Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 18 people, including 14 children, health authorities said on Sunday. Meanwhile, the United States was about to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to its next ally.
Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have sought refuge from the fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive in the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint, including from the US.
The House of Representatives on Saturday approved a $26 billion aid package that includes about $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said on “Face the Nation” Sunday. who believed the Senate would take up the legislation this week. It still needs approval from senators and President Biden's signature.
“We must be prepared to be prepared for our national security interests, not only in Ukraine and Russia, also in terms of military assistance to Israel, but with additional humanitarian aid for the Palestinians who are facing great challenges” , Warner said Sunday. .
The first attack killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old son, according to the nearby Kuwaiti hospital, which received the bodies. Among the dead was a woman who was 27 weeks pregnant, according to the CBS News crew on the ground. Doctors were able to keep her baby alive as of Sunday morning.
Mohammed Salem/REUTERS
The second strike killed 13 children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.
For more than two months, Israel has warned it could send troops to Rafah. The Group of 7, or G7, countries that include the US, Japan and the UK and whose foreign ministers met last week, warned that a large-scale operation there would have catastrophic consequences.
The war between Israel and Hamas has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, devastated Gaza's two largest cities and left a swath of destruction across the territory. About 80 percent of the population has fled their homes to other parts of the beleaguered coastal enclave, which experts say is on the brink of starvation.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the US against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran exchanged fire directly earlier this month, raising fears of an all-out war between the longtime foes.
Tensions have also risen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the army said attacked a checkpoint with a knife and a gun near the southern West Bank city of Hebron early Sunday. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said the two killed were 18 and 19 years old, from the same family. The military said no Israeli forces were injured.
In the West Bank city of Tulkarm, at least 14 Palestinians were killed as part of a two-day operation by the Israel Defense Forces over the weekend. The IDF withdrew from the area on Saturday night, on a scale residents say they have never seen before in this area.
The United States has imposed new sanctions on West Bank settlers as the region has seen violence allegedly perpetrated by extremist settlers against Palestinians since the war in nearby Gaza began. A US official told CBS News that since 2022, it has been investigating an IDF unit of ultra-Orthodox soldiers accused of human rights atrocities. An announcement is expected this week.
This unit is stationed in the West Bank. Media reports suggesting he could be blacklisted for US military aid prompted an outburst from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said sanctions against any IDF unit would be low morals at a time when his country was fighting Hamas in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Rescue Service said it has recovered a total of 14 bodies from an Israeli raid on the West Bank's Nur Shams urban refugee camp that began Thursday afternoon. Among those killed are three militants of the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy. The army says it killed 10 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Nine Israeli soldiers and officers were injured.
In another incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was injured in an explosion on Sunday, rescue service Magen David Adom said. A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag that had been planted in a field. When you hit it, it seems to activate an explosive device.
At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have died during Israeli military arrest raids, which often result in gunfire, or in violent protests.
The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented October 7 incursion into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding about 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to demand new elections to replace Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are returned.
The war has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians and injured more than 76,000, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count, but says at least two-thirds have been children and women. He also says the real toll is likely higher, as many bodies are trapped under debris left by airstrikes or are in areas inaccessible to medics.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because militants fight in dense, residential neighborhoods, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The army says it has killed more than 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.
