'Rafa' Continues to Be Bombed by Israel... 44 Dead in Airstrikes

Israel Claims "Rafa is Hamas' Last Stronghold"
Estimated 44 Deaths in One Day from Rafa Bombing
Egypt Reaffirms Refusal to Shelter Refugees

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Israeli ground forces' advance is anticipated, and airstrikes by the Israeli military continue in Rafah, the southernmost border city of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

According to foreign media on the 10th (local time), at least 44 people lost their lives in Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, where 1.4 million residents and refugees are concentrated, in just one day. Ahmed Al-Sufi, head of the Rafah local government, claimed that in the afternoon of the 10th, an additional house was hit by an airstrike, killing at least 11 people, including three children.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a "large-scale military operation" targeting Rafah the previous day and instructed the military to prepare evacuation measures for refugees. A few hours later, three houses in Rafah city were bombed. The airstrike conducted late at night killed 28 members of three families, 10 of whom were minors. Among the deceased was a three-month-old infant.

Israel claims that Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas, the Palestinian armed faction that launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 as hostages. Although most of Hamas's 24 battalions have been eliminated over the past four months of fighting, Israel maintains that the war cannot end without destroying the remaining four battalions hiding in Rafah.

The problem is that if Israeli ground forces enter Rafah, the already severe civilian casualties in Gaza could escalate uncontrollably. Currently, more than half of Gaza Strip's population of 2.3 million is concentrated in Rafah.

Before the war, Rafah was a small city with a population of 280,000, but as the northern and central Gaza Strip were devastated by the war, over one million refugees flocked to Rafah, which the Israeli military declared a "safe zone."

Egypt, which shares a border with Rafah, has reaffirmed its stance that it will never accept Palestinian refugees, warning that pushing refugees into its territory could threaten the peace agreement with Israel that has been maintained for 40 years.

Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued in Gaza City, the largest city in northern Gaza Strip, on the same day. The Israeli military announced that it confirmed Hamas's tunnel network passing beneath the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in Gaza City.

Israel has raised suspicions that 12 UNRWA staff members were involved in Hamas's surprise attack on Israel last October, and the United States and major European countries have temporarily suspended financial support to UNRWA.