There could be dozens of deaths. The Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Sunday that an Israeli strike left a “large number” of dead and injured in a designated humanitarian area near the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli army spoke of a strike “against legitimate targets”.
“Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance teams transport large numbers of martyrs and injured after the occupation (Israel) targeted the tents of displaced people near the United Nations headquarters, northwest of Rafah,” said the Red Crescent on X, adding that “this location had been designated by the Israeli occupation as a humanitarian zone.”
The strike occurred according to the Red Crescent in a camp in Tal Al-Sultan, northwest of Rafah. Images taken on site by the Reuters news agency showed an area devastated by flames.
The Hamas Ministry of Health and the Rafah governorate emergency committee also reported a strike on a displaced center near Rafah, which they said left dozens dead and injured. The Hamas government media office said at least 35 people were killed and dozens more injured.
Gaza Civil Defense has confirmed Israeli strikes on this area, where it says some 100,000 displaced people live. According to Civil Defense, 50 people were killed or injured.
The NGO Médecins Sans Frontières, for its part, indicated that “more than 15 dead” and “dozens of injured” had been brought to a trauma stabilization point that it supports. “We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that no place is safe,” she added on X.
“The incident is under investigation,” according to the IDF
The Israeli army claimed in the evening to have struck “a Hamas compound in Rafah”, where “major terrorists” from the Palestinian Islamist organization were operating. Two senior Hamas officials in the occupied West Bank were killed in the strike, which targeted the Tal Al-Sultan area, she said.
“The strike was carried out against legitimate targets under international law, using precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence,” assured the army on Telegram, which added that it was “aware of reports indicating that at the As a result of the strike and the ensuing fire, several civilians in the area were injured.” “The incident is being examined,” the IDF assured.
“This atrocious massacre perpetrated by the Israeli occupying forces is a challenge to all international resolutions on legitimacy,” responded the Palestinian presidency in a statement, accusing Israel of having “deliberately targeted” a camp of displaced people.
“In light of the horrific Zionist massacre committed this evening by the criminal occupying army against the tents of the displaced, we call on the masses of our people in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, in the occupied territories and abroad to stand up and walk in anger,” Hamas wrote in a statement.
Rockets fired earlier from Rafah
The strike came hours after the Israeli military reported eight rockets fired from Rafah, which triggered warning sirens in Tel Aviv and central Israel for the first time in months.
Despite a chorus of international disapproval, the Israeli army launched operations on May 7 in this town in the south of the Gaza Strip to destroy the last battalions of Hamas, against whom it has been at war for almost eight months.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday ordered Israel to immediately stop its operations in this city, where 1.5 million people had sought refuge. Hundreds of thousands of them were forced to flee again with the start of Israeli operations on May 7.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier in the day, this Sunday, that he was “firmly opposed” to the end of the war.