“We will never forget the images emerging from Rafah tonight. Human beings, including babies, were burned alive and torn apart. This genocide must end, it must end now,” said one group.
“We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe,” said MSF on social media.
The bombing came two days after the International Court of Justice issued its latest order to Israel regarding its assault on Gaza, telling the government that it “must immediately halt its military offensive or any other action in the Rafah governorate” and that the ICJ was not convinced by Israel’s claims that it was taking steps to protect civilians.
Albanese in March published a draft report describing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as a genocide. The IDF has now killed at least 36,050 Palestinians as top Israeli officials have called for the “total annihilation” of cities in the enclave and have instructed the military to treat everyone in Gaza as a legitimate target.
The images out of Rafah on Sunday included videos of tents being engulfed in flames and charred corpses, and one showed a man holding up what appeared to be the body of a small child who had been beheaded. NBC News reported that it “was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.”
Groups that have repeatedly condemned the assault on Gaza demanded that the U.S. government immediately end its financial and political support for Israel. The U.S. is the largest international funder of the IDF, and approved $17 billion more in military aid in April as President Joe Biden warned that a full-scale offensive in Rafah would be a “red line” that would force the White House to halt its support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This U.S.-backed massacre of civilians is a direct result of the Biden administration’s enduring political and military support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on Monday. “The Palestinian child shown without a head would still be alive today had our government not offered Israel’s far-right government unceasing support for the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Those who support genocide are just as guilty as those who drop American-supplied bombs on civilians.”
As major news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post buried the news of the attack under unrelated stories, journalist Mehdi Hasan condemned the silence of the Biden administration and the “U.S. political and media establishments.”
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, directed ire at European Union leaders who have continued to back Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, demanding to know “how many more red lines must be crossed before the E.U. decides to act?”
Albanese said Israel must face “sanctions, justice, [and] suspension of agreements, trade, partnership, and investments” in order to pressure Netanyahu to halt his military operation.
Hamza Yousaf, former first minister of Scotland and a member of Scottish Parliament, called on the international community to “bear witness to the images [in Tal al-Sultan] and ask yourself, are you on the right side of history?”
“The U.S. government has facilitated this genocide by continuously sending weapons and funding to the Israeli military, despite mass opposition from the American people,” the group added. “We hold the U.S. government, in addition to the Israeli government, responsible for the slaughter of over 36,000 Palestinians, for the siege and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and for mass destruction of infrastructure and land. We demand an end to all U.S. funding to the Israeli military now. People of conscience throughout the world are calling for an end to genocide.”