Israel starts offensive in Rafah, where thousands took refuge
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Representational.
Rafah: Following US President Joe Biden's statement that Israel's response to the Hamas attack on October 7 was "over the top", Israel opened strikes at Rafah on Friday. Rafah is the only major city which Israel has not struck so far, and the city, therefore, hosts more than a million refugees, Agence France-Presse reported.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had ordered his forces to "operate" in Rafah.
However, the US, which provides Israel with military aid in billions of dollars for the war, said on Thursday that it would not support Israel for a ground offensive in Rafah if the same is not properly planned. The US State Department said that such an attack risked a "disaster."
Joe Biden said that Israel should stop and that the offensive has gone beyond limits. He said that there were a lot of innocent people starving, in trouble and dying, and therefore, the attack had to stop.
In the air strikes in the enclave, more than 100 people died in a single night, and at least eight of the deaths were in Rafah, Hamas' health ministry stated. Out of the eight, three were children, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society informed.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claimed on Friday that it killed 15 terrorists in Khan Younis on Thursday.
After the war started, at least 27,947 people, mostly women and children, died in Gaza, according to the health ministry of Hamas.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated Israel's strikes on Rafah were alarming. He warned that Israel's move would exponentially increase the "humanitarian nightmare" that already exists there. US Secretary of the State Antony Blinken said that Washinton had conveyed its concerns to Israel premiere, which did not work, it seems.