Palestinians mourn by the bodies of relatives killed in Israeli bombardment, at the al-Najjar hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 25, 2024. AFP
Global concern has mounted over the looming invasion of Rafah, where much of Gaza's population has sought refuge from more than six months of war.
Aid groups warn any invasion would add to already-catastrophic conditions for Gaza's 2.4 million people.
Israeli officials have vowed to enter Rafah, near the Egyptian border, but even before any ground operation the area has been regularly bombed.
Rafah resident Abu Abdallah said "a very powerful strike" hit a house where displaced Palestinians were sheltering.
"This is not a life," he told AFP. "We can no longer live in our home, our neighbourhood, or walk anywhere. The war has been going on for too long."
At the city's Al-Najjar Hospital on Thursday, among the mourners were two men crouching, grief-stricken, in front of a white body bag.
Belgium said an Israeli strike on Rafah killed Abdallah Nabhan, 33, who worked for its Enabel development agency.
Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
"Temporary pier"
As protests in solidarity with Palestinians spread on US campuses, President Joe Biden signed a law authorising $13 billion in additional military assistance for close ally Israel and $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.
The Pentagon said Thursday that the US military had begun construction of a "temporary pier" off the besieged Gaza Strip's coast to boost shipments of desperately needed aid.
The construction of the pier comes as Israel has shut all land crossings into the strip pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine.
UN and humanitarian officials have repeatedly stressed that sea or air deliveries are far less efficient and that there is no alternative to Israel opening all land crossings into Gaza.
Hundreds buried at hospital
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals, UN-run schools and so-called safe zones in the south where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians seeking shelter from the war have been displaced.
On Thursday, Yamen Abu Suleiman, head of Gaza's Civil Defence agency in Khan Younis, raised to 392 the number of bodies he said had been recovered from three mass graves at the city's Nasser Medical Complex.
He added that families had identified 165 of the bodies that showed signs of executions and people being buried alive.
The White House, European Union and the UN rights office have called for transparent and independent probes into the reported mass graves.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online
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