22, largely youngsters, are killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza city of Rafah as the US pushes an assistance package

Health authorities said on Sunday that 22 people, including 18 children, had died as a result of Israeli attacks on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight, as the US was about to provide billions of dollars in extra military aid to its close partner.

Nearly every day, Israel conducts airstrikes on Rafah, where over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled to safety from conflict elsewhere. It has also declared that it would not back down from its ground attack, even in the face of international pressure to exercise caution, which includes the United States’.

Roughly $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza was part of a $26 billion aid package passed by the House of Representatives on Saturday.

The first hit claimed the lives of a man, his wife, and their 3-year-old kid, according to the corpses that were taken to the adjacent Kuwaiti Hospital. The hospital said that the mother was carrying a child, and the physicians were able to rescue it.

According to medical records, the second hit claimed the lives of 17 children and 2 mothers, all members of the same family. Nine individuals, including six children, were murdered by an airstrike in Rafah the previous evening.

According to local health professionals, the Israel-Hamas conflict has claimed the lives of over 34,000 Palestinians, wreaked havoc on Gaza’s two biggest cities, and left a path of devastation across the region. Experts claim the beleaguered coastal enclave is on the verge of hunger, and almost 80% of the population has evacuated their homes to other areas of the region.

The crisis, which is in its seventh month, has triggered turmoil across the Middle East, pitting Israel and the United States against extremist organizations linked with Iran. Earlier this month, Israel and Iran exchanged gunfire directly, sparking concerns of a full-scale conflict between the long-standing enemies.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, tensions have also increased. Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces early on Sunday after they allegedly used a knife and a pistol to assault a checkpoint close to the town of Hebron in the southern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the two deceased belonged to the same family and were 18 and 19 years old. The Israeli army said that no soldiers were hurt.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue organization said that it had found 14 dead in all after an Israeli operation that started late Thursday in the West Bank’s Nur Shams urban refugee camp. Three Islamic Jihadi fighters and a fifteen-year-old youngster were among the dead. According to the military, they apprehended eight people and killed ten terrorists within the camp. Nine officers and troops from Israel suffered injuries.

An Israeli man was injured in an explosion on Sunday in a different incident that occurred in the West Bank, according to the Magen David Adom rescue agency. A guy is seen approaching a Palestinian flag that has been put in a field in a video that has gone viral online. It seems as if kicking it will set off an explosive device.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that since the beginning of the Gaza conflict, Israeli settlers and troops have murdered at least 469 Palestinians in the West Bank. The majority have died in violent demonstrations or during Israeli military arrest operations, which often result in gunfights.

The extraordinary Oct. 7 invasion into southern Israel by Hamas and other terrorists, which murdered around 1,200 people, largely civilians, and kidnapped about 250 captives, was the impetus for the Gaza War. According to Israel, terrorists are still holding almost a hundred captives, along with the bodies of about thirty more.

To demand fresh elections to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an agreement with Hamas to free the captives, thousands of Israelis have flocked to the streets. Netanyahu has promised to keep up the fight until Hamas is vanquished and every captive is freed.

The Gaza Health Ministry reports that the conflict has resulted in at least 34,049 Palestinian deaths and 76,901 injuries. The government claims that at least two-thirds of those counted have been women and children, but it does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. The actual death toll, it adds, is probably higher since a large number of victims are either in locations that are inaccessible to medical personnel or buried under the debris left behind from airstrikes.

Because the terrorists battle in populated, residential areas, Israel holds Hamas accountable for civilian killings; yet, the IDF seldom speaks on individual attacks, many of which result in the deaths of women and children. Without offering any proof, the military claims to have killed approximately 13,000 Hamas militants.