It took almost 20 hours for the Israeli government to deplore the deaths of Palestinian civilians caused by the Sunday, May 26, deadly bombing of a tent city on the Gaza coast. In a rare concession, and in the face of a wave of indignation from abroad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deplored a "tragic accident" or "mistake," using a Hebrew word that can be translated as either of those terms, and which in this case refers to a faulty procedure. Until then, only the military prosecutor's office had expressed regret over the civilian deaths.

Journalists affiliated with Israel's radical right, staunch supporters of the prime minister, had caused consternation by hailing these strikes and the fire they caused, on the evening when Israel was celebrating Lag B'Omer, the Jewish festival of bonfires and the end of mourning, a date which is conducive to good wishes.

This tragedy was quickly followed by a worrying upsurge in tensions at the border with Egypt: On Monday, exchanges of fire between Israeli and Egyptian soldiers took place near the Rafah border crossing, which has been closed since the Israeli army took control of the Palestinian side on May 6. One Egyptian soldier was killed. Both governments did not comment much on the event, seemingly seeking to downplay its significance.

According to the Gaza health ministry, the attack on the tent camp in Rafah left 45 people dead and 249 wounded. Such a toll is not unusual in this war, even if Gaza's daily death toll has fallen since the spring. The Israeli army also regularly strikes populated areas in the Rafah region, including since the ground assault it has been carrying out there from May 6, in order to gain control of the border between Gaza and Egypt. On Tuesday, these strikes continued in the center and west of the area.

The terrifying images of the fire, those of the headless body of a child carried by a weeping man – Le Monde, which is barred from entering the enclave like the rest of the international press, was unable to verify the authenticity of the image – and those of internally displaced persons burnt by the molten plastic of their tents, came as a shock, at a time when Israel has still been claiming to be conducting a slow, cautious operation in Rafah.

In the space of three weeks, Israel has carried out the most massive forced population displacement of this war, following the depopulation of the northern half of the Gaza Strip at the end of 2023. The army drove one million people out of Rafah, most of them families who had already been displaced several times from other temporary shelters. In the process, it shattered the fragile international aid structures established there over the months, jeopardizing humanitarian aid distributions throughout the enclave.

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