Netanyahu: Israeli attack on Rafah that killed 45 people was a ‘tragic mistake’

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Rafah, Gaza and Jerusalem
CNN
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday described the air strike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, in which dozens of people were killed, as a “tragic mistake”.

“Despite our efforts not to harm innocent bystanders, a tragic mistake unfortunately occurred last night. We are investigating the case,” Netanyahu said in a speech to the Israeli Knesset.

At least 45 people were killed and over 200 others injured when a fire broke out in the camp after the attack. According to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian doctors, the victims were mostly women and children. No hospital in Rafah has the capacity to accommodate the number of victims, the ministry said.

Footage obtained by CNN shows the camp ablaze as dozens of men, women and children desperately try to take cover from the night-time attack. Burnt bodies, including children, can be seen being pulled from the rubble by rescue workers.

“Several civilians are still trapped in the camp, which was attacked without warning,” said a Palestinian who filmed the fire. “This has been declared a security zone.”

A US official told CNN on Monday that Israel had told the Biden administration it had used precision munitions to hit a target in Rafah, but the attack’s explosion ignited a nearby fuel tank and sparked a fire that engulfed a camp for displaced Palestinians, killing dozens.

“We cannot confirm this, but it is what Israel has told us,” the official said, “and we expect to learn more once Israel completes its investigation.”

The attack came after Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv on Sunday for the first time in months. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said eight rockets were fired from the Rafah area and “a number of missiles” were intercepted. The IDF said it destroyed the rocket launchers used by Hamas shortly after the attacks.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Monday that it had “attacked a complex in Rafah where major Hamas terrorists were operating.” It said the attack killed two Hamas officials – West Bank chief of staff Yassin Rabia and senior Hamas figure Khaled Nagar. CNN cannot confirm these claims.

In a later statement on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces said its Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism – an independent body responsible for examining allegations of misconduct in conflict – would investigate the “circumstances surrounding the deaths of civilians in the area of ​​the attack.”

It was one of the deadliest attacks by the Israeli military on the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its operation there on May 7. It also came just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest court, ordered Israel to “immediately cease” its military operation in Rafah and any other actions in the city “that could impose on the Palestinian group in Gaza living conditions that could lead to its total or partial physical destruction.”

The Israeli military said the attack was carried out based on “previous intelligence” indicating that senior officials from Hamas’ West Bank wing were present at the scene.

The Israeli military said it had assessed that “no harm to uninvolved civilians was to be expected.”

More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s military operation there, the enclave’s Health Ministry said. The operation began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

Footage of the aftermath shared on social media showed chaotic scenes.

In one video, a man’s lifeless body is seen being pulled from the flames by its legs. “He’s dead, he’s dead,” a rescuer says before moving on to search for others. In another video, a man cried as he held up the headless body of a toddler for the camera. Women screamed in grief as children looked into the fire. A man with a blood-smeared face stood in apparent shock, examining his wounds with one hand while holding a toddler with blood-stained clothing in the other arm. One of the bodies pulled from the fire was charred and stiff.

By Monday morning, the camp was in ruins, with small fires still burning. Men and boys gathered around the camp, searching through the burned and smoking rubble for food and belongings as drones hovered overhead. A sign hung on one of the buildings that was still standing: “Kuwait Peace Camp 1.”

Among those killed were children and women living in makeshift tents, according to a post by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on X.

“The images from last night are proof that Rafah has become a hell on earth,” the Commissioner General said on Monday.

“Others were reportedly burned,” Lazzarini said. The reporting is based on open-source photos and videos provided to UNRWA, including from social media, UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told CNN.

Mohammad Abu Al Subeh, a displaced Palestinian who survived the attack, said he was lying in bed that night and saw “rockets being fired at us.”

“It shook the earth like an earthquake,” Abu Al Subeh, who fled his home in Nuseirat about five months ago, told CNN. He had to flee through the window of his makeshift house in the desert area where the camp is located. “I came here because Israel dropped a leaflet saying to go to this humanitarian area,” he said. “There are only civilians here.”

Abu Nidal Al Attar, another displaced Palestinian who witnessed the attack, told CNN: “We were sitting there like normal people” when they suddenly saw impacts and fire. “We went to look and they were pulling out burned people.”

Hamas described the attack as “a horrific war crime” and “a terrible massacre.”

International condemnation was immediate, with UN agencies, aid organizations and governments calling on Israel to respect the International Court of Justice’s ruling and to end the operation in Rafah.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the airstrike on Monday. “There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop,” he said in a post on X.

“Despite the binding ruling of the International Court of Justice, Israel attacked Rafah and Hamas fired rockets at Israel,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on X on Monday. At a meeting with Arab leaders to discuss Gaza and the Middle East, Borrell said on Monday: “What we have seen in the last few hours is that Israel is continuing the military action that it is supposed to stop.”

The medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was “horrified by this deadly event, which once again shows that nowhere is safe.” The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said of the attack on Rafah: “Gaza is hell on earth.”

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “outrage” and called for an “immediate ceasefire”.

Critics have dismissed the Israeli claims. Egypt, already worried about an escalating war right on its border with Gaza, condemned the Israeli attack on Rafah on Monday and called on the Jewish state to implement the ICJ ruling and “cease military operations in Rafah” and “fulfill its responsibilities as an occupying power.”

Egypt, a mediator in the war, is scheduled to host another round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on Tuesday. Qatar, another key mediator, said Israel’s attack could “hinder” ongoing negotiations and called the attack a “serious violation of international law.”

Over a million Palestinians had sought shelter in Rafah before Israel began its operations there, having fled there from other parts of Gaza after Israel began its military campaign in the area.

Israel has said it has asked civilians to leave some areas of Rafah, but many are still there and have sought shelter in what Israel calls “safe zones.”

According to UN figures, more than 800,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6.

Israel has announced it will continue its operation in Rafah despite international outrage and a US warning not to proceed. In response to last week’s ICJ ruling, Israel said it “has not carried out and will not carry out any military action in the Rafah area that could impose on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza living conditions that could lead to the total or partial physical destruction of the Gaza Strip.”

Clarification: This story has been updated after additional review of the Hebrew-to-English translation to clarify Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wording when referring to a deadly Israeli attack on Rafah in the Gaza Strip. The word “mistake” was originally translated as “error.”