Israeli strikes kill at least 21 in Gaza as Rafah patient crossings halted
Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes have killed at least 21 people, including six children and seven women, in Gaza, and Israel has halted the evacuation of patients through the Rafah border crossing just two days after it reopened.Among the casualties was a medic who rushed to the scene to assist the wounded and was killed by a second strike on the same location in the southern city of Khan Younis. Tents in al-Mawasi, an encampment of displaced people in Khan Younis, were shredded by the blasts.The strikes targeted Gaza City and Khan Younis. The Israeli military said it had fired on Gaza after a gunman shot at Israeli soldiers and seriously wounded a reservist.“While we were sleeping in our house, the tank shelled us and the shells hit our house, our children were martyred – my son was martyred, my brother’s son and daughter were martyred,” said Abu Mohamed Habouch at his children’s funeral.Israel has killed more than 556 people in Gaza since the start of a ceasefire in October, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Palestinian gunmen have killed four Israeli soldiers in the same time period, according to Israel.The Israeli strikes were the latest violations of the fragile ceasefire, which, even as diplomats tried to push it through a difficult second stage, has not stopped a continued war in the beleaguered territory.While strikes ripped through Gaza, health officials reported that Israel had also stopped medical patients crossing the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. The crossing had partly reopened on Monday, allowing a trickle of Palestinians to cross for the first time in months.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 expecting to be evacuated, said at the hospital, where several patients were waiting in ambulances.The Israeli military agency that controls access to Gaza, Cogat, said on Wednesday that the Rafah crossing remained open, but that it had not received the necessary coordination details from the World Health Organization to facilitate the crossing.The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.An Egyptian security source said that efforts were ongoing to get Rafah reopened, and that Israel had said it had closed the crossing due to security issues.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 Palestinian Hamas militants.Sixteen patients from Gaza and 40 of their escorts crossed into Egypt on Tuesday, medics in Gaza said.Three women who crossed back into Gaza through Rafah on Monday told the Associated Press that Israeli troops had interrogated and threatened them, holding them while blindfolded and handcuffed for several hours before releasing them. The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of arrests by the Israeli security establishment.In January, Trump declared the start of the second phase of the ceasefire in which the sides would negotiate the shattered territory’s future governance and reconstruction.Key issues such as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the more than 50% of Gaza they occupy and the disarmament of Hamas remain unresolved, while the fragile ceasefire has been marked by near-daily violence.
