WHO: The tobacco lobby targets children and young people

31 May 2024 

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 37 million adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 use tobacco, and that in many countries the rate of e-cigarette use among teenagers exceeds that of adults, according to the official website of the UNRIC, Azernews reports.

In the WHO European Region, 20% of 15-year-olds surveyed said they had used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days. This shows that the tobacco industry has no qualms about targeting the younger generation.

Deceptive strategies targeting the very young

In its new products, the tobacco industry promotes sweet, innocuous-looking flavors reminiscent of childhood, such as candy, fruit or chocolate, rather than the “tobacco” taste that doesn’t appeal to the youngest generation. In fact, over 70% of young e-cigarette users in the United States said they would stop smoking altogether if the only flavor available was “tobacco”.

The e-cigarette is just as dangerous and addictive as the traditional cigarette, but it is designed and presented as a toy, and at a low price.

‘These industries are intentionally designing products and utilizing marketing strategies that appeal directly to children’ says Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of the WHO’s Department of Health Promotion.

‘The use of child-friendly flavours like cotton candy and bubblegum, combined with sleek and colourful designs that resemble toys, is a blatant attempt to addict young people to these harmful products,’ he adds.

Greenwashing by the industry

Big tobacco companies present themselves as leaders in social and environmental responsibility, but only choose evaluation criteria that give them a positive image.

In an attempt to give themselves a good reputation, they promote simple environmental actions, such as planting trees or collecting cigarette butts on beaches, but in reality these actions have little impact, according to the WHO.

On the contrary, tobacco seriously harms the environment at every stage of its production; cigarette filters, made of toxic plastics, are one of the main sources of pollution.

Since the development of electronic products in the industry, toxic waste has been on the increase, particularly with the arrival of single-use e-cigarettes known as “puffs”.

New product, same danger

Despite existing progress in tobacco cessation, the emergence of e-cigarettes and other novel tobacco and nicotine products poses a serious threat to young people, and even children, and is undermining efforts to combat smoking.

Studies show that using e-cigarettes almost triples the risk of later smoking conventional cigarettes.

These deceptive strategies underline the need for strict regulation to protect young people from a harmful addiction that would last a lifetime.

‘History is repeating, as the tobacco industry tries to sell the same nicotine to our children in different packaging,’ says Dr Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO. ‘These industries are actively targeting schools, children and young people with new products that are essentially a candy-flavoured trap. How can they talk about harm reduction when they are marketing these dangerous, highly-addictive products to children?’

Combating aggressive industry lobbying

The WHO is calling on governments to take strict measures to protect young people, by banning or severely regulating nicotine-based products, creating 100% smoke-free public spaces and increasing taxes on these products. Raising public awareness of misleading industry advertising and supporting youth-led educational initiatives are also essential.

‘Addicted youth represent a lifetime of profits to the industry,’ adds Jorge Alday, STOP Director at public health specialist Vital Strategies. ‘That’s why the industry aggressively lobbies to create an environment that makes it cheap, attractive and easy for youth to get hooked. If policy makers don’t act, current and future generations may be facing a new wave of harms, characterized by addiction to and use of many tobacco and nicotine products, including cigarettes.’

GNOSTIC    ANTINOMIANISM 

‘Bad Faith’ sounds the alarm on the past and future of Christian nationalism

Filmmakers Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones trace the origins of Christian nationalism from the Ku Klux Klan to the election of Donald Trump.

In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, a man holds a Bible as supporters of Donald Trump gather outside the Capitol in Washington. The Christian imagery and rhetoric on view during the Capitol insurrection sparked renewed debate about the societal effects of melding Christian faith with an exclusionary breed of nationalism. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

May 30, 2024

By Jim McDermott

(RNS) — In 1980, conservative political operative Paul Weyrich approached evangelical Christian leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson with a proposal: If they would mobilize their believers to begin voting Republican, he would help them in their quest to roll back many of the civil rights protections they chafed against. Over the next 40 years, Weyrich and his Council for National Policy would guide these groups to greater and greater political success while slowly radicalizing them into a potent force — the Moral Majority — whose particular ideas of Christianity and Christian values drove nearly all their voting decisions.

Weyrich was not subtle in his motivations for a reigning political class, telling a group of evangelical leaders in 1980 that “our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

In “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy,” filmmakers Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones trace the origins of Christian nationalism from the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century through the creation of the Moral Majority, the sudden rise of the tea party and the election of Donald Trump. What they uncover is an essential aspect of our current political situation, one that puts evangelical Christianity in new light.

Where many liberals have long dismissed evangelical Christians and their fundamentalist beliefs as ridiculous and absurd, Ujlaki and Brown work to understand them on their own terms — and discover not hypocrisy but a deeply consistent, radically dualistic theology that, for many, is worth defending, even to the point of violence.

Religion News Service spoke with Ujlaki by phone in Los Angeles about the making of “Bad Faith” and the story it tells of how a large swath of religious voters came to believe that President Joe Biden is in league with the devil while Trump is essential to the spiritual salvation of America. The film is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Tubi and other platforms.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What initially made you want to tell this story?

When Trump got elected, I was shocked. Nobody thought he had a chance. He was obviously a joke. It was never going to happen. When he got elected, I realized I didn’t really know anything about what was going on. I was in a bubble.

Stephen Ujlaki. (Photo by Jon Rou/courtesy of Loyola Marymount University)

More than anything, my wanting to make the film was just to find out: How did he do it, how did he win, and who were the Christian evangelicals (who supported him)? But then I discovered all of this plotting, all of these deals, and the fact that those behind them were anti-democratic from the beginning.

The heart of the film is the story of Paul Weyrich and the deal he made with evangelical Christian leaders to use abortion to motivate their people to begin to vote for Republicans. How did that all work?

There were a couple of congressional elections in which the people who were running for office were very anti-abortion. And Weyrich, who had been a Catholic, found that they were successful campaigns, more so than they should have been. Abortion was very successful in ringing people’s bell.

Evangelicals had nothing against abortion. Frankly, they thought it was a good way to keep the Black population down. The Southern Baptist Convention applauded Roe v. Wade in 1973. But Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson agreed to start telling people this is bad, in return for which they were going to get help turning back all the progressive things they hated that the Supreme Court had done and that Lyndon Johnson had done. The Great Society, all of those progressive things that gave a lot of us hope in the 1960s and ’70s were anathema to them, and they were determined to turn that back. So they would faithfully help elect Republicans, and they would get rewarded.

