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Rafah, Gaza and Jerusalem
CNN
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that an airstrike that killed dozens of people at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the Gaza Strip was a “tragic mistake.”
“Despite our best efforts not to harm those not involved, unfortunately a tragic error occurred last night. We are investigating this matter,” Netanyahu said in a speech to the Israeli Knesset.
At least 45 people were killed and more than 200 injured after a fire broke out in the camp following the attack, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health and Palestinian doctors. No hospital in Rafah had the capacity to accommodate the number of victims, the ministry said.
Footage obtained by CNN showed the camp in flames, with dozens of men, women and children frantically trying to seek shelter from the nighttime assault. Burned bodies, including those of children, could be seen being pulled from the wreckage by rescuers.
“Several civilians are still trapped inside the camp, which was attacked without warning,” said a Palestinian filming the fire. “This has been declared a safe zone.”
A US official told CNN on Monday that Israel told the Biden administration that it used a precision munition to hit a target in Rafah, but that the explosion from the strike ignited a nearby fuel tank and sparked a fire that engulfed a camp of displaced Palestinians and led to dozens of deaths.
“We cannot confirm this, but this is what Israel shared with us,” the official said, “and we believe we will know more once Israel completes its investigation.”
The attack came after Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv on Sunday for the first time in months. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said eight rockets were fired from the Rafah area and “a number of projectiles” were intercepted. The Israeli military said it destroyed rocket launchers used by Hamas shortly after the strikes.
Jehad Alshrafi/AP
Palestinians mourn the bodies of their loved ones killed Monday in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said in a statement Monday that it had struck “a compound in Rafah where major Hamas terrorists were operating.” It said the strike killed two Hamas officials – West Bank chief of staff Yassin Rabia and senior Hamas official Khaled Nagar. CNN cannot verify these claims.
The Israeli military said in a subsequent statement Monday that its Investigation and Assessment Mechanism – an independent body responsible for examining allegations of misconduct in the conflict – would investigate the “circumstances of the deaths of civilians in the strike zone”.
It was one of the deadliest strikes carried out by the Israeli army against Gaza’s southernmost town since Israel began operations there on May 7. It also came just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest court, ordered Israel to “immediately stop” its military operation in Rafah, as well as any other actions in the city. , “which could inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza living conditions that could lead to its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The Israeli military said the attack was carried out based on “advance intelligence” indicating that senior members of Hamas’s West Bank branch were present at the site.
The Israeli military said it had assessed that there would be “no expected harm to uninvolved civilians.”
More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military operation in the enclave, according to the Health Ministry, which began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1 200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to the Ministry of Health. Israeli authorities.
Images of the aftermath shared on social media showed chaotic scenes.
In one video, the lifeless body of a man was seen being dragged by his legs out of the flames. “He’s dead, he’s dead,” a rescuer said before heading off to look for more people. In another video, a man cried while holding up the headless body of a toddler in front of the camera. The women screamed in grief while the children stared at the fire. A man with a bloody face stood in apparent shock, examining his wounds with one hand, while in the other arm he held a baby with bloodstained clothes. One of the bodies pulled from the fire was charred and stiff.
As of Monday morning, the camp was in ruins and small fires were still burning. Men and boys gathered, rummaging through the burned and smoldering rubble for food and their belongings while drones hovered above. One of the structures still standing had a sign reading: “Peace Camp 1 in Kuwait.”
Children and women living in makeshift tents were among those killed, according to a message on X from UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini.
“The images from last night bear witness to how Rafah has become hell on earth,” the commissioner general said on Monday.
“Others would have been burned alive,” Lazzarini said. The report is based on open source photos and videos that were shared with UNRWA, including on social media, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma told CNN.
Abed Rahim Khatib/photo alliance/Getty Images
Palestinians gather around a burned car after an Israeli airstrike on a camp in the southernmost town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip on Monday.
Mohammad Abu Al Subeh, a displaced Palestinian who survived the strike, said that as he lay in bed in the evening he saw “rockets being fired at us.”
“It shook the earth like an earthquake,” Abu Al Subeh, who fled his home in Nuseirat about five months ago, told CNN. He had to escape through the window of his makeshift house located in the desert area where the camp is located. “I came here based on the leaflet issued (by Israel) saying to go to this humanitarian zone,” he said. “There are only civilians here.”
Abu Nidal Al Attar, another displaced Palestinian who witnessed the attack, told CNN: “We were sitting like normal people do” when they suddenly saw strikes and shooting. “We went to see and they were removing the burned people. »
Hamas called the attack a “horrific war crime” and a “terrible massacre.”
International condemnation was swift, with UN agencies, humanitarian groups and governments calling on Israel to respect the ICJ ruling and end its operations in Rafah.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the airstrike on Monday. “There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop,” he said in a message on X.
“Despite the ICJ’s binding decision, Israel struck Rafah and Hamas fired rockets at Israel,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on Monday on X. On Monday, during a meeting with Arab leaders to discuss Gaza and the Middle East, Borrell said that “what we saw in the hours that followed was that Israel continued the military action it was asked to stop.”
The medical association Médecins sans frontières (MSF) said it was “horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe”. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) declared that “Gaza is hell on earth”, referring to the Rafah attack.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged” and called for an “immediate ceasefire”.
Critics have dismissed Israel’s claims. Already concerned by the escalation of the war on its border with Gaza, Egypt on Monday condemned the Israeli strike on Rafah, calling on the Jewish state to implement the ICJ decision to “cease military operations” in Rafah and “comply with its responsibilities as an occupying country”. power”.
Mediator in the war, Egypt is expected to host a new round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on Tuesday. Qatar, another key mediator, said the Israeli attack could “hamper” ongoing negotiations, and called the attack a “serious violation of international law.”
Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinians gather Monday at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp housing displaced people in Rafah, Gaza Strip.
More than a million Palestinians had taken refuge in Rafah before Israel began its operations there, having fled other areas of Gaza after Israel began its military campaign in the territory.
Israel said it had ordered civilians to leave some areas of Rafah, but many remain there, sheltering in what Israel has designated “safe zones.”
More than 800,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6, according to UN figures.
Israel has pledged to continue its operation in Rafah despite international outrage and a US warning not to proceed. In response to the ICJ’s ruling last week, Israel said it “has not and will not carry out military actions in the Rafah area that could inflict harsh conditions on the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza.” life which could lead to its physical destruction in whole or in part. .”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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