“We are actively engaging the IDF and partners on the ground to assess what happened.”
Washington:
The United States said on Monday that Israel must make all possible efforts to avoid civilian casualties, following a deadly attack that hit a displacement camp in Rafah that Gaza’s Health Ministry said killed 45 people.
Israel faces a wave of international condemnation over the attack, both across the region and from the European Union, France and the United Nations.
“As we have already made clear, Israel must take all possible precautions to protect civilians,” a spokesperson for the US National Security Council said in a statement.
“We are actively engaging the IDF and partners on the ground to assess what happened,” the spokesperson added.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said the attack sparked a fire that destroyed a displacement center northwest of Rafah, close to a UN agency facility for Palestinian refugees.
“The devastating images following an IDF attack in Rafah last night, which killed dozens of innocent Palestinians, are heartbreaking,” said the NSC spokesperson.
The Israeli military said it had launched an investigation into the attack which it said was carried out based on “accurate intelligence information” about two Hamas militants who it said were killed.
It launched the attack on Rafah hours after Hamas launched a series of rockets into the Tel Aviv area, most of which were intercepted.
The NSC spokesperson said that “Israel has the right to go after Hamas, and we understand that this attack killed two senior Hamas terrorists responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians,” before imploring more caution.
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,050 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
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