DUBAI, February 8. /TASS/. At least 14 civilians were killed and dozens more were wounded in Israel’s strike on residential houses in the southern Gaza Strip, the Al Jazeera television channel said.

According to the TV channel, Israeli forces hit two houses in the city of Rafah, killing at least 14 people, including five children.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.