Israeli forces killed at least 12 Palestinians in an air strike in the early hours of Thursday (30) in Rafah, southern Gaza, and fighting took place in several other areas of the enclave, Gaza doctors said.
Israel pressed ahead with its offensive on Rafah a day after it said its forces had taken control of a buffer zone along the nearby border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, giving it effective authority over Gaza's entire land border.
It said the capture of the buffer zone cut off a route used by the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza during more than seven months of war, which devastated much of the territory and raised fears of famine.
Medical sources in Gaza said the 12 Palestinians, believed to be civilians, were killed in an Israeli airstrike while trying to recover the body of a civilian in the center of Rafah. There are injured people too.
Another Palestinian civilian was killed in an airstrike on Al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City in the north of the densely populated enclave, doctors said.
Israel reported clashes in southern, central and northern Gaza, but did not immediately comment on the deaths reported in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians took refuge at the start of the war.
Israel has continued attacks on Rafah despite an order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's top court, to stop its attacks. Israeli forces say they are trying to root out Hamas fighters and rescue hostages being held there, and the ICJ has also called for the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's air and ground war in Gaza, with 53 killed in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-led enclave's Health Ministry said.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas fighters crossed from Gaza into southern Israel in October last year, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250, according to Israeli figures.
Source: CNN Brasil
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