‘Not a tragic incident’ - Israel faces scrutiny over Rafah camp attack

The Israeli government is trying to paint the May 26 attack on the Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza in which dozens of people were killed as an accident. However, analysts say Tel Aviv would have known about the consequences of dropping bombs in a congested area.

The Israeli air strike at a camp in Rafah killed at least 45 people and left more than 200 people injured. Israel claimed that it was a targeted precision strike against Hamas members and that what happened was a “tragic mistake”.

But the videos of and pictures of charred and dismembered bodies of children tell another story.

“Netanyahu is calling this attack “a tragic mistake” because what they did was such a horrible action whose political responsibility can not be taken by Tel Aviv,” says Abdullah Agar, a Turkish military analyst and a former special forces officer. “It’s an attempt to protect Israel and its soldiers from any wrongdoing, using a psychological warfare tactic,” Agar tells TRT World.

But is there any chance that this Israeli attack can be “a tragic mistake”?

“According to the Israelis, they killed two Hamas senior commanders, using a GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with this attack,” says the military analyst. The GBU-39/B, a 250-pound (110 kg) precision-guided glide bomb, is an American weapon like many others employed by Israelis during their attacks on Gaza.

Israel’s weekend attack comes after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is part of the UN structure, the world’s biggest international gathering, ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza, showing Tel Aviv’s continuing disregard for international law and norms.

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader alongside his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, describing the Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza as “collective punishment”.

‘They should have known’

The Israeli official narrative says that the air strike might have ignited a flammable substance in the camp, causing a fire which speared and killed the refugees.

But Agar says that Israelis should have known that this type of bomb could easily cause a conflagration in a place where people have stored things that can easily catch fire, such as clothes and tarpaulin tents.

“Everybody, including the Israelis, knows how bad and primitive living conditions are for Palestinians in Rafah, where more than one million people have already sought refuge due to Tel Aviv’s attacks into civilian areas,” says Agar.

Even if a direct air strike didn’t kill all the people, Israel stands responsible for so many deaths because it should have known about the consequences of such an attack, and any other explanation from Tel Aviv is “definitely a lie”, he says.

“It is impossible that they did know what this type of attack could cause in the Rafah camp. The GBU-39/B is a very strong weapon, including powerful munitions, which would definitely lead to a high number of casualties if used in a civilian area.”

The camp that was attacked is located in the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood of western Rafah, near the al-Mawasi coastal town, and it was a place designated as a safe zone by the Israeli army itself.

Rafah’s mayor Ahmed Al Sufi, the Red Crescent and many eyewitnesses of the Israeli strike said that the camp area was part of the safe zone.

“They initially denied that it was a protected area, then lamented it, and now claim there were explosives in this place,” says Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst on armed groups at International Crisis Group, an American think-tank. “There is nothing consistent” in their story, he tells TRT World.

Two days after the Rafah camp tragedy, the Israeli army attacked two Palestinian displacement camps in the same area, killing dozens of civilians.

These latest attacks in which civilians have been killed, along with the ICJ and ICC cases, has further eroded the credibility of the Israeli narrative.

By referring to the attack as a mistake, Israel is trying to avoid more scrutiny from international bodies, especially as people have taken to the streets in different countries in protest, says Agar.

Anti-government protests in Israel have also put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to minimise the fallout of the Rafah attack on his domestic support base, which is getting tired of the war and the growing international pariah status of Israel.

Who can believe Israel?

Beyond what happened in the Tel Al-Sultan tent camp, nearly eight months into the Gaza war with the deaths of more than 36,000 Palestinians, it’s already been crystal clear to the global audience that it’s hard to believe Israeli officials, says Agar.

“They are killing nearly 150 people and wounding nearly 400 per day,” says Agar, referring to the casualty statistics of Gazans.

Israel has been accused of similar atrocities like the Tel Al-Sultan camp attack but managed to avoid criticism because of support from the US and other Western states and the silence of mainstream media, says the analyst.

But scenes like the Rafah camp attack have changed perceptions about Israel, he says. “Israel inflicted a terrible trauma on the Palestinians that an individual could ever see or experience in his/her lifetime, and a violence that will leave its mark on many generations to come.”

Israel’s latest massacre echoed across the globe, triggering many condemnations and leaving even staunch allies of Tel Aviv like France’s Emmanuel Macron “outraged”. Israel “must stop”, said the French leader.

"I condemn Israel's actions which killed scores of innocent civilians who were only seeking shelter from this deadly conflict. There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop," wrote UN chief Antonio Guterres on X.

But the officials in the US, a close ally of Israel, were still able to say that they “understand” Israel's attack on the Rafah camp.

“As a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to. It just happened,” said John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman, showing Washington’s total indifference to the suffering of Gazans.

More than 800,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah to other areas, but around 500,000 still remain as they could not find any safe zones to shelter their families.