It (abortion) was a great way to cover the fact that they were really trying to stop integration. It’s much better to say that we’re trying to defend the rights of the unborn.
I was surprised to learn that Christian evangelicals were not always so politically engaged.

For many, many years they were completely opposed to political involvement. The public square was the devil’s playground. To convince them to get involved and to vote Republican, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson applied the Manichaeanism of their theology. There’s a good and bad; there’s evil, and there’s God. The Republican Party is the party of God, and the Democratic Party is the party of the devil. They got that.

But this has nothing to do with theology, nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with God or with Jesus. I don’t even consider Christian nationalism as a religion. What is its ethos? What is its morality? It’s actually amoral, which is why it uses the church. The church lends it that moral, ethical authority that it doesn’t have otherwise.

Jesus is anti-democratic and God likes authoritarian governments? It’s the antithesis of anything Christian.

Would it be fair to say Christian nationalism’s goal is fascism?

“Bad Faith” poster. (Courtesy image)

Yes. It’s pure fascism. It’s pure power. They have been wanting and plotting the same thing for 40-plus years. They were incredibly adept at concealing what their motives were. You had to decode what they were saying. When they were talking about re-creating the kingdom of God on Earth, if you thought they were talking about something theological and spiritual, you would be mistaken. They were talking about replacing democracy with theocracy.

The one exception, and this to me is like the smoking gun in the film, was the Weyrich Manifesto (“The Integration of Theory and Practice,” 2001). Born of his complete frustration with the knowledge that his followers were never going to be the majority, Weyrich argued the only way they were going to create a Christian nation was to bypass democracy. They had to weaken and destroy it, creating a vacuum, which leaves room for the strongman to appear.

If you look around you at the divisiveness and the distrust of institutions that exist today in this country, you will realize how incredibly successful they have been in executing their plan. It’s been like a slow-motion revolution in a way, happening bit by bit all over the place.

And yet even so, Donald Trump seemed like such a reach for people concerned about goodness and morality.

Everything he stood for was against what they believed in. A number of people were saying they would do it but they would be holding their noses, because they didn’t really believe in it.

Then you had his spiritual adviser, a charismatic, Paula White, who had befriended Trump a year or so earlier and was his sort of secret adviser. She started the ball rolling by telling her group that Trump had become a Christian. That was one attempt to deal with the thing. But more was needed.

Then, looking in the Bible, another charismatic Christian came up with the idea that God sometimes uses pagans to accomplish good works on behalf of the Jews. King Cyrus was this horrible pagan who did all kinds of bad things, but he was very good for the Jews.
And so Trump becomes reinterpreted as, in a sense, part of salvation history?

The notion was that looking at the Bible, we see that what was really happening was God using Trump in order to redeem America and bring it back to God. And as (evangelical Christian and former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security) Elizabeth Neumann says in the film, the notion that they could be living out the prophesies got evangelical Christians so excited they all got behind this notion of Trump as King Cyrus. That’s what God was doing. That was the answer. They figured it out.

There comes a point in the film where you interview a man who seems very thoughtful about Biden’s desire to unify the country. But then his conclusion is that it’s impossible because good and evil cannot work together.

That’s one of the scarier parts of the film. Because he seems like a reasonable, intelligent person, and yet he’s deeply convinced of this, even sad about it, not triumphant. It’s simply a fact, good cannot unify with evil.

The notion that over half the country is in fact demonic and evil, and evangelical Christians are the holy ones and should be allowed to do whatever they need to do in order to take control from the devil, it’s incredible when you think about it.

Watching the film, it certainly sounds like the leaders of the Christian nationalist movement see civil war, or something like it, as the path to power.

That’s right. That’s the only way they’re going to get it. They’re not going to get it through democracy, they’re never going to be the majority. They are going to weaken and destroy and then conquer. That’s the game plan.

It’s so hard, people aren’t willing to accept the fact there are sizable numbers of people in this country who don’t believe in democracy. And the national media doesn’t know how to deal with it. They’re constantly accommodating, normalizing, and not fulfilling what I would take to be the mandate of proper newsgathering. They call them “conservative” in The New York Times. They’re not conservative. These are seditionists, treasonous, anti-democratic.

People with this kind of liberal notion of fair and balanced think we’re not going to be over the top like them. But the thing is, one is following the rules and the other isn’t.

It’s so difficult, because you don’t want people to be so terrified that they think it’s hopeless. You don’t want to have to think “I better stay out of this.”

On the contrary, what it should show you is that you need to fight for your democracy if you want to keep it.

RNS is the recipient of an ongoing grant from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, founded and led by Todd Stiefel, who is an executive producer of “Bad Faith.”

Air Canada wins right to test flight attendant's hair for pot use

THANK THE BLDG. TRADES AND THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY FOR ON THE JOB DRUG TESTING

CBC
Wed, May 29, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. MDT·4 min read


A federal labour arbitrator has given Air Canada the green light to test a strand of a flight attendant's hair for drugs. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press - image credit)

A federal labour arbitrator has given Air Canada the green light to test a strand of a flight attendant's hair for drugs after two of the man's housemates — and fellow employees — claimed he was smoking a bong and making jokes about hijacking.

According to a decision posted last week, the flight attendant — known as CB — was expelled from a home housing 14 Air Canada employees, following a group meeting prompted by his behaviour.

Two of CB's fellow cabin crew members wrote reports which made their way to a Vancouver-based service director manager for Air Canada — sparking a request for a strand of CB's hair along with a battle between the airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

The decision provides a window into the lives and responsibilities of the cabin crew members tasked with looking after the safety of passengers on the country's largest airline.

It also highlights the question of hair strand testing — which the union was already in the process of grieving when CB's situation arose.

'He referred to hijacking a plane'

Arbitrator William Kaplan was called in after CB had already volunteered a strand of his hair on April 18 for "reasonable cause substance testing."

The union filed what Kaplan called an "extraordinary" motion to prohibit Air Canada from relying on any information revealed by the test until CB got a chance to challenge the request.

WATCH | Cannabis use is still a deal-breaker for some employers:

CB booked off sick in March and was slated to return to work in mid-April.

But his housemates gathered on March 29, voting to kick him out of the shared home as of May 1 and encouraging CB to seek help through the company's employee assistance program.

Unbeknownst to the union or CB, two of them also wrote letters to a supervisor.

"[He] seemed dazed every other day and appeared to be under the influence of substances,'" Kaplan wrote, describing one complaint.

