Israel Targets Gaza’s Crowded Rafah

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel has bombed targets in Rafah, after U.S. officials warned Israel against expanding its Gaza ground offensive to the southern city where more than half of the territory’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge. Airstrikes overnight and into Friday in Rafah and a central area of Gaza killed 12 people, including women and children. Meanwhile, widening disagreements between Israel and the United States were on display over the future of the war, now in its fifth month. U.S. President Joe Biden said Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack was “over the top.” Israel’s stated intentions to expand its ground offensive to Rafah also prompted a harsh backlash in Washington.