Gaza Genocideupdated 1h ago3 min read
MapIsraeli Tank Shelling Hits Al-Mawasi Tents, Killing At Least 21, Gaza Health Authorities Say
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At least 21 killed and dozens injured in tank shells hitting Al-Mawasi tent camp west of Rafah. Gaza health authorities say the strike targeted displaced families in a designated evacuation zone.
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18 outlets told this the same way.
Rafah tent camp strike
Israeli tank shelling hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal strip west of Rafah that Israel had advised civilians to move to for safety, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 60 others, Gaza health authorities said. The Israeli army denied it struck the Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi, saying, "Contrary to the reports ... the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) did not strike in the Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi," while Gaza emergency services said four tank shells hit the tents. Gaza medical officials said at least 12 of the dead were women, and the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 64 others were injured.
In central Rafah, witnesses told Reuters that tanks and armoured vehicles mounted with machine guns were spotted near Al-Awda mosque as the Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area. The latest incident followed an attack on Sunday that set off a blaze in a tent camp in a western district of Rafah, killing at least 45 people, and Israel said it had targeted Hamas commanders and had not intended to cause civilian casualties.
Denials and competing death tolls
Israel’s military denied striking the tent camp in Al-Mawasi after Gaza health authorities said Israeli tank shelling killed at least 21 people, and the military said, "Contrary to the reports from the last few hours, the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] did not strike in the Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi."
Al Jazeera reported a higher toll, saying at least 41 workers burned to death at the Rahman Textile factory in Narayanganj, a separate garment-factory case, which did not match the Rafah figures in the other reports.
In Rafah, the dispute over what happened extended beyond the Tuesday incident, as international unease over Israel’s three-week-old Rafah offensive turned to outrage after Sunday’s tent-camp fire killed at least 45 people.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Sunday deadly air strikes and urged the implementation of a World Court order, while the White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the administration had not seen what it considers a "major ground operation."
Kirby told reporters, "That is a major ground operation. We have not seen that," as he described Israeli movement along something called the Philadelphia corridor on the outskirts of Rafah rather than in the town proper.
Humanitarian and political stakes
Doctors Without Borders said the UN Security Council was meeting after Israel struck tent camps sheltering displaced Palestinians in designated "humanitarian zones" in southern Gaza, and MSF secretary general Chris Lockyear said, "Civilians are being massacred." MSF USA chief executive officer Avril Benoît warned that "What we’ve feared and warned would happen if there was a major military offensive in Rafah is already happening," and she said the US government must use all its leverage with Israel to end what MSF described as the ongoing atrocities. The Doctors Without Borders account said the organization’s trauma stabilization point in Tal Al-Sultan recorded a mass casualty influx of 180 wounded people and 31 dead after an airstrike on May 26, and it said the facility was forced to flee less than 24 hours later as hostilities intensified.
“‘Civilians are being massacred,’ saidChris Lockyear, MSF secretary general.”
The same MSF report said the attack on May 27 killed 21 Palestinians and injured 64, and it warned that nearly eight months into the war there was no single health care facility in Gaza with capacity to handle a mass casualty event like the one described. The report also said the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah and to let in humanitarian aid, while it added that Israel’s offensive in southern Gaza had escalated and that "no amount of meaningful aid has entered Gaza" since May 6.