International
At least 45 dead in an Israeli attack on a camp for displaced people in Rafah
At least 45 people have been killed in a bombing of a refugee camp in Rafah (south of Gaza) last night, according to the Ministry of Health of the enclave, controlled by Hamas.
The attack confirmed by the Israeli Army was perpetrated in a “safe zone” of Rafah, three days after the International Court of Justice ordered the end of the Israeli Army’s military offensive in that city in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip in the face of the risk of genocide.
Of the 45 deaths counted in the massacre, twenty-three are women, children or the elderly.
“Another atrocious massacre was committed by Israeli forces in Rafah, which has so far claimed the lives of fifty martyrs and dozens of wounded, most of them children and women,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by Hamas.
For its part, the Israeli Army confirmed the attack of its aviation in the Tal al Sultan area, “based on precise intelligence” and directed against two senior officials of the Islamist Hamas group. Specifically, the commander of his division for the West Bank, Yassin Rabia; and another high command of that same division, Khaled Nagar.
“The Hamas wing in Judea and Samaria (occupied West Bank) is responsible for the planning, financing and execution of terrorist attacks throughout Judea and Samaria and within Israel,” said a military statement about that attack in Tal al Sultan, a Rafah neighborhood that Israeli forces had not yet ordered to be evacuated and that welcomed hundreds of displaced people.
An hour later, the chief prosecutor of the Israeli Army, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, acknowledged that the bombing of the evacuee camp in Rafah was “very serious.”
In an intervention before Israel’s lawyers, Yerushalmi announced that the armed forces are carrying out an investigation.
“Naturally, in a war of such scope and intensity, complex incidents also occur,” he said. “Some of the incidents, such as last night in Rafah, are very serious.”
Images disseminated on Palestinian social networks show a large fire caused by the aerial bombardment of the provisional tents in Tal al Sultan.
“Never before in history have such a large number of mass killing tools been used in front of the world as is happening now in Gaza, where the population is deprived of water, food, medicines, electricity and fuel, crushing the infrastructure and destroying all institutions,” denounced the Ministry of Health of Gaza.
According to their data, the deaths in Gaza reached 36,050 on Monday, after 66 people died from Israeli fire in the last 24 hours, 45 of them in the bombing in Rafah.
This attack was recorded hours after Hamas launched from that point in the Strip, according to the Army, eight rockets into central Israel, including Tel Aviv, for the first time in about four months, which did not cause serious damage or injuries.
The spokesman for the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Nabil Abu Rudeina, condemned this “deliberate attack by the occupying army” on tents of displaced people in Rafah, causing a “massacre that has exceeded all limits and requires urgent intervention to immediately stop these crimes against the Palestinian people.”
In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians have taken to the streets in various cities, including in hot spots such as Yenin or Tulkarem, in protest against this attack.
Numerous countries and international organizations have condemned the attack against a “safe zone” of Rafah that the Israeli Army had not yet ordered to evacuate.
Iran has described it as a war crime, while Egypt and Qatar, key mediators for a truce in Gaza, have expressed their concern about the possibility that it “complicates efforts” for a humanitarian pause.
For their part, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have denounced that it has been “a bloody night” and “terrifying.”
In Brussels, representatives of humanitarian organizations placed a red ribbon on Monday in front of the community institutions in Brussels, where the Council of Foreign Ministers of the European Union is held today, to represent the “red lines” crossed by Israel in its offensive in Gaza and to ask for sanctions from European leaders.
Before that meeting, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security, Josep Borrell, revealed to the press that today he will propose to the Twenty-seven to relaunch the community border assistance mission in Rafah.
The German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, has warned Israel that it will not achieve its safety “if people are burned in tents.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the death of civilians last night in an Israeli attack on a camp for displaced persons in Rafah, in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip, is a “tragic mishap.”
“We are investigating the case, that is our policy. For us, every damage to uninvolved civilians is a tragedy,” Netanyahu said at an audience in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) with families of hostages about the war in the Strip, which adds up to more than 36,000 deaths, more than 70% civilians.
The Egyptian Army confirmed on Monday that a person died during an exchange of fire with Israeli forces at the Rafah border crossing, which connects the Egyptian Sinai with the Gaza Strip, an unusual incident that the authorities of both countries say they are investigating.
