Dozens killed in Israeli attack on Rafah after Hamas rocket attacks | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

The Israeli rockets hit tents in an area west of the city of Rafah that was supposed to be safe from attacks.

Dozens of people were killed and dozens injured after Israeli missiles hit a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, which was located in a designated security zone.

The Wafa news agency, citing the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), reported that many of the dead were “burned alive” in their tents in the Tal as-Sultan area.

The death toll was estimated at 40 and Reuters news agency quoted Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for Gaza’s Health Ministry, as saying 35 people were killed and dozens more injured.

Witnesses told local media that at least eight rockets hit the camp at around 8:45 p.m. local time (5:45 p.m. GMT) on Sunday.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad news agency said the attacks targeted the Brix camp in the western city of Rafah. An aerial photograph taken on May 24 shows hundreds of tents in the area, which is near a UNRWA warehouse.

The Israeli attack followed Hamas’ first rocket attack on the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in months.

Israel said the eight Hamas rockets were fired from the Rafah area, where Israeli forces continued their ground attack despite an order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to cease operations there.

The Israeli military said its air force had attacked a Hamas base in Rafah and that the attack was carried out with “precise munitions and based on precise intelligence.”

The attack killed Hamas’s chief of staff for the West Bank and another senior official responsible for the deadly attacks on Israelis, it said. The network was “aware” of reports that “several civilians in the area were injured.” The incident was being “verified.”

The attack caused a massive fire, which Palestinian civil defense teams managed to extinguish after about 45 minutes.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah was seeing an influx of wounded and that other hospitals were also receiving large numbers of patients.

“The air strikes have burned down the tents, the tents are melting and people’s bodies are melting too,” said one of the residents who arrived at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, according to Reuters news agency.

The organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that “dozens of injured” and more than 15 dead had been taken to a facility it supports.

“We are appalled by this deadly event, which once again shows that nowhere is safe,” the group wrote on the social media platform X, reiterating its call for an immediate ceasefire.