At least 37 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks near Rafah in Gaza Strip

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) – Israeli artillery fire and air strikes have killed at least 37 people outside the southern Gaza Strip city, most of them housed in tents. Rafah overnight and on Tuesday – hitting the same area where attacks days earlier sparked a deadly fire at a camp for displaced Palestinians, according to witnesses, rescue workers and hospital staff.

The Camp Inferno has provoked widespread outrage around the world, including among some of Israel’s closest allies, over the expansion of the military offensive in Rafah. And in a sign of Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage, Spain, Norway and Ireland have officially recognized a Palestinian state on Tuesday.

The Israeli military suspects that Sunday’s fire at the tent camp may have been caused by secondary explosions, possibly from weapons carried by Palestinian militants. The results of the initial Israeli investigation into the fire were announced on Tuesday. Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the cause of the fire was still being investigated, but the Israeli ammunition used – which the army said targeted a position containing two senior Hamas militants – was too small to be the source of the fire.

The attack or the ensuing fire may also have ignited fuel, cooking gas containers or other materials in the camp. According to Gaza health authorities, 45 Palestinians were killed in the fire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fire was the result of a “tragic accident.”

Israel’s assault on Rafah, which began on May 6, has caused more than a million people to flee the city, the UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday, most of whom have been displaced multiple times in nearly eight months. War between Israel and HamasFamilies are now scattered across temporary tent camps and other war-torn areas.

The attacks in recent days hit areas west of Rafah where the military had not issued evacuation orders for civilians. Israeli ground troops and tanks operated in eastern Rafah, in central parts of the city and along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Late Monday and early Tuesday, shelling hit the western Tel al-Sultan district of Rafah, killing at least 16 people, the Palestinian Civil Defense and Palestinian Red Crescent said. Seven of the dead were in tents next to a UN facility, about 200 meters from the site of Sunday’s fire.

“It was a night of horror,” said Abdel-Rahman Abu Ismail, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has sought refuge in Tel al-Sultan since December. He said he heard “constant sounds” of explosions throughout the night and into Tuesday, while fighter jets and drones flew overhead.

He said it reminded him of the Israeli invasion of his Shijaiyah neighborhood in Gaza City, where Israel launched a heavy bombing campaign before sending ground troops in late 2023. “We’ve seen this before,” he said.

The United States and other allies of Israel have warned against a large-scale offensive in the city. The Biden administration said this would cross a “red line” and Refusal to provide offensive weapons for such an endeavor. On Tuesday, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller gave no indication that the administration believes Israel is crossing red lines in Rafah. He said the offensive was still on a “very different” scale than attacks on other population centers in the Gaza Strip.

The International Court of Justice ordered Israel stops its Rafah offensive last week as part of the South African trial accusing Israel of commit genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Algeria on Tuesday prepared a new UN Security Council resolution to end the fighting in Rafah, which may be put to a vote this week. The United States has vetoed several resolutions on the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday afternoon, an Israeli drone strike hit tents near a field hospital on the Mediterranean coast west of Rafah, killing at least 21 people, including 13 women, the Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry said.

One witness, Ahmed Nassar, said his four cousins ​​and some of their husbands and children were killed in the attack and several tents were destroyed or damaged. Most of the people living there had fled the same neighborhood in Gaza City at the start of the war.

“You have nothing to do with anything,” he said.

Netanyahu has vowed to continue pressure in Rafah, saying Israeli forces must enter the city to crush Hamas and release hostages held in Rafah. the attack of October 7 that triggered the war.

As part of its investigation into Sunday’s deadly attack and shelling, the Israeli military released satellite images of an alleged Hamas rocket launching position located about 40 meters from a targeted area of ​​sheds. In the photo, the suspected rocket launcher itself did not appear to have been hit.

He said Israeli warplanes used the smallest bombs possible – two 17-kilogram (37-pound) warheads. “Our munitions alone could not have started a fire of this magnitude,” he said.

Hagari said the fire was “a devastating incident that we did not expect” and broke out due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

Still, the attacks have sparked an exodus from areas west of Rafah. Sayed al-Masri, a Rafah resident, said many families have fled to the overcrowded Muwasi area or to Khan Younis, a town in the south. who suffered severe damage during months of fighting.

“The situation in Rafah is deteriorating,” said al-Masri.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said two medical facilities in Tel al-Sultan were out of service due to heavy shelling nearby. Medical Aid for Palestinians, an aid group operating throughout the area, said the Tel al-Sultan medical center and the Indonesian field hospital were sealed off, trapping doctors, patients and displaced people inside.

Most of the Gaza Strip Hospitals no longer functionKuwait Hospital in Rafah was closed on Monday after an attack near its entrance killed two health workers.

A World Health Organization spokesman said field hospitals in the region were “totally overwhelmed” by the victims of the strike and Sunday’s fire, and were already running out of supplies to treat severe burns.

“This requires intensive care, this requires electricity, this requires medical care at the highest level,” Dr. Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva. “We are increasingly struggling to even have the highly qualified doctors and nurses because they have been displaced.”

The war began when Hamas and other militants entered southern Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, killing about 1,200 civilians and abducting about 250. More than 100 were released during a week-long ceasefire in November in exchange for Palestinians held captive by Israel.

Israel responded to the attack with a massive air, land and sea offensive that killed at least 36,096 Palestinians. Gaza Ministry of Healthwhich does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. About 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, and UN officials say Parts of the country suffer from famine.

The fighting in Rafah has made it almost impossible for humanitarian groups to bring and distribute aid to southern Gaza.

The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to pass through the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing since the start of its operation, but aid groups say the fighting on the Gaza side has made it extremely difficult to access these supplies.

The UN said it had only been able to deliver around 170 trucks of aid through Kerem Shalom in the last three weeks. Smaller quantities of aid are arriving through two border crossings in the north and by sea through a floating pier built in the USABut it is far from the 600 trucks per day that aid organizations say would be needed.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war