Gaza: Doctors Without Borders condemns Israeli airstrikes on displacement camp in Rafah

28/05/2024

Palestine

Displaced people walk between buildings destroyed by relentless violence and bombings in Gaza. Palestine, 6 May 2024. © MSF

On the night of 26 May, 180 wounded and 28 dead were recorded at the Trauma Stabilization Point (TSP) we support in Tal al Sultan, Gaza, after airstrikes by Israeli forces hit a camp sheltering displaced people, in a designate safe zone by Israel. Most of the patients we treated had shrapnel wounds, fractures, traumatic injuries and burns.

While Israeli forces described this attack as precise with some civilians injured, the number of casualties resulting from these airstrikes shows otherwise.

Women and children were among the people that were brought to the stabilization point, and once again, civilians are paying the price of this war. This Israeli attack on a populated camp in a so-called “safe zone” in Rafah shows the complete disregard for the lives of civilians in Gaza.

Samuel Johann, Emergency Coordinator

"Though all the patients were stabilized and referred to field hospitals in Rafah, no single health care facility in Gaza can handle a mass casualty event such as this one. The health system has been decimated and cannot cope any longer," concludes Johann.

Doctors Without Borders strongly denounces this bloody attack that comes just a few days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt all military operations in Rafah. We reiterate our urgent call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire.

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