21 dead in new Israeli attack on displaced people camp in western Rafah

Rafa:

A civil defense official in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said an Israeli attack on a displacement camp west of Rafah killed at least 21 people on Tuesday, days after a similar attack that sparked global outrage.

Mohammad al-Mughayyir said they were killed in an “occupation attack on the tents of displaced people west of Rafah”. Hamas said an Israeli attack caused “dozens of martyrs and injuries” in the area.

This happened as Israeli tanks entered the heart of Rafah, Palestinian officials said, despite widespread condemnation of an airstrike on a crowded camp in the southern Gaza city that killed 45 people two days earlier.

The Israeli tanks were “parked at the Al-Awda roundabout in the center of Rafah city,” a witness said.

A Palestinian security source said the tanks were in the center of Rafah, where Israeli troops launched a controversial ground attack earlier this month.

“Currently, people are inside their homes because anyone who moves is being shot at by Israeli drones,” said one resident, Abdel Khatib.

With an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council at 19:15 GMT scheduled to discuss Sunday’s attack on the displacement camp, the situation remains tense in Rafah.

In a statement released hours before the meeting, the Israeli military said the weapons used in Sunday’s attack “could not” have caused the deadly fire at the Rafah camp.

“Our ammunition alone could not have sparked a fire of this size,” said military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Sunday night’s attack, which doctors said also injured hundreds of civilians, drew worldwide condemnation.

The sight of charred carnage, blackened corpses and children rushed to hospitals prompted UN chief António Guterres to declare that “there is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack a “tragic accident” but also vowed to continue the campaign to destroy Hamas during the October 7 attack and bring home all the hostages.

More airstrikes and shelling rained down overnight on besieged Gaza – including the Tal al-Sultan area, where the displaced people’s camp caught fire near a facility run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

“The situation is very dangerous,” said resident Faten Jouda, 30. “We didn’t sleep all night. There was random shelling from all directions, including artillery and aerial bombardment, as well as aircraft fire.

“We saw everyone running away again,” she told AFP. “We will also now go to Al-Mawasi because we fear for our lives,” she said of a nearby coastal area that Israel has declared a safe “humanitarian zone.”

UNRWA said one million civilians have fled Rafah since Israel launched its attack on the city in early May, despite a chorus of international warnings.

“This happened with nowhere safe to go and amid bombings, lack of food and water, piles of trash and inadequate living conditions,” he posted on X.

Palestinian state

More than seven months after the start of the deadliest war in Gaza, Israel has faced increasingly strong global opposition, as well as cases before two international courts based in the Netherlands.

In a landmark political move on Tuesday, Ireland, Norway and Spain formally recognized the State of Palestine, a step taken so far by more than 140 UN members but few Western governments.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said recognition “is not just a question of historical justice…it is also an essential requirement if we are all to achieve peace.”

“It is the only way to move towards the solution that we all recognize as the only possible way to achieve a peaceful future: that of a Palestinian State that lives side by side with the State of Israel in peace and security.”

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said the aim was to keep hopes for peace in the Middle East alive and called on Israel to “stop the humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

Israel criticized the recognition as a “reward” for the Islamic movement Hamas and recalled its diplomatic envoys from Madrid, Dublin and Oslo.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz went further on Tuesday and launched an attack on Sanchez in X, telling him that “you are a partner in inciting the genocide of the Jewish people.”

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said the three governments would “issue a coordinated response” to Israel, which he said would be “calm but firm”.

‘Hell on earth’

The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel, 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.

Hamas also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 who the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,096 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The Sunday night attack, which killed dozens of people in the displacement camp, targeted two senior Hamas members, the Israeli military said.

It said a plane “hit a Hamas compound” and killed Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, senior Hamas officials in the occupied West Bank.

The attack came hours after Hamas fired a series of rockets at Tel Aviv, with most being intercepted.

The civilian death toll in the Gaza camp sparked a wave of condemnation, with Palestinians and many Arab countries calling it a “massacre.”

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Monday that “the images from last night are proof of how Rafah has turned into a hell on Earth.”

EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell said he was “horrified” and French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged”.

A spokesperson for the US National Security Council said Israel “must take all possible precautions to protect civilians.”

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)