DUBAI, March 3. /TASS/. At least 14 Palestinians, including six children, were killed in a strike by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the southern Gaza Strip.

According to Al Jazeera, Israeli troops shelled residential buildings in the city of Rafah on the enclave's border with Egypt.

On February 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the IDF had been ordered to prepare for the start of fighting in Rafah. Two days later, he instructed the IDF to prepare a plan to evacuate civilians and eliminate the remaining four Hamas battalions in the city.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.