An overnight attack by Israeli forces on the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left 18 people dead, including 14 children, health officials said Sunday.On the other hand, the United States was on track for approval of billions of dollars. Provide additional military assistance to close allies.
Israel bombs Rafah almost daily, and more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have fled fighting elsewhere. He also vowed to expand ground attacks on cities on the border with Egypt, despite international calls for restraint, including from the United States.
The House of Representatives on Saturday approved a $26 billion aid package, including about $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: He spoke on Sunday's “Face the Nation.” He said he believes the Senate will consider the bill this week. It still needs Senate approval and President Biden's signature.
“We are committed to supporting our national security interests, not only to Ukraine and Russia, but also in terms of military assistance to Israel, and in terms of additional humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, who are facing such great hardship. We have to be ready to protect the United States,” Warner said Sunday. .
A nearby Kuwait hospital, which received the bodies, said the first attack killed a man, his wife and their three-year-old child. CBS News' team on the ground said a pregnant woman in her 27th week was among the dead. Doctors were able to keep the baby alive as of Sunday morning.
The second attack killed 13 children and two women from the same family, according to hospital records. The previous night's airstrike on Rafah killed nine people, including six children.
Israel has been warning for more than two months that it could send troops to Rafah. The Group of Seven (G7) countries, including the United States, Japan and Britain, held a meeting of foreign ministers last week where they warned that a full-scale operation would have catastrophic consequences.
The Israeli-Hamas war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, left Gaza's two largest cities in ruins and left a trail of destruction across the territory, according to local health authorities. About 80% of the population has fled their homes to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave, which experts say is on the brink of starvation.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is now in its seventh month, causing regional unrest across the Middle East as Israel and the United States face off against Iran and its allied militant groups. Israel and Iran exchanged direct fire earlier this month, raising fears of an all-out war between the longtime adversaries.
Tensions are also rising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces attacked a checkpoint with knives and guns early Sunday near the southern West Bank town of Hebron, killing two Palestinians, the military said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said the two people killed were 18 and 19 years old and from the same family. No Israeli troops were injured, the military said.
At least 14 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank city of Turkam as part of a two-day Israeli Defense Force operation over the weekend. The Israeli Defense Forces withdrew from the area on Saturday night, but residents said it was on a scale the area had never seen before.
The United States has imposed new sanctions on West Bank settlers amid what has been described as violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers in the region since the start of the war in neighboring Gaza. U.S. officials told CBS News they have been investigating an Israeli Defense Forces unit made up of ultra-Orthodox soldiers accused of human rights atrocities since 2022. An announcement is expected this week.
Its forces are stationed in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was furious after media reports that he could be blacklisted for receiving US military aid and threatened to impose sanctions on any IDF troops at a time when his country is fighting Hamas in Gaza. He also said that it was morally the worst.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Red Crescent rescue teams said they had recovered a total of 14 bodies in an Israeli raid on the West Bank's Nur Shams urban refugee camp that began late Thursday. Those killed included three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy. The military said it had killed 10 insurgents in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Nine Israeli soldiers and officers were wounded.
In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was injured in an explosion on Sunday, the Magen David Adom rescue team said. A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag planted in a field. When he kicks it, an explosive device appears to go off.
At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Most were killed in Israeli military arrest raids and violent protests that often sparked gunfire.
The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which Hamas and other armed groups killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250 hostages. Israel said insurgents were still holding about 100 hostages and the bodies of more than 30 others.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets to demand new elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to free the hostages. Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are returned.
The war has left at least 34,000 Palestinians dead and more than 76,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its tally, but said at least two-thirds were children and women. It also said the actual death toll was likely much higher, as many bodies were buried under debris left behind by airstrikes or in areas beyond the reach of medical workers.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties as militants fight in densely populated residential areas, but military comments on separate attacks that often kill women and children Very rarely. Without providing evidence, the military said it had killed more than 13,000 Hamas fighters.