According to HRW, Hamas committed war crimes on October 7

On Wednesday, Israeli forces bombed areas in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least nine Palestinians, health officials said, while Israeli tanks continued to make limited advances into Rafah in the south.

An Israeli airstrike around midnight on a house in Al-Zawyda in the central Gaza Strip killed eight people, health authorities said. Another attack killed a man in Nuseirat camp, one of the enclave’s eight refugee camps, where 23 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school a day earlier.

Israeli tanks also shelled the eastern areas of the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi camps in the center of the enclave, residents reported. An airstrike destroyed a mosque, residents reported, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, in Rafah, tanks carried out an attack in the north of the city before withdrawing – a tactic that Israeli forces have used in other areas before launching deeper incursions. Since May, tanks have been deployed in most parts of the city but have not penetrated deep into the northern districts.

Medics said an Israeli attack killed two people in Rafah on Wednesday, while residents said the forces blew up dozens of homes.

The Israeli military said its troops were continuing their “precise, intelligence-based operational activities in the Rafah area.” It said it had eliminated a “terrorist cell” and a rocket launcher that had been used to fire at troops.

It said that air strikes had been carried out on 25 targets across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours and that troops continued to operate in the centre of the Gaza Strip, including to dismantle structures used to observe the soldiers.

Even nine months after the war began, Palestinian fighters led by Hamas are still able to attack Israeli forces with anti-tank missiles and mortar shells and from time to time fire rocket salvos at Israel.

Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas after its militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage in an attack on communities in southern Israel on October 7, Israeli figures showed.

On Tuesday, the military said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas’ military wing; around 14,000 fighters have been killed or captured since the war began.

At least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive since then, Gaza health authorities say. Israel says 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza.