Israel faces global outcry over Rafah strike; Netanyahu acknowledges ‘tragic accident’

RAFAH: Israel faced a wave of international condemnation on Monday (May 27) over a strike that Gaza officials said killed 45 people when it set off a fire that ripped through a tent city for displaced Palestinians.

Israel said it was looking into the “tragic accident” and its impact on civilians after the latest mass casualty event in the Gaza war, which has raged since Oct 7.

Adding to already heightened tensions since Israel launched a ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in early May, the Israeli and Egyptian militaries reported a “shooting incident” on Monday that killed one Egyptian guard in the border area between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip.

Both forces said they were investigating.

Israel’s military said Sunday evening’s attack in the southern Rafah area had targeted and killed two senior Hamas operatives – but it also sparked a fire that Palestinians and many Arab countries condemned as a “massacre”.

A US National Security Council spokesperson said Israel “must take every precaution possible to protect civilians”.

The Israeli military said it was launching a probe.

“There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres posted on social media, as diplomats said the UN Security Council will convene on Tuesday in an emergency session to discuss the attack.

Displaced Gazan Khalil al-Bahtini was preparing to leave the impacted area, telling AFP on Monday that “last night, the tent opposite to ours was targeted.”

“We have loaded all our belongings, but we don’t know where to go.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government was investigating the “tragic accident” which he told parliament occurred “despite our best efforts” to protect civilians.

Relatives of captives held in Gaza, who have increased pressure on Netanyahu’s government demanding action to secure a hostage release deal, heckled him from the public gallery as he was speaking, and raised posters of their loved ones.

Israel launched the attack on Rafah late on Sunday, hours after Hamas unleashed a barrage of rockets at the Tel Aviv area, most of which were intercepted.

Israel’s army said its aircraft “struck a Hamas compound in Rafah” and killed Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, senior officials for the militant group in the occupied West Bank.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said the strike ignited a fire that tore through a displacement centre in northwestern Rafah near a facility of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

“We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly,” said civil defence agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir.

One survivor, a woman who declined to be named, said: “We heard a loud sound and there was fire all around us. The children were screaming.”