"According to this crew member, [CB] made some disturbing reference to hijacking a plane (albeit 'with the intention of dark humour, but it still raised safety concerns')."

Kaplan said the second crew member said CB owned a bong, was using it to smoke pot and was "reported to have said that if he was caught by the company — using marijuana — that he had other work options available (and he also referred to hijacking a plane, again 'with dark humour')."

CBC

No right to 'control the lives' of employees

Hair strand testing can detect substance use in the past three months — as opposed to saliva testing which can only determine very recent consumption and urine testing which can detect pot use in the last seven days.

The company claimed the hair testing was necessary because more than two weeks had passed between the day CB's co-workers reported him and the day he was ordered in for screening.

The union claimed it was given no notice that Air Canada planned to initiate hair strand testing for suspected substance abuse, arguing the move was in violation of the rules governing the principles of collective agreements.

Kaplan said the union claimed hair strand testing was "an unacceptable intrusion" into CB's personal life and that employees who are not on duty or subject to duty can't be screened for substances unless random testing is part of a contract.

"Simply put, the company does not, union counsel argued, have any right to control the lives of its employees when they are not on duty or subject to duty," Kaplan wrote.

By contrast, Air Canada argued that the company did not normally request hair strand tests: "this case was an exception, and one fully justified by the facts."

"The risk of returning an employee to work in circumstances like those presented here far outweighed any of the identified interests of either the union or the grievor," Kaplan wrote, stating the company's position.

"Those results needed to be known and, if they indicated substance use, the company needed to take action."

CBC/Radio-Canada

'An entirely legitimate safety interest'

Kaplan said the union was right to safeguard the privacy interests of its members, but sided with Air Canada.

The arbitrator said the company had "an entirely legitimate safety interest to protect."

"Indeed, in the face of those reports from the grievor's colleagues and housemates, it would have been derelict of the company to ignore the information it had received," Kaplan wrote.

He said the company faced a "quandary" because only hair strand testing would have revealed whether CB was using drugs at the time when the reports against him were filed — two weeks before he was screened.

Kaplan pointed out that Air Canada's policies prohibit cabin crew from using illegal drugs and marijuana "at all times, even when not on duty or not in the workplace" except when prescribed as medication.

He noted that the union can still fight management's handling of the case and any associated discipline, but said in the meantime "the hair strand test results will yield useful information."

In a statement, Air Canada said "we are pleased this decision confirms that safety is essential in our business."

Authorities urge proper cooking of wild game after 6 relatives fall ill from parasite in bear meat

By The Associated Press

Posted May 28, 2024 

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reaffirmed the importance of properly cooking wild game after six people became sick from a parasite traced to undercooked bear meat that was served at a family reunion in South Dakota.

The six — one in South Dakota, four in Minnesota and one in Arizona — became infected when bear meat that was served rare turned out to be contaminated with roundworms that cause trichinellosis, also known as trichinosis. Two of the people ate only the vegetables that were grilled with the meat. While the meat had been frozen for 45 days, the trichinella worms were from a freeze-resistant species.

“Persons who consume meat from wild game animals should be aware that that adequate cooking is the only reliable way to kill Trichinella parasites and that infected meat can cross-contaminate other food,” the CDC said in its report on the outbreak last week.

The first case turned up after the 2022 reunion in a 29-year-old Minnesota man who had been hospitalized twice with fever, muscle aches and pain and swelling around his eyes, among other abnormalities. A sample of the meat, from a black bear harvested in Saskatchewan, tested positive. Three of the victims were hospitalized in all. All six, ranging in age from 12 to 62, eventually recovered.

Trichinellosis has become rare in the U.S. While it was once commonly associated with undercooked pork, most U.S. cases nowadays are attributed to consumption of wild game. From 2016 to 2022, seven outbreaks, including 35 probable and confirmed cases, were reported to the CDC. Bear meat was the suspected or confirmed source in most of those outbreaks.

The larvae can settle into intestinal, muscle, heart and brain tissues, according to the National Institutes of Health. Most patients fully recover within two to six months.

The CDC recommends cooking wild game to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 degrees Celsius), as verified with a meat thermometer. Meat color is not a good indicator. The family members ate some of the meat before realizing it was undercooked and recooking it, the report said. Raw and undercooked meat and their juices should be kept separate from other foods.

The Associated Press

Black bear kebabs make family sick with parasitic worms
Many wildlife experts tell bear hunters to consider all bear meat infected. 

(CNN Newsource)

Jen Christensen
CNN
Digital
Updated May 28, 2024 


It was supposed to be a celebration, but one family’s unique meal of black bear meat sent several members to the hospital instead.

The celebration happened in summer 2022, according to the account in the latest edition of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. An extended family – unnamed in the report – came from across the country for a reunion in South Dakota.

One family member, a hunter, brought some black bear meat that he had harvested in northern Saskatchewan in May 2022. The hunter said that the hunting outfitter had recommended freezing the meat to kill any potential parasites.

The meat had been frozen for 45 days before it was thawed, and the family grilled it with some vegetables and served it as kebabs.

Freezing can kill some parasites commonly found in black bears, but according to the World Organisation for Animal Health, some species of parasites are freeze-tolerant.

Bears and other wildlife including wild boar, wolves and squirrels can often get sick with trichinellosis, a serious disease caused by parasitic roundworms of the genus Trichinella, but they will often appear perfectly healthy. When butchering the meat, it would be difficult to tell if it was contaminated because there are few signs of the parasite.

Many wildlife experts tell bear hunters to consider all bear meat infected, and the CDC recommends cooking the meat thoroughly to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit to kill the parasites. Smoking, salting, drying and microwaving do not always kill them, experts say.

The meat at the family reunion was initially served rare, but that was not the chef’s intention, the CDC said. Rather, it was “difficult for the family members to visually ascertain the level of doneness” because the meat was dark in color. After some of the family noticed that it was undercooked, they put it back on the grill before it was served again.Sign up for breaking news alerts from CTV News, right at your fingertips

It wasn’t until after people had gone home that some started to get sick.

The first illness was in a 29-year-old man who had to be hospitalized twice over a three-week period. He reported symptoms of severe muscle pain and a fever, and his eyes became swollen. Blood tests showed that he had eosinophilia, a condition involving too many eosinophils in the body, a signal to doctors that someone could have allergies, cancer or parasites.

It wasn’t until his second trip to the hospital that doctors learned the man had eaten bear meat and suspected that he may have trichinellosis. Tests soon confirmed that that was the case, and tests were recommended for the other family members.

