My whole family has perished:’ 22 killed in Israeli airstrike on Rafah, hospital staff say

Relatives of Palestinian victims who lost their lives following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah take their bodies from a hospital morgue for burial on April 29, 2024. 

Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: Warning: This story has graphic content.

Rafah, GazaCNN — 

Twenty-two people, including at least one infant and a toddler, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike over Rafah, Gaza, overnight into Monday, according to hospital officials.

The deceased were brought into Abu Youssef Al Najjar hospital in Rafah following the attack, as their loved ones gathered for their final farewells.

A video filmed for CNN in the hospital courtyard shows several body bags laid on the ground with dozens of anguished people including men, women and children crowded around their late loved ones.

People are seen crouching over the body bags, with some caressing their loved one’s lifeless bodies. At least one baby’s head can be seen sticking out of a bag, as the woman beside it shouts: “My whole family has perished.”

A scene from Rafah's Al-Najar Hospital on Monday.

Another member of the Abu Taha family says in the video that 10 of his relatives were killed in the airstrike. Some of his relatives were originally displaced from Khan Younis, where several of them were killed in a previous Israeli airstrike. The remaining few who had fled Khan Younis for the safety of Rafah have now been killed overnight in Rafah, he says.

“They were sleeping in their homes when the airstrike hit at around 12:20 am…nowhere is safe. The entire Gaza Strip is a target,” he told CNN.

Another member of t