Middle East and Africa | Horrors in Rafah

Outrage at a strike in Rafah is unlikely to change policy

America has already said the incident does not cross its red lines

TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT
Photograph: Getty Images
|JERUSALEM

Only one detail of the events of the night of May 26th is undisputed: dozens of people were killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah. Palestinians say that several large bombs were used to target a camp of civilians, uprooted from other parts of war-torn Gaza. The Israel Defence Forces (idf) acknowledge there was a strike but claim they used two smaller missiles to target two senior Hamas men who were killed. The additional deaths, they insist, were caused by secondary explosions—a vehicle carrying explosives or a fuel truck—that they had not foreseen.

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This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Horrors in Rafah”

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