Trichinellosis can be a light or severe infection, and the symptoms can depend on where the larvae migrate to in the body. Light infections may not have noticeable symptoms, according to the CDC. If the parasite moves into the gastrointestinal tract, it can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea or vomiting. In muscle, it can cause a fever, rashes, conjunctivitis and facial puffiness. Occasionally, there may be life-threatening symptoms including heart problems, trouble with the central nervous symptom and breathing issues.

Among the eight family members whom investigators interviewed, six had symptoms that were consistent with trichinellosis. Four had eaten bear meat and vegetables, but the other two had eaten only vegetables cooked with the meat. Three family members had to be hospitalized.

The hospitalized people got trichinellosis-directed treatment with albendazole, an antiparasitic drug. Those who were not hospitalized received only supportive care since their symptoms had resolved before it was determined they had the infection. Everyone has since recovered.

In the course of the investigation, CDC labs received samples of the frozen bear meat and found Trichinella larvae, and the hunter was advised to discard any remaining meat. The CDC also informed the Public Health Agency of Canada about the outbreak since the bear had comefrom that country.

The CDC says it’s important that game meat – particularly wild game harvested in northern latitudes – be cooked thoroughly.

Since meat that is contaminated with Trichinella can cross-contaminate other foods, raw meat should be stored and prepared separately from other foods. The CDC also recommends that government agencies and private groups that organize or oversee hunting should educate hunters about these risks and how to protect themselves.

Israeli airstrike that killed dozens in Rafah carried out using type of bomb supplied by US

Footage filmed by Palestinian journalist Alamuddin Sadiq at the scene of the strike appears to indicate which specific munition was used, 1,000 of which were supplied by the US to Israel in 2023.


By Sam Doak,

 OSINT producer

Sky News
Wednesday 29 May 2024

On the night of 26 May, an Israeli airstrike hit the neighbourhood of Tel al Sultan in Rafah.

At least 45 people were killed as structures in an area housing displaced Palestinians were set alight, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

Location of the strike

Image:Pic: Sky News and Planet Labs PBC

The affected area is less than 200 metres from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's compound in the north of Rafah.

Geolocated footage and satellite imagery shows the strike destroyed buildings immediately adjacent to a sign identifying Kuwaiti Al-Salam Camp 1.

While it is unclear whether the buildings are part of the camp, Kuwaiti Al-Salam Camp 1 is known to house Palestinians displaced by the ongoing conflict.

Over much of the conflict, the surrounding area has been occupied by tents and sheds housing displaced people. In recent weeks, the number of these structures has decreased as Palestinians fled in advance of Israel's ground offensive in Rafah.

Verifying footage

To build a picture of what happened immediately after the strike, Sky News verified numerous videos and photographs captured by those present.

Image:Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians in Tel al Sultan. Pic: Reuters

A sign and other distinctive features visible in footage recorded in the immediate aftermath allowed it to be matched to a daytime recording from the same scene.

Image:Footage of a man carrying a beheaded child (L) matched with a video of the same scene (R)

Landmarks visible in the daylight made it possible to determine the exact location of the strike, and verify pieces of footage recorded at night in the same place.

The footage ultimately verified by Sky News shows numerous bodies being pulled from the wreckage of destroyed buildings. In one video, a man can be seen carrying the body of a decapitated child.


Satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs PBC on 27 May shows four buildings were destroyed in this strike.

The Israeli account

In a statement given on 28 May, a senior Israeli military official claimed the deaths of civilians were the result of an attempt to kill two senior members of Hamas, and that the site is close to an area used to launch rockets.

According to Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, two 17kg (37lb) munitions were used. Claiming that much of the destruction was caused by a subsequent fire that could not have been solely ignited by munitions of this size, Hagari stated that this was being investigated.

The weaponry used in this strike

Alamuddin Sadiq

Footage filmed by Palestinian journalist Alamuddin Sadiq at the scene of the strike appears to indicate which specific munition was used.

Recorded the day after the strike, the fragments resemble the tail section of a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB).

According to Rahul Udoshi, a weapons specialist at the defence intelligence company Janes, the fragment "appears to be tail section of GBU-39 SDB (of Israeli Air Force stock)." Noting the similarity, Udoshi pointed out "the screw and cut section next to that", which he described as an "exact match".

Comparison of munition fragments with reference image. Pic: Janes

Reviewing the same image, Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army artillery officer and director of Chiron Resources, also concluded that it matched a GBU-39 SDB, describing the munition as "an advanced, state-of-the-art weapon".

According to Sipri Arms Transfers Database, Israel received 1,000 of these munitions from the US as recently as 2023. Bloomberg, reporting at the time, states that this delivery was accelerated following the 7 October Hamas attack.

Aerial footage

During his statement, Rear Admiral Hagari shared a video showing the strike filmed from above. Highlighting the specific buildings that were targeted, the video shows that out of the four destroyed, these were the second furthest east and the structure immediately to its west.

People visible in IDF footage of area targeted. Pic: IDF

On the loss of innocent life, Hagari said "our aerial surveillance was filming prior to the strike in order to minimise civilian harm".

In the footage shared by the Israeli military, Sky News identified four people moving in the immediate vicinity of the targeted building in the seconds before it was hit.

Humanitarian zone

Prior to its ground offensive in Rafah, Israel produced a map marking an evacuation area and humanitarian zone.

 Sky News

The area targeted lies between these two zones, in the neighbourhood numbered by the Israeli government as 2372.

No Safe Zone: Satellite Images show Israel targeting Rafah refugee camps

Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu has described the airstrike that killed dozens of people at Rafah refugee camp as a “tragic mistake”.

Displaced Palestinians inspect their tents destroyed by Israel's bombardment in Rafah city. (AP photo)


Bidisha Saha
New Delhi

May 28, 2024 
Posted By: Anuja Jha

In ShortIsrael's attack on Rafah continues despite world court's order
Recent attack targeted tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, killing 45
The attack has drawn global outrage, Israeli PM called it a 'tragic mistake'

Blood, chaos, and screams engulfed Gaza’s southern city of Rafah once again after an Israeli airstrike hit one of its largest camps for displaced Palestinians. The death toll from the bombing in the designated “safe zone” reached 45 on Tuesday. The majority of victims were women and children.

The strike goes against a ruling by the top UN court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which ordered Israeli forces to stop their military offensive in Rafah.


Now India Today has located the site of the recent airstrike at Kuwait Peace Camp. The findings were confirmed by satellite images sourced from Planet Labs PBC which showed smoke billowing from near the camp which lies just about 300 meter north of the IDF-declared humanitarian zone.



