Two days after the International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered Israel to immediately stop its offensive in Rafah, an aerial bombardment caused a massacre there this Sunday, in the Tel Al Sultan displaced persons camp. The attack caused a fire that spread through the precarious constructions of sheet metal, plastic or fabric until it ended the lives of at least 45 people, 23 of them minors and women, according to the balance provided this Monday by the Ministry of Health of the Hamas government in the Strip, once the fire was extinguished and the bodies recovered. The Israeli Government admits in its first investigations that the fire occurred when launching a selective assassination, which it had described as “precise”, in which it killed two local commanders of the armed wing of Hamas in this camp. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, it was one of the areas designated by Israel as “humanitarian” and therefore safe.
Apparently, many died from burns or asphyxiation from the smoke. The images recorded by journalists and local residents show the discovery of charred bodies, including babies and adolescents, while a fire consumes part of the camp. From dawn you can see the remains of charred shanties, people mourning their loved ones or bodies wrapped or shown to the press.
One of the witnesses interviewed by the media, Muhamad Ahmed Abu Sibah, said that he had been in the camp for five months and until then he felt relatively safe. Until this Sunday, when he was in his tent “among [las oraciones] of the Maghrib and the Isha”, late in the afternoon, and heard an explosion. Then another. “There were at least two missiles. The fire began to come in this direction. There were burned cars, martyrs [muertos]…”, he explained.
![Several bodies remain on the floor of a morgue after the Israeli attack on a displaced persons camp in Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/T2SOG6XVEWJN3FD54ASI7Z6CBA.jpg?auth=3a8f2ac244464315205f46d3a00d978dd894d5d338990bbebda66c01821df482&width=414)
![A group of people observe the destruction caused by the Israeli army's bombing of a camp for displaced Palestinians in the city of Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/PBB4SQABJRED7ANQWMWJ3ID5JM.jpg?auth=c173520d5820451ff17a6853a1d18f962a741d1dcc5e4aaf0a0af2221d61e4db&width=414)
![Dozens of people observe the destruction caused by an Israeli army bombing of a refugee camp in Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/QIKWC2KI55BOHG3LYKSAE4I2DY.jpg?auth=36675f0bc9242e5360c1d91bc02a1da447d6727c4cfa3a01786cd05650f1b79a&width=414)
![A group of Gazans inspect the still smoking remains of the area bombed by Israel.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/NHS4AJI5SZCHVHR65KNB2N3KEE.jpg?auth=637072e550a6c2d681fa5376433ad452aeea1f38b4ed4cf98fa42e9829e2563c&width=414)
![Several Palestinians cry next to the bodies of their relatives killed in an Israeli attack on a displaced persons camp in Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/763NF2UXBVBI7EQQK7SH2LRWTI.jpg?auth=4b367f934c65ca61e15aac53d31fcc013df6e0c9aeb5d1113fbc4224448f32d8&width=414)
![Relatives cry next to several bodies in the trunk of a car after an Israeli attack on an area designated for displaced people, during his funeral in Rafah this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/T76WKVEHC7W5NVWFSMDUFCAMOM.jpg?auth=8604bdde3acb6433b70d5dcea402e42b844b4a19446e2570df8c8ee7a1eedec0&width=414)
![A Palestinian girl receives medical attention after being injured by an Israeli bombardment on a displaced persons camp in Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/L6FQD5TTXBLA4RL7EABXQLYQZU.jpg?auth=836ea71c3a3f64247f642f57e98a81412335984f361bb05095189ef6dfcc3ffe&width=414)
![A man stands next to the bodies of several people killed after an Israeli attack on a displaced persons camp in Rafah, during their funeral this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/KLYPAESRPJFTJQHUUEOBUSYYF4.jpg?auth=e1ed7526bf20b16f20f64e56534a92b3510f84dad3f2d940c66958a363388005&width=414)
![A group of people search for food among the remains after an Israeli attack on a displaced persons camp in Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/QBCFF6ORIAHAWHUJYX7BNB3JTA.jpg?auth=6f034284f9cc49fd3acf1a184f3e542d0872b6dffbd385c75fc69b91a2b912ab&width=414)
