PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israel launched new air strikes Friday on the city of Rafah in Gaza’s far south, after US President Joe Biden said its response to Hamas’s October 7 attack has been “over the top”.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he has ordered Israeli forces to “prepare to operate” in Rafah, the last major city in the Gaza Strip that Israeli ground troops have yet to attack.The United States is Israel’s main international ally, providing it with billions of dollars in military aid.The State Department said Thursday it did not support a ground offensive in Rafah, warning that, if not properly planned, such an operation in a city sheltering more than one million displaced Palestinians risked “disaster”.And in a rare rebuke from its ally, Biden said Israel’s military response to the October 7 attack had been excessive and should stop.”I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top,” he told reporters at the White House.”There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s got to stop.”Witnesses reported fresh strikes on Rafah overnight, after the Israeli military stepped up air raids on a city now overcrowded with about half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people.’Die in our homes’The Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said more than 100 people were killed in the bombardment during the night, including at least eight in Rafah.The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said three children were killed in a strike on Rafah.”We heard the sound of a huge explosion next to our house… we found two children martyred in the street,” said Jaber al-Bardini, a 60-year-old in Rafah.”There is no safe place in Rafah. If they storm Rafah we will die in our homes. We have no choice. We don’t want to go anywhere else.”The Israeli army said Friday that its forces had “eliminated 15 terrorists” in the past day in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s biggest city not far from Rafah. It also reported fighting in central and northern Gaza.Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.In response, Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,947 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Militants seized 250 hostages, 132 of whom are still in Gaza, but 29 are presumed dead, Israel has said.
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