Israel’s Rafah Tents Massacre, Yet Another Heinous War Crime

Just when we thought we couldn’t see anything more heinous in its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has plumbed greater depths of savagery by bombing Rafah, killing dozens. When will this madness end?

By Seraj Assi, Jacobin

It was one of the most heinous assaults on Palestinian civilians in recent memory. Last night, Israeli forces pounded a tent camp housing displaced people in a designated safe zone in north Rafah, killing at least forty-five Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injuring hundreds others.

Media reports show that Israel blitzed the tent camp where Palestinian refugees were sheltering in tents with seven massive US bombs weighing two thousand pounds each. The bombarded refugee tents, marked as Block 2371, had been designated by Israel as a “safe area” for civilians.

Widely circulated footage shows a night of unspeakable horror: bodies burned to ashes, charred and blackened beyond recognition; beheaded children, decapitated and ripped apart by US bombs; parents clutching their dead and burned children, screaming in horror; rescuers pulling people’s charred remains from the burning tents; wounded victims transferred to the hospital with horrific and gruesome injuries. Horrifying footage shows a man holding up what appeared to be the body of a small child who had been beheaded.