Several countries and global organisations have condemned the Israeli air attack on tents housing displaced people in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah that killed at least 40 Palestinians, including many children.
The Palestinian presidency on Monday accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, joining a chorus of worldwide condemnation following the attack.
“The perpetration of this heinous massacre by the Israeli occupation forces is a challenge to all international legitimacy resolutions,” the Palestinian presidency said in a statement, accusing Israeli forces of “deliberately targeting” the tents of displaced people.
Palestinian witnesses and Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad said the camp sheltering civilians in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan area was deliberately targeted.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territory, described Israel’s attack on the tent camp in Rafah as “unacceptable”. In a post on X, she wrote, “The #GazaGenocide will not easily end without external pressure: Israel must face sanctions, justice, suspension of agreements, trade, partnership and investments, as well as participation in int’l forums.”
Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said the bombing of Rafah was “one more day with innocent Palestinian civilians being killed”. He said the gravity of the attack “is even larger” because it comes after the ICJ order directing Israel to halt its operation in Rafah and the rest of Gaza.
The African Union Commission under Moussa Mahamat Faki, said the ICJ order must be “urgently enforced if global order is to prevail”. He wrote in X: “With horrific overnight airstrikes killing mostly Palestinian women & children trapped in a displacement camp in Rafah, the State of Israel continues to violate international law with impunity and in contempt of an ICJ ruling two days ago ordering an end to its military action in Rafah.”