In December last year, IDF released a map that labeled the area near the UN facility as a ‘humanitarian zone’. The Kuwait Al-Salem Camp wasn’t set up at that time. The IDF also released a map where they've broken Gaza's area into numbered "blocks". The block where Monday’s strike happened lies in block ‘2372’, while it was previously marked as a safe zone, it's not currently in the humanitarian zone marked by IDF.


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


In one video, the lifeless body of a man was seen being dragged by the legs out of the flames. “He’s dead, he’s dead,” a rescuer says before moving on to find others. In another video, a man wept as he held up the headless body of a toddler for the camera. Women shrieked in grief as children peered into the fire. A man with a bloodied face stood in apparent shock, examining his wounds with one hand, as he held an infant with blood-stained clothes in the other arm. One of the bodies pulled out of the fire was charred-stiff.

By Monday morning, the camp was in ruins with small fires still burning. Men and boys gathered around, rummaging through the burned and smoking wreckage for food and their belongings as drones hovered above. One of the structures still standing was a sign that read: “Kuwait Peace Camp 1.”

Children and women living in makeshift tents were among those killed, according to a post on X from UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

The ICJ ordered Israel to “immediately halt” its military operation in Rafah, and any other action in the city, “which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The IDF said the attack was conducted based on “prior intelligence” indicating that senior officials of Hamas’ West Bank wing were present at the site.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament on Monday that “something unfortunately went tragically wrong” with the airstrike. “We are investigating the incident and will reach conclusions because this is our policy,” he said.

This is not the first time that Israel has attacked a refugee camp. On May 24, the IDF also bombarded tents and refugee camps near Khan Younis which falls under the ‘humanitarian zone’. Remote sensing data from Planet Labs PBC shows over 800 camps set up in the area.



Planet images from May 18 show plumes of smoke rising from the Jabalia refugee camp. Numerous other structures used as civilian shelters have also been attacked in the past 10 days.



An Israeli airstrike on Al-Shaboura refugee camp in southern Gaza City on May 2 killed two young children and injured several other people, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza and the Kuwait Hospital in Rafah.
Worsening crisis

More than 85% of the Palestinian territory’s population had sought shelter in Rafah having fled fighting elsewhere, and a million people have been forced to move again since Israel’s ground operation began on May 6. Israeli ground troops have so far probed Rafah’s southern and eastern outskirts, rather than its overcrowded center.

Aid deliveries have slowed to a trickle, with the Rafah and nearby Kerem Shalom crossings effectively blocked. Humanitarian operations in Gaza face severe access restrictions, including the closure of key crossings, denied missions, and delays imposed by Israeli authorities.

According to Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), between May 1 and 20, 183 humanitarian aid missions in Gaza were coordinated with Israeli authorities. Of the 51 missions to northern Gaza, only 37% were facilitated, while the rest were denied access, impeded, or canceled. In southern Gaza, of the 132 missions, only half were facilitated, with the other half denied access, impeded, or canceled.

International censure of Israel’s war against Hamas has grown steadily in tandem with the death toll and humanitarian crisis in the strip. Still, Israeli officials have repeatedly said that a ground operation in Rafah, where it believes Hamas’s leadership and four battalions of fighters are camped out with Israeli hostages, is necessary for “total victory”.

Friday’s order from the ICJ is binding, but not enforceable. Several countries called on Israel to obey the 13-2 majority decision in the wake of the Rafah strike.
International response

Qatar, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas in attempts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages, said the Rafah casualties would complicate the protracted negotiations. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported later on Monday that Hamas had decided to pull out of the latest proposed talks over what its senior leadership described as a massacre.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "outraged" over Israel's latest attacks. "These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians," he said on X.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the International Court of Justice ruling must be respected.

Over 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive, Gaza's health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs based in the West Bank condemned "the heinous massacre." Egypt also condemned Israel's "deliberate bombing of the tents of displaced people", state media reported, describing it as a blatant violation of international law.

On Monday, the Israeli military said it was investigating reports of an exchange of fire between Israeli and Egyptian soldiers close to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.

Egypt's military spokesperson said that shooting near the Rafah crossing led to the killing of one person and authorities were investigating.

"On top of the hunger, on top of the starvation, the refusal to allow aid in sufficient volumes, what we witnessed last night is barbaric," Ireland's Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said.

Biden's blurred red lines under scrutiny after Rafah carnage

Danny KEMP
Tue, May 28, 2024

US President Joe Biden faces growing domestic and international pressure over Rafah (Mandel NGAN)

Joe Biden's red lines over Israel's assault on Rafah have kept shifting, but the US president faces growing pressure to take a firmer stance after a deadly strike in the Gazan city.

Despite global outrage over the attack in which 45 people were killed, the White House insisted on Tuesday that it did not believe Israel had launched the major operation that Biden has warned against.

John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesman, said that Biden had been consistent and was not "moving the stick" on what defined an all-out military offensive by key ally Israel.

But Biden faces a difficult balancing act both domestically and internationally over Gaza, especially in a year when the 81-year-old Democrat is locked in an election battle with Donald Trump.

"Biden wants to appear tough on Rafah, and has really tried to be stern with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, but in an election year, his red lines are increasingly blurred," Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, told AFP.

"I think he'll continue shifting those lines, ducking and weaving, largely in response to events on the ground."

- 'Smash into Rafah' -

Facing US campus protests over his support for Israel, Biden said earlier this month that he would not supply Israel with weapons for a major military operation in Rafah, and he halted a shipment of bombs.

Yet he has since taken no action even as Israel has stepped up air attacks and, as of Tuesday, moved tanks into central Rafah.

Instead, the White House has largely retreated to arguing about what does, and does not, constitute an invasion.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last week there was "no mathematical formula" and said that "what we're going to be looking at is whether there is a lot of death and destruction."

At the White House on Tuesday, his colleague Kirby faced intense questioning over the Israeli strike, which sparked a fire at a displaced persons camp in which dozes of people burned to death.

Kirby said the deaths were "heartbreaking" and "horrific" but again said there would be no change in policy towards Israel.

"We have not seen them smash into Rafah," he said.

"We have not seen them go in with large units, large numbers of troops, in columns and formations in some sort of coordinated maneuver against multiple targets on the ground."

But internationally the pressure is growing on Biden, a self-described Zionist who has stuck by Netanyahu despite deep disagreements since the war began with the October 7 Hamas attack.

