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Arab Condemnations of Israeli Massacre against Displaced Palestinians in Rafah 

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
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Arab Condemnations of Israeli Massacre against Displaced Palestinians in Rafah 

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Arab countries and organizations slammed on Monday Israel for its strikes on a center for displaced Palestinians that killed dozens near the southern city of Rafah on Sunday.

The health ministry in Gaza said in a statement that the strikes "claimed the lives of 35 martyrs and left dozens injured, most of them children and women".

The Hamas-run government media office in Gaza earlier said the attack hit a center run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees near Rafah, branding it a "horrific massacre".

The Palestinian Authority presidency in the West Bank called it a "heinous massacre", accusing Israeli forces of "deliberately targeting" the tents of displaced people.

The massacre is an act of "defiance to all international resolutions," it added in a statement.

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed and wounded at least 50 people in the area, where it said 100,000 displaced people live.

Hamas said Palestinians must "rise up and march" against the attack.

The Israeli army said it had targeted Hamas fighters. Israel's army said its aircraft "struck a Hamas compound in Rafah", killing Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, both senior officials for the Palestinian armed group in the occupied West Bank.

It added that 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. The incident is under review."

Palestinians carry a body after an Israeli army raid on a camp at an area designated for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 27 May 2024. (EPA)

Qatar said on Monday the latest Israeli attack on Rafah could hinder mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, a foreign ministry statement said.

Kuwait's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack, saying the Israeli forces’ actions against Palestinians "exposes their blatant war crimes and unprecedented genocide to the whole world."

"This calls for immediate and firm intervention by the international community to compel these forces into adhering to international legitimacy resolutions, including the International Justice Court resolution on immediately ceasing the aggression against Rafah, and protecting the Palestinian people," it demanded in a statement.

Egypt strongly condemned the attack, saying Israeli forces "deliberately" targeted the displaced.

The Foreign Ministry said Cairo had called on Israel "to meet its legal commitments as an occupying power" and respect the International Court of Justice’s call on it to immediately cease its military operations.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry condemned the "ongoing heinous war crimes committed by the Israeli forces in Gaza," saying the latest attack in Rafah was a "flagrant challenge to the ICJ and grave violation of international law and international humanitarian law."

The Arab Parliament echoed the condemnation, warning in a statement that "failure to hold Israel to account for its crimes and massacres against the Palestinians and failure to take any deterrent measures against it will only make it commit more killings and cause more destruction."

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation slammed the "heinous Israeli massacre against Palestinian civilians," describing it as a "war crime, crime against humanity and state organized terrorism" and demanding that Israel be held to account before international justice.

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Arab World

Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
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Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)

Israel is considering options to respond to repeated attacks fired from Yemen in the past few days, the latest of which was a Houthi missile strike that injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv.
But military experts say Israel should first consider an intelligence plan for confronting the new front after it faced significant difficulties in both defending against and responding to the Houthi attacks.
On Saturday morning, Houthis launched a missile that triggered sirens throughout central Israel at 3:44 am. It was the second attack since Thursday.
Israel's military said the projectile landed in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area, adding that attempts to intercept a missile from Yemen failed.
“The incident is still being thoroughly investigated,” the army said, adding that following initial investigations by the Israeli Air Force and Home Front Command, “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, both regarding interception and early warning.”
Israeli military experts say the recent Houthi attacks have revealed serious security gaps in Israel's air defense systems.
“The pressing question now is why none of the other of Israel’s air defense layers managed to intercept the warhead,” wrote Yedioth Ahronoth's Ron Ben-Yishai. “The likely explanation is the late detection and the flat trajectory, which prevented the operation of all available defense apparatus.”
He said these incidents might expose a critical vulnerability in the army’s air defense system protecting Israel’s civilian and military home front.
According to Ben-Yishai, two main reasons might explain Saturday’s interception failure.
The first is that the missile was launched in a “flattened” ballistic trajectory, possibly from an unexpected direction.
As a result, Israeli defenses may not have identified it in time, leading to its late discovery and insufficient time for interceptors to operate.
He said the second, and more likely scenario is that Iran has developed a maneuverable warhead.
Such a warhead separates from the missile during the final third of its trajectory and maneuvers mid-flight—executing pre-programmed course changes—to hit its designated target, he wrote.
And while Israel has launched initial investigations into the failure of Israeli defense systems to intercept the missiles, it is now examining the nature, date and location of its response.
When Houthis launched their first missile attack on Israel last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned them, saying, “The Houthis will learn the hard way.”
But Israeli political analyst Avi Ashkenazi wrote in the Maariv newspaper that Israel should look at reality with open eyes and say out loud that it cannot deal with the Houthi threat from Yemen, and has failed to face them.
Last Thursday, 14 Israeli Air Force fighter jets, alongside refuelers and spy planes, flew some 2,000 kilometers and dropped over 60 munitions on Houthi “military targets” along Yemen’s western coast and near the capital Sanaa.
The targets included fuel and oil depots, two power stations, and eight tugboats used at the Houthi-controlled ports.
But the Maariv newspaper warned about the increasing involvement of Iran in supporting the Houthi forces.
“Iran has invested more in the Houthis in recent weeks following the collapse of the Shiite axis, making the Houthi movement a leader of this axis,” the newspaper noted.
Underscoring the failures of Israel’s air defense systems, Maariv said the “Arrow” missile defense system, Israel's main line of defense against ballistic missiles, had failed four times in a row to intercept missiles, including three launched from Yemen and one from Lebanon.
Yedioth Ahronoth's Ben-Yishai also warned that the threat posed by maneuvering warheads on Iran's heavy, long-range missiles would become existential for Israel should Iran succeed in developing nuclear warheads for these missiles.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 said that in recent months, the Middle East has changed beyond recognition.
The channel said that for the first time in more than half a century, a direct and threat-free air corridor has been opened to Iran through the Middle East. Israel will benefit from this corridor to launch almost daily attacks on the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, it said.
Channel 12 also reported that according to the Israeli military, the new threat-free corridor will help Israel launch a future attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
“From Israel's perspective, the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of the Iranian ring of fire are changing the balance of power in the Middle East,” the report added.