IDF investigation into Rafah strike looking at possibility of secondary Hamas explosions
The IDF have confirmed that it will carry out a “swift, comprehensive and transparent” investigation into an airstrike targeting two senior Hamas terrorists in Rafah on Sunday, looking into the possibility that a Hamas ammunition warehouse may have exploded and caused a secondary fire that engulfed tents and killed civilians.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said that 45 people, including women and children, were killed in the incident. Today, the IDF released an intelligence recording of a phone call between two Gazans indicating that ammunition stored by Hamas near the site may have caused the fire.
IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that “our munitions alone could not have caused the fire”, confirming that 2 small explosive munitions (17kg) were used in the precise strike. He said that the IDF was conducting a “swift, comprehensive and transparent” investigation into the events.
Yassin Rabia, the Hamas Chief of Staff in the West Bank, and Khaled Nagar, a senior Hamas official, were killed in the strike in Tal al-Sultan. The IDF said that Rabia planned Hamas attacks in the West Bank, transferred funds to terrorist targets and carried out operations in which IDF soldiers were killed. Nagar also carried out attacks on IDF soldiers as well as directing shooting attacks in the West Bank and transferring funds intended for Hamas activities in Gaza. According to the IDF, the compound they were hiding in was located 43 metres from a rocket launcher.
An IDF statement said: “The strike was carried out against legitimate targets under international law, through the use of precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence that indicated Hamas’ use of the area”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel has “evacuated about one million civilians” in Rafah. Commenting on Sunday’s strike, he said: “Tragically, despite our immense efforts to avoid harming non-combatants, an incident occurred [on Sunday]. We are investigating it thoroughly and will learn from it, as is our policy and longstanding conduct”.
He underlined: “For us, any non-combatant hurt is a tragedy; for Hamas, it is a strategy. That is the core difference”.
On Sunday, a barrage of rockets was launched by Hamas terrorists towards central Israel from Rafah. The rocket launcher was located near two mosques in a civilian area and was struck by an IAF aircraft in a precision strike shortly after the attack.
On Monday, a member of the Egyptian security forces was killed in an exchange of fire with IDF troops; investigations by Egypt and Israel into the circumstances are ongoing.
Richard Townshend Photography / House of Commons
Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis: ICC decision has “profound implications for the UK and other democratic nations”
The ICC prosecutor’s “perverse” decision to apply for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders will have “profound implications for the UK and other democratic nations”, warned former Attorney General Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Ellis KC in The Telegraph on Saturday. “Terrorist groups and their sympathisers – in tandem with disruptive state actors– are exploiting the very international bodies set up to counter them”.
“The charge of crimes against humanity is exceptionally grave. It is one which the ICC has failed to apply even to Vladimir Putin”, despite the “well-documented butchery” of Russia’s military, said Sir Michael.
Adding that the jointly-announced arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders surmounted to “moral equivalence”, he warned that comparisons between a “democratic nation fighting a defensive war against terrorists openly avowed to destroy it and a proscribed terrorist organisation” constituted a “perverse otherworld view” which puts “our own Armed Forces at great risk” by setting a dangerous precedent.
No impartial observer could “reasonably conclude” that Israel’s leaders seek “extermination”, “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population” and “starving” civilians, he added. “On the contrary, Israel has made extensive efforts” to facilitate “more than 550,000 tonnes since October 7”, “repaired water pipes, power lines and humanitarian aid crossings which were deliberately destroyed by Hamas”.
Highlighting Israel’s considered operations, Sir Michael raised “the ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza” – which is close to 1:1 as indicated by the “UN’s numbers” – as “almost unprecedented in urban warfare, far lower than the international average and lower than US and British operations in Afghanistan and Iraq”. “Hamas’s casualty figures were always fictional”, the former Attorney General added, citing the UK Statistics Authority’s warnings to public figures.
Israel’s “internationally respected Supreme Court, which vociferously upholds the rule of law and has a long history of deciding cases against the government, the military and even prime ministers”, has become the target of “a direct attack” by the ICC, which has refuted its “founding principle of complementarity” by launching its case against the Jewish State’s leaders.
“The ICC exists to intervene only in the presence of a legal vacuum where a state is unwilling or unable to conduct legal investigations”, Sir Michael continued. “Not only does the ICC lack jurisdiction because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and Palestine is not a sovereign nation, but Israel has the means and motivation to uphold the law. The ICC is therefore prohibited by its Founding Treaty from taking this step – something its pre-trial chamber must now decide”.
Evidencing the ICJ’s latest order and the ICC case, Sir Michael called the accusations “deeply politicised” and illogical, considering the basic fact that “Hamas’s four remaining battalions and (…) dozens of Israeli hostages are still being cruelly detained” in Rafah.
Sir Michael concluded that the ICC case is “illegitimate, immoral and outwith its competence. It violates the Court’s charter and integrity. Sadly, we in the West will all be dealing with its consequences for years to come”.
IAEA: Iran’s uranium enrichment is reaching near weapons-grade levels
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned on Monday that Iran’s uranium enrichment is reaching near weapons-grade levels.
Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is estimated to have reached more than 30 times the limit set by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – at 60% – after withdrawing from agreements reached between the E3 countries of the UK, France and Germany, together with Iran, the U.S. and other nations.
The purity levels provide Iran with enough enriched uranium to make “almost four nuclear weapons”, according to the Deputy Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense programme, Andrea Stricker.
“A year ago, the United States government thought that it had reached an informal agreement with Iran where Iran would essentially stop its production of 60%”, said Research Counsellor at The Washington Institute Patrick Clawson, calling the most recent developments “discouraging”.
The 60% enrichment is considered as an increase since February’s IAEA report and experts warn that it is just a short step away from the 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium.
ICJ urges Israel to limit Rafah operation
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) urged Israel to limit its military operations in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Friday. Hamas continues to hold many hostages in the city and uses it as a base from which to fire rockets into Israel, eight of which targeted Tel Aviv on Sunday – the first such attack since January. Israel has said that four Hamas battalions remain in Rafah, amounting to thousands of terrorists.
The decision instructed Israel to halt any actions in Rafah which may “inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”, as part of South Africa’s wider case that accuses Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s National Security Council called the charges of genocide “false, outrageous and repugnant” and contends that Israel will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to enter from Rafah’s Egyptian border “to reduce as much possible harm caused to the civilian population in Gaza”. UN agencies have reported that at least 800,000 Palestinians have moved away from Rafah in heeding Israel’s warnings prior to its offensive.
Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center, former legal adviser to and Deputy Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs former Israeli Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker said that Israel can “continue” with the operation, so long as it continues to take “no action intended to commit genocide”.
