IDF Investigation: Rafah Blast That Killed Civilians Caused by Secondary Explosions in Hamas Weapons Dump
“According to the IDF, the strike was not intended to harm any civilians and it had carried out steps ahead of the attack to ensure that no women or children were in the Hamas compound.”
While the mainstream media and pro-Hamas activists are trying to pin the blame on Israel for Sunday’s blast that claimed dozens of civilians’ lives, the initial Israeli military investigation shows that the civilian deaths were likely caused by secondary explosions in a Hamas weapons dump located in a humanitarian area. The incident took place in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood in western Rafah on Sunday, an area outside the IDF’s designated combat zone.
The civilian deaths were caused by “secondary explosions from a Hamas ammunition warehouse near the civilian compound and over 100 meters away from the strike site,” the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday.
“Despite our efforts to minimize civilian casualties during the strike, the fire that broke out was unexpected and unintended…Our investigation seeks to determine what may have caused such a large fire to ignite.“
Watch the full statement by IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel… pic.twitter.com/fzaRSnpgbE
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 28, 2024
The IDF did not target the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood. The target of the airstrike was a Hamas terror compound — operational base for several terror commanders and terrorist fighters — located over a mile away from the civilian population, the IDF revealed. Hamas’s West Bank terror chief, Yassin Rabia, and his deputy, Khalid Nagaar, were eliminated in the strike.
The targeted strike in Rafah, 1.7 km from the humanitarian area, used precise munitions carrying 34kg of explosives to eliminate 2 senior Hamas terrorists.
We are looking into the possibility of secondary explosions from a Hamas ammunition warehouse near the civilian compound… pic.twitter.com/DicBs9BVUd
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 28, 2024
Considering the civilian population nearby, the IDF used light explosives in the precision strike on the fortified Hamas compound in Rafah, the Israeli military probe disclosed.
It is now becoming clear—based on investigations by both the media and the IDF—that the fire that killed Palestinian civilians in Rafah was caused by weapons stored by Hamas next to a UN shelter and not by the Israeli munitions.
This is hugely significant. Who will report it?
— Avi Mayer אבי מאיר (@AviMayer) May 30, 2024
The Times of Israel on Thursday reported the IDF findings:
The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday that a hidden store of weapons may have been the actual cause of a deadly blaze in southern Gaza’s Rafah, and that an airstrike that targeted an adjacent area had used small munitions that would not ignite such a fire on their own.
The military suspects that the munitions or some other combustible substance it was unaware of caused a secondary explosion and a fire to spread in a complex housing displaced Gazans in Rafah, killing dozens of Palestinian civilians, following an airstrike targeting two top Hamas terrorists in the area. (…)
In an update on its investigation of the incident, the IDF said it had been tracking Hamas commanders Yassin Rabia and Khaled Najjar ahead of the strike on a compound they were in on Sunday night, in the Tel Sultan neighborhood in western Rafah. According to the IDF’s intelligence, the area had been used for Hamas activity, with a rocket launcher located just a few dozen meters away from where the two commanders were killed.
According to the IDF, the strike was not intended to harm any civilians and it had carried out steps ahead of the attack to ensure that no women or children were in the Hamas compound.
Israeli fighter jets also used two small munitions in the strike, each with a 17-kilogram warhead (37-pound), in an attempt to prevent any civilian casualties, given the close proximity to the camp for displaced Palestinians, the military said.
Meanwhile, Hamas continues to use civilian areas and humanitarian supplies to wage war against Israel.
Rafah, Gaza: Hamas is using UN humanitarian aid bags as rocket launchers today.
Any chance the media would cover this, yet another, violation of International Humanitarian Law? pic.twitter.com/eNIy2SU0Ep
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 29, 2024
Defying international pressure, IDF continues operation in Hamas-held Rafah
Standing up to the international pressure, the Israeli military vowed to destroy Hamas’s last-standing terror stronghold in Gaza and bring back the hostages.
“Hamas is in Rafah. Hamas has been holding our hostages in Rafah, which is why our forces are operating in Rafah,” IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Thursday. “Hamas is holding our hostages in living hell across our border in Gaza, including in Rafah. We will not stop fighting for their freedom.”
