Clashes escalate between Palestinian resistance groups, Israeli forces in Rafah

By Mustafa Haboush

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Clashes continued Tuesday between the Israeli army and Palestinian resistance groups in the eastern part of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli warplanes and artillery also targeted the municipality headquarters, land near the border with Egypt and homes, resulting in many casualties.

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that they targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with a Yasin 105 shell and set it on fire.

The brigades added that they engaged in clashes with Israeli soldiers positioned inside a building in the Shouka neighborhood in Rafah.

In another statement, they said they targeted Israeli forces with a Rajoum short-range missile and heavy-caliber mortar shells.

A Palestinian woman was killed and several other people were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in the center of Rafah, Palestinian medical sources at Kuwait Hospital told Anadolu.

Witnesses also reported that a fire broke out in the municipality headquarters in Rafah due to continuous Israeli artillery targeting.

Earlier in the day, Palestinian medical sources at Kuwait Hospital said Israel bombed a house in the southern part of the city, killing several Palestinians, including two children.

Israeli fighter jets also targeted a house in the Khirbat Al-Adas area northeast of Rafah, according to witnesses.

In Gaza City, the Al-Qassam Brigades said they targeted an Israeli military site east of the Netzarim corridor with mortar shells.

Medical sources at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City told Anadolu that a Palestinian was killed and others were wounded in an Israeli drone strike targeting a group of residents in the Zeitoun neighborhood.

Israeli airstrikes destroyed a house south of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and targeted a group of people east of Deir al-Balah city, resulting in two injuries, one of them serious, according to medical sources at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital.

On Monday, Israeli forces issued evacuation orders for Palestinians in eastern Rafah, a move widely seen as a prelude to Israel's long-feared attack on the city, which is home to some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians.

The Israeli army said the 401st armored brigade took "operational control" of the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas which killed about 1,200 people. Nearly 34,800 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, the vast majority of whom have been women and children, and 78,100 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is "plausible" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Tel Aviv to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul