What happened when Israel attacked Rafah?

Israel has attacked twice since Sunday, killing tens of people in horrific circumstances.

Thirteen out of 21 people killed by Israel in an air strike on the so-called “safe area” of al-Mawasi were civilian women and girls, media’s Hind Khoudary reported on Tuesday.

This was the second attack since Sunday, with a horrifying strike on Sunday night setting displaced people’s shelters ablaze not too far from Tuesday’s strike.

The world had watched, aghast, on Monday as displaced Palestinians were forced to dig through smouldering remains with their bare hands – looking for bodies, or injured people, or in some cases, a few scraps of food they could salvage to keep their families going a bit longer.

As reports further clarify what happened on Tuesday, here are the details of Sunday’s attack:

The attack happened at night on May 26.

It was inflicted on an encampment of makeshift shelters just north of Rafah city, in an area called Tal as-Sultan

The Gaza Government Media Office said Israel dropped seven 900kg (2,000-pound) bombs as well as missiles on the displacement camp.

The Israeli army said it targeted Rafah with “precision munitions”, and that a nearby fuel tank led to the subsequent fire.

Horrific videos emerged of the aftermath – the most notable was of a man holding up the corpse of a young child without a head.

media’s Sanad Verification Agency was able to obtain images of fragments believed to be of the weaponry used in this attack. The photos the agency obtained show the tail of a GBU-39/B small-diameter bomb, which is made by Boeing. The GBU-39/B includes a jet engine taken from the M26 unguided missile.

When and where was this attack?

Thousands of civilians had been sheltering in the Tal as-Sultan area, seeking some minimal protection from the continuous Israeli attacks across Gaza.

The total number of injured people is hard to determine, as the hospital where casualties were taken has closed after a subsequent Israeli drone attack on its entrance that killed two members of staff.

Some people died from the impact of the bomb.

Some people “reportedly burned to death”, according to Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Accounts from Rafah say that many of the dead were preparing to go to sleep when the attack occurred.

Initially, the Israeli army claimed it had struck “a Hamas compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating”.

It added it was “aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited several civilians in the area were harmed”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since said the attack was “a tragic mistake.”