![]() | A request that this article title be changed to Kuwait Peace Camp airstrike is under discussion . Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed. |
Tel al-Sultan attack | |
---|---|
Part of the Rafah offensive, attacks on refugee camps during the Gaza war, and the Gaza genocide | |
![]() The ensuing fire at the tent camp | |
Location within the Gaza Strip | |
Location | Kuwaiti Peace Camp I, Tel al-Sultan, Rafah, Gaza Strip |
Coordinates | 31°19′10″N34°15′6″E / 31.31944°N 34.25167°E |
Date | 26 May 2024 ~20:45 (UTC+02:00) |
Attack type | Airstrikes |
Deaths | 45–50 Palestinians [1] [2] [a] 4 Hamas members [5] |
Injured | 200+ civilians 1 Hamas commander |
Perpetrators | ![]() |
On 26 May 2024, the Israeli Air Force bombed a displacement camp in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah. The attack, which set the camp on fire, killed between 45 and 50 Palestinians and injured more than 200. Sometimes referred to as the Rafah tent massacre or as the Tent Massacre (Arabic : مجزرة الخيم, romanized: Majzarat al-khiyam), it was the deadliest incident of the Rafah offensive.
When Israel invaded Rafah and ordered the evacuation of its east, some citizens fled to other parts of the city, like Tel al-Sultan, seeking safety. One week before the bombing, Israel had designated the neighborhood as a "safe zone" and dropped leaflets instructing Palestinians to move there. Two days before the attack, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its offensive, but Israel interpreted the order differently and continued its operations.
On the night of the attack, Israel struck the neighborhood with two U.S. made GBU-39 glide bombs. The bombs ignited a fire in the "Kuwaiti Peace" tent camp; many civilians were trapped and burned alive. [6] Israel killed two commanders and two militants and injured one commander. It claimed it attacked an outside "Hamas compound" and accidentally set off the fire. However, videos and satellite images showed that the location of the airstrike was inside the refugee camp itself, and some sources alleged Israel deliberately targeted civilians. Military analysts stated that bombs used by Israel have a large effect radius, and therefore should not have been used in a densely populated civilian area. An investigation by Amnesty International concluded that militants were in the camp, but that Israel knowingly put civilians at risk. Images of the attack spread internationally, described as "some of the worst" of the war.
After evacuation orders were issued by Israel during the Israel-Hamas war, many areas of Gaza became depopulated, with refugees primarily traveling to Rafah. Rafah became dense and overcrowded, with over 1.4 million civilians sheltering in the area. [7] However, when Israel first invaded the city, it ordered the eastern neighborhoods evacuated. An estimated 950,000 civilians fled, going to other parts of southern Gaza designated as safe, including parts of Rafah. [2] [8] [9]
Two days before the attack, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt the Rafah offensive. [10] [11] [12] However, Israel interpreted the order as merely to comply with international law, not necessarily stop the offensive, and continued. [11] The Euro-Med Monitor reported that in the 48 hours since the order was issued, Israel had launched over 60 airstrikes in the city. [13] The attack came shortly after Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv, the first salvo fired at the city since approximately late January 2024. [14] The IDF said eight rockets were fired from the Rafah area, though were intercepted. [15]
Many sources reported that the area that Israel attacked had previously been designated by Israel as a "safe zone". [16] [17] CBC News showed pictures of Israeli leaflets that read: [18]
For your safety, the Israeli Defence Force is asking you to leave these areas immediately and to go to known shelters in Deir el Balah or the humanitarian area in Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road. And don't blame us after we warned you. [18]
NPR reported that Israeli leaflets urging civilians to evacuate to Tel al-Sultan had been dropped one week before the bombing. [19] Witnesses speaking to Agence France Press confirmed they only came to Tel al-Sultan on instructions from IDF leaflets. [20] Abed Mohammed Al-Attar, whose family would later be killed in the attack, said the Israeli forces had told residents that this area was a safe zone. [16] The Palestinian Red Crescent Society stated that the location had been designated by Israel as a "humanitarian area" and it was not included in areas that Israel's military ordered evacuated earlier this month. [21] [22]
