Dozens of people have been killed and many more injured after Israeli missiles struck a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, designated as a safe zone.
The Wafa news agency, citing the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), reported that many of the victims were “burned alive” inside their tents in the Tal as-Sultan area. The death toll was reported to be 40, while Reuters, quoting Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said 35 people had been killed and dozens more injured.
Witnesses told local media that at least eight missiles hit the camp on Sunday at about 8:45 PM local time (17:45 GMT).
Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency indicated that the attacks targeted the Brix camp to the west of Rafah. An aerial photograph taken on May 24 shows hundreds of tents in the area, near a UNRWA warehouse.
The Israeli attack followed Hamas’s first rocket assault on Tel Aviv in months. Israel stated that the eight Hamas rockets were launched from Rafah, where its forces have continued a ground assault despite an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to halt operations there. The Israeli military claimed its air force targeted a Hamas compound in Rafah with “precise ammunition and intelligence,” killing Hamas’s chief of staff for the West Bank and another senior official responsible for deadly attacks on Israelis. They acknowledged reports of civilian casualties and said the incident was “under review.”
The strike caused a massive fire that Palestinian Civil Defence teams extinguished after about 45 minutes. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that its field hospital in Rafah was receiving many casualties, with other hospitals also taking in numerous patients.
“The air strikes burnt the tents, the tents are melting and the people’s bodies are also melting,” one resident told Reuters at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said “dozens of wounded” and more than 15 of the dead were brought to a facility it supports. “We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe,” the group stated on social media, calling for an immediate ceasefire.
