World reacts with horror after massacre in Rafah, emergency UN meeting called (2024)

Israel faced a wave of international condemnation Monday, May 27, over a strike that Gaza officials said killed 45 people when it set off a fire that ripped through a tent city for displaced Palestinians. Israel said it was looking into the "tragic accident" and its impact on civilians after the latest mass casualty event in the Gaza war, which has raged since October 7.

Adding to already heightened tensions since Israel launched a ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in early May, the Israeli and Egyptian militaries reported a "shooting incident" Monday that killed one Egyptian guard in the border area between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip. Both forces said they were investigating.

Israel's military said Sunday evening's attack in the southern Rafah area had targeted and killed two senior Hamas operatives – but it also sparked a fire that Palestinians and many Arab countries condemned as a "massacre."

A US National Security Council spokesperson said Israel "must take every precaution possible to protect civilians." The Israeli military said it was launching a probe.

'Horror must stop'

"There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres posted on social media, as diplomats said the UN Security Council will convene Tuesday in an emergency session to discuss the attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government was investigating the "tragic accident" which he told parliament occurred "despite our best efforts" to protect civilians.

Relatives of captives held in Gaza, who have increased pressure on Netanyahu's government demanding action to secure a hostage release deal, heckled him from the public gallery as he was speaking, and raised posters of their loved ones.

Israel launched the attack on Rafah late Sunday, hours after Hamas unleashed a barrage of rockets at the Tel Aviv area, most of which were intercepted. Israel's army said its aircraft "struck a Hamas compound in Rafah" and killed Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, senior officials for the militant group in the occupied West Bank.

Gaza's civil defense agency said the strike ignited a fire that tore through a displacement center in northwestern Rafah near a facility of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

"We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs ... We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly," said civil defense agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir.

'Defenseless civilians'

The Israeli attack sparked strong protests from mediators Egypt and Qatar, as well as from other regional governments.

Egypt deplored the "targeting of defenseless civilians," calling it part of "a systematic policy aimed at widening the scope of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip to make it uninhabitable." Jordan accused Israel of "ongoing war crimes", Saudi Arabia condemned "the continued massacres," and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed "to hold these barbarians and murderers accountable."

Qatar condemned a "dangerous violation of international law" and voiced "concern that the bombing will complicate ongoing mediation efforts" towards a truce. The African Union chair Moussa Faki Mahamat said on X that "Israel continues to violate international law... in contempt of an ICJ ruling two days ago ordering an end to its military action in Rafah."

The top UN court, the International Court of Justice, on Friday ordered Israel to halt any offensive in Rafah and elsewhere that could bring about "the physical destruction" of the Palestinians.

10,000 march in Paris

About 10,000 people took part in a demonstration near the Israeli embassy in Paris on Monday against Israel's deadly shelling of the Gaza city of Rafah.

The demonstration gathered a few hundred meters from the embassy in the center of the French capital before protesters chanted "We are all Gaza children," "Free Gaza" and other pro-Palestinian slogans.

"It is a massacre too many," said François Rippe of the Association France-Palestine Solidarity group that organized the rally, which the Paris police service said involved about 10,000 people. "They start a fire in a camp for displaced, they burn people and we (France) don't even summon the Israeli ambassador to ask for an account. It is just not acceptable," Rippe added.

One large banner at the rally showed presidents Emmanuel Macron of France Joe Biden of the United States and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the slogan "it is humanity they are assassinating." France and the United States have condemned the Israeli attack.