image source, Getty
- Author, Ahmed Nour, Abdul Rahim Saeed
- Role, BBC fact-checking
At least 45 people, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian displacement camp in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The Palestinians said the targeted area was a “safe zone” designated by the Israeli army.
The Israeli army denied that the raid hit the “safe zone” and said that it targeted two senior Hamas leaders in the Tal al-Sultan area in Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the killing of civilians as a “tragic incident”, amid growing international condemnation of the attack.
According to Kadus, a German-based humanitarian and relief organization working in Gaza, there were more than one raid on Rafah on May 26.
One of the raids reportedly hit a displacement camp, with some Palestinian sources indicating that it was located within a “humanitarian zone” previously declared by the Israeli army.
BBC News Arabic analyzed video footage, photos and other evidence, including eyewitness accounts, to verify the facts of the attack on the camp.
Fire in the camp
image source, IDF
Videos circulating on social media showing an Israeli army raid on a displacement camp in northwest Rafah first began online at around 22:00 local time.
Initial footage showed large fires in the displacement camp, while the air was filled with sirens and screams.
Graphic videos also included people recovering charred bodies and at least one decapitated body.
Video clips reveal that the camp is called “Kuwait Peace Camp 1.”
Social media pages confirm that the aforementioned camp is located north of a logistics center near UNRWA in Tal Al-Sultan in Rafah.
Audio heard in social media videos of the aftermath of the explosion also refers to “tents behind” the UNRWA building.
According to satellite images, the distance between the two sites is about 200 meters.
image source, Planet Labs PBC
Israeli raid
A short video clip was circulated on social media, showing the moment the raid occurred on the camp.
The whistling sound of an incoming shell, followed by an explosion and a huge fire can be heard in the distance along with a man cheering in the background, shouting: “barracks” – a local term for UNRWA buildings.
The night video is too dark to determine the exact location of the struck area.
In a statement issued the same night, the head of government media in Gaza, run by the Hamas movement, said the camp had been subjected to a direct hit, describing the attack as a “massacre.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent also said that the tents of the displaced were the target of the Israeli strike.
Israeli army officials said they carried out a raid with “precision munitions” and killed two senior Hamas leaders, adding that they were investigating the deaths of civilians in the area.
In its response, the Israeli army published a map that it said showed the location of the raid that targeted senior Hamas members.
The location of the raid indicated by the army on the map is located elsewhere south of the damaged camp.
“Safe area”?
image source, Getty Images
A controversy arose over the classification of the area in which the damaged IDP camp was located.
The Palestinians and many international relief agencies insist that the affected area has been designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military. This is something that the Israeli forces deny.
The “safe zone” that the Palestinians are talking about appears to be the “humanitarian zone” previously designated by the Israeli army in southern Gaza.
The “humanitarian zone” extends north along the Mediterranean coast from Al-Mawasi – a narrow strip of agricultural land – to the city of Khan Yunis and the city of Deir al-Balah.
The Israeli army has periodically directed civilians to this area since last October.
In early May, the army instructed residents of eastern Rafah to move to the “humanitarian zone” before beginning its ground operation in the area.
The Israeli military uses a map of Gaza in which the area is divided into numbered blocks as part of evacuation warnings and declaring a “humanitarian zone.”
In a post on the X website on May 22, Israeli army spokesman Avkhai Adraee reiterated the news of the expansion of the so-called humanitarian zone “to include” areas in southern Khan Yunis, including blocks 2360, 2371, and 2373.
We have geolocated the site of the damaged tents in Block 2372, which is located near but outside the “humanitarian zone” declared by the Israeli military.
‘Unclear instructions’
The Palestinians who spoke to BBC News Arabic say they believed the affected area was classified as “safe areas.”
One of the displaced, Jamal Al-Attar, told the BBC: “The occupation told us that this area is safe and that we can stay here because it is a safe area.”
He adds: “There is no safe zone here in the Gaza Strip. The place where we lived was targeted. They killed our children and burned our women and elderly inside the so-called safe zone.”
About 1.5 million people had sought refuge in Rafah before May 6, when Israel began what it described as limited ground operations in the eastern areas of the city.
A recent BBC analysis revealed that previous announcements of evacuation zones and a “humanitarian zone” issued by the Israeli military were riddled with numerous errors.
The military denied that the warnings were confusing or contradictory.
However, the animated map accompanying the IDF’s May 22 social media announcement shows the affected camp as part of the “expanded humanitarian area.”
This contradicts the text that accompanied the map, in the same publication.
Satellite images of the camp area showed that it was crowded with tents for displaced people.
The eastern areas of Rafah also witnessed displacement following instructions from the Israeli army to evacuate.
Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA media officer, told BBC News Arabic that the site of the attack was close to UNRWA warehouses, adding that people feel safe near the sites where the United Nations works.
The Israeli army did not issue instructions to evacuate UNRWA warehouses and the surrounding areas.
In response to BBC News Arabic, the Israeli army said that it had killed two senior Hamas officials, and that it was reviewing reports that civilians had been harmed.
He added: “The Israeli army regrets any harm caused to civilians not participating in the fighting.”
Hours before the Israeli attack, Hamas fired eight rockets from Rafah towards Tel Aviv – the first long-range attacks on the central Israeli city since January.
The United Nations estimates that more than 800,000 people fled in response to orders from the Israeli army to evacuate to the “extended humanitarian zone.”
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