Displaced Palestinians inspect tents destroyed by Israeli bombing at an UNRWA facility west of the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 28, 2024.
Jihad Alshrafi/AP
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Despite an order last week by the United Nations’ top court to halt operations against Hamas, Israeli troops are still advancing deep into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
An eyewitness told NPR that Israeli tanks were spotted west of Rafah, the city opposite the May 6 offensive. 1.4 million people have previously sought refuge there from fighting in the small coastal territory.
Israeli airstrikes are continuing even as missiles targeting Hamas militants on Sunday sparked a fire at a camp for displaced Palestinians that residents thought was safe, according to NPR producers in Gaza. district. Gaza’s health ministry said the attack killed 45 people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack, which injured another 200 people, a “tragic mistake.”
It was the deadliest attack on the city since Israel launched its offensive against Hamas three weeks ago.
Until this month, Rafah was the last refuge for Palestinians during the war, which left much of Gaza devastated. Nearly 1.3 million Palestinians have taken refuge in Rafah, but the United Nations says more than 800,000 have fled since Israeli forces expanded their ground operations there.
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A Palestinian man in Rafah who witnessed the incident told NPR that the scene was a morgue where one child had been beheaded and another had his guts eviscerated by shrapnel.
The Israeli military said it used precision munitions and did not anticipate harm to civilians from the attack.
“No matter what, when you attack a tent camp like this, as we have said all along, there are going to be inevitable civilian casualties,” said Sam Ross, director of planning at UNRWA, the U.N. agency that cares for Palestinian refugees. Leaves us feeling numb and, personally, very sick to my stomach.
Rafah remains densely populated in areas that have not been under evacuation orders.
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Gaza’s health ministry said the total death toll has exceeded 36,000 in the nearly eight months since Hamas launched a raid in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, triggering the war.
The United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, last week ordered Israel to halt its attack on Rafah. However, it does not have any authority to enforce such an order.
Fighting in Rafah has cut off main aid routes into the region, aid warehouses there have begun to run out of food, and humanitarian groups have warned that the crisis in Gaza will continue to escalate.
As casualties mounted, many hospitals were barely functioning, unable to run enough generators to keep their equipment running.
On Monday, Gaza’s health ministry said two employees at the Kuwait Hospital in Rafah, one of the last hospitals operating in Rafah, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The hospital was closed as a result.
On Monday evening, first responders in Rafah reported that seven women and children were killed in another airstrike on a house in the city. More deadly airstrikes occurred across Gaza.
The battle for Rafah is ongoing on Gaza’s border with Egypt, and Cairo has warned that any conflict spilling into its own territory could undermine its peace treaty with Israel, which has long been key to the region’s stability.
Tensions escalated sharply this week when Israeli and Egyptian soldiers exchanged fire on the Rafah border for the first time since the war began. Although the exact details of the exchange of fire are unclear, at least one Egyptian soldier died.
President Biden has warned Israel against launching a major offensive against Rafah ahead of the May 6 offensive, hours after Hamas fired rockets at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Rafah, causing Four Israeli soldiers died.
Israel says it is conducting “limited” operations against Hamas in Rafah.
A Biden administration official told NPR on Tuesday that while the weekend’s deadly airstrike in Rafah was “deeply concerning” to the United States, it was not an example of what Biden has called unacceptable military action.
Aya Batrawy reported from Dubai. Kate Langsdorf reported from Tel Aviv.
