Deadly strikes
were reported early Saturday in the overcrowded Gaza border town of Rafah —
dubbed a “pressure cooker of despair” by the UN — as international mediators
readied a new push to seal a tentative truce deal between Israel and Hamas.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled south to Rafah
since the outbreak of the war, with the former city of 200,000 now housing
more than half of Gaza’s two million-plus population, a WHO representative
said Friday.
The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said it was deeply concerned
about the escalation of hostilities in nearby Khan Yunis, which have pushed
more and more people south in recent days.
“Most are living in makeshift structures, tents or out in the open,” OCHA
spokesman Jens Laerke said during a briefing in Geneva.
“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next.”
An AFP journalist in the city heard powerful explosions shortly after
midnight on Saturday, with the Hamas-run health ministry later reporting 14
people killed in two strikes there.
The ministry said more than 100 people in total were killed across the
territory overnight.বিস্তারিত