Israeli airstrike kills eight including four women and a child as Hamas says IDF attacks have left 92 Palestinians dead in last 24 hours
An Israeli airstrike hit a house in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, killing at least eight people, including four women and a child, according to health ministry officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza .
The strike brings the total number of Palestinians killed by bombings in the past 24 hours to 92, the Health Ministry said.
It was also reported that in almost five months of the war the total death toll rose to 29,606 and the total number of wounded rose to almost 70,000.
While the ministry’s death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, the ministry says two-thirds of those killed were children and women.
Search and rescue teams search for injured and killed Palestinians after Israeli forces hit a building and its surroundings in Rafah, Gaza
People gather in front of a building destroyed by the Rafah airstrike. At least eight people were killed
Palestinians help an injured man after the bombing in Rafah. Four women and a child were reportedly killed
Meanwhile, Israel claimed its forces have killed more than 10,000 Hamas fighters but provided no details.
The bodies of those killed in the airstrike were seen by independent journalists at Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital.
Israel declared war after the deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel, in which Hamas terrorists killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
There are still more than a hundred hostages in Gaza.
The rising number of civilian casualties and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza have strengthened calls for a ceasefire.
Hunger and infectious diseases are spreading and about 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, including about 1.4 million in Rafah on the border with Egypt.
‘There are suffocating, sky-high prices. It’s terrifying,” said Hassan Attwa, a displaced man from Gaza City who is now sheltering in a tent on the sand in Mawasi in the south.
‘There is no source of income. The area is very overcrowded, the garbage, God bless you, is not collected at all. It stays piled up.
“When it rains, it turns into a mess and clay. The situation is disastrous in every sense of the word.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight to “total victory” but sent a delegation to Paris to demand the release of hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire.
The negotiators are faced with large gaps and an unofficial deadline: the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan around March 10.
It comes as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he would not give up his “dignity for falsehood”, amid calls for him to retract recent comments he made accusing Israel of genocide.
The president compared Israel’s behavior in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust, which killed six million Jews and others during World War II.
Palestinian artist Mahmoud Zuaiter inspects the ruins of his house after an airstrike on the house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on February 24
Medics transport a body to al-Najjar hospital in Rafah after an Israeli airstrike in the Rafah refugee camp
“What the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. ‘Children and women are being murdered.’
In response to Lula’s initial comments, Israel declared him persona non grata, summoned Brazil’s ambassador and demanded an apology.
Lula then recalled the Brazilian ambassador to Israel for consultations.
Last month, South Africa filed a landmark case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.
Two weeks later, the court issued a preliminary injunction ordering Israel to do everything possible to prevent death, destruction and genocide in Gaza.
Israel, founded in part as a refuge for Holocaust survivors, has accused South Africa of hypocrisy.
South Africa has compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza to the treatment of black South Africans during apartheid, framing the issues as fundamentally about people being oppressed in their homeland.
Brazil’s president claimed on Saturday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, doubling down on harsh rhetoric after stoking controversy a week ago by comparing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust.
Palestinians check the destruction after an Israeli attack in Rafah, Gaza Strip on February 24
More destruction caused by Israeli attacks in Rafah. Israel claimed its forces killed more than 10,000 Hamas fighters but did not provide details
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (photo) compared Israel to the Nazis
Israel has strongly opposed genocide claims made at the U.N. Supreme Court and elsewhere, saying its war is against the militant group Hamas, not the Palestinian people.
It has held Hamas responsible for civilian deaths, arguing that the group operates from civilian areas.
An Israeli delegation returned from a meeting in Paris with negotiators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar to try to reach an agreement on pausing the fighting, an Israeli official said.
The delegation was expected to meet with senior Cabinet members on Saturday, the official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Egypt and Qatar are mediators between Israel and Hamas.