“Hamas has been holding our hostages in Rafah, which is why our forces are operating in Rafah. Hamas is holding our hostages in living hell across our border in Gaza, including in Rafah. We will not stop fighting for their freedom.”
🔴Watch the full statement by IDF Spokesperson… pic.twitter.com/QkdyjgyVBQ
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 30, 2024
The Israeli ground troops, supported by the air force, were locating and destroying Hamas’s terrorist fighting capabilities in the stronghold. “IDF troops continue operational activity in the area of Rafah. During one encounter with terrorist operatives in the area, three terrorists who fired toward IDF troops were identified and struck by the IAF [Israeli Air Force],” the military said in a press release Thursday. “Over the past day, IDF troops also located terrorist infrastructure and large quantities of weapons, including anti-tank missile launch posts, tunnel shafts, a weapons storage facility, and explosives.”
The military struck Hamas terror targets across Gaza. “Furthermore, over the past day, the IAF struck over 50 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including military structures and terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF statement added.
IDF intercepts cruise missile fired at northern Israel from Iraq
Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system intercepted a cruise missile over Golan Heights fired from Iraq, a country serving as the base for several Iran-backed terrorist groups.
“Following the siren that sounded in the area of Margaliot, the Iron Dome Aerial Defense System successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon,” the IDF disclosed Thursday. “Earlier today, following sirens regarding a hostile aircraft infiltration in the Golan Heights area, the IDF intercepted a cruise missile that approached Israel from the east.”
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Every single death of civilian Fakestinian Arab invaders from Arabia is fairly and properly laid at the feet of the genocidal, goose-stepping, Jew-hating, Islamofascist, Muslim supremacist terrorist group that an overwhelming percentage of these civilians elected and continue to gleefully support.
Israel is losing the public relations battle.
The death and destruction caused by IDF is blasted by the media and many of the general public are outraged.
Also, the many demonstrations supporting the Muslims keep the death and destruction in the public eye,
Israel has a compelling need to communicate its justifications more effectively.
Let the left be outraged. Jews breathing outrages the left.
The time for Israel to get on with the business of killing Hamas is at hand and Israel would do itself a favour by ignoring the fake outrage generated by the lefts hatred of Jews.
Or, in other word…fuck the left.
Israel would also be best served by getting on with it.
The longer it lasts the longer they are exposed to the propaganda efforts of Hamas and their progressive allies.
The military reality is given the tactical conditions of the battlefield – a densely packed civilian population commingled with guerilla fighters potentiated with 100-miles+ of tunneling – Israel is moving at a never-before-seen pace. IDF has rewritten the urban war-fighting doctrine in a ways that weren’t believed to be possible just eight months ago.
so what
when the woke are ignored
civility wins
when the woke make their violent moves then its time to stop them
by any means necessary
Israel has been losing the PR battle since its founding, in 1948. Nothing new under the Sun.
It’s not the Israelis’ fault, at all. Israel has persuasively and rationally stated its morally just case for retaliation against genocidal, rabid Islamofascists and Muslim supremacists who are hell-bent on making the middle east Judenrein,
But, when the western world’s secular, non-Muslim, democratic leadership and media apparatus decide to reject basic moral probity, objective truth, fairness, honesty and common sense, in perennially and indefensibly promoting and giving undue deference to transparently fallacious, contrived and dishonest propaganda mythologies and narratives of alleged Arab Fakestinian victimhood and grievance, objective truths, moral justness and fairness will not prevail.
They do not have a “compelling need,” and you should surely be aware that anything they IDF does or explains will be ignored by the Hamassholes and their supporters.
“Israel has a compelling need to communicate its justifications more effectively.”
Why? No matter how many measures they take to reduce harm to civilians, they’ll still be vilified, mostly by weasels in the Western pseudo-intellectual academic and bureaucratic club. And why Israel should give a rat’s ass about their opinion is yours to explain if you care to. Do you actually think the IDF is going to make decisions based on what some trust funded jackass kid at Swarthmore supposedly thinks about anything?
Israel has to ignore the optics. What did the allies not do to the Axis powers due to optics? Firebomb cities? Check. Destroy dams? Check. Carpet bomb countrysides? Check. (Over ten thousand French civilians were killed in carpet bombing of German assembly areas during the invasion phase of the Normandy landings. More were killed during the breakout phase.) Drop atomic weapons on cities? Check.
