A civil defense official in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said an Israeli strike on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday, May 28, killed at least 21 people, days after a similar strike that sparked global outrage.
Mohammad al-Mughayyir said they were killed in an "occupation strike targeting the tents of displaced people west of Rafah." Hamas said an Israeli strike had caused "dozens of martyrs and wounded" in the area.
It came as Israeli tanks penetrated the heart of Rafah, according to Palestinian officials, despite widespread condemnation over an air strike on a crowded camp in the southern Gaza city that killed 45 people two days earlier.
With an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting at 7:15 pm GMT due to discuss Sunday's strike on the displaced camp, the situation remains tense in Rafah. In a statement issued hours before the meeting, Israel's military said the weapons used in Sunday's strike "could not" have caused the deadly blaze in the Rafah camp.
"Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size," said military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.
Sunday evening's strike, which medics said also wounded hundreds of civilians, drew worldwide condemnation. The sight of the charred carnage, blackened corpses and children being rushed to hospitals led UN chief Antonio Guterres to declare that "there is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike a "tragic accident" but also vowed to continue the campaign to destroy Hamas over the October 7 attack and bring home all the hostages.
More air strikes and shelling rained down overnight on besieged Gaza – including the Tal al-Sultan area where the displacement camp went up in flames near a facility of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. UNRWA said 1 million civilians had fled Rafah since Israel launched its assault on the city in early May despite a chorus of international warnings.
"This happened with nowhere safe to go & amidst bombardments, lack of food & water, piles of waste & unsuitable living conditions," it posted on X.
Sunday night's attack that killed dozens in the displaced persons camp was targeting two senior Hamas members, the Israeli military said. It said aircraft "struck a Hamas compound" and killed Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, senior officials for the group in the occupied West Bank. The strike came hours after Hamas had fired a barrage of rockets towards Tel Aviv, with most being intercepted."