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At least 35 people were killed when Israeli forces bombed a makeshift tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip's Rafah district on Sunday night, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Israeli army said the strike was aimed at a Hamas compound.
The Israeli military said in a statement it was investigating reports that the airstrike and subsequent gunfire “wounded several civilians in the area.” A later statement said two Hamas leaders were killed in the strike.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said emergency services had transported a “large number” of victims to the Tal az-Sultan clinic and field hospital in Rafah – where few functioning hospitals remain – and that a “large number” of people had been caught in fire at the site of the airstrike.
The Red Crescent said the airstrike hit the Tal as Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, a humanitarian zone designated by the Israeli military where Palestinian civilians had been told to evacuate ahead of a ground offensive in Rafah. Details of the airstrike could not immediately be confirmed by The New York Times.
Israel's advance on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah has come under intense scrutiny, especially since the International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Israel to “immediately” stop military attacks there. The court has few effective tools to enforce the order, but it has put added pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to curb attacks on Gaza and reduce civilian casualties.
Bilal al-Sapti, 30, a construction worker in Rafah, said shrapnel had destroyed the tent he was staying with his wife and two children, but that he and his family were uninjured.
“What kind of tents are going to protect us from missiles and shrapnel?” he said.
Sapti said the scene featured charred bodies and people screaming as firefighters worked to put out the blaze. “The fire was very intense and had spread throughout the camp,” Sapti said. “It was pitch black and there was no electricity.”
Doctors Without Borders said the attack in Rafah killed more than 15 people and injured dozens more who were taken to a trauma stabilization centre in Tal az-Sultan that it supports.
Dr James Smith, a British emergency doctor working at a centre in Rafah, said the attack killed displaced people “who were seeking some degree of refuge and shelter in tarpaulin tents”.
Dr. Smith said footage of the injuries from the attack and fire provided by a colleague at the trauma center, at a home several miles away that he said was too dangerous to travel to, was “really some of the worst I've ever seen.”
The UN estimates that more than 800,000 people fled Rafah in the weeks after the Israeli military announced its offensive, but the area remains densely populated, Dr Smith said.
“The tents are very closely packed,” he said. “A fire like this can spread over a wide area in a very short period of time with devastating consequences.”
He added that the attack was “one of the most horrific events I have seen and heard about in my weeks working in Gaza.”
Patrick Kingsley, Jonathan Rice, Iyad Abheweira and Aaron Boxerman Contributed report.