Israeli Strikes On Tent Camps Near Rafah Kill At Least 25, Wound 50 Palestinians

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces shelled tent camps for displaced Palestinians outside Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding another 50, according to the territory’s health officials and emergency workers.

This was the latest deadly attack in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands have fled fighting between Israel and Hamas. It comes less than a month after an Israeli bombing triggered a deadly fire that tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, drawing widespread international outrage — including from some of Israel’s closest allies — over the military’s expanding offensive into Rafah.

Witnesses whose relatives died in one of the bombardments near a Red Cross field hospital north of Rafah told The Associated Press that Israeli forces fired a second volley that killed people who came out of their tents.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the hospital was flooded with casualties, including 22 dead and 45 wounded, and condemned the firing of “high-caliber projectiles” a few meters (yards) from the facility. Hundreds of people live in tents nearby, including many of the hospital staff, the ICRC said.

According to Ahmed Radwan, a spokesperson for Civil Defense first responders in Rafah, witnesses told rescue workers about Friday’s shelling at two locations in a coastal area that has become filled with makeshift tents. The Health Ministry in Gaza reported the number of people killed and wounded in the attacks.

The locations of the attacks provided by the Civil Defense and the Red Cross hospital appear to be just outside an Israeli-designated safe zone on the Mediterranean coast, known as Muwasi. The Israeli military said the