<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza’s southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group Hamas has led to a dramatic escalation of tensions in an already volatile Middle East.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The strike late Friday hit a residential building in the western Tel Sultan neighborhood of the city of Rafah, according to Gaza’s civil defense. The bodies of the six children, two women and a man were taken to Rafah’s Abu Yousef Al-Najjar hospital, the hospital’s records showed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the hospital, relatives cried and hugged the bodies of the children, wrapped in white shrouds, as others comforted them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fatalities included Abdel-Fattah Sobhi Radwan, his wife Najlaa Ahmed Aweidah and their three children, his brother-in-law Ahmed Barhoum said. Barhoum also lost his wife, Rawan Radwan, and their 5-year-old daughter Alaa.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This is a world devoid of all human values and morals,” Barhoum told The Associated Press Saturday morning, crying as he cradled and gently rocked the body of Alaa in his arms. “They bombed a house full of displaced people, women and children. There were no martyrs but women and children.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No victims were registered from a second overnight strike in the city.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rafah, which lies on the border with Egypt, currently hosts more than half of Gaza’s total population of about 2.3 million people, the vast majority of whom have been displaced by fighting further north in the territory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite calls for restraint from the international community, including Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States, the Israeli government has insisted for months that it intends to push a ground offensive into the city, where it says many of the remaining Hamas militants are holed up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such a ground operation has not materialized so far, but the Israeli military has repeatedly carried out airstrikes on and around the city.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The war was sparked by an unprecedented raid into southern Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on Oct. 7 that left about 1,200 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians, and saw about 250 people kidnapped and taken into Gaza, reports AP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel says about 130 hostages remain in Gaza, although more than 30 have been confirmed to now be dead, either killed on Oct. 7 or having died in captivity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/fas</div>