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The ruins of Al-Farouq Mosque the Israeli bombardment in Rafah. Alamy Stock Photo
Gaza
Israeli tank hits NGO shelter in Khan Younis as overnight bombardment destroys mosque in Rafah
The health ministry in Gaza said 97 people were killed in strikes during the night, most of them women, children and elderly people.
LAST UPDATE | 22 Feb 2024
PALESTINIANS IN GAZA’S Rafah city awoke during the night to the sound of an intense Israeli bombardment.
The southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, Rafah is the last place of relative refuge for more than a million people who have been forced to flee cities and towns further north since the Israeli assault on the besieged territory began.
“I woke up to the sound of a huge explosion like an earthquake – fire, smoke, blasts and dust everywhere,” said Rami al-Shaer, 21, who told the AFP news agency he and others pulled wounded family members from the rubble.
Gaza’s Civil Defence agency reported “a number” of people were killed, while elsewhere in Rafah residents walked amid the rubble of the city’s al-Faruq mosque, which was also struck.
“At night, we were surprised by a call asking us to evacuate because the surrounding area was being targeted,” said Mohamad Abu Khosa, adding that the army had targeted the mosque with two missiles.
Another 97 people were killed across the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, the Gazan health ministry said.
The Israeli campaign has now killed at least 29,410 people since October.
NGO shelter shelled
Further to the north, in the city of Khan Younis, the Medical NGO Doctors Without Borders has said one of its shelters, where staff members and their families are staying, was fired on by an Israeli tank, the second such incident in Gaza since the conflict began.
Two relatives of MSF staff were killed and six others wounded, it said, condemning the strike in the “strongest possible terms”.
The Israeli army said its forces had “fired at a building” identified as a place where “terror activity is occurring”, adding that it “regrets” harm to civilians.
Since October, MSF said it medical teams and patients have been forced to evacuate nine different health care facilities in the Gaza Strip, and that five or their colleagues have been killed.
3/ Since the war in Gaza began, MSF medical teams and patients have been forced to evacuate nine different health care facilities in the Gaza Strip. In total, five MSF colleagues have been killed. pic.twitter.com/N5fwmYakov
— Doctors w/o Borders (@MSF_USA) February 22, 2024
Speaking at the UN Security Council today, MSF’s secretary general Christopher Lockyear gave an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
He said: “Every day we witness unimaginable horror.”
“Our patients have catastrophic injuries, amputations, crushed limbs and severe burns. They need sophisticated care. They need long and intensive rehabilitation.
“Medics cannot treat these injuries on the battlefield or in the ashes of burnt hospitals,” he said.
He urged the Security Council to take measures to protect civilians and bring an end to the violence in order to avoid “an enduring burden on our collective conscience”.
“This is not just political inaction,” he said, “it has become political complicity”.
West Bank checkpoint attack
Three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on cars in a traffic jam in the occupied West Bank today, killing one person and wounding eight, including a pregnant woman.
The attackers were shot dead at the scene, near a Jewish settlement east of Jerusalem.
Israeli far-right politicians quickly called for more citizens to carry weapons and for even greater restrictions on Palestinian West Bank residents, while Hamas urged an escalation in attacks.
Violence against Palestinians has skyrocketed in the West Bank since the assault on Israel by Hamas on 7 October last year.
The legal consequences of Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza was the subject of today’s, hearing at the International Court of Justice, where Irish Attorney General Rossa Farrell condemned Israel’s “annexation” of Palestinian land.
Talks on detainee exchange and ceasefire
Mediators including the United States, Qatar and Egypt, who have tried and so far failed to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal, have reportedly made a new push for an agreement.
Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, held talks with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, after meeting with other mediators in Cairo who had met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh earlier this week.
Israel’s Gantz said there were efforts to “promote a new plan for the return of the hostages”, adding that “we are seeing the first signs that indicate the possibility of progress in this direction”.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington hopes for an “agreement that secures a temporary ceasefire where we can get the hostages out and get humanitarian assistance in”.
With reporting form AFP
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