Israel is engaged in no less a struggle (arguably at greater threat to enemies with which it shares borders) than those wars in which we have been involved in which we considered nothing less than total victory as an acceptable outcome.
Tough shit. Those people hate Jews regardless, Arabs are damn lucky that Israel is not giving them a more severe ass whooping.
“The death and destruction caused by IDF is blasted by the media and many of the general public are outraged. “
In torts there are concepts of “contributory negligance”, and “proportion of responsibility.”
Doubtless one of the Leagal Stuffed Eagles around here will jump on the spelling and application in late Middle Ages English law. Even, so close enough to make my point: there’s a pile of contributory cause.
How about putting your HQ next to refugees, storing munitions or fuel similarly, sub-standard emergency response and civil defense, etc.
There’s a reason military operations embedded with civilians is itself a war crime. Seems like literally everything Hamas does in Gaza is a war crime. Let’s get the ICC on that.
“The death and destruction caused…”
“There’s a reason military operations embedded with civilians is itself a war crime. … Let’s get the ICC on that.”
Waiting for the “but they’re not a country” pigeon droppings, in 3…2…1:
Hamas was elected in Gaza. They have things they and their sponsors call “diplomatic relations.”
They get international aid, in administering public services, to people in a territory they control. They talk constantly, internationally, about what they gotta have to take care of “their” people. (More tunnel framing, rocket irrigation pipes, and sugar fuel, one supposes.)
Spain, Norway, and Ireland just recently formally recognized a “Palestinian state.” That was their foreign relations, so god knows what mealy-mouthed thing they said, with words more limber than a Cirque du Solei acrobat.
— Either that’s Hamas, and crossing a border to kill the other country’s civilians is on them, and casus belli.
— Or, that ain’t Hamas, and whoever runs the country should get their expeditionary militias under control. What’s Spain, Ireland, and Norway’s plan for shipping munitions to the PA to use in quelling Hamas?
Would it be surprising to find that Hamas put the civilians on top of that weapons dump as shields and cannon fodder?
It will be interesting to see how November changes the public relations equation.
I really don’t get it. Why should Israel have to investigate the “secondary explosions” that occurred as a result of their military action. If Hamas is as fecking stupid as to put an ammunition/weapons depot that close to a “humanitarian area” then any civilian deaths need to be laid at the feet of Hamas and it’s supporters. Simple as that. One thing’s for certain I’m not going to cry over this incident. Just another example of Hamas leadership attempting to use civilians as shields for their terrorist activities. Nothing more, nothing less.
Because there are those in the Israeli body politic who demand it.
Not “stupid.” Fiendishly smart. Hamas accepts, even creates, situations in which civilian casualties will occur, because they’re part of their public relations scheme.
I question how such small munitions could possibly create a fire or secondary explosions, at such a distance. I have to consider if Hamas intentionally set off a fire or munitions dump explosion, taking advantage of the proximity of the strike so they could blame Israel for the civilian casualties.
“In order to defeat evil people, you must think evil thoughts.”
DG
Since we know that Hamas hides behind civilians like the cowards they are this is very plausible.
We know where the strike was, what kind of weapon was used, and what that weapon is capable of.
Israel bears no responsibility for where Hamas places weapons caches. If this was a Ukrainian use of human shields by linking military facilities to civilian areas via networks of explosives so if the military was hit civilians would die Ukraine would be immediately cut off.
The outrage at Israel is fake and coming from people who can only think in terms of their anti-Semitism and while that is every true believer in CRT/Wokism tragically it has some right wing adherents to (i.e. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owen and Lauren Chen).
So in the Age of Precision Weapons , that Missed by a Mile ??? BS . Excuse after Excuse to Kill Civilians…Brought to you by the Survivors of the HOLOCAST .
UKRAINE ??? Epic DEFLECTION / WHATABOUTISM
They hit hamas over a mile from where the civilians were located.
Explosions from Hamas explosives being placed strategically to go off (in other words secondary explosives) cause collateral damage.
I know you feel your being a neo-nazi who goes to anti-Semitic sources and refuses to accept when proven wrong isn’t being a nazi I assure you however you are less than shit.