Israel's rescue raid kills 274 Palestinians

GAZA/CAIRO — Israeli forces pounded central Gaza anew on Sunday, a day after killing 274 Palestinians during a hostage rescue raid, and tanks advanced further into areas of Rafah in a bid to seal off part of the southern city, according to residents and Hamas media.

Palestinians remained in shock over Saturday's death toll, the worst over a 24-hour period of the Palestine-Israel conflict for months that included many women and children, Palestinian medics said.

In an update on Sunday, Gaza's Health Ministry said 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 were injured when Israeli special force commandos stormed into the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp to rescue four hostages held since October by Hamas militants.

"My child was crying, afraid of the sound of the plane firing at us," Hadeel Radwan, 32, said, recounting how they fled the intense combat as she carried her 7-month-old daughter.

"We all felt that we wouldn't survive," she told Agence France-Presse, condemning "this brutal occupation that will not let us live".

Israel's military said a special forces officer was killed in the exchange of fire with militants emerging from cover in residential blocks, and that it knew of "under 100" Palestinians killed, though not knowing how many of them were militants or civilians.

Egypt condemned "with the strongest terms" Israel's attacks on the Nuseirat camp, with its Foreign Ministry calling it a "flagrant violation of all rules of international law".Jordan also condemned it.

The rescued hostages were taken to hospital for medical checks and were in good health, the Israeli military said. They were all kidnapped during the attack by Hamas militants on Israeli towns and villages near Gaza on Oct 7, which precipitated the devastating offensive on Gaza.

Hamas' raid killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel's retaliatory bombardment and assault of Gaza has killed at least 37,084 Palestinians, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Sunday.

Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas' armed al-Qassam Brigades, said some hostages were killed during the rescue operation.

"It's a blatant lie," Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner told CNN, refuting the claim.

On Sunday, three Palestinians were killed and several hurt in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip, while tanks shelled parts of nearby Maghazi and Nuseirat. All are built-up, historical refugee camps.

The Israeli military said in a statement its forces were continuing operations east of Bureij and the city of Deir al-Balah in the center of the coastal enclave, killing several Palestinian gunmen and destroying militant infrastructure.

Israel sent forces into Rafah last month in what it called a mission to wipe out Hamas' last intact combat units after eight months of conflict in which Israeli forces have bombed much of the rest of Gaza to rubble while advancing against fierce resistance.

Israeli tank forces have since seized Gaza's entire border strip with Egypt running through Rafah to the Mediterranean coast and invaded several districts of the city, prompting about 1 million displaced people who had been sheltering in Rafah to flee elsewhere.

On Sunday, tanks advanced into two new districts in an apparent effort to complete the encirclement of the eastern side of Rafah, touching off clashes with dug-in Hamasled armed groups, according to residents trapped in their homes.

Palestinian medics said an Israeli airstrike on a house in Tel Al-Sultan in western Rafah killed two people.

The conflict in Gaza has destabilized the wider Middle East. Four people were killed on Saturday in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua News Agency.

The sources said an Israeli warplane targeted a house in Houla village, killing two Hezbollah members and injuring three civilians. Another Israeli airstrike targeted a commercial market in Aitaroun village with two air-to-surface missiles, killing two civilians and wounding two others.

Hezbollah said it responded to Israel's raids on Saturday with several attacks in the occupied Shebaa Farms and a number of Israeli sites.

In Washington, thousands of protesters held a "red line" rally near the White House on Saturday, voicing anger at what they said is US President Joe Biden's tolerance of Israel's bloody military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The White House said last month that a deadly Israeli strike on Rafah did not cross a "red line" that Biden had seemingly set two months earlier when asked about a potential invasion of the southern Gazan city.

"I no longer believe any of the words that Joe Biden says," protester Zaid Mahdawi from Virginia, whose parents are Palestinian, told Agence France-Presse.

"This 'red line' in his rhetoric is rubbish ... it shows his hypocrisy and his cowardice."

Agencies - Xinhua