Israel-Gaza war: at least 92 killed in overnight strikes as Hamas weighs truce proposal

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said at least 92 people were killed overnight, including in a kindergarten in Rafah where displaced people had been sheltering

The report came after Hamas said it was weighing a proposal that involves a six-week pause in fighting, more aid, and exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners

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Palestinians inspect the debris of a building after Israeli air strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on February. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 2:40pm, 4 Feb 2024

Scores were reported killed in overnight strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, after Hamas said it needed more time to consider a proposal that would halt its war with Israel in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said early on Sunday that at least 92 people had been killed overnight, including in what the group’s media office said was an Israeli bombardment of a kindergarten in Rafah where displaced people were sheltering.

Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into the southern border city have mounted in recent days, with hundreds of thousands of displaced seeking refuge from the fighting there in makeshift shelters and encampments.

An injured Palestinian child is carried by an Egyptian Red Crescent paramedic after evacuating from the Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing on February 3. Photo: AFP

Many made the journey from even harder-hit areas after being told the city was a safe zone, but strikes have continued there as well, with mourners gathering outside a local hospital Saturday to pray for the dead after another bombardment.

“The children were just sleeping and suddenly the bombardment happened. The bedroom fell on my children. God took one of my children and three escaped death,” Ahmad Bassam al-Jamal said, his voice breaking. “My child now is a martyr in heaven.”

The city that had been home to 200,000 people now hosts more than half of Gaza’s population, the United Nations said.

A representative of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA has called Rafah “a pressure cooker of despair”, expressing concern for what might happen next.