Deadly Rafah strikes a ‘tragic mishap’: Israel

Israeli’s PM has said an attack that killed 45 Gazans was “tragic” as international condemnation against the country grows.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday a deadly strike that hit a displacement camp in Gaza’s Rafah was a “tragic mishap” which his government was “investigating”.

The comments come as international condemnation mounts on Israel for the attack that’s thought to have killed 45 people. Israeli has claimed it targeted two Hamas fighters who were killed.

On Monday, local time, Israel and Egypt said they were investigating after an Egyptian soldier was apparently shot dead near a Gaza border crossing.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had launched a probe into an air strike in Rafah that Gaza officials say resulted in the deaths of scores of Palestinian civilians.

The military’s Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi “directed the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism to investigate the strike carried out in Rafah” late Sunday, the military said in a statement.

It added that “before the strike, a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance, the deployment of precise munitions by the IAF (air force), and additional intelligence information.”

Mr Netanyahu reiterated this position that the IDF has tried to minimise casualties.

“In Rafah, we evacuated a million uninvolved residents, and despite our best efforts a tragic mishap happened yesterday (Sunday),” he told parliament, adding that “we are investigating the case and will draw the conclusions”.

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Deadly fire

The strike set off a fire that ripped through a tent city for displaced Palestinians.

“We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly,” said agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir.

“We had just done with the evening prayers,” recalled one survivor, a woman who declined to be named. “Our children were asleep.

“Suddenly we heard a loud sound and there was fire all around us. The children were screaming.” Footage from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society showed chaotic night-time scenes of paramedics racing to the fiery attack site and evacuating the wounded, including children.

The ICRC said one of its field hospitals was receiving an “influx of casualties seeking care for injuries and burns” and that its teams were “doing their best to save lives”.

Mughayyir said the rescue efforts were hampered by war damage and the impacts of Israel’s siege.

A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike on a camp for displaced Gazans, receives treatment at a hospital in Rafah on May 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Condemnation

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X/Twitter that “these operations must stop”.

“There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “horrified by news coming out of Rafah on Israeli strikes killing dozens of displaced persons, including small children. I condemn this in the strongest terms”.

“There is a fuel shortage … there are roads that have been destroyed, which hinders the movement of civil defence vehicles in these targeted areas,” he said.

“There is also a shortage of water to extinguish fires.”

A Palestinian man walks past a destroyed building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas militant group continues. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Across the region, the Israeli attack sparked strong protests from mediators Egypt and Qatar as well as from Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Egypt deplored the “targeting of defenceless civilians” and labelled it part of “a systematic policy aimed at widening the scope of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip to make it uninhabitable”.

Jordan accused Israel of “ongoing war crimes” and Saudi Arabia condemned “in the strongest terms the continued massacres committed by Israeli occupation forces”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “we will do everything possible to hold these barbarians and murderers accountable”.

Qatar condemned the Israeli bombing as a “dangerous violation of international law” and voiced “concern that the bombing will complicate ongoing mediation efforts and hinder reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire”.

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Egypt border guard shot

Also on Monday, Egypt’s military said a border guard was killed in a “shooting” in the Rafah border area, where Israeli forces are deployed, adding that it had launched a probe.

“The Egyptian armed forces, through the competent authorities, are investigating a shooting incident in the Rafah border area which led to the martyrdom of a guard,” a military statement said, after Israel’s army reported a “shooting incident” on the Egyptian border

Originally published as Deadly Rafah strikes a ‘tragic mishap’: Israel