In addition to being designated as a safe zone, there was a question of whether the attack also fell inside the "al-Mawasi humanitarian zone" as announced by Israel. Under the original boundaries, as announced by Israel on 6 December 2023, the attack took place inside the zone. [23] On 6 May, Israel changed the boundaries of this zone. Under the new boundaries, the attack took place outside the humanitarian zone, a fact that was emphasized by the IDF on 27 May. [24] However, Forensic Architecture states that the 6 May change was not effectively communicated to Gazans, including those who had already sought refuge there. [23] Satellite imagery confirmed that new tents continued to be built in this area from 6 to 26 May, indicating Palestinian civilians were unaware that Israel had changed the zone's borders. [23]
On the night of 26 May, Israeli fighter jets struck the "Kuwaiti Peace" tent camp in Tel al-Sultan. [25] The camp was noted to be 200 metres (660 ft) from the largest UNRWA humanitarian aid storage warehouse in the Gaza Strip. [26] [27] [28] Multiple people were killed and injured in the initial explosion. [29] Witnesses reported "a deadly hail of shrapnel, then the sound of screaming". [29] A dead woman was later found with shrapnel in her lungs and heart. [29]
A witness said that he heard an explosion, walked out of his house, and saw smoke in a nearby street. [4] Survivors of the attack said it "burned people alive" and destroyed an entire block. [30] The Palestine Red Crescent Society said civilians were trapped in the flames. A video verified by NBC News showed Palestinians screaming for help in tents "engulfed by flames" with civil defense crews attempting to stop the fire and rescue people. Other videos displayed burnt corpses, including one of a decapitated child. Paramedics later retrieved these bodies. [31] [32]
It was the deadliest incident of the Rafah offensive. [33] The attack was described as a massacre by multiple media outlets, [34] [35] some of whom referred to it as the Rafah tent massacre [b] or the tent massacre. [39] [40] [41] [c] Israel stated it had targeted a Hamas compound and killed two senior Hamas commanders: the West Bank Chief of Staff Yassin Rabia and senior official Khaled Nagar, "in accordance with international law". [30] John Kirby stated that Hamas confirmed the deaths of the two commanders. [42] However, witnesses speaking to Mondoweiss and CNN said that no militants were found in the camp. [43] [44]
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM), stated the attack killed at least 45 people, and ActionAid UK said it killed 50. [1] [2] The GHM said that among the fatalities were at least 12 women, eight children, and three elderly. [3] Doctors Without Borders said that dozens of civilians were injured, [45] with the GHM eventually confirming 65 injuries. [46] It later raised the number of injuries to over 200. [15] Victims of the attack were rushed to the Emirati Hospital, [47] but the GHM said that Rafah hospitals didn't have enough resources to deal with the number of injured people. [15] The only hospital in Rafah had eight beds and no intensive care units. [48]
The attack drew multiple independent investigations and analyses from media outlets [29] and military analysts. [49] [50] Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and others concluded that Israel deliberately targeted civilians in the attack. [51] [52] Israel also investigated the incident, saying it was a "tragic mishap". [53] A panel of UN experts said Israel bears responsibility for its actions and calling it a "mistake" after the fact does not make the attack legal. [54] The experts said the Israeli attack was both indiscriminate and disproportionate. [54]
Israel said the target of the attack was a "Hamas compound" with two senior Hamas officials, whom it identified as Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar. [55] The IDF said they believed "there were no civilians" in the compound. [56] IDF had earlier released surveillance footage that showed four people standing outside the structure the IDF said they targeted, raising questions on whether they knew of civilians nearby and accepted them as collateral damage. [57] Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated the IDF struck a "dense" area. [56]
Satellite image analysis by India Today located the site of the airstrike to "Kuwait Peace Camp", leading the newspaper to conclude "satellite images show Israel targeting Rafah refugee camps". [58] The Washington Post analyzed satellite imagery and found "more than a dozen tent-like structures" around the tin structures targeted. [59] The Guardian located the attack to the "edge of rows of tents" of the Kuwaiti camp, and quoted a resident who said this location was "a medical point surrounded by a lot of tents, in an area with more than 4,000 people". [29] A New York Times investigation concluded that Israel directly struck the camp, saying the metal structures targeted were part of the camp and intended for civilian use. [60] In June, NBC News said that analysis of the attack and interviews with survivors indicated that Israeli commanders should