![A man cries over the body of a relative killed after an Israeli attack on a displaced persons camp in Rafah, during his funeral this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/K7FDZ2A2RITIATHTWKG7R3NYEI.jpg?auth=cba792bc5eb61e0ecb00e2368e55cab82eb5249d6ec6beff6e1b465286c724a9&width=414)
![A group of people try to put out the flames after the Israeli bombardment on a camp for displaced people in Rafah, this Monday.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/ANTY4O7G5T2RZY2CHQGB2IHSDU.jpg?auth=9313251857b2c7bc7c357b736128c3bd474e9a7d67e0a4dec48adefb3e2b95ca&width=414)
![Video capture showing the moment of the Israeli bombing of a displaced persons camp in Rafah, on May 26.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/66SCQWQ4CWTLX3LGCUXZUTBBPM.jpg?auth=a5f9596f1bf55eb44e7fbd9aea2a5246a47db8562c84748b6af903054f492f71&width=414)
In a press conference, Israeli Government spokesman Avi Hyman described what happened as “serious” and admitted the army was responsible, according to preliminary investigations. “We went after two Hamas commanders responsible for many attacks […] After the attack, a fire broke out, the terrorists were underground…,” he noted. The two targets hit were Yasin Rabia, Hamas’s military commander in the West Bank, according to information from the Israeli army, as well as Khaled Nagar, a senior official in the West Bank arm of the Palestinian militia.
Israel carried out the bombing shortly after Hamas – the Islamist movement still fighting in parts of Gaza and responsible for the mass attack on October 7 – made a show of force with its first barrage of rockets in four months against the Tel Aviv region. . He thus expressed how eight months of invasion have not nullified their ability to reach important and distant cities. Since the Hague court order, the Israeli army has not reduced the intensity of its offensive in Rafah, and continues to bomb other parts of the Strip.
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According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, Tel Al Sultan was not among the areas that it had ordered to evacuate within the framework of the offensive that began on the 6th in Rafah and in which it is giving partial abandonment orders. These orders, and the general fear of the population of a large-scale land invasion, have already led the majority of Gazans who had been gathering there for months to leave Rafah, in search of a last refuge from the advance of the army in the north and after arriving at the nearby city of Khan Yunis. It was estimated that there were around 1.4 million people. The United Nations estimates that 900,000 have already left by force, some of them towards Al Mawasi, the “extended humanitarian zone” designated by Israel and whose conditions worry international and non-governmental organizations.
The massacre has motivated small demonstrations at dawn in various parts of the West Bank and has led Hamas to call this Monday for an “escalation in public activities of anger and pressure to stop the aggression and genocidal war.” “This massacre exceeds all limits and requires urgent intervention,” said Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
![A young man was looking for food this Monday among the rubble caused by the Israeli bombing in a displaced persons camp in Rafah.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/7LLOU27MTYAMZ25HCVLP6XRWHM.jpg?auth=c6f0d143df9dbbcc268af7580eba11840b7e5587b5b351c07ac98617be534338&width=414)
The indignation has transcended Palestine, with harsher terms than usual, apparently motivated by the loss of patience towards Israel since a few days before, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), based in The Hague, asked it to immediately stop its offensive precisely in Rafah and, a few days before, the chief prosecutor of another court, the International Criminal Court, requested an unprecedented arrest warrant against the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant.
In Brussels, both the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, and the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, have asked Israel to respect the decision of the ICJ. And the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has expressed himself “outraged” and has asked for an “immediate ceasefire”, while Guido Crosetto, the Minister of Defense of Italy (another of the European countries closest to the Jewish State) has assured that the situation in Gaza “can no longer be justified,” which he sees with “despair.”
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