Questions are mounting over how long the United States can tolerate an Israeli assault on Rafah when the International Court of Justice -- the UN's top court, of which both the US and Israel are members -- ordered it to stop.

- 'Balancing act' -

Political pressure is also mounting on Biden at home.

Protests against his support for Israel have roiled university campuses across the United States, while many on the left wing of his Democratic Party also oppose his stance.

Republicans however have assailed Biden over what they say is his faltering support for Israel, with US House Speaker Mike Johnson inviting Netanyahu to address Congress.

"It is indeed a difficult balancing act," Gordon Gray, a former US ambassador who is now a professor at George Washington University, told AFP.

"Threading the proverbial needle -- as the Biden administration is apparently seeking to do -- will only disappoint voters who feel strongly about the issue one way or another."

Gray however said he believed Biden's decades-old support for Israel meant he would unlikely change his position, saying he was a "rare politician who is acting out of genuine conviction rather than for his own electoral benefit."

dk/bjt

US says Israel hasn't breached Biden's 'red line' despite Rafah massacre

President Biden has no plans to change his Israel policy following deadly weekend strike on Gaza's Rafah says White House, adding Washington does not believe Tel Aviv's actions in Rafah amount to full-scale invasion



A view shows a UN vehicle damaged in an Israeli strike in Rafah on May 28, 2024. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled / Photo: Reuters

Israel has not violated President Joe Biden's "red line" for withholding future offensive arms transfers because it has not, and it appears to Washington that Tel Aviv will not launch a full-scale ground invasion into southern Gaza's Rafah city, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Kirby on Tuesday condemned the killing of dozens of civilians as "heartbreaking" and "horrific" from an Israeli air strike in Rafah on the weekend that left nearly 50 Palestinians dead and 250 wounded, but said US is not planning any policy changes as a result of the Israeli actions.

"Everything that we can see tells us that they are not moving into a major ground operation in population centers in the center of Rafah," Kirby said, adding "we certainly condemn the loss of life here."

He added that the US was monitoring the results of Tel Aviv's investigation into the what Israeli government said was a "precision strike".

Shifting narratives from Tel Aviv on the massacre has sparked interest.

Initially, Israeli occupation forces said they carried out "precision strikes" with "precision munitions" on Hamas members in Rafah where displaced Palestinians were taking refuge. After global condemnations, Israeli hawkish PM Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "tragic mistake." Now, Israel claims the civilian killings were the result of a secondary explosion after its strike on two Hamas operatives.

"We understand that this strike did kill two senior Hamas heads who are directly responsible for attacks," Kirby said, appearing to give credit to new Israeli version of the story. "We've also said many times Israel must take every precaution possible to do more to protect innocent life."

The pictures and videos of dismembered and charred bodies, some of them belonging to babies, raised an international hue and cry as tens of thousands of people took to streets in Western cities to protest.

US has not paused arms shipments to Israel

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, meanwhile, told reporters that Israel's weeks-old invasion in Rafah was still on a "far different" scale than the assaults Israeli military waged on other cities in Gaza earlier in the seven-month war.


Miller said he had no direct knowledge of reported accounts from witnesses on the ground on Tuesday that Israeli tanks had entered the centre of Gaza, and noted Israel had denied responsibility for a new Israeli strike outside of Rafah on Tuesday that killed dozens.


Israeli shelling and air strikes killed at least 37 people, most of them sheltering in tents, outside of Rafah overnight and on Tuesday — pummeling the same area where Israeli carried out Sunday's massacre.


Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said she did not know whether it was a US-provided weapon that was used in the deadly Sunday strike that killed the dozens of civilians at a displacement camp.


"I have to refer you to the Israelis to speak to that," Singh said.


Singh said the US has not paused shipments to Israel in the wake of the strike. "Security assistance continues to flow."



TRT WORLD

Most of those fleeing Rafah have poured into a "humanitarian zone" that is centered on al Mawasi, a largely barren strip of coastal land.

Genocidal war

Israel has killed at least 36,096 Palestinians — including babies, children, and women — and wounded 81,136 in its 235-day war on Gaza, while some 10,000+ people are feared buried under the debris of bombed homes.

Israel's bombardment in Rafah has caused more than one million Palestinians to flee, most of whom had already been displaced in the war waged by Israel. They now seek refuge in squalid tent camps and other war-ravaged areas, where they lack shelter, food, water and other essentials for survival, the UN says.

Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the agency known as UNRWA, told a UN press conference on Tuesday that the agency's teams on the ground say heavy Israeli bombardments again took place overnight including in the area north of Rafah home to the UN main offices as well as UNRWA's offices. Most of its staff didn't make it to work and were "packing and moving," she said.

Israel has waged a brutal invasion on Gaza since Hamas' October 7 blitz on Israeli military and settlements that were once Arab villages and farms.

Hamas says its raid that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside Gaza, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza fence.

At some places they are said to have gunned down many soldiers as Israel's military scrambled to muster response.

The hours-long attack and Israeli military's haphazard response resulted in the killing of more than 1,130 people, Israeli officials and local media say.

Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli army says are dead, some of them killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered Tel Aviv to ensure that its forces do not commit acts of genocide and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in the enclave.

In its latest order, breached by Tel Aviv multiple times, the court ruled that Israel should: "Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

SOURCE: TRTWORLD AND AA

IDF releases preliminary results of investigation into Rafah strike - IAF munitions not to blame for fire

Israeli military promises 'investigation will be swift, comprehensive and transparent'

All Israel News Staff | Published: May 28, 2024 

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Palestinians inspect damage after a fire in the Al-Mawasi area, west of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, May 27, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari gave a press conference in English on Tuesday evening, where he reiterated that the Israeli military is investigating the causes of the fire that broke out after the Israeli Air Force (IAF) airstrike that killed two senior Hamas commanders on Sunday night. 

In the briefing, Hagari said the IDF is also investigating the possibility that Hamas weapons stored in the area of the strike were responsible for causing the fire, which spread to an area of tents killing a number of civilians. 

“On Sunday, we eliminated senior Hamas terrorists in a targeted strike, on a compound used by Hamas in Rafah,” Hagari said. “The strike was based on precise intelligence that indicated that these terrorists, who were responsible for orchestrating and executing terror attacks against Israelis, were meeting inside this structure we targeted.” 

Hagari continued, “Sadly, following the strike, due to unforeseen circumstances, a fire ignited, taking the lives of Gazan civilians nearby. Despite our efforts to minimize civilian casualties during the strike, the fire that broke out was unexpected and unintended.” 

