Are now being treated

Injured children from Gaza arrive in Italy

60 Palestinian children and their companions arrived in the northern Italian city of La Spezia on Monday. The injured children from the Gaza Strip are now to be treated in hospitals.

A Red Cross task force of 45 volunteers received the children and their companions, who arrived from Egypt on board the naval vessel Vulcano. They were taken in by various hospitals, including the "Bambino Gesu" in Rome, which is administered by the Vatican.

Meloni: "We were the first to send help"
Italy wants to take in a total of 100 sick Palestinian children for treatment, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently reported. "We Italians were the first to send aid to Gaza. We are working to bring Palestinian children to Italy so that they can be treated in our hospitals," Meloni explained.

Meanwhile, fighting between the Israeli army and the radical Islamic militia Hamas continued in the Gaza Strip. According to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 17 of Hamas' 24 combat battalions have now been eliminated. Most of the others are in the southern Gaza Strip - including Rafah on the Egyptian border. "We will also take care of them", Netanyahu announced according to a statement from his office.

Ground operation in Rafah imminent
Rafah is a gathering place for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip and sought refuge in the border town. An Israeli insider told the Reuters news agency that the military will coordinate with Egypt and look for ways to get most of the refugees to safety in the north before a ground operation is launched in Rafah. Palestinians reported Israeli tank fire and air strikes, killing two girls in a house.