“The airstrikes burnt the tents, the tents are melting and the people’s bodies are also melting,” said one of the residents who arrived at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah.
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The Israeli military said eight projectiles had earlier been identified crossing from the area of Rafah, the southern tip of the Gaza Strip – where Israel has continued operations despite a ruling by the top UN court that ordered it to stop attacking the city.
A number of the projectiles bound for Tel Aviv were intercepted, it said. There were no reports of casualties.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening his war cabinet to discuss continued operations in Rafah. Israel argues that the UN court’s ruling allows room for some military action there.
In a statement on its Telegram channel, the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades said the rockets were launched in response to “Zionist massacres against civilians”.
Rafah is located about 100 kilometres south of Tel Aviv.
Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area, but its assault has worsened the plight of civilians and caused an international outcry.
Israeli tanks have probed around the edges of Rafah, near the crossing point from Gaza into Egypt, and have entered some of its eastern districts, residents say, but have not yet entered the city in force since the start of operations in the city earlier this month.
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said the rockets fired from Rafah “prove that the [Israel Defence Forces] must operate in every place Hamas still operates from”.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant held an operational assessment in Rafah where he was briefed on “operations above and below the ground, as well as the deepening of operations in additional areas with the aim of dismantling Hamas battalions”, his office said in a statement.
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Itamar Ben Gvir, a hardline public security minister who is not part of Israel’s war cabinet, urged the army to hit Rafah harder. “Rafah with full force,” he posted on X.
Nearly 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7 last year, killing about 1200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Fighting also continued in the northern Gaza area of Jabaliya, the scene of intense combat earlier in the war. During one raid, the military said it found a weapons storage site with dozens of rocket parts and weapons at a school.
It denied Hamas statements that Palestinian fighters had abducted an Israeli soldier.
Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike on a house in a neighbourhood near Jabaliya killed 10 people and wounded others.
Efforts to agree a halt to the fighting and return more than 120 hostages have been blocked for weeks, but there were some signs of movement last weekend following meetings between Israeli and US intelligence officials and Qatar’s prime minister.
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An official with knowledge of the matter said a decision had been taken to resume the talks this week based on new proposals from Egyptian and Qatari mediators, and with “active US involvement.”
However, a Hamas official downplayed the report, saying: “It is not true.”
Netanyahu’s war cabinet would discuss the new proposals, his office said.
A second Hamas official, Izzat El-Reshiq, said the group had not received anything from the mediators on new dates for resuming talks as had been reported by Israeli media.
Aid trucks enter Gaza
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Reshiq restated Hamas’ demands, which include: “Ending the aggression completely and permanently, in all of Gaza Strip, not only Rafah.”
While Israel is seeking the return of hostages, Netanyahu has repeatedly said the war will not end until Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, is eliminated.
Israel has faced calls to get more aid into Gaza after more than seven months of a war that has caused widespread destruction and hunger in the enclave.
Khaled Zayed of the Egyptian Red Crescent said 200 trucks of aid, including four fuel trucks, were expected to enter Gaza on Sunday through Kerem Shalom.
It follows an agreement between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Friday to temporarily send aid via the Kerem Shalom crossing, bypassing the Rafah crossing that has been blocked for weeks.
In Tel Aviv, people hold flags as they walk behind an ambulance carrying the body of Hanan Yablonka, who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. His body, along with two others, was recovered from north Gaza by IDF soldiers.Credit: Getty
Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV shared a video on social media platform X, showing what it said were aid trucks as they entered Kerem Shalom; before the conflict, it was the main commercial crossing station between Israel, Egypt and Gaza.
The Rafah crossing has been shut for almost three weeks, since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing as it stepped up its offensive.
Egypt has been increasingly alarmed at the prospect of large numbers of Palestinians entering its territory from Gaza and has refused to open its side of the Rafah crossing.
Israel has said it is not restricting aid flows and has opened up new crossing points in the north as well as co-operating with the United States, which has built a temporary floating pier for aid deliveries.
Reuters
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