Dozens killed in Israeli strike on Rafah

RAFAH, May 27 (BBC): At least 45 people have been killed, including women and children, in an Israeli air strike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Videos from the scene in the Tal al-Sultan area on Sunday night showed a large explosion and intense fires burning.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had killed two senior Hamas officials and that it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed as a result of the strike and fire it ignited.

Hours earlier, Hamas had fired eight rockets from Rafah towards Tel Aviv - the first long-range attacks on the central Israeli city since January.

Some 800,000 people have fled Rafah since the start of an Israeli ground operation there three weeks ago, but hundreds of thousands are still believed to be sheltering there.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Sunday's air strike targeted tents for displaced people near a UN facility in Tal al-Sultan, about 2km (1.2 miles) north-west of the centre of Rafah.

Graphic footage showed a number of structures ablaze next to a banner saying "Kuwaiti Peace Camp '1'", as well as first responders and bystanders carrying several bodies.

"We were sitting at the door of the house safely. Suddenly we heard the sound of a missile," witness Fadi Dukhan told Reuters news agency. "We ran and found the street covered in smoke," he said, adding that he and others saw a girl and a young man who had been killed by the blast.

Abed Mohammed al-Attar said his brother and sister-in-law were killed, leaving their children as orphans. "The [Israeli] army is a liar. There is no security in Gaza. There is no security, not for a child, an elderly man, or a woman," he said.

The IDF said in a statement on Sunday that it had carried out an air strike in Tal al-Sultan that eliminated two Hamas leaders - Yassin Rabia, the chief of staff of the armed group's fighters in the occupied West Bank, and Khaled Nagar, another senior official in the West Bank wing.

"The IDF is aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review," the statement added.

An initial statement insisted that the strike was "carried out against legitimate targets under international law, using precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence that indicated Hamas' use of the area".

Israeli government spokesman Avi Hyman told the BBC: "It appears from initial reports that somehow a fire broke out, and that sadly took the lives of others."

In a speech, the IDF's advocate-general - who is charged with making sure the military acts in accordance with the law - described the incident in Rafah as "very difficult" and said it "regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians during the war".