Middle East Crisis Amid Condemnation, Netanyahu Calls Civilian Deaths in Rafah Strike ‘Tragic Accident’
"With international condemnation mounting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that the killing of dozens of people in a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah was “a tragic accident,” but gave no sign of curbing the Israeli offensive there.
His comments came at a particularly delicate time, just three days after the International Court of Justice appeared to order Israel to immediately halt its offensive in the city and as diplomats were aiming to restart negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas at some point in the next week.
Witnesses and survivors described a terrifying scene of tents in flames and burn victims after what the Gaza Health Ministry said was an Israeli strike on a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza.
The health ministry said at least 45 people in the camp had been killed and 240 others wounded.
Kuwait Al-Salam Camp 1
Large number
of tents in the area
Location of
Israeli strike
United Nations
warehouse
An Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza city of Rafah that killed dozens of displaced Palestinians drew widespread international condemnation Monday, with world leaders calling for an investigation into the attack and intensifying the pressure for Israel to end its military campaign in the south.
President Emmanuel Macron of France said Monday he was “outraged” by the blast and called “for full respect for international law and an immediate cease-fire.”
A member of Egypt’s security forces has been killed during a shooting incident near the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip and an investigation is underway, an Egyptian army spokesman said on Monday, after the Israeli military reported a shooting incident on the border.
There were few details on what happened, and neither country said who had opened fire. But the shooting reflects the escalating tension between the two nations since early May, when the city of Rafah in southern Gaza became the focus of Israel’s military campaign to defeat Hamas, an armed group that led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Aid trucks from Egypt entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday under a new U.S.-brokered agreement to reopen a vital conduit for humanitarian relief, the Israeli military and the Egyptian Red Crescent said.
Egypt had blocked aid from entering the enclave via its territory since Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing — which provides access to southern Gaza — in early May. The two sides have traded blame over that crossing’s closure, even as aid has piled up on the Egyptian side."
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