Dozens of people were killed on Sunday after a fire broke out following an Israeli airstrike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza. <\/p>\n
At least 45 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the strike, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics. No hospital in Rafah had the capacity to take the number of casualties, the ministry said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral civilians are still trapped inside the camp, which was attacked without warning,\u201d a Palestinian man filming the fire said. \u201cThis was declared a safe zone.\u201d <\/p>\n
The attack came after Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv on Sunday for the first time in months. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that eight rockets were fired from the Rafah area, and that \u201ca number of projectiles\u201d had been intercepted. The IDF said it destroyed the rocket launchers used by Hamas shortly after the strikes. <\/p>\n
The Israeli military said in a Monday statement that it struck \u201ca compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating,\u201d and said it is aware of reports of civilian harm following the strike and fire. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are aware of the claim that\u2026 a number of uninvolved people were injured,\u201d Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab media division of the IDF Spokesperson\u2019s Unit, said on X. \u201cThe circumstances of the accident are being investigated.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF\u2019s Chief Prosecutor Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi said the details of the Rafah strike are still under review, and that the IDF is \u201ccommitted to seeing it through to conclusion.\u201d <\/p>\n
It was among the deadliest strikes by the Israeli military on Gaza\u2019s southernmost city since Israel began its operation there on May 7. It also came just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations\u2019 top court, ordered Israel to \u201cimmediately halt\u201d its military operation in Rafah, and any other action in the city, \u201cwhich may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.\u201d <\/p>\n
More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military operation there, according to the Ministry of Health in the enclave, which started after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. <\/p>\n
Footage of the aftermath shared on social media showed chaotic scenes. <\/p>\n
In one video, the lifeless body of a man was seen being dragged by the legs out of the flames. \u201cHe\u2019s dead, he\u2019s dead,\u201d a rescuer says before moving on to find others. In another video, a man wept as he held up the headless body of a toddler for the camera. Women shrieked in grief as children peered into the fire. A man with a bloodied face stood in apparent shock, examining his wounds with one hand, as he held an infant with blood-stained clothes in the other arm. One of the bodies pulled out of the fire was charred-stiff. <\/p>\n
By Monday morning, the camp was in ruins with small fires still burning. Men and boys gathered around, rummaging through the burned and smoking wreckage for food and their belongings as drones hovered above. One of the structures still standing was a sign that read: \u201cKuwait peace camp 1.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mohammad Abu Al Subeh, a displaced Palestinian man who survived the strike, said as he was lying in bed in the evening when he saw \u201crockets fired down at us.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hamas called the attack \u201ca horrific war crime\u201d and \u201cterrible massacre.\u201d <\/p>\n
International condemnation was swift, with UN agencies, aid groups and governments calling on Israel to respect the ICJ ruling and halt its Rafah operation. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the ICJ binding ruling, Israel struck Rafah and Hamas fired rockets to Israel,\u201d the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, wrote Monday on X. \u00a0On Monday, in a meeting with Arab leaders to discuss Gaza and the Middle, Borrell said that \u201cwhat we have seen in the immediate hours is that Israel continues the military action that it has been asked to stop.\u201d <\/p>\n
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was \u201chorrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe.\u201d The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said \u201cGaza is hell on earth,\u201d referring to the Rafah attack. <\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was \u201coutraged\u201d and called for an \u201cimmediate ceasefire.\u201d <\/p>\n
Critics have pushed back on Israel\u2019s claims. Already worried about an intensifying war right on its border with Gaza, Egypt on Monday condemned Israel\u2019s strike on Rafah, calling on the Jewish state to implement the ICJ ruling of \u201chalting military operations\u201d in Rafah and to \u201ccomply with its responsibilities as an occupying power\u201d. <\/p>\n
A mediator in the war, Egypt is set to host another round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on Tuesday. Qatar, another key mediator, said Israel\u2019s strike could \u201chinder\u201d ongoing negotiations, and called the attack a \u201cserious violation of international law.\u201d <\/p>\n
Over a million Palestinians had been sheltering in Rafah before Israel began its operations there, having fled there from other areas of Gaza after Israel began its military campaign in the territory. <\/p>\n
Israel has said it had ordered civilians to leave some areas of Rafah, but many remain there, sheltering in what Israel designated as \u201csafe zones.\u201d <\/p>\n
More than 800,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6, according to UN figures. <\/p>\n
Israel has vowed to press on with its Rafah operation despite international outrage and a US warning not to proceed. In response to the ICJ ruling last week, Israel said it \u201chas not and will not conduct military actions in the Rafah area which may inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Dozens of people were killed on Sunday after a fire broke out following an Israeli airstrike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza. At least 45 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the strike, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}