The Israeli missiles struck tents in an area to the west of Rafah city, which was supposed to be safe from attack.

Gaza officials say the death toll from Israeli air strikes on a camp housing displaced Palestinians near Rafah in southern part of the strip has risen to 40.

“The massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army in the refugee tents northwest of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip has left 40 martyrs and 65 wounded,” Mohammad al-Mughayyir, a senior official at the civil defence agency, told AFP news agency.

The attack led to a massive fire, which Palestinian Civil Defence teams managed to extinguish after about 45 minutes.

“The air strikes burnt the tents, the tents are melting and the people’s bodies are also melting,” one of the residents who arrived at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah was reported as saying by the Reuters news agency.

Doctors without Borders, known by its acronym MSF, said “dozens of wounded” as well as more than 15 of the dead had been brought to a facility that it supports.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      144·
      6 months ago

      “Israel claims” being the key words here. Their claims don’t hold any weight whatsoever and newspapers publishing their claims without pushback is pure propaganda.

      February 12, 2024 - Amesty International: Israel/OPT: New evidence of unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza causing mass civilian casualties amid real risk of genocide

      Fresh evidence of deadly unlawful attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip, gathered by Amnesty International, demonstrates how Israeli forces continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire families with total impunity.

      The organization carried out an investigation into four Israeli strikes, three in December 2023, after the humanitarian pause ended, and one in January 2024, that killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children, in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost governorate at a time when it was supposedly the “safest” area in the strip, but where Israeli forces are currently gearing up for a ground operation. Such an operation will likely have devastating consequences for more than a million people who are crammed within an area of 63 km2 following successive waves of mass displacement.

      In all four attacks, the organization did not find any indication that the residential buildings hit could be considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets, raising concerns that these strikes were direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and must therefore be investigated as war crimes.

      And this not even mentioning all the hospitals that israel claimed were Hamas bases which turned out to be complete lies. And “UNRWA being Hamas” etc etc.

      • MyEdgyAlt@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        42·
        6 months ago

        Completely agreed. That said, this pre-October-7th article does list a person with the same name as one of the claimed targets of this attack giving statements on behalf of Hamas, so assuming they aren’t lying about having killed him, in this particular case the claims seem plausible. They attacked a Hamas member and included their preferred amount of collateral damage.

        • Tryptaminev@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          Kamel Abu Bakr is a name like Peter Miller. Both Kamel as a first and Abu Bakr as a last name are super common.

          • MyEdgyAlt@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            The other one, Yassin / Yasin Rabia. Which for all I know could also be like John Smith.

            Senior Hamas member Yasin Rabia, responded to the attack, saying[…]

            That was the name I saw in reports about the Rafah killings.