“The Egyptian Armed Forces are investigating, through the competent authorities, the incident with shooting at the border line in Rafah, which caused the martyrdom of a member in charge of security,” the Egyptian Army said in a brief statement without providing further details.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) previously reported in another brief statement about a “shooting on the border with Egypt” that is being “the subject of an investigation,” while indicating that the Israeli authorities are “maintaining a dialogue with the Egyptian side.”
Eyewitnesses at the Rafah crossing at the time of the incident informed EFE that the Israeli shots reached the Egyptian side of the land crossing, taken by Israeli forces weeks ago in the midst of operations against the Palestinian town of the same name, where a large part of the displaced by the war are overcrowded.
Two Egyptian military and security sources also confirmed to EFE that after the “exchange of fire between Egyptian and Israeli soldiers,” whose details did not transcend, the security forces cordoned off the vicinity of the crossing.
“Egyptian soldiers fired at members of the Israeli army, without causing casualties. But the forces of the occupying army (Israel) responded by firing as a warning,” added the military source, who asked not to be identified.
In his account, the Egyptian security source indicated that the Israeli troops “fled after the shooting” and that the exchange “has not continued.”
“All Israeli forces withdrew from the confrontation zone at the Rafah border crossing in the Palestinian part,” they added.
The source added that this exchange of fire “is due to the tension between Tel Aviv and Cairo” for this morning’s attack on a camp for displaced people in Rafah, where about fifty people died in a fire that broke out after the bombing, according to Israel’s first investigations.
At least 135 trucks loaded only with food entered from Egypt into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, after a first convoy of 125 vehicles entered yesterday, which did include fuel and medical supplies, Egyptian Red Crescent sources reported.
This is the second shipment with hundreds of tons of food that enters for the second consecutive day from Egyptian territory to the corridor that leads to Kerem Shalom, where they are inspected by Israel before accessing the Palestinian enclave.
Yesterday, Egypt sent for the first time 125 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies, as well as fuel, to Gaza through this point since Israel took the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing twenty days ago, in the south of the enclave and bordering the Sinai peninsula.
International
Pope Francis meets former Gaza hostages
Pope Francis met on Thursday at the Vatican with 16 Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza for months by the Islamist group Hamas, according to the official Vatican news website.
The group consisted of ten women, four men, and two children, as reported by the same source. Several of the former hostages showed the Argentine pontiff banners or photos of their loved ones who remain in captivity.
Francis had previously met with the families of hostages in April this year and November 2023, but this was the first time he had met with individuals who had personally endured captivity.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began, the pope has repeatedly called for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, while also condemning the suffering of the Palestinian population.
The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Islamist militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,206 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died in captivity.
Of the kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, but the Israeli military estimates that 34 of them have died.
The military offensive launched by Israel in response has killed at least 43,736 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-governed territory.
International
Israeli airstrikes on Damascus kill 15 and injure 16, including women and children
Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on residential buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and its surroundings on Thursday, resulting in at least 15 deaths and 16 injuries, according to Syria’s Ministry of Defense and state television.
The ministry stated that around 3:20 p.m. local time (12:20 GMT), the Israeli military launched an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeting several residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighborhood in western Damascus and the Qudsaya suburb to the northwest of the capital.
The airstrikes “resulted in the death of 15 people and injuries to 16 others, including women and children,” based on initial estimates, in addition to significant damage to private property and civilian buildings, the ministry added.
Meanwhile, state television reported Israeli airstrikes on three buildings in Mazzeh and another on a building in an educational complex located in a residential area of Qudsaya.
Following the strikes, loud explosions were heard throughout the city, and thick plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted locations. Ambulances and emergency services rushed to the scene to attend to the victims.
International
Drug trafficker dies after boat collision with Guardia Civil Vessel in Sanlúca
Three people were on the boat that collided with a Guardia Civil vessel around midnight at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, near the Andalusian city of Cádiz, a spokesperson for the Civil Guard reported.
Two officers sustained “contusions,” the spokesperson explained.
The drug traffickers managed to bring the boat to shore, where one of them was “abandoned” severely injured. The other two fled.
The Civil Guard officers attempted to resuscitate the victim before transporting him to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but he ultimately died early in the morning.
The other two suspects took advantage of the officers’ absence while they were taking the victim and returned to set their boat on fire.
The collision occurred very close to the site of another accident on September 1, where a drug trafficker died following a Guardia Civil pursuit.
The suspects’ boat traveled “400 meters” before crashing head-on and “at full speed” into the riverbank, where a hundred bundles of hashish were found.
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