“All the people ran away from the tents. The sound was horrible and deafening,” said one woman as people around her, including young children, searched what remained of the burned camp in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighborhood.
“This place is full of innocent people and children,” she said. “And they are martyred.”
“My cousins and my entire family were erased from the civil registry,” said a man who identified himself as Mahmoud Diab Mouhamed Talal Elataar. “No one left.”
Elataar, 20, said she rushed to the scene after hearing about Sunday’s airstrike in a bid to ensure her loved ones were OK, but “no one is alive.” On Monday, all he could do was sift through the remains of those killed in hopes of being able to identify their family members.
An Israeli official told NBC News that preliminary information indicated the airstrike likely ignited a fuel tank, causing an explosion and a fire that spread through the camp where displaced civilians were sheltering in tents and killed dozens of people, including children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the deadly incident was “tragic,” adding that it was under investigation. The Israel Defense Forces initially said it targeted two senior Hamas leaders and did not attack a designated humanitarian area. But it said a full investigation would be conducted into “civilian deaths in the area of the attack.”
Earlier Sunday, Hamas’ military wing announced a missile barrage targeting Tel Aviv for the first time in many weeks, with the IDF saying eight projectiles had been identified crossing from the Rafah area into Israeli territory.
The attack left Israel – and its main ally, the United States – increasingly isolated on the world stage. On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council was due to convene an emergency meeting as a trio of European countries officially recognized an independent Palestinian state.
Sunday’s strike came just days after the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice, ordered Israel to immediately halt its offensive on Rafah, citing the “immediate risk” to the Palestinians.
Images showed the area engulfed in flames as Palestinians ran for safety and tried to help the injured. Some of the videos shared on social media showed extremely disturbing images, including burned corpses and a man holding what appeared to be the headless body of a young child.
A spokesman for the National Security Council said on Monday that the images were poignant as they warned Israel about its responsibility to protect civilians in a war that has so far seen more than 36,000 people killed in Gaza, according to security officials. local health.
Israel launched its offensive following Hamas attacks on October 7, in which Israeli authorities said around 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage, in a major escalation of the decades-old conflict.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
