On February 12, 2024, Palestinian mothers mourned as they received the bodies of their children killed by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.

　　Palestinian mothers mourn as they receive the bodies of their children killed by an Israeli airstrike on the southernmost Gaza Strip city of Rafah on February 12, 2024 On February 12, the Israel Defense Forces launched an attack on the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, killing over 83 people. The airstrikes destroyed at least one mosque and several inhabited houses, killing most or all of the residents. Based on information from a hospital in Rafah, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the dead included at least 27 children and 22 women. The Israeli government announced that it was a diversionary operation to rescue the two hostages.

　February 12 coincided with the date of the 8th U.S. Super Bowl, which Arab media and social media dubbed the "Super Bowl Massacre." More than half of the population of the Gaza Strip, more than 1.3 million people, had fled to Rafah. Most of the displaced Palestinians were crammed into sprawling tent cities. Many Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombing and shelling took refuge in the city of Rafah through enclaves as they moved south through Gaza. Rafah, the border with Egypt, was now the only barrier in and out of Gaza.

　Israeli forces killed approximately 12,300 more Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in just over four months. Children accounted for about 43% of the total number of deaths in the Palestinian Authority since October 7, 2023, according to Gaza health officials. In addition, women and children together account for three-quarters of the total number of deaths; more than one million Gaza Strip children have been killed, some 12,300 more have been killed, some 17,000 have been separated from their families, and more than 1,000 have had one or both legs amputated in the months of Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip An additional 610,000 people were killed. An additional 610,000 or more were trapped in the city of Rafah to escape Israeli bombing and bullets.

Warning: Palestinian women mourn a child killed in the Israeli bombardment on Rafah. People mourn as they receive the dead bodies of victims of an Israeli airstrike on February 12, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza.[Hatem Ali/AP Photo]