Airstrike on Hamas Terror Leaders Was Kilometer from Rafah Refugee Camps, IDF Says

The initial investigation of the precision airstrike in northern Rafah on Monday, May 27, has not definitively identified the cause of the fatal fire, in which dozens of displaced Gazans were killed.

The Southern Command submitted to IDF Chief of Staff Major General Herzi Halevi on Monday night the findings of the initial investigation of the incident in which two senior officers from the Judea and Samaria Hamas headquarters, who were in the town of Tel al-Sultan near Rafah, were killed in an Israeli Air Force attack.

Halevi requested additional information and data, and the investigation is expected to continue, but from the initial findings that the IDF is now also presenting to the foreign media, it appears that the point of the attack was defined as an area from which Hamas carried out terrorist operations; Some 47 meters from the point of attack there was a Hamas rocket launcher, and a kilometer separated the safe zone that the IDF had set up for the displaced and the point of attack.

It also appears that the two men who were eliminated were inside a closed complex and not in the nearby internally displaced persons camp being used by civilians.

In the attack, the Air Force used weapons that have been used hundreds of times in recent months - two small missiles launched from fighter jets, each carrying 17 kilograms of explosives in its warhead. The warhead was small to prevent civilian casualties.

The army says that these munitions were not meant to set fire to the refugee tent complex. “We have a suspicion, following intelligence surveillance and analysis of the videos from the event that were distributed on social networks, that secondary explosions at the site were caused by Hamas ammunition storage. This suspicion is under investigation,” the IDF said in a statement. (YNet / VFI News)

“God, we pray that the truth will be revealed in regards to the devastating loss of dozens of Gazans’ lives on Monday. We send our heartfelt condolences to their families, we pray that the investigative forces will impartially declare what resulted in the tragedy and we hope that Israel’s name will be cleared. May You guide our forces into preventing any and all loss of human lives and may You bring about the surrender or capture of the terrorists. In Yeshua’s name we pray.”