Hagari called the deaths of Palestinian civilians a “devastating incident, which we did not expect.” According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, 45 people were killed in the incident. 

Hagari also presented satellite imagery from the site, saying the IDF “targeted a closed structure away from the tent area. There are no tents in the immediate vicinity.” 

“Contrary to reports, we conducted the strike outside the area that we designated as a humanitarian area and called civilians to evacuate to. Our strike was over a kilometer and a half away from the al-Mawasi humanitarian area,” he noted, contradicting reports by the Palestinian Authority and some NGOs that the IAF had struck within al-Mawasi. 

Hagari also denied reports that the IAF used a 2,000-pound bomb. 

“The strike was conducted using two munitions with small warheads, suited for this targeted strike. We are talking about munitions with 17 kilograms (35 lbs) of explosive material,” Hagari explained, stating that “this is the smallest munitions that our jets can use.” 

The United States had previously raised concerns about Israel's use of large munitions in crowded urban conditions.

“Following this strike, a large fire ignited, for reasons still being investigated. Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” Hagari noted. 

Hagari said the IDF is “looking into all possibilities, including the option that weapons stored in a compound next to our target, which we did not know of, may have ignited as a result of the strike.” 

Noting that Hamas has been operating in the Rafah area since Oct. 7, Hagari showed an image of Hamas rocket launchers only 43 meters (about 140 feet) from the location of the strike. He said that Hamas used the launchers in the Oct. 7 attacks. 

The IDF is looking into “footage, documented by Gazans on the night of the strike, posted on social media, which appeared to show secondary explosions,” Hagari added, and said this could indicate “that there may have been weapons in the area.” 

The IDF also released a recording of a phone call in which Gaza residents discussed “the possibility that weapons stored in a nearby compound caught fire.” 

Hagari acknowledged the tragic nature of the incident, saying, “We took a number of steps prior to the strike to avoid civilian casualties. Aerial surveillance, using specific munitions to minimize collateral damage, delaying the attack to further assess the expected civilian presence, and other means.” 

“Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza, which is why we convey deep sorrow for this tragic loss of life.” 

Nikki Haley Visits Israel And Signs Artillery Shells With Callous Messages

Paige Skinner
Tue, May 28, 2024 

Danny Danon, a member of Israel's parliament, and Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visit a home Monday on Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel that had been torched by Hamas. A quarter of Nir Oz residents were killed or kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 in attacks that sparked Israel's retaliatory strikes on Gaza, which have so far left an estimated 35,000 Palestinians dead. 

Maya Alleruzzo/Associated PressMore

Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley visited Israel over Memorial Day weekend and signed her name on Israeli artillery shells as a show of support for the country’s war with Gaza, where an estimated 35,000 Palestinians have been killed so far.

Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, traveled with Danny Danon, a member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to an Israel Defense Forces post and interacted with soldiers serving on the northern border with Lebanon. Danon posted photos on social media of Haley signing the artillery shells and including the messages “Finish them!” and “America loves Israel!”

“This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote on social media, according to Google Translate.

Though it’s not totally clear where the bombs are intended to be used, the move was decried as insensitive as Israel attacks Rafah in its ongoing campaign in Gaza. Airstrikes on Sunday killed an estimated 50 refugees who were sheltering in tents in Rafah after being evacuated from other parts of the Gaza Strip. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the airstrikes “a tragic mistake.”

On Tuesday, Haley posted photos of the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel on social media with the caption, “No other country would accept this, Israel should not either.”

Haley also met Monday with Israeli survivors of the Oct. 7 attack, which left an estimated 1,190 people dead and about 240 taken hostage. She told reporters in Israel that America should not withhold weapons from the nation.

“America needs to do whatever Israel needs and stop telling them how to fight this war,” Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, said. “Until you’ve lived it, you can’t say how to fight it. You’re either a friend or you’re not a friend.”

After dropping out of the 2024 presidential race in March, Haley endorsed former President Donald Trump last week, despite earlier having called Trump “unhinged,” “diminished” and not fit to be president.



Former US presidential candidate visits Sderot, says US must not withhold weapons from Israel

Associated Press Videos
Updated Mon, May 27, 2024 



Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N, said on Monday that the Washington should support Israel and not withhold weapons.

Opinion

Nikki Haley Signs Her Name on Israeli Bombs—Alongside Sick Message

Hafiz Rashid
Tue, May 28, 2024 



Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate turned Trump endorser, spent Memorial Day not commemorating fallen American servicemembers but visiting Israel as it conducts a brutal massacre in Gaza.


On Monday, Haley posted pictures from a visit to southern Israel, where she met with survivors from Hamas’s attack on October 7. Haley told reporters that the United States “needs to do whatever Israel needs and stop telling them how to fight this war.”


She also traveled to Israel’s northern border with a member of the Israeli Knesset, Danny Dannon, who posted pictures to his own X account on Tuesday with the text “Finish them!” The post also included a picture of Haley signing Israeli artillery shells with the message: “Finish them! America loves Israel!”


Tweet screenshot

Dannon’s post also included, in Hebrew, a message alluding to military strikes against southern Lebanon, referencing two Lebanese cities, according to Google Translate.


“This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Dannon wrote.


“The time has come to change the equation—the residents of Tyre and Sidon will evacuate, the residents of the north will return.

“The IDF can win!”

One post from an Israeli peace activist suggested that Haley visited West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

Tweet screenshot

Leaving aside the optics of signing bombs when Israel is facing judgment from the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes in Gaza, appearing to endorse military strikes against another country flies in the face of America’s efforts to avoid a wider war in the Middle East. On Monday, an Israeli strike targeting a motorcycle in southern Lebanon landed outside of a hospital, killing the motorcycle driver and a hospital security guard. But more explicitly, Haley is endorsing Israel’s war in Gaza, which has officially killed at least 36,096 people, including 15,000 children, figures that probably don’t include Israel’s latest assault on Rafah.

Outrage after 45 reportedly killed in Israeli strike near Rafah

DPA
Mon, May 27, 2024 

General view of tents in which displaced Palestinians take refuge in, next to the Egyptian border with the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. An Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah hit tents housing displaced people, Palestinian medics said on 27 May evening. The Palestinian Red Crescent said on X that there were "numerous" people killed and injured in the bombardment north-west of Rafah. 

Abed Rahim Khatib/dpaMore
The Hamas-run health authority in Gaza on Monday said 45 people were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli airstrike that hit tents housing displaced people near the southern city of Rafah.

