Concerns Grow for Rafah Amid Escalation of Israeli Airstrikes Against Palestinians

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I can’t make sense of what happened. My parents. My father with his displaced friends who came from Gaza City,” he told Reuters.

“The bombing has increased, and they have threatened us with an incursion, and they say that have been given the green light for the Rafah incursion. Where is the Security Council?” Abu Houri said.

The US abstention from the vote pointed to frustration with Netanyahu, who rebuked Washington over the move.

What has Israel said about airstrikes?

Another Israeli airstrike in Rafah on Wednesday afternoon killed four Palestinians including a woman and a child and injured other residents, Gaza health authorities said.

There are growing fears of an Israeli ground assault for more than a million Palestinian people sheltering in Rafah. Source: AAP / Haitham Imad/EPA

Just west of Gaza City in the enclave’s north, seven people were killed in an airstrike on a house, health officials said.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where bloodshed has worsened in parallel with the Gaza war, three Palestinians were killed and four wounded by Israeli fire during a raid in Jenin overnight, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The war erupted after Islamist Hamas militants broke through the border on 7 October killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

What’s happening at Gazan hospitals?

Gaza’s health ministry said wounded people and patients were being held inside al-Shifa’s human resources department which was not equipped to provide them with healthcare.

Hamas wants an end to the war and total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza while Israel has vowed to keep fighting until its Islamist foe is eradicated.