The strikes took place on Friday as Israel continues its military operation in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge to escape fighting elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces bombed tent camps for displaced Palestinians north of Rafah on Friday, killing at least 25 people and injuring 50 others, according to Gaza’s health ministry and rescue workers. It is the latest deadly attack in the tiny Palestinian territory, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled fighting between Israel and Hamas.
According to Ahmed Radwan, a spokesman for civil defense first responders in Rafah, witnesses reported to rescuers shelling at two locations in a coastal area that had filled with tents. The Health Ministry reported the number of people killed and injured in the attacks.
The locations of the attacks indicated by civil defense were just outside an Israeli-designated security zone. The Israeli military said it was examining the strikes at the specified coordinates. Israel has already bombed sites near the Muwasi “humanitarian zone”, a rural area on the Mediterranean coast that has filled with sprawling tent camps in recent months.
Military operation continues, “no place is safe”
The strikes took place as Israel continued its military operation in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had taken refuge to escape fighting elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. Most have now fled Rafah, but the United Nations says no part of Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire, with families sheltering in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water and medical supplies.
Friday’s strikes came less than a month after an Israeli bombardment sparked a deadly fire that ravaged a camp for displaced Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip, sparking international outrage, including understood by some of Israel’s closest allies, in the face of the expansion of the military offensive in Rafah.
Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and strives to minimize civilian casualties. He blames the large number of civilian casualties on militants and says it is because they operate among the population.
“Plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza
As Israel’s war against Hamas enters its ninth month, international criticism is mounting over Israel’s campaign of systematic destruction in Gaza, which has cost a significant number of civilian lives. The United Nations’ highest court has concluded that there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza, which Israel categorically denies.
Israeli ground offensives and bombings have killed more than 37,100 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tally.
Israel launched the war after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, in which the militants stormed southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and kidnapped about 250 people.
Additional sources •AP