Israeli airstrike in Rafah kills two senior Hamas commanders and dozens of civilians

An Israeli airstrike on a Hamas compound in the Gaza city of Rafah killed two senior Hamas officials as well as dozens of civilians.

While the exact death toll is still unclear at this time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that they attacked a Hamas compound in Rafah in which “major Hamas terrorists were operating.”

The IDF, citing intelligence that it said indicated Hamas’ use of the area, said it carried out the attack “against legitimate targets under international law.”

IDF sources told Fox News Digital that the strike eliminated Yassin Rabia, the commander of Hamas’ West Bank leadership, as well as Khaled Nagar, a senior official in Hamas’ West Bank wing.

The IDF said both men had carried out numerous terrorist attacks in the early 2000s that killed Israeli civilians and soldiers.

The IDF acknowledged reports that “several civilians in the area were injured” by the airstrike and a subsequent fire. He said the incident is “under review.”

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Meanwhile, Palestinian health and civil emergency service officials say the airstrike killed at least 35 Palestinians and injured dozens more.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the death toll is likely to rise as search and rescue efforts continue in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, more than a mile northwest of the center. from the city.

The Red Crescent Society said Israel had designated the site as a “humanitarian zone.” The neighborhood is not included in the areas that the Israeli military ordered to evacuate this month.

Images from the scene showed great destruction.

The airstrike was reported hours after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv.

Smoke rises during Israeli shelling in eastern Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 19, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP via Getty Images)

There were no immediate reports of casualties in what appeared to be the first long-range rocket attack from Gaza since January. Hamas’s military wing claimed responsibility. The Israeli military said eight projectiles crossed into Israel after being launched from Rafah and that “several” were intercepted and the launcher was destroyed.

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The war between Israel and Hamas has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths because the militants operate in dense residential areas.

About 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and UN officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing the southern Gaza city of Rafah on May 9. (AP/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Hamas sparked the war with its Oct. 7 attack inside Israel in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages. Hamas is still holding about 100 hostages and the remains of about 30 more after most of the rest were freed during a ceasefire last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take Rafah to eliminate the remaining Hamas battalions and achieve a “total victory” over the militants, who recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza.

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Sunday’s attack came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population sought refuge before this month’s Israeli incursion. Tens of thousands of people remain in the area while many others have fled.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.