Diplomats watching situation in Rafah with ‘deep consternation’
There’s been no comment from the UN secretary-general on this latest attack on Rafah yet. We’ve reached out to his office and have been told no statement is expected this evening. It’s currently Sunday, early evening here in New York.
We’ll be watching very closely. Because I can tell you that everyone [who] works here at the UN headquarters, the diplomats of all the 193 member states, are watching what’s happening in Rafah as well. There is already deep consternation about the situation in Rafah.
When the ICJ ruling came out, we heard from several ambassadors here, particularly on the Security Council, who said they support the ICJ and hope that Israel would abide by the ruling. That was on Friday and here we are on Sunday. And clearly, that is not the case.
It is a holiday weekend here in the US and a lot of ambassadors may be out of town. But I can tell you they will be watching the news to see what will proceed now after this blatant disregard by Israel for the ICJ, with this attack on Rafah.
Coincidence the strike happened on Sunday with a long weekend in the US?.. Memorial day today in the US...
One of the survivors
A Palestinian child, wounded in an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people, is assisted at a hospital as the war in Gaza continues, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, May 26
No surprise that Israel would target an area near an UNRWA facility
We’ve heard from our reporters in Gaza that a lot of the displaced people went and sheltered close to this UNRWA facility in this makeshift tent area because they thought they would be safe.
Under normal circumstances, civilians are safe under the UN flag. But these are not normal circumstances and Israel is not acting as a normal state.
We’ve seen repeated attacks, verbal attacks from the Israeli envoy to the UN, as well as high ranking officials in Israel, calling UNRWA a front for Hamas. And it has had a huge effect on UNRWA. Many UNRWA schools, health facilities, shelter locations have been bombed by Israel.
Not to mention that 193 UN humanitarian staff have been killed under Israeli bombardment. And the vast majority of those have been UNRWA Palestinian employees in Gaza.
So the fact that Israel would target an area near an UNRWA facility is sadly not surprising.
Israel has designated UNWRA part of Hamas, indeed not surprising. Israelis have tried to set fire to UNWRA headquarters in Jerusalem multiple times.
Many ‘charred and burned’ bodies pulled from site of Rafah attack
We have a statement from Dr Mohammed al-Mughayyir, who heads Gaza’s Civil Defense teams.
“We received a distress call after the area behind Al Baraksat was targeted, even though the Israeli occupation had marked that particular block as a safe zone and forced citizens to move there. It took us approximately 45 minutes to suppress the fire in the area, and we pulled out a number of dead bodies and injured people.
“Most of the bodies were charred and burned, while the injured people lost limbs and suffered other injuries due to the use of potentially internationally prohibited weapons that caused the massive fire which erupted. We pulled out approximately 50 people and injured people from the area and transported them to field hospitals after official hospitals were forced to evacuate by the occupation in an attempt to destroy the health system in the Rafah area.”
Satellite images show Rafah tent camp before Israeli attacks
Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency has identified the location of the tent camp that was hit by Israeli strikes on Sunday night.
The attack, which took place at about 8:45pm local time on Sunday (17:45 GMT), targeted the Brix camp in the Tal as-Sultan area, to the west of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
An aerial photograph taken on May 24, just two days before the deadly attack, shows hundreds of tents in the area. An earlier image, taken on December 31, shows that many of the tents had only been recently established.
The review of the satellite imagery suggests the group of barracks located in the targeted area was established in January this year, in conjunction with the influx of hundreds of thousands of displaced people to Tal as-Sultan and western Rafah from various governorates of the Gaza Strip, Sanad said.
Aerial image of the Brix camp in the Tal as-Sultan area, to the west of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, taken on December 31, 2023 and May 24, 2024
Death toll from Rafah attack rises to 40: Report
The Wafa news agency, citing local sources, says the death toll from Israel’s attack on the tent camp at Tal as-Sultan has risen to 40.
Most of the victims were women and children, it noted.
The agency quoted the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as saying that many of the people inside the tents were “burned alive”. The PRCS also told the agency that hospitals in the area “are incapable of handling this large number of victims as a result of the [Israeli] occupation’s deliberate destruction of the health system in Gaza”.
Local sources also told the agency that at least eight missiles struck the tent camp, which was recently established near a UNRWA warehouse.
