(Rafah) Israel is increasing its strikes on Rafah despite condemnations of its deadly bombing against a local displaced persons camp which pushed the UN Security Council to convene an emergency meeting on the situation in this sector of Gaza.
What there is to know
- Israeli strike hits IDP camp in Rafah on Sunday;
- The attack left at least 45 dead and nearly 250 injured;
- The Palestinian Civil Defense reported numerous “charred” bodies in the fire caused at the Barkasat camp;
- The bombing was denounced by many countries and organizations;
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the event a “tragic incident”;
- The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting in response to the Rafah strike.
For their part, Spain, Norway and Ireland will recognize the State of Palestine on Tuesday at a press conference in Brussels, an announcement made last week which aroused the ire of Israel.
On the ground, AFP teams in Rafah reported early Tuesday airstrikes and gunfire in the center and west of Rafah, a town at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip where the military began, early May, a ground operation.
These new bombings come in the wake of an international wave of condemnation of a strike in Rafah, which on Sunday evening left 45 dead and 249 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, and set fire to tents occupied by Palestinians in a displaced persons camp.
REUTERS PHOTO
The Palestinian Civil Defense reported numerous “charred” bodies in a fire that ravaged the Barkasat displaced persons camp.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regretted “a tragic accident”. The Israeli army said it was investigating the deaths of civilian victims after initially saying it had targeted two senior Hamas officials with “precise munitions”.
“Upset”, Washington called on its Israeli ally to “take all precautions to protect civilians”. Canada said it was “horrified” and French President Emmanuel Macron “outraged”. Around 10,000 people gathered near the Israeli embassy in Paris to denounce the bombings.
The crowd, some of whom wore keffiyehs, waved Palestinian flags and signs reading: “We do not kill a child, whether Jewish or Palestinian: Stop the bombings, free Palestine”, “Rafah , Gaza we are with you.”
Emergency meeting
“I condemn Israel’s actions which have killed many innocent civilians who were only seeking protection from this deadly conflict. There is no safe place in Gaza. These horrors must stop,” declared UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The UN Security Council will meet urgently on Tuesday afternoon, we learned from diplomatic sources on Monday.
This closed-door meeting was requested by Algeria, a non-permanent member of the Council, several of these sources told AFP. The UN has called for a “full and transparent” investigation into the bombing of Rafah.
The Palestinian Civil Defense reported numerous “charred” bodies in the fire which ravaged the Barkasat displaced persons camp, managed by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), in the northwest of Rafah.
INFOGRAPHIC SOPHIE RAMIS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A map of the southern Gaza Strip locating an UNRWA displaced persons camp northwest of Rafah
“We saw charred, dismembered bodies […] cases of amputations, injured children, women and the elderly,” testified Mohammed al-Mughayyir, a Civil Defense official in the Gaza Strip.
“Hell on Earth”
Images from the Palestinian Red Crescent, according to which the location targeted by the strike had been designated by Israel “as a humanitarian zone”, show scenes of chaos, ambulances with sirens blaring and rescuers in the middle of the night on a burning site , evacuating the injured, including children.
AFP images in the early morning after the strike show the charred remains of makeshift tents and vehicles.
PHOTO JEHAD ALSHRAFI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
View of the Barkasat displaced persons camp
“People were not only injured or killed, they were burned alive,” testified Mohammad Hamad, 24. “My cousin’s daughter, a child of no more than 13 years old, was one of the “martyrs”. His features were unrecognizable, because the shrapnel tore his face off.”
“The images from last night bear witness to the transformation of Rafah into hell on earth,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa, saying some agency employees were missing.
After the ICJ
The deadly strike on Rafah came a few hours after rocket attacks, claimed by Hamas, on the Israeli metropolis Tel-Aviv from Rafah, but also two days after a decision by the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the UN, which ordered Israel on Friday to suspend its operations in Rafah.
According to the UN, this operation had already pushed, in nearly three weeks, some 800,000 Palestinians to flee, thus forcing people who had tried to find refuge in Rafah earlier in the war to move again.
The war was triggered by an attack carried out on October 7 on Israeli soil by Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count carried out in from official Israeli data.
That day, 252 people were taken as hostages into the Palestinian territory, of whom 121 are still being held in Gaza, including 37 who died, according to the army.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians gathered at the site of the Israeli strike on a displaced persons camp in Rafah on May 27.
The retaliation by Israel, which says it wants to destroy Hamas, has left at least 36,050 dead in the Gaza Strip, mainly civilians, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas administration in the Palestinian territory.
A key mediator with Qatar and the United States in diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire, Egypt condemned a “deliberate bombardment by Israeli forces on tents of displaced people.”
Qatar has warned that Israeli strikes in Rafah could “complicate mediation efforts”, as the UN warns of imminent famine in the besieged Gaza Strip, where most hospitals are not functioning. more.