have known there were civilians in the area of the strike. [61] Al Jazeera's fact checking agency concluded the strike deliberately targeted the camp. [51] The Palestinian Authority, [52] Egypt, [62] witnesses [51] and multiple humanitarian groups also said Israel deliberately targeted the refugee camp. [63] [64] An investigation by Amnesty International found that Yassin Rabia, commander Khuweiled Ramadan, and at least two other Hamas militants were killed, while Khaled Nagar was only injured. It stated that, "Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were located in the internally-displaced persons’ camp, a location which displaced people believed was a designated 'humanitarian zone', with fighters knowingly endangering the lives of civilians." However, it noted that "By using explosive munitions with wide-area effects in a displaced-persons' camp when smaller area effect munitions were available, the Israeli military is likely to have failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimise incidental harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects." Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director of Amnesty, said that "The Israeli military would have been fully aware that the use of bombs that project deadly shrapnel across hundreds of metres and unguided tank shells would kill and injure a large number of civilians sheltering in overcrowded settings lacking protection." [5]
Analyses of video footage by The New York Times and CNN showed that the munition was a variant on the US-made precision guided GBU-39 bomb (sometimes called a missile), [57] though the exact variant was unclear. [65] The GBU-39 is a 250 pounds (110 kg) bomb with an explosive weight of 17 kilograms (37 lb). [66] Israel said it fired two missiles equipped with 17 kilograms (37 lb) of explosives each. Mark Cancian, a Marine Corps Reserves colonel, said the large debris field indicated the bombs appear to be programmed to detonate in the air before impact. [49] This decision by the IDF would increase the probability that the targets were killed but it would also maximize area damage and risk unintended deaths. [49]
Israel stated the use of precision munitions was as an effort to minimize civilian casualties, however, other military experts doubted this. [57] The 250-lb GBU-39 produces less collateral damage than the 2,000 lb bombs Israel had been previously using in the bombing of the Gaza Strip. [66] The Biden administration had pushed Israel away from using 2,000 lbs and towards using more 250-lb precision ones. [66] But even smaller and precision-guided munitions like GBU-39 can inflict "severe civilian casualties" if used improperly. [66] The blast from a GBU-39 can kill or injure anyone in a 1,000 feet (300 m) radius, [67] and shrapnel from the bomb shell travel as far as 2,000 feet (610 m). [49]
USAF sergeant Wes J. Bryant, who has experience using the GBU-39, said munition is not meant to be near civilian encampments and the US military would not have used the bomb given that civilians were in the "effects radius". [68] The fact that Israel used it in a densely populated civilian area indicated "either an unwillingness or inability to effectively safeguard civilians". [57] Trevor Ball, a United States Army explosives technician, said the bombs' fragments can travel up to 600 meters, concluding "so that just doesn't check out if they're trying to limit casualties". [49] Amnesty International stated that, given the large kill radius of the GBU-39 bomb, its usage in a densely populated civilian area constituted an indiscriminate attack, and therefore should be investigated as a war crime. [5]
Many of those killed were burned alive by the fire that ensued. [6] The IDF said the fire was "unexpected", [69] adding "[o]ur munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size." [50] Frederic Gras, a French munitions analyst, questioned this reasoning, arguing "any explosion starts a fire as soon as flammable products are in the vicinity." [50] Likewise, a U.S. Army bomb diffusing expert said "a bomb of any size" can start a fire, as explosives release a lot of heat that can cause materials found in camps to catch on fire. [70] Multiple sources pointed out that refugee camps typically contain flammable material, such as cooking gas canisters which could have been ignited by the airstrike. [29] [69] An investigation by Amnesty International determined the likely cause of the fire was cooking fuel stored in the tent camp. [5]
