Gaza’s Rafah is ‘a pile of rubble’: Mayor
Ahmed al-Soufi, the mayor of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, has described the state of his city in an interview with our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.
Once known for its agricultural production, trade ties and bustling marketplaces, Rafah has transformed “into a pile of rubble”, he said. “When I saw it for the first time since leaving on the eve of the Israeli military invasion last May, my heart sank.”
According to al-Soufi, Israeli attacks have:
- Destroyed 80 percent of homes, more than 80 percent of municipal buildings and at least half of the water wells.
- Damaged 70 percent of sewage facilities.
- Wrecked 291 kilometres (181 miles) of road.
- Destroyed 81 mosques, four schools, four hospitals and nine medical centres.
- Razed thousands of dunams of farmland and greenhouses.
“The destruction is not justified militarily but appears retaliatory against Rafah and its residents,” said al-Soufi.
An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows Palestinians walking through the destruction in Rafah, the Gaza Strip, on January 21
Girl killed in Israeli attack near Gaza’s Nuseirat
Two Palestinians, including a child, have been killed and many wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza amid a ceasefire as thousands of people continued to return to the northern part of the besieged enclave.
Five-year-old Nadia Mohammed al-Amoudi was killed and three people were wounded after the Israeli army shelled a horse cart late on Monday in al-Jisr, west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, Wafa reported.
Vehicles queue up along Salah al-Din Street in Nuseirat near the Netzarim Corridor while waiting to cross to the northern part of Gaza
Israeli gunfire hits ambulance near Rafah: Red Crescent
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says one of its ambulances has been hit by Israeli sniper fire in the Tal as-Sultan area, west of Rafah in southern Gaza.
Footage posted online by the organisation shows what appears to be a bullet hole in the side of a marked ambulance.
Over the past 15 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza, Israeli forces have repeatedly fired at PRCS medics and other medical staff.
Forty-eight bodies recovered in Gaza in past two days: Ministry
Hospitals in Gaza have received 48 bodies in the last 48 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.
Among the deceased are 11 people killed in recent Israeli military attacks, along with 37 bodies recovered from the rubble of earlier strikes, the ministry said. At least 80 wounded individuals were also brought to hospitals.
The newly discovered casualties bring the total death toll in Gaza since the war began to 47,354, with 111,563 injured, the ministry reported.
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