Israel kills 12 Palestinians in air strike as It presses on with Rafah offensive

CAIRO Israeli forces killed at least 12 Palestinians in a dawn air strike on Rafah on May 30, as fighting raged in several other areas of the Gaza Strip.

Israel pressed on with its offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza a day after saying it had taken control of a buffer zone along the border between the enclave and Egypt, giving it effective authority over Gaza's entire land border.

It said control of this zone has cut off a route used by Palestinian militant group Hamas to smuggle arms into Gaza during more than seven months of war.

Gaza's health officials said the 12 Palestinians, all civilians, were killed as they were trying to recover a body in central Rafah.

Israel reported clashes in southern, central and northern Gaza, but did not immediately comment on the reported deaths in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians took refuge earlier in the war.

Israel continued deadly raids on Rafah in southern Gaza despite an order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to end attacks on the city.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on May 30 that it has so far killed around 300 militants during these raids.

In a televised briefing, Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military's chief spokesman, said Israeli forces gained "operational" control over the "Philadelphi Corridor", using the Israeli military's code name for the 14km-long corridor along Gaza's only border with Egypt.

"The Philadelphi Corridor served as an oxygen line for Hamas, which it regularly used to smuggle weapons into the area of the Gaza Strip," he said.

Rear-Adm Hagari did not spell out what operational control referred to, but an Israeli military official earlier said there were Israeli "boots on the ground" along parts of the corridor.

The border with Egypt along the southern edge was Gaza's only land border that Israel had not controlled directly.