dollars on zionist propaganda to be shown during the football game advertisements.
Australian Senator David Shoebridge has decried the bombardment on Rafah and questioned the timing while viewers in the United States watch the Super Bowl.
“The attack on Rafah happening at 2am Gaza time while the US is watching the Superbowl is utterly horrific and devastating,” said Shoebridge.
“Our hearts are with the Palestinian people now more than ever,” he added.
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