9 more Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes on Rafah

At least nine Palestinian civilians were killed on Monday when Israeli military aircraft carried out airstrikes targeting residents in eastern Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

According to a medical source at the Gaza European Hospital, nine fatalities were brought to the hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, along with several injured individuals, some of whom were reported to be in critical condition, said Palestine’s official news agency Wafa.

Earlier in the day, a civilian was killed and another was wounded when an Israeli drone struck a home in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood west of Rafah, it added.

Additionally, a Palestinian lost his life, and others, including children and women, were wounded in an Israeli bombardment of the Khirbat al-Adas area north of the city.

The Israeli army on Monday claimed that it has “operational control” over some 70% of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and aims to complete its military campaign in the area within a few weeks.

Current military offensives are concentrated in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood and the eastern part of the Shabora neighborhood, the army said in a statement.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

More than 37,300 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 85,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.