On 27 May, Israeli officials initially told their American counterparts that they believed the fire was caused by shrapnel from the strike igniting a nearby fuel tank. [71] [72] The same day, an unnamed Gazan narrator said the explosion was caused by a "Hamas jeep loaded with weapons". [73] Later, the IDF suggested that a militant warehouse containing ammunition or "some other material" in the area caused the fire. It also released an Arabic phone call, supposedly made by Hamas, in which the speakers say that the Israeli missile was not responsible for the fire, that the fire was caused by secondary explosions, and the secondary explosions came from an ammunition warehouse. [74] However, James Cavanaugh, who worked at the ATF, said the fire did not indicate "some giant stash that exploded." [69] The New York Times reviewed numerous videos and did not find evidence of a significant secondary explosion. [60]
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad condemned the attack, labeling it a massacre and calling for the Palestinian people to "rise up and march" against Israel. [30] A spokesperson for the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority condemned the incident, calling it a massacre [75] and called for an intervention. [76] [77] A survivor of the attack stated, "They told us that this area is safe... but now there is no safe place in Gaza. There are massacres everywhere." [78] A lawyer with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights stated the attack showed Israel was ignoring the International Court of Justice's interim orders. [79]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the incident was a "tragic mishap". [80] Initially, the Israeli military said the attack was "under review", [45] while its top military prosecutor Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi called the incident "very grave". [81] Some Israelis celebrated the attack, likening it to the Jewish holiday Lag BaOmer, in which bonfires are lit to commemorate a second century Rabbi. The analogy was made by Israel's Channel 14 senior journalist Yinon Magal, who posted pictures on social media captioned: "The main lighting of the year in Rafah" and by i24NEWS' Naveh Dromi commenting "Happy Holiday." Both posts were later removed. The comparison was also made by far-right rapper Yoav Eliasi, who posted videos on Telegram in celebration of the attack and also likened it to the holiday. Some Israeli social media users also shared memes and jokes about the attack, while others condemned the posts. [82] [83] [84]
In Netanyahu's 2024 speech to the United States Congress, he said that a commander in Rafah told him that practically no civilians had been killed in the offensive, except for in the attack, which they described as "a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people". CNN noted that there were other strikes on Rafah that killed civilians, including that week. [85]
Al-Jazeera said the attack "re-ignited" protests in support of Palestinians during the war, citing protests in Lebanon, Europe, and the United States. [86]
A British doctor in Rafah said that videos of the attack were "truly some of the worst that I have seen". [121]
Following the attack, several aid organisations in this part of the city were forced to close their operations and move them to other parts of the Gaza Strip, including the Al Quds field hospital run by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, a clinic supported by Doctors Without Borders and kitchens run by the World Central Kitchen. [122] [64] [123]
At United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken's last press conference in 2025, a journalist interrupted him and shouted "Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May? We all knew we had a deal. Everyone in this room knows we had a deal, Tony, and you kept the bombs flowing", likely referring to the bombing. [124]
It was widely viewed as an unambiguous statement: The top United Nations court ordered Israel to immediately halt its military assault on Rafah
They dropped leaflets asking us to go to the humanitarian zone in Tal al-Sultan, so we complied and came here," Abu Muhammad, who was displaced from north Gaza five months ago, told AFP.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Palestinian refugees in Rafah after the tent massacre in which 30 of them were killed
The Tel al-Sultan camp in Rafah would become the site of what is now known as the "tent massacre" — named for the very shelters Abu Nasser left behind.
"All those that were killed were civilians. No one was a fighter," he said.
We did not find anything," he adds. "There was nothing that would require bombing. All we found were dismembered children, charred bodies, and scattered organs. We put them in blankets and took them out.
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.
Israel struck again, dropping two 250-pound bombs on temporary structures in the camp.", "The Times investigation found that Israel bombed targets inside a camp that had existed for months, sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the war.", "One of the organizations that ran the facility, Al-Salam Association for Humanitarian and Charitable Works, confirmed that the structures were part of the camp."
Egypt deplored what it called the "targeting of defenseless civilians"