GAZA CITY, Palestine 

Bodies of at least nine Palestinians were retrieved from the rubble in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Anadolu learned on Saturday.

“We received nine bodies of Palestinians from different areas in the city of Rafah,” a medical source at the European Hospital in the city of Khan Younis told Anadolu. “The bodies were recovered from homes bombed by the Israeli army earlier."

Witnesses said dozens of bodies remain buried under structures bombed by Israeli forces, adding that in recent days many decomposed bodies have been found in the streets of the southern city invaded by Israel on May 6.

Israel has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since last October. Besides many more being injured, vast tracts of the territory lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi in Ankara