Published: 28 May 2024
Last updated: 28 May 2024
An Israeli airstrike has caused a huge blaze at a tented area for displaced people in Rafah, killing 45 people and wounding 60 on Monday.
Israel has described the event as a “tragic mishap”, which occurred when a planned precision strike ignited fires in a Rafah neighbourhood where thousands of displaced Gazans live in makeshift accommodation.
The Palestinian health ministry in the Hamas-controlled area said about half of the dead are women, children and older adults.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said in parliament that “something unfortunately went tragically wrong” with the airstrike. “We are investigating the incident and will reach conclusions, because this is our policy,” he said.
But some analysts say an incident of this kind was inevitable given the scale of Israeli military operations and the density of the displaced population in Gaza.
ICJ order to stop Rafah operation
The strike, one of the deadliest single incidents in the eight-month war to date, came two days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ordered Israel to stop its operation in Rafah immediately.
The president of court Nawaf Salam said the humanitarian situation in Rafah had deteriorated further and was now classified as “disastrous”, meaning the ICJ’s previously issued provisional measures were insufficient.
He said the court had voted by a majority of 13 votes to two that “Israel shall, in conformity with its obligations under the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by civilians in Rafah governorate… immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that would bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