Most of the victims of the airstrike were women and children, the health authority said, describing the incident as a "massacre."

The information could not initially be independently verified, but the Palestinian Red Crescent earlier said on the social media platform X that there were "numerous" people killed and injured in the bombardment north-west of Rafah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, that Israel was investigating "an incident."

"In Rafah, we have evacuated about one million civilians," Netanyahu said on Monday.

"Tragically, despite our immense efforts to avoid harming non-combatants, an incident occurred yesterday. We are investigating it thoroughly and will learn from it, as is our policy and longstanding conduct."

"For us, any non-combatant hurt is a tragedy, for Hamas, it is a strategy," Netanyahu stated. "That is the core difference."

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said via X that two senior officials of the Palestinian militant group Hamas were killed in the airstrike.

"The strike was carried out against legitimate targets under international law, through the use of precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence that indicated Hamas' use of the area," the IDF said in a statement.

"The IDF is aware of reports indicating that, as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited, several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review," the statement added.

The strike came just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ordered Israel to halt its assault on Rafah.

The incident sparked international horror and outrage.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday, following a request by Algeria supported by Slovenia, diplomats said.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the airstrikes "which killed scores of innocent civilians who were only seeking shelter from this deadly conflict," he wrote on X.

"There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop."

Meanwhile, an exchange of fire between Israeli and Egyptian troops near the border to the Gaza Strip also caused new concerns that the war could escalate.

An Egyptian soldier was killed, an Egyptian military spokesman confirmed on Monday.

It is the first publicly known fatality in the ranks of the Egyptian military since the start of the Gaza war almost eight months ago. Israel's army confirmed an exchange of fire and said the incident was being investigated.

The situation at the Rafah border crossing has become increasingly tense. Israeli troops recently took control of the crossing on the Palestinian side as well as a border strip between Egypt and Gaza.

Aid organizations report dozens dead in Israeli strike

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that the air raid hit a designated humanitarian zone for those who had been forced to evacuate Rafah due to the Israeli fighting.

The aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that a medical facility it supports in the area treated dozens of wounded, while more than 15 dead people were brought to their trauma stabilization point.

"We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe. We continue to call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza," MSF said on X.

Arab countries react angrily

Several Arab countries on Monday condemned the Israeli airstrike.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said the "deliberate bombing of displaced people's tents in the Palestinian city of Rafah" was a "new and blatant violation of the provisions of international law."

Qatar also condemned the attack as a "grave violation of international laws that will aggravate the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Strip."

The Qatari Foreign Ministry expressed concern that the latest strike would complicate ongoing mediation efforts and obstruct a permanent ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas confirmed to dpa that it was suspending ceasefire negotiations which were expected to restart this week.

In separate statements, Jordan and Kuwait condemned "war crimes" committed by Israel in Gaza and urged the international community to compel Israel to adhere to the ICJ ruling on Rafah.

Germany calls strike 'a mistake'

German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said the airstrike was presumably "a mistake" and again defended Israel's "right to defend itself within the framework of international law."

Asked about allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, Hebestreit said that the German government would withhold judgement.

"The conclusion as to whether this is a war crime in terms of international law is something that must be left to lawyers who know the exact facts," Hebestreit said in Berlin.

If there is evidence of such a crime, the German government would certainly condemn it, Hebestreit said.

World leaders condemn Israeli airstrike in Rafah

French President Emmanuel Macron was among the leaders calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and full compliance with international law.

"These operations must stop," wrote an "outraged" Macron on X. "There are no safe zones for Palestinian civilians in Rafah."

The "devastating images" following the attack were "heartbreaking," a US State Department spokesperson said.

"We are actively engaging the IDF and partners on the ground to assess what happened, and understand that the IDF is conducting an investigation."

"We are horrified by strikes that killed Palestinian civilians in Rafah," Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly wrote on X.

"Israel's strikes have had horrific and unacceptable consequences," Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote.

The war in Gaza was triggered by the massacre of more than 1,200 people by terrorists from Hamas and other militant groups on October 7.

Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive. International criticism of Israel has grown as the death toll among Palestinians has increased. It currently stands at over 35,000 people killed, according to Hamas authorities in Gaza.

Palestinians inspect their destroyed tents after an Israeli air strike, which resulted in numerous deaths and injuries, in the Al-Mawasi area, which was bombed with a number of missiles on the tents of displaced people west of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa

Palestinians inspect their destroyed tents after an Israeli air strike, which resulted in numerous deaths and injuries, in the Al-Mawasi area, which was bombed with a number of missiles on the tents of displaced people west of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa
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Egyptian soldier killed in shoot-out with Israeli forces in Gaza

Nataliya Vasilyeva
Mon, May 27, 2024 

Egyptian soldiers at the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. A fatal shoot-out was reported with Israeli forces there - Kerolos Salah/AFP via Getty


An Egyptian soldier was killed and several more injured in a shoot-out with Israeli forces at the border with Gaza in an incident that both parties have tried to play down.

The shooting occurred at the Rafah crossing that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) captured earlier in May.

The Egyptian army was conducting an investigation on Monday afternoon, an army spokesman said.

No Israeli casualties were reported.

The Rafah border crossing. Authorities are investigating the fatal shooting of an Egyptian soldier - Yousef Masoud/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

Israeli media initially reported that the shoot-out started from the Egyptian side which triggered an Israeli response.

The Al Araby news channel, however, insisted that Israeli soldiers opened fire first.

The IDF said on Monday it was looking into the incident and consulting with the Egyptians.


It comes after an Israeli air strike on Sunday night hit a tent camp full of displaced Palestinians in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah, killing scores, including women and children.

The shoot-out could further sour the relations between Israel and Egypt as Cairo recently indicated that it is considering downgrading ties with its neighbour over the war in Gaza.

Egyptian officials, however, stopped short of saying that they would be reviewing the peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of regional security.

The border fence at Rafah, where there are tense scenes as Israeli forces hunt for terrorists - Haitham Imad/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The Rafah crossing was the crucial lifeline for delivering aid into Gaza before it was shut down following the Israeli capture of the area.

The traffic jam on the Egyptian side was recently reported to be stretching for 28 miles.

Israel subsequently said it was ready to allow it to open but Egypt insisted that it would not agree for the crossing to operate unless it was under Palestinian control.

Israeli media reported that Israel was looking for a temporary solution to reopen Rafah including bringing in foreign security companies to run it.