Dozens of people have died in Tent Camp in Rafah
The Israeli Airstrike in Rafah, Yemen, last night, was too serious, and too dangerous to cross, a military official said
In a war of such scope and intensity, there are also complex incidents, General Tomer-Yerushalmi said. “Some of the incidents, like last night’s incident in Rafah, are very serious.” She said that the military regretted any harm to civilians during the war.
Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the Israeli military’s top legal official, said on Monday that the airstrike was under review. She said the military police had opened at least 70 criminal investigations.
“These are very, very tightly packed tents,” he said. “And a fire like this could spread over a huge distance with catastrophic consequences in a very, very short space of time.”
Though the United Nations estimates that more than 800,000 people fled Rafah in a matter of weeks after the Israeli military announced its offensive, the area remains densely populated, Dr. Smith said.
He said the trauma center injuries from the strike and fire were some of the worst that he had ever seen and was too dangerous to cross.
James Smith, a British emergency specialist in Rafah who has worked there, said that the attack had killed people who were seeking some level of sanctuary and shelter in tarpaulin tents.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that its ambulance crews had taken a “large” number of victims to the Tal as Sultan clinic and field hospitals in Rafah, where few functioning hospitals remain, and that “numerous” people had been trapped in fires at the site of the strikes.
Mr al-Sapti said he saw charred bodies and people screaming as fire crews tried to put out the flames from the strike. He said that the camp was destroyed by the fire. “There was darkness and no electricity.”
Bilal al-Sapti, 30, a construction worker in Rafah, said that shrapnel from the strike tore up the tent where he was staying with his wife and two children, but that his family was uninjured.
Israeli military response to the Rafah strike in Gaza: an echo of South Africa’s saga into Israel and the destruction of the Palestinians
As part of a case brought by South Africa against Israel, an order was issued by the court in The Hague on Friday. It called on Israel to immediately halt any actions in Rafah, because it would bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The military has said that the strike in Rafah on Sunday — which ignited a deadly fire in the camp and killed dozens of people — was targeting a Hamas compound.
The Israeli military said in a statement Monday that it had taken a number of steps before the strike to reduce the chance of harming uninvolved civilians. “Based on these measures, it was assessed that there would be no expected harm to uninvolved civilians,” the military said.
Since the start of the war in Gaza eight months ago the death toll has surpassed 35,000 people, says the health ministry.
“At around 6:30 p.m. yesterday, I heard a huge noise. He told NPR that he heard an explosion and felt an earthquake. “I couldn’t get out of the door so I jumped out of the window and saw injured children… one without a head.”
The Israeli Operation Against Hamas: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Defense of an Enclave for Disdisplaced Palestinians
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under increasing domestic pressure to negotiate a ceasefire deal to bring the remaining hostages home. Israel has been rocked by weekly protests by families of hostages and others calling for the resignation of Netanyahu. He is under a lot of pressure from his government that doesn’t want a complete ceasefire.
Israeli media is reporting that the negotiations are going to resume next week. There were some high level discussions in Paris this weekend between the Israeli Mossad’s David Barnea, the U.S. CIA’s William J. Burns and the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahma al-Thani.
An Egyptian army spokesman said that an investigation is underway after the Israeli army reported a shooting incident on the border.
There were few details on what happened, and neither country said who had opened fire. But the shooting reflects the escalating tension between the two nations since early May, when the city of Rafah in southern Gaza became the focus of Israel’s military campaign to defeat Hamas, an armed group that led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
“Several hours ago, a shooting incident took place on the Egyptian border. The incident is being reviewed. There is a dialogue with the Egyptian side,” Israel’s military said in a statement.
The aid flow into the enclave through the portal that was halted by the seizure of the Rafah crossing was stopped. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s leader, said that the operation was necessary to destroy the military infrastructure of Hamas and defeat its remaining battalions.
With international condemnation mounting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that the killing of dozens of people in a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah was “a tragic accident,” but gave no sign of curbing the Israeli offensive there.
An Israeli official said on Monday that the initial investigation by the military concluded that the strike may have accidentally started a fire. Eyewitnesses described intense fires in the aftermath of the strike.
The New York Times reviewed military drone footage and it showed that the munition hit an area that had cabins and parked cars.
The Israeli attack on May 6 on the Kerem Shalom crossing point: Israeli airstrike halts offensive in Rafah
President Biden had warned Israel against launching a major offensive into Rafah before the May 6 offensive, which came hours after Hamas fired rockets into the Kerem Shalom crossing point between Israel and Rafah, killing four Israeli soldiers.
An official in the Biden administration told NPR that even though the US was deeply concerned about the airstrike, it was not a type of military operation that Biden would not approve of.
On Monday, Gaza’s health ministry said two employees of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah — one of the last hospitals functioning there — were killed at the gate of the facility by an Israeli airstrike. The hospital has decided to close down.
A man who was in the area told NPR that the scene was a house with one child eviscerated and another decapitated.
An order from the top U.N. court, to halt the operation against Hamas, was not enough to stop Israeli forces from pushing deeper into the city of Rafah.
One witness told NPR that Israeli tanks had been spotted in western Rafah, on the opposite side of the city from where the offensive began on May 6. The Reuters news agency also reported that tanks had been seen in the center of the city, where some 1.4 million people had been sheltering before the offensive began, having fled there to escape fighting in the rest of the tiny coastal territory.
Cairo warned that the conflict between Gaza and Egypt could undermine the peace treaty with Israel because of its proximity to the border.
After the fighting in Rafah stopped the main aid routes into the Gaza Strip, warehouses have begun to run out of food.
The Israeli Troops Keep Up Assault on Rafah After Condemnation of Deadly Strike: Why Israel Had Not Ordered Palestinians to Leave the Area On Sunday
Israeli jets had fired the “smallest munitions” that they could use, he said, insisting that “our munitions alone could not have ignited a fire of this size.” Those claims could not be independently verified.
An investigation was being conducted by the Israeli military to determine the cause of the fire.
The strike was conducted using two munitions with small warheads suited for this targeted strike. We discuss munition with 17 kilos of explosives. This is the smallest munition that our jets can use. A fire that was started by the strike is still being investigated. Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size. I want to repeat it: Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size. Our investigation seeks to determine what may have caused such a large fire to ignite. We are operating in Rafah in a very targeted and precise way. There are still hostages in Rafah, and we need to make sure that we do everything we can to bring our hostages back home.
Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, on Tuesday cited the “deeply distressing” scenes from Rafah over the weekend — many of which featured charred bodies in the wreckage of the encampment — in calling for a “swift, comprehensive” investigation.
Hundreds of protesters vs a new strike in the Al-Mawasi region on Tuesday evening (Arp epsilon 8pm)
There were many voices demanding a halt to the fighting, which came after reports of another strike in Al-Mawasi on Tuesday.
