Overnight airstrikes kill ‘around 100’ in Rafah; Israel rescues two hostages
Rafah strike
Overnight Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza City of Rafah have claimed the lives of "around 100" Palestinians including children, said the Hamas-run health ministry on Monday (Feb 12). Meanwhile, Israel reported that it had successfully rescued two hostages from the city.
Strikes kill 100
In a statement, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said that overnight heavy airstrikes on the overcrowded city of Rafah killed "around 100".
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It said that the strikes hit 14 houses and three mosques in different parts of the city. Reuters reports that the militant groupsaid the attack on Rafah was a continuation of a "genocidal war" and forced displacement attempts Israel has waged against the Palestinian people.
As people flee Israel's heavy bombardment elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, the city, according to AFP, now hosts more than half of Gaza's total population. This amounts to around 1.4 million Palestinians, many of them living in tents.
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The Israeli military, as per the report, said it had "conducted a series of strikes on terror targets in the area of Shaboura in the southern Gaza Strip." The strikes had concluded, it added.
Rescue operation
The Israeli ministry,as per an AFP report, announced that after nearly 130 days of captivity, two Israeli-Argentinian hostages were rescued in a joint military, Shin Bet and police operation.
In a statement, they were identified as Fernando Simon Marman and Louis Har. The army said that they "were kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist organisation on October 7th from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak".
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The two men are in a "good medical condition," it said.
In a briefing, army spokesperson Daniel Hagari revealed that, "The military and the Shin Bet have been working on this operation for a long time."
"They waited until the conditions were right to carry it out," he said.
He said that a firefight broke out during the rescue, due to which air strikes targeted nearby buildings from where shots were fired.
"Many terrorists were killed this evening during this operation and one of our fighters was slightly injured," said Hagari.
(With inputs from agencies)
