At least 52 people were killed in heavy air strikes on densely crowded Rafah in southern Gaza before dawn on Monday, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
AFP journalists and witnesses heard an intense series of strikes and saw smoke billowing above the city, which now hosts more than half of Gaza's total population after they fled bombardment elsewhere on the Strip.
The strikes hit 14 houses and three mosques in different parts of Rafah, according to the Hamas government.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Monday that it had "conducted a series of strikes on terror targets in the area of Shaboura in the southern Gaza Strip", adding that the strikes had concluded.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his army to prepare a ground offensive on Rafah, Gaza's last major population centre that troops have yet to enter after Hamas's October 7 attacks sparked the war.
About 1.4 million Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, with many living in tents while food, water and medicine are becoming increasingly scarce.
Meanwhile the Israeli military said it rescued two hostages from captivity in the Gaza Strip early Monday, marking a small but symbolically significant success in its quest to bring home over 100 captives believed to be held by the Hamas militant group.
The two men were rescued from a residential building in the southern border town of Rafah in a raid that also killed at least seven people, according to Palestinian officials. Witnesses reported at least 17 airstrikes, flares and Apache helicopter fire.
The army identified the two rescued hostages as Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, and said both were in good medical condition. It said both men were kidnapped by Hamas militants from Kibbutz Nir Yizhak in the Oct. 7 cross-border attack that started the Israel-Hamas war, now in its fifth month. They are just the second and third hostages to be rescued safely.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the operation was based on “precise intelligence,” and that the site, located on the second floor of a building, had been watched for “some time.” He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Israel's military chief and other top officials as the raid unfolded.