Israel widely condemned, including by allies, for airstrike killing 45 at Rafah tent camp
An Israeli airstrike triggered a massive blaze killing 45 people in a tent camp in the Gaza city of Rafah, officials said on Monday, prompting an outcry from global leaders who urged the implementation of an International Court of Justice ruling to halt Israel’s assault.
In scenes grimly familiar from a war in its eighth month, Palestinian families rushed to hospitals to prepare their dead for burial after the strike late on Sunday night set tents and rickety shelters ablaze.
Women wept and men held prayers beside bodies in shrouds.
“The whole world is witnessing Rafah getting burnt up by Israel and no one is doing anything to stop it,” Bassam, a Rafah resident, said via a chat app, of the strike in an area of western Rafah that had been designated a safe zone.
Israeli tanks continued to bombard eastern and central areas of the city in southern Gaza on Monday, killing eight, local health officials said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged” over Israel’s latest attacks.
“These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians,” he said on X.
Italy offered one of its strongest criticisms against the military campaign in Gaza.
“There is an increasingly difficult situation, in which the Palestinian people are being squeezed without regard for the rights of innocent men, women and children who have nothing to do with Hamas, and this can no longer be justified,” Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told SkyTG24 TV.
“We are watching the situation with despair.”
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Friday must be respected.
“International humanitarian law applies for all, also for Israel’s conduct of the war,” Baerbock said.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says, though its totals do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel intercepts rockets from Gaza
Israel’s military said that Sunday’s air attack, based on “precise intelligence,” had eliminated militant group Hamas’s chief of staff for the second and larger Palestinian territory, the West Bank, plus another official behind attacks on Israelis.
Earlier on Sunday, it had said eight rockets were intercepted after being fired from the Rafah area. A minister said this showed the need for continued operations against Hamas.
Israel’s military said it was investigating reports that a strike it carried out against Hamas commanders in Rafah had caused the fire.
“The IDF [Israel Defence Forces] regrets any harm to non-combatants during the war,” Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi said at a conference on Monday.
The attack took place in the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood, where thousands were sheltering after Israeli forces began a ground offensive in the east of Rafah more than two weeks ago.
More than half of the dead were women, children and elderly people, health officials in Hamas-run Gaza said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise as more people caught in the blaze were in critical condition with severe burns.
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‘Their children have been orphaned’
By daylight, the camp was a smoking wreckage of tents, twisted metal and charred belongings.
Sitting beside bodies of his relatives, Abed Mohammed Al-Attar said Israel lied when it told residents they would be safe in Rafah’s western areas. His brother, sister-in-law and several other relatives were killed in the blaze.
“The army is a liar. There is no security in Gaza. There is no security, not for a child, an elderly man or a woman. Here he [my brother] is with his wife, they were martyred,” he said.
“What have they done to deserve this? Their children have been orphaned.”
Hospitals in Rafah, including the International Committee of the Red Cross field hospital, were unable to handle all the wounded, so some were moved to hospitals in Khan Younis further north in Gaza for treatment, medics said.
“Gaza is hell on earth,” UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X.
Israel stalking Hamas fighters
Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area.
Israeli tanks have probed around the edges of Rafah, near the crossing point from Gaza into Egypt, since May 6 and have entered some of its eastern districts.
WATCH l Trudeau on what’s vitally needed in Gaza:
Speaking after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel should halt military operations in the southern Gaza community of Rafah, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there should be no escalation in the area by Israel and called for immediate access to more aid.
But it faces global condemnation for failing to spare civilian lives.
“On top of the hunger, on top of the starvation, the refusal to allow aid in sufficient volumes, what we witnessed last night is barbaric,” Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia also condemned the Israeli attack, while Qatar said it could hinder efforts to mediate a ceasefire and hostage exchange.
After Friday’s ICJ ruling, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was important there not be any “escalation of military operations in Rafah,” while stressing the need for much more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza to stave off starvation and famine.
The United States, the biggest supplier of military weaponry to Israel, has not officially commented on the ICJ ruling or the weekend’s deadly Rafah airstrike.
Published at Mon, 27 May 2024 13:29:40 +0000
More than 2,000 buried alive in Papua New Guinea landslide, government says
More than 2,000 people were buried alive by a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea last week, the country’s national disaster centre said on Monday, as treacherous terrain and the difficulty of getting aid to the site raises the risk few survivors will be found.
The numbers of those buried around Yambali village in Enga province in the country’s north are based on estimates from local authorities, which have been rising steadily since Friday’s landslide.
A United Nations agency put the estimated death toll at more than 670 people on Sunday.
The National Disaster Centre raised the toll again to 2,000 in a letter to the UN on Sunday that was released publicly on Monday. The landslide also caused major destruction to buildings and food gardens, it said.
“The situation remains unstable as the landslip continues to shift slowly, posing ongoing danger to both the rescue teams and survivors alike,” according to the letter.
About 4,000 people were living near the affected area, said Justine McMahon, the country director for CARE International Papua New Guinea, in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Monday.
But it is difficult to get an accurate estimate of the local population as Papua New Guinea’s last credible census was in 2000 and many people live in remote mountainous villages. The country recently announced a census would be conducted in 2024.
Landslide tough to reach
The unstable terrain, remote location and nearby tribal warfare are hampering relief efforts.
Emergency crews, led by Papua New Guinea’s defence personnel, were on the ground, but the first excavator only reached the site late on Sunday, according to a UN official.
Social media footage posted by villagers and local media teams showed people scaling rocks, digging with shovels, sticks and their bare hands to find survivors. Women could be heard weeping in the background.
Six bodies have been retrieved so far. The UN said the number of possible deaths could change as rescue efforts were expected to continue for days.
Couple rescued from rubble
Media in Papua New Guinea on Monday reported that residents had rescued a couple trapped under rubble after hearing their cries for help.
Johnson and Jacklyn Yandam told local NBC News that they were very grateful and described their rescue as a miracle.
“We thank God for saving our lives at that moment. We were certain that we were going to die but the big rocks didn’t crush us,” Jacklyn said. “It’s really hard to explain as we got trapped for nearly eight hours, then got rescued. We believe we were saved for a purpose.”
About 1,250 people have been displaced by the landslide, which occurred in Papua New Guinea’s Enga province early Friday. More than 150 houses were buried and about 250 houses abandoned.
“The houses are buried under around eight metres of dirt. So there is quite a lot of debris to get through,” said CARE’s McMahon.
Dangerous conditions
Water continued to flow under the debris, the UN migration agency said, making it extremely dangerous for residents and the rescue team to clear debris.
Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the UN migration agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea, told ABC television that emergency crews would continue to look for survivors until the residents asked them to stop.
Tribal violence in the region has raised security concerns for road travel, with the military escorting convoys of rescue teams. Eight people were killed, and five shops and 30 houses burned down on Saturday, the UN agency said.
Papua New Guinea gave arrest powers to its military in February amid an eruption of tribal violence that saw at least 26 men killed in an ambush.
The landslide hit a section of highway near the Porgera gold mine, operated by Barrick Gold through Barrick Niugini Ltd., its joint venture with China’s Zijin Mining. Barrick has said the mine has enough fuel on site to operate for 40 days and other critical supplies for longer.
Published at Mon, 27 May 2024 07:51:38 +0000
