The Israel Defence Forces has said it killed senior members of “terror” organisations in strikes on Rafah.
This includes Rafat Harb Hussein Abu Hilal, the head of the military branch of the Popular Resistance Committees, a loose grouping of armed factions in Gaza.
“Hundreds” of Hamas targets were hit in the last 24 hours, including anti-tank missile launching posts, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure, and command centre, said the IDF.
“During the fighting, numerous Hamas terror operatives belonging to the ‘Nukbha’ forces, who led the barbaric invasion of the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip, were targeted,” it said.
Hezbollah says two of its members killed
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says two of its members were killed in cross-border fighting today.
The Iran-backed organisation, also an ally of Hamas, has been exchanging artillery and rocket fire with Israel since the eruption of the latest conflict.
Yesterday, Hezbollah reported that five of its fighters had been killed amid escalating violence.
600 children ‘trapped under rubble’ in Gaza – as rescue attempts ‘hampered’ by airstrikes
Of the 3,478 Palestinians killed and 12,065 injured, 70% were children, women and the elderly, Gaza’s health ministry has said.
Some 600 children remain under the rubble of Israeli airstrikes, of a total 1,300 people, said spokesperson Ashraf al Qudra.
“The ministry believes there are survivors in the rubble, but the process of reaching them is severely hampered due to constant air strikes and poor capacity,” he said.
He doubled down on the ministry’s claims that Israel struck al Ahli hospital on Tuesday, calling it the “largest single-day death toll in Gaza’s modern history”.
Israel said the hospital was bombed by a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza.
Mr al Qudra said: “The ministry is alarmed at the continued targeting of health facilities and calls for Israeli forces to immediately halt all attacks on medical and humanitarian infrastructure and personnel.”