Israel’s deadly attack on tent camp confirms ‘there is no safety’ in Gaza, survivors say
WARNING: This story contains graphic details.
Families who survived a deadly Israeli airstrike on a tent camp in Rafah described a horrific scene of scorched tents and burning bodies on Sunday, as the attack brought further scrutiny to Israel’s continued offensive in the city.
Witnesses said people were preparing for evening prayer when the strike hit the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood, where thousands had tried to find shelter after Israeli forces launched a ground offensive in the east of Rafah more than two weeks ago.
“We were sitting safely and suddenly we find bodies thrown on the ground, blood splattered on the ground — heads cut off, hands cut off…. We were screaming at each other,” said Malak Filfel, 23, who said children were among those killed.
“This is not a life,” Filfel said added. “There is no safety. We’re not getting out. No matter where we go, we will die here.”
Israeli leaflets instructed Gazans to head for camp
The airstrike started a massive fire that quickly tore through thin tents and makeshift shelters. The health ministry in Gaza said 45 people were killed in the attack. By daylight Monday, the camp was filled with smoking tents, twisted metal and charred belongings. Women cried as men prayed over the bodies.
Some survivors said they had come to the camp because they followed a warning on Israeli leaflets, telling them to leave Rafah for the “humanitarian area.”
“For your safety, the Israeli Defence Force is asking you to leave these areas immediately and to go to known shelters in Deir el Balah or the humanitarian area in Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” read one leaflet translated from Arabic.
“Don’t blame us after we warned you.”
Defeated, Filfel described reading the white and red papers.
“They threw on us leaflets saying, ‘Go to the south.’ … So when we came here to the south, they also massacred us,” she said.
Families from across Gaza fled to Rafah after being told by Israeli forces to move south. After a deadly strike over the weekend, some are asking if they’ll ever find safety again.
Abu Mohamed Abu Al-Sabaa, 67, said he chose Tel al-Sultan as his next refuge because it was supposed to be a humanitarian area. He said he looked out of his tent after hearing a loud noise Sunday to find flames “two metres high” before his neighbour’s shelter collapsed, leaving him momentarily trapped.
“I hit the plastic [tent] with the power of God to open the way and the kids and everyone got out,” he said.
“I got out and found bodies.”
More than half of the dead were women, children and elderly people, Palestinian health officials said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise as more people caught in the blaze were in critical condition with severe burns.
“There is nowhere safe in the Gaza strip. We strongly contest any idea that there is somewhere you are able to go and find safety. It’s been proven time and time again that no matter where people are, no matter where families and children are sheltering, they are not safe,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the main United Nations agency in Gaza.
UNRWA said 800,000 people have been forced to flee Rafah since Israel launched its military operation in the area earlier this month.
“I swear to god we’re exhausted,” said Umm Mohamed Taha, 37. “We’re displaced from here to there and there to here.”
“Tell me where can I find a safe place to go with our kids.”
International condemnation rises
The international community was quick to condemn the attack, as were some of Israel’s closest allies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said the strike was “a “tragic accident,” but reinforced the nation’s commitment to a complete defeat of Hamas.
“In Rafah, we already evacuated about one million non-combatant residents and despite our utmost effort not to harm non-combatants, something unfortunately went tragically wrong,” he said in a speech in parliament.
Israel has continued its attack on Rafah despite a ruling from the UN’s top court on Friday ordering the nation to stop. The court also reiterated calls for Hamas to immediately release hostages held in Gaza without condition.
Canadian politicians had harsh words for the attack.
“Women and children were burned alive in tents. They were told they were in a safe zone, in a refugee encampment, yet they were burned alive,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Monday.
“Our position has been clear on Rafah, and we’ve been saying it now for weeks: Palestinian civilians do not have any safe space to go. the killing of innocent civilians is completely unacceptable and the decisions of the International Court of Justice are binding,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.
In an exchange during question period, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh asked Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly about the deadly airstrike in Rafah. Joly called the situation ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘horrific’ and called for an immediate ceasefire.
The Israeli military said “precise intelligence” indicated the attack had killed two Hamas leaders, including its chief of staff for the occupied West Bank. An independent body “responsible for examining unusual incidents in combat” would investigate the incident, the Israeli Defence Force added.
UNRWA said the images from the “horrifying” attack on Sunday were “yet another testament” that Gaza has become “hell on earth.”
Wateridge said the civilian casualties should have been avoided.
“What is shockingly clear is that striking such an area densely packed with civilians, the outcome that has been last night and today was entirely predictable,” she said in an interview with CBC’s As It Happens.
As It Happens6:57Civilian deaths in Rafah airstrike ‘entirely predictable,’ says UNRWA
“There has to be a different way for any military offensive to go forward and the safety of civilians has to be put first.”
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry. Israel attacked the enclave after Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
Published at Mon, 27 May 2024 20:14:30 +0000
Israel promises investigation of deadly Rafah airstrike after international outrage
An Israeli airstrike that left dozens of Palestinians dead in Rafah has prompted Canada’s top diplomat to express her horror in seeing strikes claim civilians’ lives in the southern Gaza city.
“We are horrified by strikes that killed Palestinian civilians in Rafah. Canada does not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah. This level of human suffering must come to an end,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said in a statement Monday, adding Canada to the list of nations reacting to the deadly event in Gaza.
“We demand an immediate ceasefire,” Joly said in the statement, which was posted to the social media platform X, in both English and in French.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said the deadly Rafah airstrike was not intended to cause civilian casualties and would be investigated.
The strike, which triggered a massive blaze killing 45 people in a tent camp, has prompted an outcry global leaders who urged the implementation of a International Court of Justice ruling last week to halt Israel’s assault in Rafah.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the Knesset in defence of continued military operations in Rafah, calling unintended civilian deaths tragic. Opposition leader Yair Lapid fired back, questioning why Netanyahu was still Israel’s Prime Minister.
“In Rafah, we already evacuated about one million non-combatant residents and despite our utmost effort not to harm non-combatants, something unfortunately went tragically wrong,” Netanyahu said in a speech in parliament that was interrupted by shouting from opposition lawmakers.
“We are investigating the incident and will reach conclusions, because this is our policy.”
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.
‘No safe place in Gaza’
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, Palestinian health officials said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says the situation in Rafah is horrific and the Liberal government needs to take action to prevent a genocide and get more Palestinians with ties to Canada out of Gaza.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged.”
“These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians,” he said on X.
Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, condemned “Israel’s actions which killed scores of innocent civilians who were only seeking shelter from this deadly conflict.”
“There is no safe place in Gaza.,” he said in a statement posted on X. “This horror must stop.”
Italy offered one of its strongest criticisms concerning 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.”
The Sunday Magazine16:51How ICJ, ICC moves are playing out in Israel amid war with Hamas
Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said a International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Friday must be respected. That ruling, unenforceable, called for an end to military operations in Rafah “which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
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 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.
It pointed to eight rockets that were intercepted Sunday after being fired from the Rafah area.
But even the United States, Israel’s biggest supplier of military weaponry, weighed in on the “devastating images” in Tel al-Sultan.
“Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians,” a National Security Council spokesperson said. “But as we’ve been clear, Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians.
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.
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.
‘Their children have been orphaned’
Sitting beside bodies of his relatives in Gaza, 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.
Published at Mon, 27 May 2024 13:29:40 +0000
