Rafah:Two women and a man were killed early on Saturday in what witnesses said was an Israeli airstrike on a home in the southernmost part of Gaza, as Israel pursued its military offensive against the Palestinian enclave.
The strike came less than a day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. As part of its binding ruling, the top United Nations court asked Israel for a compliance report in a month, meaning the military’s conduct will be under increasing scrutiny.
The court stopped short of ordering a cease-fire, but the orders its judges issued were in part a stinging rebuke of the army’s conduct so far in Israel’s nearly 4-month-long war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Friday’s decision came in a case brought by South Africa, which alleged Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian territory’s people, a charge Israel vehemently denies.
The war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and displaced nearly 85 per cent of a population of 2.3 million people.
It was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
The overall Palestinian death toll in the war rose to 26,257 as of Saturday, with 174 deaths over the past day, the Health Ministry in Gaza said. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count, but has said about two-thirds are women and children.
It said the total number of wounded surpassed 64,000.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the militants embed themselves in buildings used by civilians.
Israel says its air and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 9,000 militants.
Bilal al-Siksik, who lost his wife, a son and a daughter in Saturday’s strike in Rafah, a town on Gaza’s border with Egypt, said the decision by the world court meant little since it did not stop the war.
“No one can speak in front of them (Israel). America with all its greatness and strength can do nothing,” he said as he stood beside the pile or rubble and twisted metal that was once his home. “What can people do, who have no power or anything?” He said his family was asleep when their residence was struck.
Rafah and its surrounding areas are crammed with more than 1 million people after the Israeli military ordered civilians to seek refuge there from the fighting elsewhere in the territory.