Four children among those that Israel killed in another violation of the ‘ceasefire’
This picture taken from Rafah shows smoke rising over buildings in Khan Yunis during Israeli bombardment, Gaza Strip, Palestine, Feb. 1, 2024. PHOTO: AFP
Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 20 Palestinians, including four children, in Gaza on Wednesday, and Israel halted the passage of patients through the Rafah border crossing, Palestinian officials said.
Among the dead was a medic who rushed to help victims of a strike in the southern city of Khan Younis and was then killed by a second attack on the same location, health officials said. Other strikes hit Gaza City in the north, where health officials said a 5-month-old boy was killed.
Israeli tanks had fired on Gaza, and airstrikes had been launched after a gunman shot at Israeli soldiers and injured a reservist near the armistice line, the Israeli military claims.
The strikes targeted Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Younis. A Gazan health official told Reuters that Israel had also halted the passage of patients through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, two days after it had reopened, allowing a trickle of Palestinians to cross for the first time in months.
Read: Gazans begin Rafah crossing to Egypt for treatment
A spokesperson for the Red Crescent said patients had arrived at a hospital in Khan Younis in preparation for crossing Rafah for treatment, only to be informed that Israel had postponed the evacuations.
“They called the patients and said today there is no travel at all, the crossing is closed,” Raja’a Abu Teir, a Palestinian patient who was set to be evacuated, told Reuters at the hospital, where several patients were waiting in ambulances.
The Israeli agency that controls access to Gaza, COGAT, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Rafah crossing remained open, but they had not received the necessary coordination details from the World Health Organisation to facilitate the crossing.
The WHO did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
An Egyptian security source told Reuters that efforts were being made to reopen the crossing, and that Israel had cited “security issues” in the Rafah area as the reason for the closure.
Reopening crossing part of Trump plan
Reopening the crossing was one of the requirements under the October “ceasefire” that set out the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to stop fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Sixteen patients from Gaza and 40 of their escorts crossed into Egypt on Tuesday, Gazan medics told Reuters. A Hamas police source told Reuters that at least 40 people crossed from Egypt to Gaza late on Tuesday.
Wednesday’s violence brings the number of Palestinians killed since the border reopened to 28, according to a tally of reports from health officials.
On Saturday, before its reopening, Israeli strikes killed more than 30 Palestinians in Gaza. The military claimed it launched those strikes after gunmen “emerged from a tunnel” in a Gaza area under Israeli occupation.
In January, Trump declared the start of the second phase of the “ceasefire”, where the sides would negotiate the shattered enclave’s future governance and reconstruction.
Key issues like the withdrawal of Israeli forces from over 50% of Gaza, which they currently illegally occupy, and the disarmament of Hamas remain unresolved, while the “ceasefire” has been marked by near-daily violations by Israel.
Since the start of the ceasefire, Israeli fire has killed at least 530 people, most of them civilians. Four Israeli soldiers have also been killed by opposing forces in the same period, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s two-year genocide on the Gaza Strip killed more than 71,000 Palestinians, a figure that Israel has accepted according to Haaretz, displaced most of its population, and left much of the strip in ruins.
With input from Web Desk
