On the border. Dangerous move. RT“@erinmcunningham: Rafah emerging as major target in #Gaza offensive http://goo.gl/lmAVa ”
9:58 AM - 17 Nov 12 · Details
GAZA CITY: An Israeli air strike on Rafah in southern Gaza killed four people on Saturday, Palestinian medics said, raising the overall death toll from the aerial campaign to 38.
The attack came as the Tunisian foreign minister crossed into southern Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
It followed hot on the heels of other strikes elsewhere in the city which killed one, and a raid on a refugee camp in central Gaza which killed another three, medics said.
"Four people were killed in a third raid on Rafah that targeted a group of citizens in the Zuhur neighbourhood," said Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-run emergency services.
The latest strikes raised the overall death toll in Gaza to 38 as a relentless Israeli air campaign against Hamas entered its fourth straight day.
The identities of the four killed in the latest Rafah strike were not immediately clear.
Earlier, medics said three people had been killed in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza and another man had died in a raid on Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah.
"Three men died in an Israeli air strike on Maghazi camp in central Gaza," said emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya.
Palestinian security sources told AFP that all four were associated with Hamas.
They named the three who died in Maghazi camp as Ali Manameh, Hossam Abdel Jawad and Assaf Gharwish, while the man who died in Rafah was Mukhlis Adwan.
Earlier, Israeli air strikes also hit the cabinet headquarters of Gaza's Hamas government, the group said, with eyewitnesses reporting extensive damage to the building.
"The cabinet headquarters was targeted with four strikes and the government stresses that it remains committed to its positions and its stand alongside the people," the Hamas government said in a statement.
"The IDF (army) has targeted (Hamas prime minister) Ismail Haniya's headquarters in Gaza," an Israeli army spokesman told AFP. "Over the past six hours, the IDF targeted 85 more terror sites," the military spokesperson's official Twitter account added. Eyewitnesses and Hamas officials said the headquarters in the Nasser neighbourhood of Gaza City was virtually leveled in the strike.
"The headquarters was completely destroyed and neighbouring houses were damaged as a result of the barbaric Israeli bombing," a Hamas official told AFP. On Friday morning, Haniya and a slew of other top Hamas government officials lined up in front of the building to welcome Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, on a brief solidarity trip to the Gaza Strip.
The raid on the building came as Israel renewed strikes across Gaza, bombing the headquarters of the Hamas police force in western Gaza City and the government's internal security headquarters in the north of the city.
